Exemples de l’identité langagière des cybernautes: rébus et jeux graphiques dans le chat

The object of this paper is to analyze the lexicon of the chat conversations which is characterized by the great feeling of wanting to belong to the chat group community. The identity and crypto-recreational functions of the chat are visible through the analyzed phenomena like truncation with apocope, clipping and syncope, loans from English and also the creation of rebus and graphic games. All this constitutes a real transgression of the conventional orthography, at the same time that allows a great pleasure playing with the language. It really represents a new way of transcribing words using less space, that is better adapted to the principles of time and space saving. These rebus and graphic games are a particular case of identity expression by the chat users. The recreational aspect of this language allows the community to develop and enrich it continuously.