THE LANGUAGE OF COMPUTER MEDIATED COMMUNICATION
Technology has always had a crucial role on communication and, in turn, on the vehicle which is mainly used to convey it, i.e. on language. The truthfulness of the previous sentence is unquestionable and we just need to look back in time to realize that, whenever a new technological means has been introduced, the whole way of communicating has been deeply affected. In fact, our way of using language is deeply influenced by the role new media allow and, therefore, it is possible to talk of computer mediated communication, that is to deal with a brand-new way of communicative interaction which no longer uses writing paper and ink but takes advantage of computer technology.
Nowadays, everybody knows what the Internet is, although only few remember that this computer network – which allows people to send and receive messages on any of the different hosts of the net – was developed in 1960s America, at first for military purposes only, although it later spread to such an extent as to become the largest network in the world. Nonetheless, defining exactly how the Internet affects languages is very difficult, because of the multifaceted features the system presents, also considering that it, as well as any other means of communication, gives the locutor both new expressive possibilities and sometimes constraints which we do not have in other semiotic situations.