The influence of social media and digital communication on the evolution of vocabulary and grammatical structures

Abstract

The article discusses the impact of emerging communication technologies and social networks on the development of lexical and grammatical norms of the English language. The study is dedicated to the most important tendencies in language evolution, i.e., the emergence of neologisms, acronyms, abbreviations and borrowings, and grammatical simplifications and non-standard syntactic structures. Its importance is due to the need to investigate the mechanisms of language norm adaptation into the ever-changing digital environment, reshaping traditional language standards and communication methods. The research is based on the study of linguistic features of five popular sites (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Reddit), which allows us to identify the specifics of the use of linguistic innovations in different situations of online communication. The article aims to determine the nature and causes of digital language changes, systematise their lexical and grammatical manifestations, and assess the impact of age and social factors on language dynamics. The study used a set of methods: content analysis, comparative and contrastive analysis, sociolinguistic approach, and descriptive analysis. The material was 250 text samples from five digital platforms. According to the research results, social networks are an effective mechanism for linguistic innovation, creating novel communication models and evolving forms of classical languages to digital ones. It has been established that different platforms have some linguistic features: Twitter is characterised by the active shortening of words and phrases, and TikTok and Instagram utilise non-standard grammatical forms with ironic or humorous connotations. Reddit is characterised by language play and violation of traditional syntactic rules. The research also revealed a strong dependency of language variations on users' age and social qualities: young people are the primary agents of language development. At the same time, their seniors keep traditional language norms. The findings may be used in future research on digital linguistics, namely how social media affects academic writing, professional jargon, and the long-term restructuring of the language system.