افاق للعلوم
Volume 11, Numéro 2, Pages 336-356
2026-03-12
From ‘chattering Birds’ To ‘digital Discourse’: The Semantic Evolution Of ‘chat’ In The Age Of Computer-mediated Communication
Authors : Golea Tahar .
Abstract
The lexical metamorphosis of the word ‘chat’ has been a profound one as the term came to evolve beyond its traditional denotation of informal verbal discourse into encapsulating more digitally mediated forms of communication. The present investigation is a multi-layered corpuses analysis that uses four lexicographical genres; (1) canonical dictionaries, (2) crowd-sourced repositories, (3) expert-user platforms, and (4) social media discourse. These analyses are aimed at documenting the systematic re-contextualization of the lexical item ‘chat’ within the framework of Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC). Through a diachronic analysis using distributional semantics, coupled with social network theory, the study seeks to unearth how the term chat was calibrated in light of progressive datafication of day-to -day life (1990-2025). The findings reveal a salient divergence between conservative dictionaries that maintain a prescriptive standpoint and modern ones that veer toward updated description.
Keywords
Semantic change ; Digital communication ; Computer-mediated communication ; Corpus linguistics ; Distributional semantics ; Chat
Les articles similaires
بوسالم أحلام
.
عابد يوسف
.
ص 117-132.
Yahia Zeghoudi
.
pages 74-88.
Said Houari Amel
.
pages 257-268.
