Diachronic Change in English Orthography with Proliferation of Computer- Mediated Communication (CMC)
Every living thing faces a change. English, being a living language,has also gone through a course of variation since its initiation. These variations have been detected in English at every level. Most importantly,English orthography has changed a lot. The current study explores the impact of CMC on English orthography. Centered on some parameters and classification of data, this research principally investigates the Facebook status over the last three years. The study reveals that the existing English orthography is abridged and compact as compared to Standard English.Vowels underwent deletion in written script whereas pronouns are not present in many cases. Simplification in English spellings exhibits exceptional novelties i.e., numeric insertions in text, creativity in written structure,omission of letters, and phonological, phonemic and morphological changes in orthography. This research argues that there has always been a diachronic change in English spellings and CMC has accelerated it.
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English, Orthography, CMC, Impact, Standard English, Variations
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(1) Jahanzeb Jahan
Lecturer in English, Department of English Language and Literature, University of Education, Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan.
(2) Humaira Irfan
Associate Professor of English, Department of English Language and Literature, University of Education, Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan.
(3) Kiran Jahanzeb
University of Management and Technology, Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan.