Languages Go Web! Over the threshold of 2000 and beyond.

During the Spring of 2012 a second, two-day workshop was devoted to a thorough discussion and analysis of the use of language in new media, especially with regard to the World Wide Web and the Internet. This last topic must be seen as a continuation of the topics dealt with in the previous Schools and Workshop, being that the major issues regarding the future and vitality of languages are thoroughly involved with a language’s response to the “digital challenge”; moreover the major trends in language change can hardly be studied without regard to the new facets of linguistic contact that spring from the diffusion of new technologies. Given the wide use of the Internet, for example, all languages are now increasingly in contact with English – on a global scale, people are learning or are exposed to English today more than in any other age (Graddol 1997/2000, Graddol 2006). The online use of national and official languages, as well as non-standard, dialectal, or so-called “contact” languages is currently and will continue to be of great interest for linguists.