Orð og tunga - 01.06.2014, Page 81
Vanessa Isenmann
Insight into computer-mediated
communication
as a new variety of written Icelandic
1 Introduction
The Internet and constant development of digital communication
technology has a tremendous impact in Iceland. According to the
Global Information Technology Report 2013, 92.6% of Icelandic house-
holds have Internet access and based on the estimates of Internet
world statistics, 67.2% of Iceland's population are registered on Face-
book.
In Iceland, the Internet is used for entertainment, information
gathering and communication, just as it is in other parts of the world.
Technological innovations now allow communication through a range
of electronic devices and an array of platforms including for example
blogs, email, (video) chat and (video) telephony. Nevertheless, the
digital discourse is still mainly represented as written communica-
tion. However, it has been shown that online communication displays
structures that are deviant from standard writing norms such as the
neglect of spelling rules and punctuation or compensation strategies
for non-verbal communication features (cf. Androutsopoulos 2011).
Consequently, patterns and style used on a blog or on Facebook are
different from those occurring in previous (personal) writing that is
written communication outside the digital medium. The scope of rea-
Orð og tunga 16 (2014), 69-91. © Stofnun Árna Magnússonar í íslenskum
fræðum, Reykjavík.