The boffin's book of cyber-talk

Cambridge boffin David Crystal has published a book which explores the language of the internet.

Crystal examines how the use of the English language has been shaped by electronic communication in his recent publication, Language and the internet.

In the book, Crystal touches on the subject of email, chat rooms, Usenet newsgroups and web pages - all examples of what the author calls netspeak.

Crystal's analysis suggests that online communication is best regarded as a new dialect, evolving its own systematic rules. He claims it is a mixture of written and spoken language.

Crystal employs linguistic and discourse analysis techniques as the foundation for his book.