Dissemination Mechanism of Internet Slang and Social Identity Construction among Youth Groups

Abstract

Purpose: To shed light on the spread of internet slang and its implications for the construction of social identity for youngsters in digital ecology, taking up the relationship between linguistic innovation processes and identity formation practices in the virtual lives of today. Method: This convergent parallel mixed-methods study applies computational sociolinguistic analysis, digital ethnographic observation, and semi-structured interviews to explore naturally occurring communicative behavior on leading social media platforms over the course of one year, as well as the behavior analysis of 50,000+ posts and a corpus of 30 individuals aged 18-25. Results: Internet slang exhibits different taxonomic structures, of which emotional expression (28.5%) and social positioning (22.3%) functions are most popular, and cross-platform diversity reflects the platform-specific evolutionary paths produced by technological affordances and algorithmic mediation. The modes that young people create their identity in are in the form of reification-authenticity performance and community-signaling regimes that implicate the subjectivity of existing theories and the linguistic innovation being worked through a network that is an assemblage of key major influences that give a scent of hierarchical cascades over conventional models of diffusion. Conclusions: Internet slang is a mechanism through which the process of youth constructing social identity becomes a sophisticated process, a process embodied in hybrid diffusion paths combining organic social influence and technological mediation, and it has totally changed linguistic change and cultural transmission as well. Practical Considerations: The results are instructive for educational interventions around digital literacy, design considerations for platforms that support healthy youth development, and policy models for addressing youth digital engagement, affirming the limitations of deficit views of youth behavior online and noting substantial cultural competence in managing challenging technological landscapes.