Language styles and language functions of internet chatting

Communication breaks through space and time. Today, people can communicate more easily because there is a telecommunication system named Internet, which links computer around the world to provide international communication services. By using internet people can send message or e-mail (electronic mail), shop for products and buy them on line, find and download software, make travel plans, do financial planning, look for a new job read some information published on the Web, search for people, and many other interesting services. The most interesting service, which is preferred by people ail over the world and in every age, is chatting. Chatting in the Internet is now not a new phenomenon in this globalization era. It is possible to talk to people in "real time" than to wait for e-mail. By using a chatting program named IRC, which stands for Internet relay chat, people may invite interested users to join the channel and communicate among themselves by typing the messages to everyone on the channel or sending private messages to individuals. As a means of communication, chatting also possesses typical characteristics of human communication. One of the characteristics is language style. One can speak very formally or informally, his choice being governed by circumstances. No individual speaks the same way at all times. Therefore, a person may change the style or the way he speaks according to the situation and context. In chatting, the dominant styles, which are used, are casual and intimate. These styles can be explained by a theory of language styles proposed by Martin Joos (1962). He states that in an informal setting, people tend to demonstrate these two styles. The linguistics features of these styles are: - not complete sentences -the use of contractions and shortened forms of words - the use of new and sometimes not polite words and meaning - diction: simple, mostly popular colloquial, frequent contractions, clipped words and some slang. The language used in internet chatting is informal, because the chatters will feel more comfortable and more confident when chatting with people without necessarily meet face to face. This condition brings them on the various chatting topics they like, without feeling clumsy when they are chatting with the invisible chatting partner. Therefore, in internet chatting people do not consider about the grammatical rules and they use abbreviations, slang, jargons, and non-verbal symbols, like smileys to make the conversation more interesting and intimate