New Technologies and Language Change: Toward an Anthropology of Linguistic Frontiers

Research to date on the relationship between new communications technologies and language emphasizes linguistic and social differences between online and off-line interactions and the impact of global English on the non-English-speaking world. These studies conclude, for the most part, that computer-mediated communication reproduces the social, political, and economic relations that exist in the real world. Related areas of research, including ethnographies of global hip hop and studies of urban hybrid language varieties, offer important models for using anthropological approaches to advance our understanding of the interconnections and situated-ness, of language, new technologies, global media, and social change.