Regionality – Language – Internet

The Internet has a strong influence on our daily communication and language use. Its continuous growing makes us face the world characterized by networks of connections that span multi-continental distances. The metaphor of global village seems to be not merely a futuristic theory, but pure reality. People can communicate worldwide with each other, reach all kinds of information to get up-to-date, as long as they respect the basic demand of globalization, which means the use of a common language (i.e. English). But this tendency hides a serious issue if we try to observe globalization from the aspect of local and regional cultures and languages, especially those in minority position. The study deals with the language use of the Hungarian minority in Vojvodina, with special focus on Netspeak and the regional features of language forms used on the Internet. It also analyses the attitudes of a group of students towards the influence of the Internet on speech and language. This part of the survey is based on questionnaires.