ABSTRACT
16Linguists have long been interested in investigating language as either speech or writing. As we have seen in Chapter 1, the internet and its related new media have brought about changes to language and its use in unprecedented ways. There are new forms of interaction and everyday activities are transformed in a fast-moving semiotic landscape. New media provide different relations of people and technologies, giving rise to new affordances. There are new and emergent forms of mediation of language, with machines using language, and there are even challenges to the basic distinction between human and machine. Although language-focused online research has gradually gained currency, there remain many unexplored issues. To reinforce the urgency of attending to this area of inquiry, this chapter provides 10 reasons why researchers and others need to take account of language online (Figure 2.1). In presenting these reasons, we introduce a set of specific language issues that arise in the online world, thus highlighting the key features of the book. In this way the themes of the chapters are also outlined.
