ABSTRACT
This chapter concentrates on problematic underlying issues within the study of language and digital literacies and work towards a new framework. Many examinations of digital language eschew linguistics entirely. The study of digital literacies is to a degree held back by shaky foundations as far as the understanding of language is concerned. To an extent this is unsurprising as it is perhaps not easy to successfully marry the study of phenomena that appear so new with theories based on specific understandings of language that belong to other eras. Some useful approaches to digital literacies have drawn from distinctive strands of work in linguistics. The chapter argues that much scholarship on digital communications the field of study often termed computer-mediated communication (CMC) takes a particular position on speech and writing that blurs the differences between modes.
