Scientific Research Committee Webinar: Netspeak Linguistic Features Used by Youth
Professor Najaat Busabaa, a distinguished linguistics professor at the Faculty of Languages and Translation, led a thought-provoking webinar titled "Netspeak Linguistic Features Used by Youth." The event was organized by the Scientific Research Committee and was held on Tuesday, November 24, 2020.
Prof. Busabaa initiated her talk by acknowledging the widespread use of the Internet among young people, highlighting its advantages of speed, cost-efficiency, and convenience compared to other communication methods. She underlined the rapid progression of this technology and its significant role in contemporary society. This evolution, she noted, goes hand-in-hand with the spread of internet culture, chiefly mediated through the English language, and thus, exerts a profound influence on both spoken and written languages.
"Netspeak" was defined by Prof. Busabaa as a linguistic form bearing unique characteristics of Internet communication. While Netspeak is abundant in Arabic, especially among young people, it remains largely under-researched. During online chat sessions, linguists note that young users typically employ either English in Latin script, compensating for absent Arabic letters with visually similar numbers, or 'Arabize' English Netspeak abbreviations by using Arabic scripts.
Moreover, she referred to Arabizi, a common norm in Netspeak chat rooms, described by scholars as a blended language comprising English and colloquial Arabic, written in Latin letters but incorporating numerals as letters.
Discussing her research methodology, Prof. Busabaa explained that she employed a qualitative approach to examine the frequency of linguistic features used by Yemeni students in Netspeak. She identified and linguistically described and explained these features, alongside an extensive review of the related literature. The research findings suggest that chat room users tend to favor brief, direct responses, with a preference for short, simple sentences. Discussion topics typically revolve around academic matters, though light-hearted subjects such as jokes, love poetry, and personal relations were also common. Interestingly, Prof. Busabaa found that users seldom corrected each other's lexical errors, with only one instance of correction observed in her study.
She emphasized the special treatment required for excerpts from the Holy Quran, given their sacred nature. In her conclusion, she noted an interesting trend in chat rooms: vernacular language often replaces standard Arabic, contrary to previous findings where English replaces other languages. As a result, Prof. Busabaa proposed several recommendations, such as launching organized campaigns emphasizing the importance of native language for the identity of Yemeni youth, and promoting stricter linguistic error correction by teachers. She also suggested creating attractive, engaging web pages to educate young users about their language.
The webinar was highly informative and stimulated robust interaction from both faculty members and MA students, reflecting their keen interest in the study and its outcomes.
