YOUTH LANGUAGE ENGLISH ABBREVIATIONS AND THEIR USE IN INTERNET COMMUNICATION

АНГЛИЙСКИЕ СОКРАЩЕНИЯ МОЛОДЕЖНОГО ЯЗЫКА И ИХ ИСПОЛЬЗОВАНИЕ В ИНТЕРНЕТ-КОММУНИКАЦИИ

Галымжанкызы Инжу,

студент, кафедра «Информационно-коммуникационные технологии», Таразский университет имени М.Х. Дулати,

Казахстан, Тараз

Байтелиева Молдир Алтаевна,

научный руководитель, преподаватель кафедры «Практические иностранные языки», Таразский университет имени М.Х.Дулати,

Казахстан, Тараз

ABSTRACT

This article examines the theoretical and practical aspects of the meanings of English abbreviations in the context of online communication. It explores the characteristics of how these abbreviations function in both English-speaking and Russian-speaking internet chats.

АННОТАЦИЯ

В статье рассматриваются теоретические и практические аспекты значений английских сокращений в контексте интернет-коммуникации. Изучаются особенности функционирования этих сокращений как в англоязычных, так и в русскоязычных интернет-чатах.

Keywords: abbreviation, acronyms, internet chat, communication, social network.

Ключевые слова:  аббревиатура, сокращения, интернет-чат, общение, социальная сеть.

In the digital age, communication has changed significantly, especially among young people. The language of young people, characterized by its dynamism and changeability, reflects the cultural and social contexts in which it is used. One of the most noticeable features of contemporary youth language is the widespread use of English abbreviations, especially in online communication. These abbreviations serve not only as a means of quick messaging, but also as markers of identity and belonging to digital communities.With the growing popularity of platforms such as social media, messaging apps, and online forums, the use of abbreviations has become a defining characteristic of youth communication. This phenomenon is particularly evident in informal settings where brevity is valued, allowing users to express their thoughts and emotions succinctly. Examples include terms like "LOL" (laugh out loud), "BRB" (be right back), and "FYI" (for your information), which have become an integral part of online conversations. Moreover, the use of abbreviations is not limited to English-speaking contexts. In multilingual environments, young people often mix languages by incorporating English abbreviations into their native languages.

Nowadays, the modern world is a continuous flow of information, in which everyone strives to convey as much data as possible with minimal resources. Due to the accelerated pace of life, one of the most noticeable trends in the development of the English language has been a sharp increase in the number of abbreviations. A vivid example of the principle of saving speech effort is the language of the Internet, chats, forums, conferences, blogs, and e-mails, where it is necessary to quickly capture important information, express thoughts clearly and concisely, while taking care to save time, both their own and other people's time.

An abbreviation can be defined as a unit of spoken or written language created by removing certain elements of the phonetic or graphic structure from the original motivating source, such as the full form of a word or phrase. This process results in a new word that can be considered as an independent linguistic unit [1].

In contemporary English, there has been a significant increase in new abbreviations, largely driven by the development of the World Wide Web, which has become an integral part of most people's lives. The accelerating pace of life and a lack of communication in real life have contributed to a deep immersion in virtual reality. The use of the Internet as a platform for self-expression and the transmission of emotions, which are difficult to convey for various reasons in offline communication, has become a key factor in the evolution of spoken and written language online.

Today, the World Wide Web is a communicative space with unlimited opportunities for creating new lexical units and abbreviations in the English language. Examples of such abbreviations include ASAP (as soon as possible), BRB (be right back), IDK (I don’t know), TTYL (talk to you later), and FYI (for your information) [2]. These abbreviations not only simplify communication, but also reflect the specific cultural and social contexts in which they are used. In addition, abbreviations such as LOL (laugh out loud), BFF (best friends forever), and SMH (shaking my head) have become part of everyday communication, emphasizing emotional reactions and social connections between users. Thus, abbreviations in English play an important role in shaping the contemporary linguistic landscape and have become a significant object of study for linguists and sociologists investigating the impact of technology on language and communication.

The main obstacle to effective communication in Internet chat is the limitation of linguistic, paralinguistic, and extra-linguistic resources, which can only be fully realized in "live" communication. In virtual space, users are forced to represent their thoughts in the form of text symbols, where semantic meaning is conveyed exclusively through lexical-semantic and graphic means. In response to these limitations, "emoticons" (from the English word "smile") have been developed, which function as tools for conveying expressive and emotional colouring in messages.

Speaking about abbreviations, they can be conditionally divided into lexical and graphic forms [3, p. 58].

A lexical abbreviation is a linguistic unit possessing both an external (sound) form and an explicit meaning, functioning as an already existing element reproduced in speech. Lexical abbreviations are usually subdivided into acronyms, portmanteaus (mergers and contractions) and truncations. Acronyms are a form of abbreviations because an acronym covers any shortened spelling of a word, whereas an acronym is a word formed from the initial letters of motivated words or phrases, and is pronounced as a single entity rather than letter by letter (e.g., IRL - In Real Life). To avoid confusion, acronyms and abbreviations are often combined under the general term "initialism".

A portmanteau is a word formed by combining parts of several words (e.g. Internet, which comes from International Network). A truncation, on the other hand, is a shortened form of a word created by removing its beginning, middle, or end (e.g. hamburger becomes burger, influenza becomes flu, and advertisement is shortened to ad).

Additional examples of truncation include: mathematics → math, refrigerator → fridge, telephone → phone, professional → pro.

These forms of abbreviation are actively used in everyday speech, making communication easier and more effective.

Graphic abbreviations are a specific type of abbreviation that is unique to written speech. In oral communication, such abbreviations are usually pronounced in their full form. Graphic abbreviations are widely used to denote days of the week and months, which allows simplify writing and make the text more compact. For example, "Sun" stands for "Sunday" and "Apr" is an abbreviation for "April". In addition, graphic abbreviations are used to denote measures and units of time, which also helps to simplify communication. For example, "sec" is used for "second", helping to avoid redundancy in texts and facilitating comprehension. In general, graphical abbreviations play an important role in written communication as they make information more accessible and understandable, especially in contexts where data needs to be communicated quickly.

The widespread use of abbreviations in the Internet language is due to their extravagance, uniqueness, and brevity, which fully corresponds to the dynamic pace of modern life. One of the key reasons for the active use of graphic abbreviations is the growing importance of information technologies in interpersonal communication. Teenagers spend a significant amount of time communicating in chats and exchanging instant messages, and the factor of time-saving becomes an important aspect of such communication [4].

There are two main groups of abbreviations in English Internet correspondence. The first group includes common abbreviations and initialisms, which are the most popular among Internet chat users. These abbreviations are quite successful as they allow for effective expression of the interlocutor's emotional state and significantly conserve verbal resources. For example: LOL (Laughing Out Loud); BFF (Best Friends Forever); TBH (To Be Honest); IDK (I Don’t Know); OMG (Oh My God); BTW (By The Way); GG (Good Game); SMH (Shaking My Head).

In addition to initialisms, the first group of abbreviations also includes logograms, which are symbols that represent a whole word or its base. Examples of such logograms include "r" (are), "u" (you) and "c" (see). These abbreviations allow us to analyse phonetic changes, such as the transformation of the words "what", "write" and "see you" into "wot", "rite" and "cu" respectively, based on sound resemblance. Although the number of letters in such forms remains almost the same, they are easy to use and therefore popular among Internet users [5].

The second group of abbreviations consists of words that have been shortened in the process of conversational speech. These abbreviations are often used to simplify communication and reflect the naturalness of spoken language. Examples of such words include "kinda" (kind of), "wanna" (want to), and "gonna" (going to). This group of abbreviations also includes various types of changes, such as apheresis (cutting off the beginning part of a word), syncope (cutting off the middle part of a word), and apocope (cutting off the end part of a word). Among these three types of abbreviations, apocope is the most common in the online space. For example, the word "though" is often shortened to "tho", "definitely" to "def" and "fabulous" to "fab," as well as words like "photograph" to "photo", "university" to "uni", and "information" to "info".

The widespread use of shortened lexical units indicates a characteristic feature of modern English – the simplification of linguistic expression while maintaining informational significance for communication purposes [4].

In general, we can conclude that modern society is undergoing a process of internationalization, which is also reflected in the linguistic composition. In a comparative analysis of English abbreviations in Russian-speaking and English-speaking Internet chats, it was noticed that native English speakers expand their vocabulary using native words. At the same time, Russian-speaking users more often borrow the basics of English words and abbreviations, on the basis of which they form their own variants.

In the course of the study, students of the Faculty of Information Technologies, speciality "Programming and Software Development" of Taraz University named after M.Kh. Dulaty were surveyed. There were 16 students in the group, and we checked through the survey how actively they use abbreviations when communicating in Internet chats. The vast majority of respondents (75%) indicated that the main reason for using abbreviations is to save time. It was also found that despite the availability of Russian abbreviations, many students (63%) prefer to use English-language abbreviations. For example: LOL (Laughing Out Loud) – ЛОЛ; OMG (Oh My God) – ОМГ; IMHO (In My Humble Opinion) – ИМХО; ok (Okay) – ок; pls (please) – плз; srry (sorry) – сорри. At the same time, some students admitted that they do not always know the true decoding of a popular online abbreviation and use it based on previous experience. It is important to note that the survey managed to attract students' interest in various abbreviations, to make them think about their true meaning and semantic content, as well as to increase students' motivation to further and deeper study of the English language for the correct and appropriate use of abbreviations in their online correspondence.

Referneces:

1. Garland Cannon. Abbreviations and Acronyms in English Word-Formation. American Speech, Duke University Press, 1998. https://www.jstor.org/stable/455038
2. https://www.ef.com/wwen/blog/language/15-english-abbreviations-you-need-to-know/
3. Barinova S. O. Classification of abbreviations in the language of the Internet (on the material of the English language) [Electronic resource]. - Mode of access: https://cyberleninka.ru/article/v/klassifikatsiya-sokrascheniy-v-yazyke-interneta-na-materiale-angliyskogo-yazyka
4. Bergelson M. B. Language aspects of virtual communication // Vestnik of Moscow University. Ser. 19. Linguistics and Intercultural Communication. - 2002. - № 1. С. 58.
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