Communication in the Digital World: An Evaluation of Orthography of WhatsApp Messaging

Abstract

Life has been changed due to the proliferation of social media. Social media influences our modes of life because everything is now dependent to the internet-based technology and stepped up in the digital world. This digital world has filled the gaps among peoples across the borders. Communication among people has taken the new form in the digital world. Language of communication has been influenced greatly and still continued. Due to the contact with people belonged to different linguistic backgrounds, variations in language of communication are taking place at different levels. These variations make language of digital communication more different and unique due to some specifications.This research will explore the categorical specifications of computer-mediated communicationat the world level of English language. WhatsApp (a social media application) is selected to take the sample of messages for investigation.As a qualitative study, use of abbreviations,shortening of words, numerical expressions, under change in orthographywill beanalyzed in this study. Under quantification, frequency of each mentioned features will be calculated to see the recurrence and on the other hand,mean values will enable us tosee the comparison of variables of study.These quantifications will be done through SPSS software. This research will contribute towards the repertoire of digital communication and support the existing studies by providing different contextual diversity of data. Moreover, it will open different avenues of research in this regard under the parasol of internet-based communication on social media.