The Language of social media: A Structuralist Inquiry

Kevin Kelly, a futurist, puts forth the idea of a seventh kingdom to add to the six-kingdom classification. He labels this kingdom as the “technium.” It refers to all things invented by humans and includes, but is certainly not limited to, such phenomena as the Internet (Lobo, 2017). The language that has developed as a result of the emergence of some phenomena of the technium (for instance, social media) is now integrating into, and sending shockwaves through human languages, especially English. The latter of the two languages is one with a long history of change and unfailing adaptation. As such, the steady burgeoning of this unhackneyed technological vocabulary may not hold serious consequences for the English language which, as it has done numerous times before, will reorient itself around the insurgence of new words and abbreviations. However, for the first time in centuries (taking into consideration the cave paintings of old), there is an alarming increase in the substitution of words and phrases by visual equivalents, all of which seek to literalize the adage that a picture can speak a thousand words. This hybrid language however is still just that — a language, a system of signs as Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure put it. This paper seeks to conduct an analysis of this fairly new language using the methodology of structuralism, employing various theories put forth by critics associated with this umbrella term. Such an analysis would be directed towards facilitating an understanding of this new technological language in its various manifestations.