ABSTRACT
Sociolinguistics studies the interconnection between language, society and verbal communication. Everything from conversations, titles, slang, and text messaging to bilingualism and language maintenance in ethnic communities and borrowing among languages can be looked at with sociolinguistic eyes, so to speak, because they lead to an understanding of how this interconnection unfolds. The application of sociolinguistic methods to new media, as a consequence, is leading to new insights between language and the medium used to interact with it. Take, for example, blogs. Blogging is now a major form of writing, replacing, in some cases, the traditional print article. The earliest blogs originated in the online discussion of chat groups of the early internet, some of which reach as far back as the 1970s (including such online services as bulletin board systems). Some blogs resemble magazines, complete with graphics, photos, audiovisual supports, and so on. Others are simple textual compositions. It is estimated that today there are more than 100 million blogs worldwide. They cover the entire gamut of human interest, from politics to cartoons.
