Social Media and Changes in the Language of Polish and Korean Youth

Currently, quick and profound changes occur in the sphere of language. The reasons for this are frequent and longterm interactions of the contemporary teenagers with social media, such as: Facebook, My Space, Flickr, online computer games and virtual realities, such as Club Penguin, Second Life and the Sims; websites collecting videos and pictures, such as YouTube; blogs (e.g. blogger, microblogger, Twitter), as well as the use of mobile telephony and smartphones, namely mobile phones and pocket computers, including iPod touch – a multifunctional computer with access to the Internet or iPhone – being a combination of a mobile phone with an entertainment platform and online messenger, as well as email. The aforementioned media offer teenagers a place to meet and quickly communicate with each other, and this phenomenon is growing exponentially. Social media encourage to experiment with language in order for everyday language to better reflect reality. This results, to a great extent, in depletion of language of the youth, simplification and introduction of new codes. This article is an attempt to describe this “new” language of Polish and Korean youth, as well as answer the following questions: Do the analyzed changes threaten the Polish and Korean language identity and orthography? Have English phrases become a permanent code of communication between teenagers in the two countries?