Internet Slang Is More Sophisticated Than It Seems

网络俚语比看起来更精妙

Jake Cline 杰克·克莱因

These are tough times for grammar snobs， those would-be avatars of flawless spelling and proper syntax who need look no further than a high-school friend's Facebook posts or a family member's text messages to find their treasured language being misused and neglected. Of course， split infinitives， dangling modifiers， and subject-verb disagreements have always appeared wherever words are uttered or keys are stroked. But on the internet， and particularly on social media， defenders of formal writing and the rules of language may feel as if they've become stuck in some linguistic hellscape littered with discarded stylebooks， the ashes of dictionaries， and a new species of abbreviations that's tougher to crack than Linear B.

To these “grumbling” grammarians， the Montreal-based linguist Gretchen McCulloch says:Lighten up lol. In her new book， Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language， McCulloch challenges the idea that the rise of informal writing signals a trend toward global idiocy. Instead， she marks it as an inevitable and necessary “disruption” in the way human beings communicate. “We no longer accept that writing must be lifeless， that it can only convey our tone of voice roughly and imprecisely， or that nuanced writing is the exclusive domain of professionals，” McCulloch argues. “We're creating new rules for typographical tone of voice. Not the kind of rules that are imposed from on high， but the kind of rules that emerge from the collective practice of a couple billion social monkeys — rules that enliven our social interactions.”

Of course， the old rules of language were broken long before people went online， and McCulloch offers that the internet concludes a process “that had begun with medieval scribes and modernist poets.” She also notes how “well-documented features” of regional and cultural dialects—such as southern American English and African American English—have influenced the language of the internet， most obviously on Twitter. But in contrast to the pre-internet age， she argues， now we are all “writers as well as readers” of informal English.

Drawing from her research and that of other linguists， McCulloch shows how creative respellings， expressive punctuation， emoji， memes， and other hallmarks of informal communication online demonstrate a sophistication that can rival even the most elegant writing. Understanding the difference between ending a sentence with one exclamation point or two and knowing when or when not to be upset after receiving an all-caps text， McCulloch writes， “requires subtly tuned awareness of the full spectrum of the language.”

The prevalence of emoji， meanwhile， does not indicate verbal indolence or a pandemic of cuteness （though adorability is certainly part of it）. Instead， McCulloch writes， emoji represent a “demand that our writing … be capable of fully expressing what we want to say and， most crucially， how we're saying it.” She even implies that William Shakespeare， whose work in part depends on the gesticulating of actors， would have been fine with the “digital embodiment” of mental states and intentions in emoji.

Given her profession， McCulloch is much more interested in the positives that have come from the popularization of informal writing. “As a linguist，”she writes， “what compels me are the parts of language that we don't even know we're so good at，the patterns that emerge spontaneously， when we aren't really thinking about them.”

After all， as McCulloch points out， “the only languages that stay unchanging are the dead ones.”

自认在语法上高人一等的人遇到了艰难时期。这些人自称是完美无瑕的拼写和无懈可击的句法的化身，他们只需要看看高中好友的脸书帖子或家人的短信，就会发现他们所珍爱的语言被滥用或疏忽。当然，只要开口说话或敲打键盘，总是会出现分裂不定式、悬垂修饰语和主谓不一致的情况。但是在互联网上，尤其是在社交媒体上，规范文字和语言规则的捍卫者可能会觉得，他们仿佛陷入了某种语言学地狱，其中充斥着被抛弃的体例手册，化为灰烬的字典，以及一种比线形文字B（古希腊迈锡尼文明时期迈锡尼人所使用的文字，上世纪50年代已被西方学者破译——本网注）更难破解的新缩略语形式。

对于这些“满腹牢骚”的语法学家，蒙特利尔的语言学家格蕾琴·麦卡洛克说：放松点lol。在她的新书《因为互联网：理解新的语言规则》中，麦卡洛克对这样一种观点提出质疑，即不规范文字的兴起标志着一种全球性愚蠢的趋势。她认为这是对人类交流方式的不可避免的必然“颠覆”。麦卡洛克说：“我们不再认可文字一定是没有生命的，只能大致和不准确地传达我们的语气，或者细致入微的文字是专业人士的专属领域。我们正在为可以排印出来的语气制定新规则。不是那种自上而下强制实行的规则，而是从数十亿社交媒体用户的集体实践中产生的那种规则——让我们在社交媒体上的互动生动有趣的规则。”

当然，旧的语言规则早在人们上网之前就被打破了。麦卡洛克认为，互联网为“始于中世纪抄写员和现代派诗人”的一个过程画上了句号。她还指出地区和文化方言——例如南美洲英语和非洲裔美国人英语——“有据可查的特征”是如何影响网络语言的，这在推特上最为明显。但她认为，与互联网之前的时代不同的是，现在我们都“既阅读也书写”非正式英语。

麦卡洛克从她和其他语言学家的研究中得出的结论显示，创造性再拼写、富有表现力的标点符号、表情符号、表情包以及非正式网上交流的其他特点证明了一种可以与哪怕是最优美的文字媲美的精妙。麦卡洛克写道，理解以一个感叹号或两个感叹号结束句子的区别，知道在收到一个全部大写的短信后什么情况下要感到心烦、什么情况下不要感到心烦，这些都“需要对语言涉及的全部范围有细致入微的意识”。

与此同时，表情符号的流行并不意味着在文字表达上偷懒或到处卖萌（尽管可爱肯定是其中的一部分）。相反，麦卡洛克写道，表情符号代表“一种要求，即我们的文字……应该能够充分表达我们想说的内容，最重要的是充分表达我们说话的方式”。她甚至暗示，威廉·莎士比亚——他的作品在一定程度上有赖于演员用动作来表现——可能会接受心理状态的“数字化体现”和表情符号所包含的意图。

鉴于她的专业，麦卡洛克对不规范文字的普及所带来的好处更感兴趣。她写道：“作为语言学家，让我欲罢不能的是我们甚至都不知道自己如此擅长的语言成分，以及在我们还没有真正想到的时候自发形成的模式。”

毕竟，正如麦卡洛克所指出的，“唯一保持不变的语言是那些已经消亡的语言”。（马丹译自美国《大西洋》月刊网站8月10日文章）