Abbreviations in English and French Social Media Discourse

This paper is intended to cover some major issues pertaining to the sphere of linguistics and intercultural communication. In a modern globalized world, there is a continuous concern for online-communication with the help of SMS. It is a matter of paramount interest. The present research refers to quite modern studies of abbreviations in SMS-communication in English and French languages. Several works were conducted in order to figure out the influence of abbreviations on both languages and people’s spelling and social skills. While the debate over this perspective has long interested professionals it still generates controversy and needs the final outcome. The general purpose of this project is to collect all necessary and relevant information and to analyse the input of SMS-communication to English and French social discourse. This research is based on a method of an overall extraction of necessary information out of relevant literature and reliable Internet resources such as statistics, research, and observations and on questionnaires, unstructured interviews, and polls. The findings of this study highlight the contribution of abbreviations to the diversity of English and French vocabularies and show common and diverse features of shortenings used in online-communication in both languages. To conclude, the professional significance of the research is to give a stimulus to deeper analysis of SMS and abbreviations in various languages and discourses. Keywords: the diversity of English and French vocabularies, abbreviations, SMS- and online-communication, features of shortenings, linguistics, intercultural communication