Five ways in which British English has changed in the internet era

The dramatic changes in technology over the past 20 or so years, from the internet to the smartphone and digital assistants like Alexa, have made communication more accessible than ever before. We have created an online world where we post, share, comment, express views and seek information as well as relationships. These changes have also transformed the language we use.

Our new study based on the British National Corpus 2014 (BNC2014) – a 100 million-word sample of current language – shows us just how language has changed in the internet era. This data was contrasted with the original British National Corpus 1994 (BNC1994) – a comparable data set which samples British English from the early 1990s.

The study employed a methodology called corpus linguistics, which analyses large amounts of language using specialised software. The method allows researchers to search and compare word frequencies across different texts and genres, revealing the patterns and trends in language over time. The software used in this study was developed at Lancaster University and is freely available for download together with the data.

Here are some of the most striking changes:

1. More informal language

Our study revealed that overall, British English has become much more informal. This is true not only in blog posts and social media, where…

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