LINGUISTIC VARIATION IN DIGITAL ENVIRONMENTS: NEW FORMS OF USE AND STANDARDIZATION

Abstract

Digital environments have changed forms of linguistic interaction by increasing the speed at which messages circulate, diversifying interlocutors, and integrating verbal, visual, auditory, and audiovisual resources. In these practices, abbreviations, emojis, memes, neologisms, features of orality, and multimodal combinations contribute to meaning-making and respond to the technical and social conditions of each platform. This article analyzes forms of linguistic variation in digital environments and the standardization processes that regulate these uses. A bibliographic study with a qualitative and descriptive-analytical approach was conducted, drawing on research in Sociolinguistics, digital communication, multimodality, standard language, communicative appropriateness, and linguistic prejudice. The analysis indicates that digital language does not represent the absence of rules, since platforms and communities establish their own conventions concerning vocabulary, forms of address, graphic resources, message length, and communicative behaviors valued by each group. Users also shift between registers according to the recipient, genre, purpose, and degree of formality of the interaction. It is concluded that digital linguistic practices broaden communicative repertoires and foster new forms of expression, while also producing disputes over correctness, legitimacy, identity, visibility, and linguistic prejudice.