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Abstract
Over the past decade, the use of the Internet has become an indispensable part of life in the new millennium. One of the most popular activities in the era of the Internet is online communication. Net-Lingo, which is a product of online communication, is a new language variety that differs from both writing and speech as traditionally understood. Given that Net-Lingo is considered as a language variety (Crystal, 2001), I describe the salient linguistic characteristics of Korean Net-Lingo (KNL) and English Net-Lingo (ENL) respectively, from orthographic, morphological, syntactic, lexical and discursive perspectives, based on written data collected from casual online situations. Along with the descriptions, I investigate the specific mechanisms that govern the observable linguistic characteristics. I also explain why the cross linguistic investigation of linguistic characteristics of Net-Lingo is important in showing the impact of language contact. The globalization of the Internet is prompting different languages to come into contact online, which is different from a physical contact. As evidence of language contact in electronic communication, I investigate the influence of English on KNL. Net-Lingo has become so widespread that it is breaking through the boundaries of online communication and ultimately reaching Korean school curricula in South Korea. Based on offline data, I investigate the influence of Net-Lingo on multi-layered offline domains. Given the influence of KNL on Korean language education, I also discuss pedagogical implications by raising questions such as whether KNL should be introduced into the KFL classroom, and to what extent it should be incorporated. Net-Lingo is still in its infancy. There is a need and space for consistent scholarly investigation on the direction of language change. Given the number of significant consequences such as language contact effects, the influence on offline domains, and pedagogical issues, the investigation of Net-Lingo becomes more valuable and robust and in the long run contributes to the study of language change and history. In this sense, Net-Lingo is a window to the future of language.