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INFLUENCE OF INTERNET SLANGS ON THE ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN ESSAY WRITING IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE CHAPTER ONE

2019, INTERNET SLANG

The study on the impact of internet slang on the academic achievement of students aimed to determine the relationship between internet slang and academic achievement in secondary schools. The study made use of primary data obtained from research questionnaires. The study used Pearson correlation method for data analysis. The study concluded that there is a significant relationship between internet slang and academic performance.

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Good Slang or Bad Slang? Embedding Internet Slang in Persuasive Advertising

Internet slang is a new language with innovative and novel characteristics, and its use can be considered a form of creative advertising. Embedding internet slang into advertisements can thus enhance their creative quality and increase the attention paid to them. In this study, we examined the effect of the characteristics of internet slang on attention to advertisements, brand awareness, product evaluation, and attitudes toward advertising by conducting two empirical studies, one utilizing eye-tracking experiments and the other utilizing questionnaires. We found that using internet slang in advertising significantly increased audience attention compared with standard language but did not necessarily improve product evaluation and brand awareness for various types of goods. We discovered code-switching effects of psycholinguistics existed in standard language and its variant (internet slang). Our findings can guide advertisers in selecting the embedded language that can be effective in achieving their desired advertising effect. Our findings also indicate that the excessive use of internet slang may have a negative effect on brand and product evaluation.

Introduction

As society and the economy continue to develop, internet slang has shifted from being a mode of communication to being an everyday language. People’s communicative behavior, language, and psychology have all been affected by the subtle influence of internet slang ( Crystal, 2006 ). Corporations have also started employing internet slang in public communications. McDonald’s, for example, used the internet slang “么么哒” ( Mo Mo Da , a mimetic word for kissing) to promote its “Ice Cream Day,” because this word expresses ideas such as cuteness, proximity, and delightfulness. Some internet slang originates from the news, movies, TV programs, or online videos. For example, a popular online video featuring a character from an American TV show saying the phrase “Cash me ousside, howbow dah” (“Catch me outside, how about that?”) went viral because of the strong accent and rebellious attitude of the character. On the internet, a catch phrase or an incident can be publicized overnight, such as the expression “prehistoric powers” introduced by the young Chinese swimming athlete Yuanhui Fu or the emerging blend “Brexit” referring to the UK public vote for departure from the European Union. Internet slang has attracted the attention of corporations and its widespread use continues to grow.

In this study, we posed the following question: Is internet slang suitable for every product? It is possible that overusing internet slang in advertisements may yield unfavorable results, although such slang might attract more attention compared with standard language (SL). Therefore, this study explored people’s attention and evaluations (such as product evaluation and brand awareness) when encountering internet slang in various types of advertisements for products. The study also addressed whether internet slang is always has a positive effect on such evaluations.

This research makes several notable contributions. First, it adds to the literature related to advertising effect of languages, our work demonstrated the complex effects of internet slang on advertisements. Second, this work examined the advertising effect of internet slang from the attention perspective according to code-switching theory by using embedded language and eye tracking. These findings enrich both language and advertising communication theories.

Theoretical Framework

Internet slang.

The emergence of internet slang is a result of language variation. Language variation is a core concept in sociolinguistics ( Chambers, 2008 ) and a characteristic of language, which means there is more than one way of saying the same thing. Speakers may use distinct pronunciation (accent), word choice (lexicon), or morphology and syntax. In this research, internet slang is regarded as a variant of SL because it is normally related to word choice or morphology and syntax. Internet slang as a variant of SL (e.g., English, Chinese, and German) ( Collot and Belmore, 1996 ) is informal, irregular, and dynamic.

Internet slang often borrows foreign words, dialects, digital elements, and icons; it also frequently integrates the use of paraphrasing, homonyms, thumbnails, reduplication, and other word formation methods and unconventional syntax ( Kundi et al., 2014 ). Internet slang has gained a “novelty” effect through its anticonventional nature, which is why non-normativity is its defining characteristic. Compared with SL, internet slang has innovative and novel characteristics ( Collot and Belmore, 1996 ), and its use in advertising is highly creative. Attention to advertisements has increased following improvements in creative quality ( Pieters et al., 2002 ). For example, in tobacco advertisements, creative warnings attract more audience attention than regular warnings do ( Krugman et al., 1994 ). Exciting visuals can increase the perception of creativity, which attracts more attention to advertisements ( Hagtvedt, 2011 ).

Internet slang is novel, humorous, and interesting, and it possesses qualities that attract attention, particularly that of humor ( Eisend, 2011 ). By contrast, SL is more credible than non-SL. For example, the use of a standard accent in advertisements can largely offset any geographic, racial, or product differences ( Alcántara-Pilar et al., 2013 ); thus, a considerable number of studies have recommended the use of SL to improve the influence of communication. In our previous study, we observed that compared with advertisements that used SL, those that used internet slang attracted more attention ( Liu et al., 2017 ). Furthermore, electroencephalography studies have demonstrated that the cognitive processing of internet slang yields a significant N400 component and may involve creative thinking ( Zhao et al., 2017 ).

Internet Slang, Embedded Language, and Code-Switching Theory

Internet slang is often used in combination with SL. For example, communication in SL is occasionally interspersed with some internet slang terms to increase the attractiveness. Accordingly, internet slang is used in everyday life in the form of an embedded language. The advertising tactic of “inserting a foreign word or expression into a sentence (e.g., into an ad slogan), resulting in a mixed-language message” is called code-switching ( Luna and Peracchio, 2005a ; Lin et al., 2017 ). We applied code-switching theory in this research because the use of internet slang in advertising results in a similar situation as that of using code-switching. First, internet slang differs from SL because of its salient features, such as creative use of punctuation (e.g., emoticons), use of initialisms, omission of non-essential letters, and substitution of homophones ( Jones and Schieffelin, 2009 ). This distinctive style enables audiences to distinguish internet slang from SL when embedded in advertisements. For example, a study ( Zhao et al., 2017 ) reported that the processing of internet slang involves a novel N400 and late positive component, which reflects the recognition of the novel meanings of internet slang through event-related potentials (ERPs). Second, the language schema of internet slang is different from that of SL. Internet slang is heavily used by young people in computer-mediated communications and is usually perceived as creative, interesting, and pop culture-related ( Tagliamonte, 2016 ). However, for adults who mainly speak SL, internet slang is viewed as informal and extremely difficult to understand ( Jones and Schieffelin, 2009 ). Thus, examining the use of internet slang in advertising from the perspective of code-switching is reasonable.

The Markedness Model ( Myers-Scotton, 1993 ) has been used to explain the code-switching direction effect ( Luna and Peracchio, 2005b ). The linguistic term “markedness” is analogous to perceptual salience ( Luna and Peracchio, 2005b ). When an object or part of a message stands out from its immediate context, it becomes salient from the audience’s prior experience or expectation, or from foci of attention ( Fiske and Taylor, 1984 ). In regard to code-switching, the Markedness Model suggests that individuals will switch languages or insert other-language elements into their speech so as to communicate certain meanings or group memberships. Another language element becomes marked because of its contrast with the listener’s expectation. Luna and Peracchio (2005b) further explained that a marked element is recognized by the parties involved in the exchange as communicating a specific intended meaning. Scholars have argued that in a code-switching situation, the language schema of the words embedded in a message is activated because such words are more salient or marked compared with the matrix language. Language schemata include individuals’ perceptions of the social meanings of the language, the culture associated with the language, attitudes toward the language, the type of people who speak the language, the contexts in which the language can be used, the topics for which the language is appropriate, and beliefs about how others perceive the language ( Luna and Peracchio, 2005a , b ). For example, Luna and Peracchio (2005a) found that the language schema of Spanish, a minority language in the United States, can be activated when Spanish words are embedded in an ad slogan written in English (and vice versa). We propose that internet slang and SL may have similar code-switching effects when they are mix-used in advertisements. Therefore, this research involved conducting two studies to investigate whether code-switching effects occur between internet slang and SL, although internet slang is a variant of SL instead of a foreign language.

We believe that when internet slang is embedded in SL, the novelty of advertisements can provide a refreshing change for the audience and thus more likely garner their attention. Using eye movement tracking, we aimed to study the advertising effects produced by the use of internet slang as an embedded language, determine whether the use of internet slang as an embedded language can attract more attention, and explore whether this can generate positive advertising effects in terms of product evaluation and brand awareness. We expected that internet slang leads to an increase in consumers’ attention toward products, but excessive internet slang in advertisement does not necessarily generate a positive effect:

H1 : Embedded internet slang (EIL) (vs. SL) in advertisements results in an increased number of fixations and fixation time.

Luxury and Necessity Goods

Consumers may prefer different advertisements for various types of products, such as those that are functional or hedonic ( Drolet et al., 2007 ). Luxury brands are typically associated with social status, prestige ( Han et al., 2010 ), and superior product quality ( Zhan and He, 2012 ). Consequently, the purchase of luxury goods requires advertisements that resonate with the identity of consumers and thus attract their attention. Accordingly, SL can be reminiscent of a high value and trust level ( Lin and Wang, 2016 ), however, internet slang is timeliness, brisk and civilian that more consistent with style of necessity goods, could make necessity goods vivid and brisk; these features may increase consumers’ evaluations for brand and product. On the other hand, advertisement using internet slang for luxury brands may not be very appropriate, internet slang’s brisk and civilian style do not match with nobility and credibility of luxury goods, thus may not be better than SL which is meet the expectation of high value and credibility ( Lin and Wang, 2016 ). Moreover, overusing internet slang may result in frivolous feeling that would compromise the high quality which luxury goods state. Therefore, whether the use of EIL in advertisements for luxury and necessity goods generates different advertising effects is a subject that merits investigation. Moreover, there is a relative lack of empirical research on advertisements and on the effects of EIL and SL in advertisements for necessity and luxury goods.

In this study, eye tracking was the primary means of measurement employed. We used eye tracking because its superior signal-to-noise ratio (relative to brain imaging) renders it more suitable for the study of attention when individuals evaluate various types of products and make a choice. We conducted two studies to empirically examine the effects of using internet slang as an embedded language in advertising copies, the audience’s attention when reading the copies, and the effect of different embedded language advertising formats on the audience’s product evaluation, brand awareness, and attitudes toward advertising. We also intended to test whether overusing internet slang in advertisements compromises the persuasive effect of the advertisements. Therefore, we designed another type of advertisement that comprised several internet slang words with embedded standard language (ESL). The difference between EIL and ESL is that the main body of ESL advertisement was used internet slang, one sentence using SL was embedded (see Figure 1 ); in the contrast, the main body of EIL advertisement was used SL, one sentence using internet slang was embedded (see Figure 1 ). ESL was designed to overuse internet slang. We hypothesized the following: (1) regarding advertising copies, advertisements of EIL would be more effective in attracting consumers’ attention compared with advertisements of SL or ESL and (2) the use of internet slang would attract different levels of attention and have distinct advertising effects depending on the type of product (necessity goods and luxury goods) for which it is employed. These hypotheses are outlined as follows:

ROI zoning of SL, SIL, and ESL in study 1.

H2 : EIL in advertisements of luxury goods (vs. necessity goods) attracts more attention (an increased number of fixations and fixation time). H3a : EIL (vs. SL) in advertisements of necessity goods results in increased product evaluation, brand awareness, and attitude toward advertisements. H3b : EIL (vs. SL) in advertisements of luxury goods makes no significant difference in brand awareness, product evaluation, and attitude toward advertisements. H4 : ESL (vs. SL) in advertisements of luxury goods results in decreased product evaluation, brand awareness, and attitude toward advertisements.

Pilot Study

Before conducting formal experiments, we first performed a pilot study on advertising language screening and advertising copy evaluation. The pilot study served two purposes. The first purpose was to confirm that the three language versions (SL, ESL, and EIL) used in subsequent studies would not exhibit semantic differences; accordingly, we could exclude alternative explanations of semantics. The second purpose was to ensure that the products and advertisements selected would not exhibit any distinct appeal.

To compile a list of internet slang words, we applied our screening process to select the 20 most searched terms in China on Baidu. The primary criteria established for this process were as follows: the term must be well known; its usage must be widespread; and it must not have negative connotations, rendering it suitable for the design of an advertising copy. The designed advertising copy covered necessity goods, such as mineral water, toothpaste, cooking oil, towels, and shampoo, and luxury goods, such as watches, cars, perfume, jewelry, and leather items. Finally, the materials of the pilot study included 30 advertisements of five necessity goods (each product included three different language versions of SL, ESL, and EIL) and five luxury goods (each product included three different language versions of SL, ESL, and EIL). To exclude the influence of prior knowledge, all brands of products used in the advertisements were fabricated and not similar to any real brand, for excluding the influence of prior knowledge.

We first divided the advertising language into 10 groups for various products; each group contained three types of advertising language. Subsequently, the participants were asked to view advertisements in the three types of language (SL, ESL, and EIL) and to evaluate whether there were differences in semantics among the three language versions (SL, ESL, and EIL), which were measured on a five-point Likert scale. The findings revealed that for each product, the three versions of advertising language (SL, ESL, and EIL) yielded no semantic differences. Specifically, for necessity goods, such as toothpaste [mean = 2.43, standard deviation (SD) = 1.43], mineral water (mean = 2.33, SD = 1.30), cooking oil (mean = 2.60, SD = 1.43), towels (mean = 2.43, SD = 1.46), and shampoo (mean = 2.27, SD = 1.36), the means were all below the median (3). For luxury goods, such as watches (mean = 2.13, SD = 1.07), cars (mean = 2.40, SD = 1.33), perfume (mean = 2.63, SD = 1.52), jewelry (mean = 2.50, SD = 1.33), and leather items (mean = 2.33, SD = 1.16), the means were all below the median (3). The participants were 30 undergraduate students from the Shenzhen University. The results indicated that there were no significant semantic differences between the three versions of advertising language, signifying that our study would not be affected by semantic differences.

We recruited an additional group of 30 participants for the pilot study, all of whom were young people including university students and new employees. Concurrently, to avoid other differences caused by the copy used, manipulative variables were used to rate the responses regarding the rational and emotional appeal of the same 30 advertisements. Resnik and Stern proposed a standard definition of rational appeal based on 11 classification criteria: price, quality, characteristics, ingredients, purchase time and location, means of promotion, trial, function, packaging, guarantees, and novelty ( Resnik and Stern, 1977 ). Sciulli and Lisa (1998) proposed an emotional appeal scale comprising the following items: happiness, fear, joy, anger, interest, disgust, sadness, surprise, and numerous other emotional experiences. Therefore, these classification criteria were adopted in the pilot study. To measure advertising appeal, we selected four items (quality, ingredients, guarantees, and novelty) from the rational appeal scale and four items (happiness, interest, disgust, and sadness) from the emotional appeal scale. The participants were asked to evaluate these items for the 30 advertisements.

For all statistical analyses performed using SPSS version 24.0 (SPSS, Inc., Chicago, IL), the significance level was set to 0.05. Analyses of variance (ANOVAs) were conducted using language type (SL, ESL, and EIL) by product type (necessity goods vs. luxury goods) as within-subjects factors. For the formal experiment, we selected the copy according to the ratings received in the pilot experiment. We conducted an ANOVA using language type (SL, ESL, and EIL) and product type (necessity and luxury) as the independent variables and rational and emotional appeal scores as the dependent variables. No significant main effects of language version were observed for rational appeal [ F (1, 29) = 1.616, p  = 0.199] or emotional appeal [ F (1, 29) = 2.247, p  = 0.106]. Furthermore, the main effects of product categories revealed no significant differences for rational appeal [ F (1, 29) = 1.277, p  = 0.259] or emotional appeal [ F (1, 29) = 0.092, p  = 0.762]. Moreover, the two-way interaction was not significant for rational appeal [ F (1, 29) = 0.066, p  = 0.939] or emotional appeal [ F (1, 29) = 0.266, p  = 0.767]. Therefore, the advertisements in three languages for both necessity goods and luxury goods did not differ in terms of rational and emotional appeal scores. The experimental materials were thus suitable for formal experimental study to explore the effect of advertising language versions on product evaluation, brand awareness, and attitude toward advertisements.

Participants

In total, 120 healthy volunteers (71 female individuals; mean age: 22.42 years) from the Shenzhen University, China, participated in the experiment, although six were subsequently excluded because of recording errors and severe artifacts in the data; the included participants took MBA classes and had an independent income and several years of work experience. A 2 (product type: necessity goods vs. luxury goods) × 3 (language type: SL, ESL, and EIL) between-subjects design was employed (factors were not significantly correlated). All participants were right-handed, had normal vision (with or without correction), reported no history of affective disorders or neurological diseases, and did not regularly use medication. All participants provided written informed consent before the experiment, and the study protocol was approved by the Local Ethics Committee of Shenzhen University. All methods were conducted in accordance with the approved protocol.

In this experiment, we used the ASL-D6 eye-tracking system developed by the Applied Sciences Laboratory in the United States. This system has outstanding capturing and contract capabilities, can rapidly and accurately compensate for head movement, and can provide instant feedback during the tracking process. Thus, this system met the requirements of this experiment. After the initiation of the experiment, the screen displayed an advertising copy that was viewed by the participants. Upon completion of the experiment, the participants’ eye movement data and basic information were stored; the participants were then asked to complete a questionnaire regarding the content they had viewed.

Three types of languages were used for the advertisements, namely SL, SL embedded with internet slang, and internet slang embedded with SL. Thirty advertisements of five necessity goods (each product included the three different language versions of SL, ESL, and EIL) and five luxury goods (each product included the three different language versions of SL, ESL, and EIL) were used. As illustrated in Figure 1 , each advertisement contained five short sentences. Each advertisement was presented for 12 s to the participants. The study sequence was counterbalanced. The condition “SL” means that all sentences in the advertisement used SL. The condition “EIL” means that the main body of the advertisement was SL, but one sentence using internet slang was embedded; the non-embedded language was one sentence that did not contain internet slang, brand, or product name. The condition “ESL” means that the main body of the advertisement was internet slang, but one sentence using SL was embedded; the non-embedded language was one sentence that did not contain SL, brand, or product name. Figures on the advertisement copy with embedded language were then compared and adjusted to ensure that SL was embedded with internet slang (and vice versa), that the corresponding regions of interest (ROIs) of each figure were the same, and that brand names were placed in the same location.

After the eye movement experiment, the participants answered a questionnaire on the advertising copy. Experimental stimuli were divided into three ROIs ( Figure 1 ). An ROI is a specific region presented to participants for visual stimulation. To perform an intergroup comparison, the selected ROI for the same types of products was same placement of the embedded and non-embedded languages within the ROI. ROI1 contained the embedded language; ROI2 contained the brand and product name; and ROI3 contained the non-embedded language.

We selected three commonly used measures to evaluate attention to advertisements: fixation time ( Wedel and Pieters, 2000 ; Rayner et al., 2001 ; Decrop, 2007 ), number of fixations ( García et al., 2000 ; Wedel and Pieters, 2000 ; Wang and Day, 2007 ), and pupil diameter ( Krugman et al., 1994 ). Fixation time is the length of time a participant spends viewing the target zone, and it represents the amount of information they have processed in the zone. The longer the time is, the deeper the information processing in a specific area is. The number of fixations is a measure of the frequency of fixation in a zone by a participant; it represents the amount of information the participant has processed in the zone. The higher the number of fixations is, the greater the attention paid to the information in a specific zone is. The pupil diameter measures the size of the pupil; it represents the level of interest a participant shows in a specific zone. When the pupil diameter is enlarged, it implies the participant is viewing a zone that interests him or her.

Because arousal plays a vital role in cognitive tasks ( Schimmack and Derryberry, 2005 ; Dresler et al., 2009 ) by stimulating audience attention, the level of arousal was used as a control variable. According to Massar et al. (2011) , the question whose answer ultimately determines the level of arousal is “Were you calm when you viewed this ad?” The other control variables measured were follows: familiarity with internet slang, attitude toward the internet slang used, and product preferences.

For all statistical analyses performed using SPSS version 24.0 (SPSS, Inc., Chicago, IL), the significance level was set to 0.05. Post-hoc tests for multiple comparisons were corrected using the Bonferroni method. Significant interactions were analyzed through simple-effect models. ANOVAs were conducted using language type (SL, ESL, and EIL) by product type (necessity goods vs. luxury goods) as between-subjects factors.

Statistical results ( Figure 2 ) revealed that (1) in ROI1 (embedded language), language type [ F (2, 110) = 5.871, p  = 0.004] and product type [ F (1, 110) = 12.185, p  = 0.001] had significant main effects on fixation time; however, the interaction between language type and product type exhibited no significant effect [ F (2, 110) = 1.153, p  = 0.319]. Regarding the product type, the fixation time on necessity goods was shorter than that on luxury goods. Concerning language type, the fixation time on ESL was the longest, followed by that on EIL and then that on SL. All means and SDs are presented in Table 1 .

Number of fixations and fixation time for standard language (SL), embedded standard language (ESL), and embedded internet slang (EIL) for necessity goods and luxury goods in study 1.

Mean and SD for standard language (SL), embedded standard language (ESL), and embedded internet slang (EIL) for necessity goods and luxury goods in study 1.

Language type [ F (2, 111) = 9.944, p  < 0.001] and product type [ F (1, 111) = 14.148, p  < 0.001] exerted significant main effects on number of fixations; however, the interaction between language type and product type displayed no significant effect [ F (2, 111) = 0.226, p  = 0.798]. Regarding the product type, the number of fixations on necessity goods was lower than that on luxury goods. Concerning the language type, the number of fixations on ESL was the highest, followed by that on EIL and then that on SL. All means and SDs are presented in Table 1 .

(2) In ROI2 (brand and product name), language type [ F (2, 110) = 7.998, p  = 0.001] and product type [ F (1, 110) = 12.335, p  = 0.001] had significant main effects on fixation time, and the interaction between language type and product type exerted a significant effect on fixation time [ F (2, 110) = 4.298, p  = 0.016]. The fixation time on necessity goods was shorter than that on luxury goods. Regarding the language type, the fixation time on EIL was the longest, followed by that on ESL and then that on SL. These results suggest that EIL attracts more attention to brand and product names. Furthermore, the results of simple-effect tests showed that for necessity goods, the use of EIL and ESL had no effect (but they performed better than SL alone), whereas for luxury goods, the use of EIL and ESL had a significant effect. Therefore, EIL outperformed SL, whereas ESL and SL did not differ in performance. All means and SDs are shown in Table 1 .

Language type [ F (2, 111) = 11.615, p  < 0.001] and product type [ F (1, 111) = 16.197, p  < 0.001] had significant main effects on the number of fixations; however, the interaction between language type and product type exhibited no significant effect [ F (2, 111) = 2.490, p  = 0.088]. Concerning the product type, the number of fixations on necessity goods was lower than that on luxury goods. In terms of the language type, the number of fixations on EIL was the highest, followed by the number of fixations on ESL and SL. All means and SDs are listed in Table 1 .

Our results reveal that the type of language used in the advertisements significantly influenced the participants’ attention to both necessity and luxury goods. Internet slang in the advertisements was proved to be eye-catching, and ESL attracted much more attention than SL and EIL did in the ROI of embedded language. However, in the ROI of brand and product name, EIL attracted more attention than SL and ESL did.

A total of 900 healthy volunteers (420 female individuals, mean age: 23.68 years; 580 student samples and 271 non-student samples) from the Shenzhen University, China, participated in the experiment, of whom 49 were excluded because of incorrectly answered questionnaires; therefore, the final sample comprised 580 students and 271 nonstudents. A 2 (product type: necessity goods vs. luxury goods) × 3 (language type: SL, ESL, and EIL) between-subjects design was employed (factors were not significantly correlated). All participants were right-handed, had normal vision (with or without correction), reported no history of affective disorders or neurological diseases, and did not regularly use medication. All participants provided written informed consent before the experiment, and the study protocol was approved by the Local Ethics Committee of the Shenzhen University. All methods were conducted in accordance with the approved protocol.

The products and advertising copy employed in this experiment were the same as those used in study 1. We created an online survey on WJX, 1 a widely used online survey platform in China, to measure all the variables for experiments. Online surveys are usually subject to concerns such as an insufficient amount of time spent on questions and multiple questionnaires being completed by the same individual. The WJX survey platform avoids these problems by setting a minimum duration required to complete a questionnaire and by preventing users with the same IP address or device from participating multiple times.

We combined the scales developed by Gardner et al. (1985) and Huang et al. (2006) to determine five questions used to measure attitudes toward advertisements. Brand awareness is based on the brand equity model ( Keller, 1993 ) and includes both brand recognition and brand recall. Brand recognition refers to aided brand awareness, whereas brand recall refers to unaided brand awareness. To measure product evaluation, Dodds et al. (1991) proposed the use of perceived product quality, perceived product value, and purchase intent. We tested all three measures ( p  < 0.001) using a univariate analysis, and their component reliability was higher than the recommended standard of 0.6. Finally, the following measures of product evaluation were used: perceived product quality (quality, reliability, and durability), perceived product value (cost effectiveness, acceptability, and value for money), and purchase intent (purchase intent and considering purchase). The control variables in our study were as follows: (1) familiarity with internet slang, (2) attitude toward the internet slang, (3) product preferences, and (4) arousal. We selected all these control variables as covariates in the ANOVA.

For all statistical analyses performed using SPSS version 24.0 (SPSS, Inc., Chicago, IL), the significance level was set to 0.05. Post-hoc tests for multiple comparisons were corrected using the Bonferroni method. Significant interactions were analyzed through simple-effect models. ANOVAs were conducted using language type (SL, ESL, and EIL) by the product type (necessity goods vs. luxury goods) as between-subjects factors.

Statistical results ( Figure 3 ) indicated that the language type had a significant main effect [ F (2, 844) = 8.767, p  < 0.001] on brand awareness, although the main effect of product type was not significant [ F (1, 844) = 0.623, p  = 0.430]. The interaction between the language type and product type exhibited no significant effect [ F (2, 844) = 1.888, p  = 0.152]. Overall, the brand awareness of EIL was the highest and was significantly higher than that of ESL. All means and SDs are presented in Table 2 .

Brand awareness, product evaluation, and attitude toward advertisements for necessity goods and luxury goods in study 2.

Mean and SD for standard language (SL), embedded standard language (ESL), and embedded internet slang (EIL) for necessity goods and luxury goods in study 2.

Language type [ F (2, 845) = 47.125, p  < 0.001] and product type [ F (1, 845) = 6.163, p  = 0.013] had significant main effects on product evaluation; however, the interaction between language type and product type exhibited no significant effect [ F (2, 845)= 1.888, p  = 0.529]. Overall, the product evaluation of EIL was the highest and was significantly higher than that of ESL. All means and SDs are shown in Table 2 .

Language type had a significant main effect [ F (2, 845) = 34.368, p  < 0.001] on attitudes toward advertisements; however, product type exhibited no significant main effect [ F (1, 845) = 0.747, p  = 0.388]. The interaction between language type and product type exhibited no significant effect [ F (2, 845) = 1.183, p  = 0.307]. Overall, the brand awareness of EIL was the highest and was significantly higher than that of ESL. All means and SDs are presented in Table 2 .

The observed mediational relationship was confirmed by a bootstrapping analysis (bias-corrected; 10,000 samples), in which the 95% confidence interval in the indirect effect did not include zero (0.05, 0.90). Bootstrap results revealed that the indirect effect was significant ( p  < 0.001) and that attitudes toward advertisements mediated the effect of language type on brand awareness ( Figure 4 ). These results suggest that the advertisements that used EIL performed better than those that used ESL and SL regarding brand awareness, product evaluation, and attitudes toward advertisements.

Mediation of language type to brand awareness through attitudes toward advertisements. * p  < 0.05; ** p  < 0.01; *** p  < 0.001.

Our results reveal that EIL advertisements had higher ratings on brand awareness, product evaluation, and attitudes toward advertisements than SL and ESL advertisements did. Compared with EIL advertisements, ESL advertisements had the lowest of all ratings, even lower than those of SL advertisements. This indicates that the excessive use of internet slang may have a negative effect on brand and product evaluation. For luxury goods, internet slang did not generate a positive effect on brand awareness compared with SL.

Changes in languages used in advertising can affect the market value of corporations. Advertising languages that are outstanding or have gained consumers’ recognition exert significant and positive effects on the development and market value of corporations ( Mathur and Mathur, 1995 ). Advertisements that focus on consumer recognition and use modern internet slang may exert a positive effect on both a firm and its product(s). We argue that the effect of internet slang on advertisement is complex; it depends on the types of products and the embedding style. Our findings indicate that advertisements with internet slang are not always attractive, and the excessive use of internet slang may have a negative effect on brand and product evaluation.

Theoretical Contribution and Implications

Code-switching theory.

According to Ahn et al. (2017) , code-switching is a mixed-language approach and is often used to target consumers with knowledge of two languages. Code-switching refers to the insertion of linguistic elements of one language into another language ( Grosjean, 1982 ). An example of code-switching is inserting an English word into a Korean sentence ( Ahn et al., 2017 ). However, most studies examining the effect of code-switching on processing ads have been undertaken in the United States by focusing on the mixed use of Spanish and English languages ( Luna and Peracchio, 2005a , b ; Bishop and Peterson, 2010 ). Ahn et al. (2017) suggested that additional research is warranted in other regions where code-switching occurs between languages other than English and Spanish.

Our study was undertaken in the China market. Chinese language is a character-based writing system as well as a meaning-based writing system, whereas English is a sound-based writing system and an alphabetic writing system ( Cook and Bassetti, 2005 ). Our results indicate that code-switching effects occur not only in a sound-based and alphabetic writing system but also in a character-based and meaning-based writing system. Therefore, these findings extend the external validation of code-switching theory.

Furthermore, in this study, we investigated SL (Mandarin) and its variant (internet slang), and the results demonstrate that code-switching theory is also effective to SL and its variant. Specifically, the validation of code-switching is further extended because previous research has mainly focused on the mixed use of two different languages ( Bishop and Peterson, 2010 ; Ahn et al., 2017 ). Finally, by empirically investigating the role of code-switching in advertising effectiveness, the findings of this study provide theoretical and practical implications regarding the code-switching approach for researchers and advertisers.

Novelty and Attention of Internet Slang

SL and internet slang have distinct characteristics. When advertisements use SL, a feeling of standardization and strictness is induced ( Vignovic and Thompson, 2010 ); by contrast, when advertisements use internet slang, consumers identify the signals sent by the language, such as novelty or trendiness ( Collot and Belmore, 1996 ; Crystal, 2006 ), with their own personalities, making them feel closer to the brand and generating a more favorable emotional experience. Therefore, compared with advertisements in SL, advertisements embedded with internet slang highlight the fun and fresh characteristics of such slang; consequently, people form more positive attitudes toward such advertisements.

Liu et al. (2013) reported that advertisements in Cantonese and Mandarin have different advertising effects, and Henderson et al. (2004) revealed that trademarks in standard and handwritten typefaces can leave different impressions. Thus, different effects are exerted depending on how advertising language is presented. Exciting advertisements evoke positive emotions from consumers, and the consumers associate these with the product ( Eunsun et al., 2005 ). Internet slang is generally considered to be humorous, fun, and exciting ( Collot and Belmore, 1996 ). The employment of internet slang in advertising copies exerts a “novelty” effect on the corresponding advertisement; therefore, attention increases as advertisements become more creative ( Pieters et al., 2002 ). A novel advertising language that is creative can attract more attention, which is in line with the findings of our previous study. The novelty, humor, and fun characteristics of internet slang are evident when EIL appears in advertisements ( Pieters et al., 2002 ); thus, advertisements in SL that are embedded with internet slang can attract more attention compared with other advertisements.

Peng et al. (2017) reported that consumers believed the exposure time to internet slang was longer than that to SL, although internet slang and SL as stimuli lasted for the same period in their experiment. A possible explanation for these results is that consumers have to spend more resources on processing internet slang. The results of our eye-tracking experiments support this supposition, and we discovered that EIL (vs. SL) in advertisements results in an increased number of fixations and a longer fixation time.

The eye-catching ability of internet slang is attributable to its higher amount of information and greater association for consumers, which thus signifies that internet slang requires more time to process. A recent ERP study on internet slang indicated that the information processing fluency of internet slang is much lower than that of SL ( Zhao et al., 2017 ). This finding is also supported by our eye-tracking experiments; more attention is paid to internet slang. The reason for this outcome requires elucidation. This outcome can be explained by the novelty of internet slang, which originates from pop culture. Previous research suggested that internet slang is considered novel and innovative ( Hagtvedt and Patrick, 2008 ). This is because internet slang is generally created in a creative and innovative manner. Thus, since its creation, internet slang has been accepted and spread rapidly and extensively ( Liu et al., 2017 ). Furthermore, Zhao et al. (2017) argued that internet slang is perceived through creative information processing; this perception process reflects the recognition of the novel meanings of internet words as well as the integration of novel semantic processing.

The innovativeness of language has a crucial advertising effect ( Eisend, 2011 ). Internet slang is inherently creative, and the creativity of internet slang has a positive influence on consumers’ perception of advertisements ( Karson and Fisher, 2005 ). Specifically, Eisend (2011) suggested that the innovativeness of internet slang can elicit consumers’ perception of an ad’s innovativeness. This thus explains our finding that internet slang used in advertisements had positive effects on product evaluation, brand awareness, and attitude toward advertisements.

Complex Effect of Internet Slang on Various Types of Products

Necessity goods are indispensable for the daily lives of consumers and are extremely practical ( Chen and Wang, 2012 ); consumers purchase such goods to fulfill their daily needs. Necessity goods are relatively cheap, are only slightly affected by information, and do not require extra information processing on the part of the consumer. Consumers can easily develop brand loyalty toward necessity goods in a way that transforms into habitual purchasing behavior ( Monle and Tuen-Ho, 2003 ). In the ROIs of brand names of necessity goods in this study, EIL and ESL did not elicit distinct levels of attention (but both of them outperformed SL), indicating that internet slang helps increase consumers’ attention to brands of necessity goods. For luxury goods, the effects of EIL and ESL differed significantly; EIL outperformed SL, but ESL and SL did not differ in performance. These findings indicate that the excessive use of internet slang (advertising copy in ESL) does not increase audience attention to brands of luxury goods.

Luxury goods are subject to a high perceived risk; thus, information must be processed more carefully. In contrast to the level of information processing necessary for necessity goods, information on luxury goods requires in-depth processing. When a product becomes a luxury good, the use of SL in advertisements prompts consumers to associate the advertised products with high quality because SL is associated with high value and credibility ( Lin and Wang, 2016 ) and serves as the principal language with rigor and reliability ( Yip and Matthews, 2006 ). Therefore, appropriately embedding internet slang can increase attention to a brand. However, the use of inappropriate internet slang would not achieve positive advertising effects.

Our study indicates that because of its high levels of creativity and timeliness, internet slang may temporarily increase audience attention to advertising language, but it cannot produce the same effect on higher status products (such as luxury goods). Furthermore, an excessive use of internet slang may cause the audience to feel frivolous, which damages the trust consumers have in a brand or product. For example, a highly trusted advertising language generates better results ( Kronrod et al., 2012 ). The second experiment also showed that in terms of brand awareness and product evaluation, advertising copies in ESL had the lowest scores; the conventional use of SL for advertising copies can thus yield superior performance compared with the extensive use of internet slang for advertising copies.

Practical Implications

The rapid spread of internet platforms means that internet slang can become a social buzzword under certain circumstances ( Sun et al., 2011 ). Once internet slang gains public recognition and spreads at an extremely rapid rate, numerous corporations will begin to integrate it into their advertising copies. In practice, the use of internet slang requires careful consideration by marketing practitioners. Copies in internet slang can increase an audience’s attention, but they may also weaken their attention to other elements of the same advertisement. Although internet slang can significantly enhance product evaluation, it may undermine advertising reliability. Marketing practitioners should use internet slang based on their communication objectives to produce effective results. In addition, rather than simply following the current internet slang trends, marketing personnel should employ differentiated advertising strategies depending on the type of product to help align the implemented advertising copy with that product.

Limitation and Future Direction

Our work has a few limitations, which opens up avenues for future research. First, creativity is one of the major features of internet slang, but it was not measured in our research. Novelty and creativity may be alternative explanations for the positive effect of EIL on attention and higher evaluations for advertisements and brand. Future studies should focus on the connection between attention and the creativity and novelty features of internet slang. Second, notably, novelty and creativity cannot explain the negative effect of ESL. The excessive use of internet slang possibly leads to frivolousness, vulgarity, and incredulity about an advertisement, particularly for luxury goods that exhibit strengthened superiority and dignity. Future studies could examine the various effects and corresponding mechanisms of EIL and ESL on advertisements.

Third, the process of code-switching costs more attention resources. Luna and Peracchio (2005a) argued that, when individuals direct their attention to the codeswitched word, they will activate the language schema to which that word belongs and become aware of the social meaning carried by that language. The language schema associated with the code-switched term is subject to a high degree of elaboration because of the markedness of the term ( Johnston et al., 1990 ). However, more attention and high degree of elaboration do not necessarily mean EIL and ESL are confusing; in fact, code-switching is generally socially motivated and is rarely a sign of a lack of fluency in either language ( Grosjean, 1982 ; Luna and Peracchio, 2005b ). There might be some differences of how easy to understand the ads among SL, EIL, and ESL, future studies should add the items that measure how easy (or hard) to understand different advertisements.

Timeliness of internet slang is another interesting feature that we did not examine in the current research. Internet slang displays strong timeliness; the novelty and creativity of internet slang may decrease with time, and the corresponding positive effect may also decline. Finally, the current research examined the code-switching effect between SL and its variant for Chinese advertisements; however, whether it exists in other languages (such as English or Spanish) should be further examined by future studies.

We examined the effect of internet slang on attention to advertisements, product evaluation, and advertising attitude by conducting two empirical studies, one of which involved eye-tracking experiments and the other applied questionnaires. The results show that advertisements in EIL generated positive brand awareness and product evaluation and also increased advertising attention. Our findings reveal the complex effects of internet slang on advertisements and extend the external validation of code-switching theory. These findings can guide advertisers in selecting an embedded language that can be effective in achieving their desired advertising effect. To attract an audience’s attention, the use of EIL can help consumers experience the creativity of internet slang, thereby forming positive brand awareness and product evaluation. However, for different types of products that address dissimilar needs, practitioners should avoid the extensive use of internet slang once they have decided which advertising strategy and advertising copy they will use, particularly in relation to luxury goods. They can decide to use SL or embed a small portion of internet slang into their advertisements.

Ethics Statement

This study was carried out in accordance with the recommendations of Local Ethics Committee of Shenzhen University with written informed consent from all subjects. All subjects gave written informed consent in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. The protocol was approved by the Local Ethics Committee of Shenzhen University.

Author Contributions

SL and D-YG conceived and designed the experiments. SL, YD, and YZ performed the experiments. D-YG and YZ analyzed the data. D-YG and SL wrote the manuscript. SL and D-YG contributed materials and analysis tools. SL provided lab equipment for running the study.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Funding. The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support granted by the National Nature Science Foundation of China (Project Number: 71572116), National Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province of China (2018A030310568), and the Scientific Research Foundation for New Teacher of Shenzhen University (2017012). The funding sources had no role in the design of the study, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or the preparation of the manuscript.

1 https://www.wjx.com/

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Measuring internet slang style in the marketing context: scale development and validation.

• 1 Department of Marketing, College of Management, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China
• 2 Asia Europe Business School, Faculty of Economics and Management, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China

As an emerging language variant, practitioners have extensively used Internet slang in advertising and other communication activities. However, its unique characteristics that differ from standard language have yet to be explored. Drawing upon interdisciplinary theories on schema and communication styles, this research makes the first attempt to conceptualize and measure these characteristics by introducing a new multi-dimensional construct, “Internet slang style,” in the marketing context. It develops and validates a new scale to measure Internet slang style along the dimensions of amiability, overtness, candor, and harshness through a series of in-depth interviews, two surveys, and one experiment with consumers. In addition, this research investigates the impact of Internet slang styles on brand personality and brand attitude. The results indicate that different Internet slang style dimensions positively correspond to different brand personality dimensions but exert no influence on brand attitude. Practically, the scale provides an easy-to-use instrument to evaluate Internet slang styles from a consumer perspective to help companies appropriately employ Internet slang in marketing communication activities.

Introduction

The extensive usage of the Internet and social media leads to the integration of virtual and real-life ( Kilicer et al., 2017 ). As a result, Internet slang that emerges and develops online has become part of our everyday language, and even unconsciously influences people’s psychological states and behaviors in areas such as communication and consumption ( Crystal, 2006 ; Liu et al., 2019 ). For example, expressions such as “rona” or “vid” have been popular among young people to replace the formal designation “COVID-19” and to inject a sense of humor as a relief when facing the problematic current pandemic situation. Meanwhile, marketing practitioners have begun to notice the advantages of introducing Internet slang in advertisements. An example of this is Coca-Cola’s “Share a Coke” summer campaign in China, in which many popular online nicknames were selected and printed on the coke bottles [e.g., “北鼻 (Bei Bi),” a transliteration of “baby”] to generate senses of proximity and cuteness among young consumers.

Internet slang can create distinct associations in consumers’ perceptions as a unique language variant of the standard language ( Crystal, 2006 ). These associations can be understood within the framework of language schemata, which refers to an individual’s prototypical knowledge about the language, including its underlying social and cultural meanings, typical users, contexts, and appropriate topics, as well as individuals’ beliefs about the language ( Luna and Peracchio, 2005 ). Such understanding would help both academics and practitioners clarify the merits and demerits of Internet slang and establish criteria for selecting appropriate slang in marketing activities. For example, recent empirical research shows that Internet slang with innovative and novel characteristics can attract audience attention ( Liu et al., 2019 ). However, no study yet has systematically investigated consumers’ perceptions about Internet slang as a whole.

Our study introduces the “Internet slang style” to address this gap, defined as consumers’ schematic perception of the characteristics conveyed by the Internet slang expressions adopted in marketing-related contexts. Drawing upon relevant theories from psychology, communication, and marketing, we aim to contribute theoretically by: (1) establishing valid conceptualization of its definition and dimensions; (2) developing an adequate scale to measure it as a multi-dimensional construct; (3) exploring its possible marketing-relevant outcomes from a consumer perspective. To do so, we first derive the definition of Internet slang style and its dimensions based on an extensive literature review. A pilot study that involves consumer interviews validates these conceptualizations. Then, following scale-development procedures, four studies are conducted to develop the scale (Studies 1–2), examine its validity and reliability (Study 3), differentiate it from the brand personality scale ( Aaker, 1997 ), and reveal its influence on brand personality dimensions (Study 4). As far as we know, this is a very initial attempt to systematically conceptualize and empirically examine the characteristics of Internet slang, especially in the marketing domain. We also aim to contribute to practitioners by providing an easy-to-use instrument to evaluate Internet slang style.

Conceptualizing Internet Slang Style

Theoretical foundation: schema theory.

Internet slang, consisting of distinct pronunciation, word, morphology, and syntax derived from online context, is a variant of the standard language ( Liu et al., 2019 ). The emergence of Internet slang depends on two factors: its users and the context. On the one hand, netizens, active online for a long time, create and speak Internet slang instead of the standard language to express their unique identity. On the other, compared to real communication context, online communication is more accessible, random, and secretive, constructing a different environment for the continuous evolution of Internet slang as an independent variety.

As such, we draw from schema theory to clarify the conceptual nature of Internet slang style. Schema theory describes how people recognize and understand the world by using cognitive structures to organize prior knowledge ( Fiske, 1982 ). In this vein, schemata refer to the knowledge unit in the human mind, and an intermediary between objects and language. People organize schemata as a psychological structure network that represents shared meaning among many individuals. In the marketing context, this network allows individuals to form mental representations of ads, brands, or products, process, retrieve, and categorize information related to them, and finally facilitate decision-making ( Sujan and Bettman, 1989 ; Halkias, 2015 ).

Similarly, people with direct or indirect experiences with online communication will develop a cognitive representation of Internet slang. In other words, they establish prototypical knowledge and consensual meaning of this particular language variety, forming the “style” perception of Internet slang ( Jeffries and McIntyre, 2010 , p. 127). As people see similarities between events or experiences during processing, and weave them into different schema categories ( Schank, 1982 ), the “style” of Internet slang can also be further understood and measured based on the “types” of thematic meaning delivered.

Definition of Internet Slang Style in the Marketing Context

To the best of our knowledge, the literature contains no conceptually useful definition of Internet slang style and its dimensions that can be further extended to a scale and used in business practices. Therefore, the definition of Internet slang style should be first established before scale development. To achieve this purpose, we searched extensively to identify articles on “linguistic style,” “language style,” “communication style,” and “advertising style” published in leading journals that encompass communication or linguistic topics. By carefully understanding these articles, we tried to establish an appropriate framework to introduce the conceptualization of the Internet slang style.

Recent general conceptualizations in prior literature seem to coalesce around two streams of frameworks. On the one hand, the construct “communication style” emphasizes how people communicate with others. In this vein, communication style can be “conceived to mean the way one verbally and paraverbally interacts to signal how literal meaning should be taken, interpreted, filtered, or understood ( Norton, 1978 , p.99).” Prior research often uses this conceptualization to evaluate different ways that service providers use to interact with customers (e.g., Webster and Sundaram, 2009 ; Hwang and Park, 2018 ). On the other hand, “linguistic style,” or “language style,” reflects the linguistic nature of a word within a sentence structure, … and the meaning of a word provided by the semantics of the word and the rest of the sentence ( Hung and Guan, 2020 , p. 597). Operationalization of linguistic style usually relies on LIWC, a coding dictionary that categorizes nearly 6,400 words into 89 themes ( Pennebaker et al., 2015 ; Kovacs and Kleinbaum, 2020 ). Eighteen out of these 89 themes directly capture linguistic style, and can be used to predict intentions or personality traits (e.g., Lee et al., 2019 ; Koh et al., 2020 ).

General conceptualizations outlined in this section underlie divergent theoretical natures. Although linguistic styles are indeed psychologically-derived, their operationalization is based on specific linguistic features. For example, a social linguistic style is associated with the number of social intercourse-related words, such as family, employee, neighbor, and personal pronouns ( Lee et al., 2019 ). Therefore, the linguistic style framework cannot directly describe consumers’ perceptions of Internet slang as a unique language variety. Internet slang may contain very distinct elements or rules from the standard language and generate different consumer mindsets perceptions. By contrast, the framework of “communication styles” seems more in line with the essence of our intended definition of Internet slang style (i.e., the schema theory), as it emphasizes more on people’s schematic perceptions.

Responding to the argument that language features should be examined with consideration of social meanings embedded in the applied context ( Coupland, 2007 ; Moore, 2012 ), we aim to provide a conceptualization that encompasses the essence of Internet slang style specific to the marketing domain while still offering consistency with prior communication style literature. Therefore, in our research, we formally define Internet slang style as consumers’ schematic perception of the characteristics conveyed by the Internet slang expressions adopted in marketing-related contexts (e.g., in an advertisement, on the product package).

Dimensions of Internet Slang Style in the Marketing Context

As communication style plays as the conceptual basis for Internet slang style, we reviewed all the extracted articles again, focusing on possible dimensions of this scale. Generally, communication style consists of nine dimensions: dominant, dramatic, contentious, animated, impression-leaving, relaxed, attentive, open, and friendly ( Norton, 1978 ). However, in line with our aim of developing a parsimonious scale specific to the marketing domain, we determined whether some dimensions needed to be summarized or eliminated and whether additional components should be considered. Embedding Internet slang in the marketing context is not the same as communicating with others in everyday interactions. We, therefore, examined the unique features of Internet slang (especially those in the marketing context) to decide on possible dimensions for the conceptualization of Internet slang style.

The anti-conventional nature of Internet slang determines its originality ( Collot and Belmore, 1996 ; Liu et al., 2019 ). According to social information processing theory, netizens creatively employ verbal cues (e.g., foreign words, dialects, digital elements, and icons) and interaction strategies (e.g., paraphrasing, homonyms, thumbnails, reduplication, and unconventional syntax) to express and interpret social and emotional messages in online contexts ( Kundi et al., 2014 ; Valkenburg et al., 2016 ). In this way, Internet slang keeps gaining novelty and freshness. It allows its users, who are young and full of entertainment spirits, to generate more favorable and attractive impressions to similar others in computer-mediated communication ( Gao, 2006 ; Valkenburg and Peter, 2009 ). As a result, Internet slang may lead its users to cultivate psychological belongingness and familiarity.

These features of Internet slang correspond to both friendly and attentive communication styles proposed by Norton (1978) . The friendly communication style connotes being unhostile to deep intimacy. Meanwhile, the attentive communication style reflects the extent to which a person expresses empathy and attention during interactions with other individuals ( Norton, 1978 ). With defining characteristics such as creativity and attractiveness, Internet slang in the marketing context may lead consumers to categorize themselves and the brands as members of the online community. Consequently, consumers develop interpersonal intimacy with these brands ( Postmes et al., 2000 ). In sum, the amiability dimension captures overall attributes that can interpret why and how consumers feel closed and attracted by Internet slang.

Computer-mediated communication has been typically taken place in anonymous contexts between unacquainted partners ( Valkenburg et al., 2016 ). Therefore, anonymity ensures that the online communication environment is relatively independent and secretive, leading people to communicate more freely and casually online than in real contexts ( Turkle, 1995 ; Crystal, 2006 ). In addition, the text-based settings allow people to develop non-verbal cues (e.g., emoji, emoticons), verbal strategies (e.g., abbreviation, interjection), and rhetoric instruments (e.g., exaggeration, metaphors) to express themselves more directly ( Collot and Belmore, 1996 ; Liebrecht et al., 2021 ). For example, comparing an online chat corpus and a daily interaction corpus identifies more exclamations in the first corpus ( Wong et al., 2006 ). People tend to express more intense emotions when using Internet slang.

Such properties of Internet slang enable people to communicate because it is “self-generated in content and self-directed in emission ( Castells, 2007 , p.248).” These properties integrate what Norton (1978) illustrates about open, dramatic, animated, or relaxed communication styles. Specifically, an open style, in line with the self-focus of Internet slang, indicates interacting with others in a frank, sociable, unreserved, and non-secretive manner and sharing personal emotions during the communication. In addition, a relaxed style that evaluates whether the communicator feels comfortable or at ease also reflects the free and casual natures of online contexts ( Norton, 1978 ). Meanwhile, dramatic or animated styles emphasize more on stylistic devices (e.g., exaggerations, fantasies, stories, metaphors) or non-verbal cues (e.g., eye contact, facial expressions, and gestures) that help transmit emotive expressions or highlight/understate message content ( Kang and Hyun, 2012 ), both, therefore, can be regarded as concrete linguistic approaches that facilitate people’s self-expression online. Collectively, the overtness dimension reflects how Internet slang can be used to express oneself and show autonomy, with signature features such as freedom, vitality, and passion.

Computer-mediated communication is associated with physical features such as time and space constraints and text-based ( Valkenburg et al., 2016 ). Therefore, many informal expressions emerge and result in a popular and funny way of communication that mimics spoken language ( Liu et al., 2019 ; Liebrecht et al., 2021 ). For example, audible elements can be employed as paralinguistic approaches in computer-mediated communication using repeated punctuation (“ !!! ,” “ ??!! ”) and sound mimicking (“ soooo ”), while informal verbal cues include contractions (“ LOL ,” “ OMG ”) and interjections (“ wow ,” “ haha ”) ( Tagliamonte, 2016 ; Liebrecht et al., 2021 ). Overall, these newly-developed unique vocabulary and phrases deliver intense meaning in a relatively shortened and straight forward manner ( Wong et al., 2006 ; Tagliamonte, 2016 ), fostering another dimension of Internet slang style—condor, which refers to the conciseness, simplicity, and efficiency manifested in the usage of Internet slang during communication to others ( Collot and Belmore, 1996 ; Crystal, 2006 ).

However, after careful examination, no specific communication style proposed by Norton (1978) is identical to such a candor dimension, except for the impression-leaving style. It reflects the extent to which a communicator is strongly memorable ( Kang and Hyun, 2012 ), partially supporting what is suggested in the candor dimension. To establish a lasting impression, communicators should use unique appearance, visual stimuli, or special comments to create a meaningful memory for consumers ( Hwang and Park, 2018 ), just as unique expressions are dynamically generated to communicate efficiently in the online context.

The anonymity associated with the Internet can also lead to inhibited behaviors in online communication, such as flaming ( Valkenburg et al., 2016 ). For example, empirical research shows that people may have the disposition to behave in an uninhibited and non-conforming manner and ignore status differences in computer-mediated communication due to the decreased social context cues of the Internet environment ( Sproull and Kiesler, 1986 ).

Two remaining communication styles proposed by Norton (1978) correspond to these characteristics: a dominant style refers to taking charge of social interactions, while a contentious style emerges as a covariate of dominant style and denotes an argumentative and disputable way of interaction ( Norton, 1978 ; Kang and Hyun, 2012 ). Remarkably, the contentious style sometimes entails negative components ( Norton, 1978 ). Extending to our research settings, Internet slang may consist of ironic and sarcastic expressions that possess a dominant or contentious style in people’s perception. We merge these two specific styles into the harshness dimension.

The four resulting dimensions of Internet slang style are amiability, overtness, candor, and harshness. We refer to them as “ISS dimensions” in the following discussion. We propose that these four dimensions are the most prominent perceptions that Internet slang leaves to consumers. We conducted a pilot study to examine whether consumers also conceive of Internet slang style along these theoretically-driven dimensions. Six consumers were interviewed (aged 20–30 years with balanced demographics and Internet engagement, see Appendix 1 for demographic information). We asked them to indicate their opinions toward Internet slang in daily consumption (both online and offline). The interview started open-ended, but questions regarding Internet slang characteristics were also introduced later on. All interviews were recorded and then transcribed. Then, we analyzed the interviews and found considerable overlap between consumers’ responses regarding their perceptions of Internet slang and our four dimensions. Table 1 gives examples of quotations.

Table 1. Consumer quotations for the four ISS dimensions.

Methods and Results

Four studies were conducted to measure, validate, and establish the ISS construct and its predictivity. Study 1 focuses on item generation and purification. In Study 2, we develop and validate the ISS scale. Study 3 further validates the ISS scale and its dimensionality, while Study 4 examines ISS’s predictive power for brand personality dimensions.

Study 1: Item Generation and Purification

The item generation procedure followed Churchill’s (1979 ) scale development. To generate the initial pool of 156 statements, three sources were used: (1) the literature on linguistic style, geographical dialects, and accent characteristics ( Cheyne, 1970 ; Edwards and Jacobsen, 1987 ; Tsalikis et al., 1992 ), including Chinese classics; (2) in-depth interviews with consumers to elicit descriptions regarding ISS; and (3) additional search for online resources and Chinese dictionaries.

To eliminate redundancy, five marketing or economics graduate students were recruited to judge the statements after presenting the ISS concept and example. The appropriateness in the marketing context was explicitly listed as a critical evaluative standard. This process reduced the initial 156 statements to only 55 items. Afterward, the authors invited three marketing professors and one linguistic professor to omit to ensure the authority and rationality of the results and further reduced the statements to a manageable set of 35 items.

Study 2: Initial Identification of Dimensionality

To identify a comprehensive and representative set of Internet slang, the authors used the ‘‘Network Buzzwords’’ database, a Chinese official website 1 collecting Internet slang sentences voted on for popularity by Internet users. The collection period was from January 12, 2014, to December 24, 2014. The authors gathered 1,241 sentences, to which 280 additional sentences were supplemented after thoroughly reviewing a professional Chinese language journal [“ Yao Wen Jiao Zi (咬文嚼字)”] and exploring rankings published by a Chinese online search engine (“Baidu”).

A set of 350 Internet slang sentences was randomly selected from the sentence pool, which was constructed according to the definitive standards in the pilot study and Study 1. Then, these sentences were distributed into 44 groups 2 , and 44 versions of the questionnaire were designed to limit fatigue and boredom. Specifically, each participant was randomly assigned to one version of the questionnaire and indicated their agreement with how each Internet slang sentence reflected the original 35 items generated from Study 1. All 35 items were rated on a five-point Likert scale anchored by 1 ( Strongly disagree ) and 5 ( Strongly agree ).

Participants were approached at airports, railway stations, or a university in a major city in southern China. A final set of 443 complete questionnaires was returned and reserved (valid rate = 76.3%, 47% male, 528 adults participated). Of the valid responses, 50.8% of participants were aged between 18 and 22 years, and 54.6% spent 2–4 h online daily.

Because our objective was to identify the dimensionality of ISS from consumers’ perspective and not individual variations in evaluations of each sentence, the average scores of each sentence for each item were computed across participants (each sentence evaluated by an average of 10 participants). The resulting data consisted of 350 cases, each reflecting an Internet slang sentence with average scores on 35 different items.

Iterated-principal-component exploratory factor analyses (EFAs) with direct-oblimin-rotation were conducted. First, item-to-total correlations less than 0.4 were eliminated (resulting in one item being deleted). Then, 22 items were removed individually based on the rotated component matrix and the expected interpretable meanings brought to the structure, as their loading coefficients exceeded 0.4 in more than one factor. The remaining items entered the final factor analysis, presenting a four-factor solution. The Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin value of 0.81 (Bartlett’s test of sphericity: χ 2 = 1789.55, p < 0.001) and the eigenvalues greater than one both indicated that the analysis was appropriate for the data. The final set of 15 items accounted for 62.37% of the variance, and the Cronbach’s α was 0.89, within the guidelines for scale development ( Nunnally, 1978 ). The scree plot showed a significant dip, confirming the rationality of this four-factor solution. The four factors were labeled amiability (five items, α = 0.84), overtness (five items, α = 0.78), candor (three items, α = 0.63), and harshness (two items, α = 0.66). A summary of the factor analysis is shown in Table 2 .

Table 2. Four dimensions of ISS.

Study 3: Dimensionality Confirmation

To confirm whether the four-dimension solution was the general structure for ISS, additional research was conducted to collect data from a second independent sample of subjects to examine the structure via a series of confirmatory factor analyses. Similar to the procedure from Study 2, a total of 415 questionnaires were sent to participants with a similar demographic profile.

Finally, 350 useable responses (a response rate of 84.3%) formed the basis for the iterated confirmatory factor analysis models ( Table 3 ): (a) the null model; (b) a one-factor model (all items were loaded on a single factor); (c) a two-factor correlated model (amiability and overtness items were loaded on the same factor, while the remaining items loaded on the other; (d) a four-factor uncorrelated model with items loaded on their respective hypothesized factors; (e) a four-factor correlated model with the same structure as model (d); and (f) a four-factor model with one second-order factor.

Table 3. Study 3 model comparison.

Table 3 shows that, compared with the fit results of models (a)–(d), models (e) and (f) presented superior fit results ( Kelloway, 1998 ). Model (e) was constructed as a correlated four-factor model (χ 2 / df = 2.93, CFI = 0.90, GFI = 0.92, IFI = 0.90, RMSEA = 0.07). Model (f) was to confirm these four factors constituted the higher-order construct ISS (χ 2 / df = 2.87, CFI = 0.90, GFI = 0.92, IFI = 0.90, RMSEA = 0.07). Closer examination revealed identical results from these two models. First, nearly every indicator’s t value was statistically significant ( p < 0.01), and almost all the coefficients exceeded 0.50 ( Table 4 ). Furthermore, the estimates of Cronbach’s α for the ISS four factors based on the second independent sample were similar to those of Study 2: amiability α = 0.83, overtness α = 0.78, candor α = 0.64, and harshness α = 0.74. Finally, composite reliability and AVE indices were computed to justify the scale’s convergent and discriminant validity ( Fornell and Larcker, 1981 ; Table 5 ). Composite reliability was higher than 0.60, and AVE did not fall below the corresponding pairwise squared correlation coefficients. In general, results supported the stability of the four-factor structure for the scale and suggested good psychometric properties.

Table 4. Coefficients of the first- and second- order four-factor CFA models in study 3.

Table 5. Tests for convergence and discriminant validity in study 3.

Study 4: Predictive Validity Assessment

Study 4 was an experiment to test how different ISS dimensions induced by slogans help build corresponding brand personality dimensions in advertisements with the same product. Besides, we also wanted to provide further evidence to differentiate it from brand personality in this study.

ISS theoretically differs from brand personality, whose formal definition is “the set of human characteristics associated with a brand” ( Aaker, 1997 ). Brand personality reflects consumers’ generalizable impressions of the brands ( Aaker et al., 2004 ) and is helpful for companies to establish deeper consumer-brand relationships and favorable brand attitudes ( Fournier, 1998 ). Prior research reveals that even subtle marketing cues can influence consumers’ brand personality perception, including visual symmetry ( Bajaj and Bond, 2018 ), haptic product attributes ( Ranaweera et al., 2021 ), and disclosure of the brand’s corporate social responsibility activities ( Tarabashkina et al., 2020 ). More importantly, extending prior findings of linguistic reflexes of personality ( Mairesse and Walker, 2011 ; Kovacs and Kleinbaum, 2020 ), we propose that brand personality can also be shaped by the specific language features adopted in the advertising. For example, using metaphors in marketing communications leads consumers to perceive the products as more innovative and less socially responsible ( Luffarelli et al., 2021 ).

To examine the effectiveness of ISS, we adopted brand personality as the key criterion variable. For operationalization, we used the brand personality scale developed by Aaker (1997) , broadly validated and generalized cross-culturally and widely applied to academic and practical settings, despite slight changes in some countries ( Aaker et al., 2001 ). Precisely, the scale consists of five trait dimensions: sincerity, competence, excitement, ruggedness, and sophistication. Our theoretical model highlighted the trait dimensions of sincerity and competence, which constantly emerge as parts of brand personality in both eastern and western cultures ( Aaker et al., 2001 ). Accordingly, to further understand how brand personality would dictate the kind of language used in advertisements, two ISS dimensions with relatively orthogonal meanings, amiability, and harshness, were selected in advance.

The trait of sincerity captures the extent to which consumers characterize a brand with adjectives such as “warmth,” “cheerful,” and “genuineness,” while the competence dimension is composed of efficient, successful, and confident impressions ( Aaker, 1997 ; Aaker et al., 2001 ). On the one hand, consumers often form the perception of brand sincerity when a proximal psychological distance is elicited ( Hu and Shi, 2020 ) or when a sense of social belongingness is boosted ( Chang et al., 2019 ). In this vein, an amiable Internet slang slogan generates an atmosphere with original, pleasing, and adorable properties, allowing consumers to feel psychologically close to the brand to establish a sincere brand perception. On the other hand, a harsh slogan would convey a sense of straightforwardness and roughness, which easily leads consumers to induce associations of confidence and capability from the brand to embed in the advertisement, thereby building perceptions of brand competence ( Chen, 2021 ). Therefore, we formally hypothesized that:

H 1 : Styles of Internet slang sentences significantly affect brand personality dimensions.

H 1 a : An amiable (vs. harsh) statement as a slogan causes consumers to perceive a sincere (vs. competent) brand personality.

H 1 b : A harsh (vs. amiable) statement as a slogan causes consumers to perceive a competent (vs. sincere) brand personality.

Design, Procedure, and Sample

In a pretest ( n = 39, 85.3% female), participants evaluated dimensions of ISS on several network buzzwords. Among them, Mo Mo Da (么么哒, slogan A) scored significantly higher on the amiability dimension than did “Even today you are standoffish and indifferent to me, I will be the one out of your league sooner or later” (今天你对我爱理不理, 明天我让你高攀不起, slogan B) [ M A = 4.31, SD = 1.19; M B = 3.15, SD = 1.04; t (76) = 4.56, p < 0.001], whereas slogan B scored significantly higher on the harshness dimension than did slogan A [ M A = 2.30, SD = 1.21; M B = 4.53, SD = 1.44; t (76) = 7.42, p < 0.001]. Slogans A and B were not significantly different on the dimensions of overtness and candor [overtness: M A = 4.07, SD = 1.18; M B = 4.06, SD = 0.97; t (76) = 0.04, n.s. ; candor: M A = 4.10, SD = 1.06; M B = 3.98, SD = 1.045; t (76) = 0.50, n.s. ]. The results demonstrated that these two slogans were ideal stimuli in the follow-up experiment.

A single-factor between-group design (ISS: amiable vs. harsh) was adopted. Specifically, the experiment was administered online, and 101 Internet users (76.4% female, M age = 24.3 years, 93.1% spent more than 2 h online every day) were randomly assigned to one condition. In the beginning, participants watched a randomly assigned advertisement for the wallet produced by a fictional brand AROX. The slogan used in the advertisements was either the amiable phrase or the harsh phrase identified in our pretest and adjusted to ensure equivalent sentence length. Except for the slogan, the two advertisements (including product pictures and layout) were the same. Then, participants were instructed to indicate their perceptions toward the wallet itself by using two items (i.e., adorable, upscale). Afterward, participants rated the slogan on two dimensions of the ISS scale (amiability α = 0.77, and harshness α = 0.77) and assessed brand personality (“What personality do you think Brand AROX possesses?” Specifically, sincerity (α = 0.74; “wholesome,” “cheerful,” “warm”) and competence (α = 0.82; “successful,” “efficient,” “determination”) were each measured by three items. Four items also measured participants’ attitudes toward the brand AROX (α = 0.85; “I like the brand,” “I’d like to buy the brand,” “It is more possible for me to buy the brand,” and “I think the brand’s quality is good”). All items were measured on a seven-point scale (1 = Strongly disagree , 7 = Strongly agree ). Finally, participants answered several demographic questions and were then debriefed.

Consistent with our pretest, participants who watched advertisements that contained slogan A rated the advertisement as more amiable and less harsh than did those who watched advertisements with slogan B [amiability: M A = 4.43, SD = 1.00; M B = 3.24, SD = 1.24; t (99) = 5.33, p < 0.001; harshness: M A = 2.22, SD = 1.18; M B = 4.57, SD = 1.28; t (99) = −9.58, p < 0.001]. Results confirmed that different dimensions of ISS were successfully manipulated. Groups exhibited no statistical difference in the perception of the product as adorable [ M A = 3.52, SD = 1.63; M B = 3.51, SD = 1.63; t (99) = 0.03, n.s. ] and upscale [ M A = 4.24, SD = 1.32; M B = 4.31, SD = 1.61; t (99) = −0.25, n.s. ] before watching the advertisements; this indicated that participants in different groups had similar perceptions of the wallet itself.

According to our hypothesis, different styles of slogan embedded in advertisements would exert different types of brands. The independent sample t test (ISS dimension: amiable vs. harsh) on sincerity revealed the predicted pattern [ t (99) = 2.36, p < 0.05]. Specifically, the amiable slogan made participants feel the brand was more sincere than the harsh one did ( M A = 4.40, SD = 1.23; M B = 3.82, SD = 1.25). By contrast, the harsh slogan made participants feel the brand was more competent than the amiable one did [ M A = 3.47, SD = 1.21; M B = 4.29, SD = 1.30; t (99) = −3.31, p < 0.001]. Additionally, neither condition elicited distinctively favorable evaluations toward the brand [ M A = 3.52, SD = 1.21; M B = 3.67, SD = 1.20; t (99) = −0.63, n.s.].

To summarize, the results from Study 4 verified the predictive validity of the ISS scale by showing that online slogans adopted in advertising slogans would change consumers’ perceptions of brand image (i.e., brand personality). Meanwhile, consumers’ brand evaluation was not influenced.

Theoretical Contribution

Although Internet slang is recognized as a novel approach for corporations to conduct marketing practices, some gaps still exist in understanding its characteristics distinct from those of the standard language. In closing these gaps, this research attempts to link three literature streams–the communication literature, psychology literature, and marketing literature–by introducing a new construct that evaluates the unique characteristic associated with Internet slang as an emerging language variant. In this vein, we make three significant theoretical contributions.

First, some previous studies on Internet slang have focused only on one particular feature (e.g., humor or novelty) (e.g., Liu et al., 2019 ). We develop a theoretically well-grounded and comprehensive conceptualization of the Internet slang style as a multi-dimensional construct based on the schema theory and the communication style literature. Specifically, Internet slang style comprises the four dimensions of amiability, overtness, candor, and harshness. Accordingly, a scale of Internet slang style is constructed to provide researchers with an instrument for contextualized Internet slang research in the marketing domain. Investigators can select particular dimensions or comprehensively use our scale in their study. As such, the understanding of Internet slang and its influence in the marketing context can be deepened, and the results can be comparable.

Second, in addition to empirical results that consistently show high convergent and discriminant validity of the ISS scale (studies 1–3), we demonstrate that our scale differs from brand personality and brand attitudes under experimental conditions (Study 4). Specifically, we empirically show that Internet slang style dimensions impact consumers’ perception of brand personalities, but exert no influence on their brand attitudes. These results provide support for recent conceptual propositions that brand personality can be constructed through the linguistic identity of a brand ( Carnevale et al., 2017 ) and extend the classic concept of “linguistic styles as the individual difference ( Pennebaker and King, 1999 )” to a marketing context. Meanwhile, these empirical findings also respond to the call of emphasis on exploring whether social media context (i.e., Internet slang) would infuse a collectively-derived meaning into brands (i.e., brand personality) ( Carnevale et al., 2017 ).

Third, this research explores an interdisciplinary topic by examining Internet slang and its influence on marketing communications. In such a field that bridges linguistics and marketing theories, most research focuses on the code-switching effect (e.g., Lin and Wang, 2016 ; Ahn et al., 2017 ), or impacts of concrete linguistic elements (e.g., pronouns, phonetics, rhyme) (e.g., Hung and Guan, 2020 ; Liebrecht et al., 2021 ). Few studies have examined Internet slang individually as an essential phenomenon. This paper extends this research field by establishing a typology of the prominent perceptual characteristics manifested in Internet slang as a unique language variety.

Managerial Implication

Marketing practitioners already acknowledge the importance of Internet slang by extensively integrating popular slags into their advertisements. Therefore, our research helps managers to gain insights into applying Internet slang in four ways. First, a refined definition of Internet slang style provides practitioners an objective recognition and shared understanding of the unique but common perceptual characteristics that Internet slang would generate among consumers. This would help establish an essential foundation for managers who consider employing Internet slang in marketing communications, and avoid possible risks of subjective judgment of Internet slang.

Second, we conceptualize and operationalize ISS as comprising four dimensions (i.e., amiability, overtness, candor, and harshness). This expanded conceptualization of the Internet slang style shows that solely associating Internet slang with separated features such as novelty, youth, or interestingness is inadequate to marketing practitioners (e.g., Crystal, 2006 ; Liu et al., 2019 ). Study 2 reveals that although amiability contributed to the highest variance, overtness, candor, and harshness each accounted for approximately 10% of the variance in the EFA. Therefore, companies should consider all four dimensions and their possible influences in their decisions to use Internet slang in their marketing communications. For instance, when adopting concise or efficient Internet slang in an advertising context, companies should realize that the slang statement might convey sharpness and even imply non-deference.

Third, we provide an easy-to-apply scale that consists of only 15 clear items for companies to measure Internet slang styles. As such, this instrument enables practitioners to predict consumers’ conception of particular Internet slang statements before launching an advertisement or promotional activity. In addition, with a large body of Internet slang available for marketing use, practitioners can establish a corpus in which all the Internet slang phrases or sentences are categorized by specific ISS dimensions that are evaluated and determined in large-scale consumer surveys beforehand. Such a corpus would allow companies to choose appropriate slang embedded in the advertisements to activate particular associations among consumers.

Finally, we find evidence that different Internet slang style dimensions correspond to differential brand personalities (Study 4). As such, Internet slang could serve as a means for building a particular brand personality. Therefore, companies should align their use of Internet slang statements with branding decisions. Strategic promotional activities that include Internet slang should not violate the brand’s predetermined personality. In turn, when launching a new brand or new product in the market, marketing managers can also take advantage of the readily available associations of certain popular Internet slang statements to construct a particular brand personality in a much easier manner.

Limitations and Future Research

This research still contains some limitations, which also suggest avenues for future research. First, the external validity of the ISS scale and related findings might be limited because all the studies were conducted in China. Although our conceptualization encompasses general theories of psychology, communication, and marketing that involve no country-specific factors, replication studies in other countries are required in the future. Second, Internet slang is context-specific (which is ignored in the current paper). Therefore, it would be helpful to account for the interactional roles of product categories, launching platforms, and target audiences when examining the downstream effect of ISS. Third, the relationships between ISS dimensions and brand personality dimensions require more theoretical development and clarification. For example, what would the impact of overtness and candor be on brand personality dimensions? Would amiability and harshness still influence consumers’ perception of the other two brand personality dimensions? Finally, the nomological validity of the ISS scale should be further tested. This research only identifies brand personality as a possible outcome, but finds no relationship between ISS and brand attitude. Future research should reveal relationships between ISS dimensions and other consequential variables (e.g., word-of-mouth intentions) and try to identify possible antecedents that help build different ISS dimensions.

Data Availability Statement

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

Ethics Statement

Ethical review and approval was not required for the study on human participants in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements. Written informed consent for participation was not required for this study in accordance with the national legislation and the institutional requirements.

Author Contributions

SL and YW conceived of the presented idea and developed the theory and research model. SL and WG collected data and performed the analysis. YW wrote the manuscript. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

This work was supported by the National Nature Science Foundation of China (Project No. 71572116), Key Projects of the National Science Foundation of China (71832015), Stable Support Project of Shenzhen (Project No. 20200813110000001), and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Project Nos. 43800-20101-222100 and 43800-20101-22235).

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

• ^ Source: https://www.wllxy.net/
• ^ One group contained only six different sentences; the other 43 groups had eight.

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Table A1. Demographic statistics of pilot study participants.

Keywords : internet slang style, scale development, brand personality, marketing context, communication

Citation: Liu S, Wu Y and Gong W (2022) Measuring Internet Slang Style in the Marketing Context: Scale Development and Validation. Front. Psychol. 12:751806. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.751806

Received: 02 August 2021; Accepted: 22 November 2021; Published: 18 January 2022.

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Youth Slang In Social Nets (A Case Study Of Spanish Language)

The modern lifestyle implies a high speed of information transfer. Young people communication interlinks strongly with information technology and takes place within the framework of social networks, instant messengers, forums and chats. Thus, many words of the spoken language are distorted, rethought and attached with additional meanings leading to a specific youth texting slang. The relevance of the research is due to the high interest of modern Linguistics in special features of today’s youth slang on social media and the ways of word formation in computer-mediated communication. The purpose of the study is to consider the corpus of chat messages posted on Instagram by Spanish young people aged 16-20, to identify the ways of youth slang formation and to single out specific spelling features of texting. A new type of communication mediated by gadgets contributed to the emergence of a special oral-written texting language that is a set of generally accepted abbreviations and nonverbal symbols, which allows conveying a maximum of meaning in a minimum of characters. The analysis of the assembled corpus of chat messages shows that many of their linguistic features have signs of oral colloquial speech and are associated with the predominantly dialogical and informal nature of chat communication. The methodological basis of the research are discursive and communicative approaches. The obtained research results may be useful for special lectures on Spanish Descriptive Lexicology and Internet discourse. Keywords: Internet discourse youth slang social nets Spanish

Introduction

Language is a social phenomenon; as an instrument of communication, it reflects its speakers’ characteristics, and reacts to the needs of the society. The basic part of communication is speech that is a particular manner to reflect reality. The vocabulary of a language is its most variable part; it keeps changing during the development of human society and shows not only social changes, but also helps to make sense of the turning points in our history and culture, because the vocabulary relates directly to all the fields of human activity. Undoubtedly, the most significant changes in the vocabulary happen during the times of social and political upheaval and under their influence ( Stockwell & Minkova, 2009 ). Nevertheless, this is not to say that only changes in social and political life lead to the changes in the vocabulary. The explosion of new words and phrases can be the result of such events as development of technology.

Referring to the issue of expressiveness, we ought to make a distinction between emotionally neutral vocabulary and emotionally colored vocabulary. Emotionally colored vocabulary is close to stylistic variations. The closeness between expressiveness and stylistic differences is especially noticeable when we explore slang that is an inherent component of spoken language and expresses diverse interests of divergent representatives of the society and how different social groups evaluate various phenomena. The analysis of the stylistically colored vocabulary implies analysis of the lexis in different functional styles.

Functional style is a historically formed system of speech means used in a particular sphere of human communication ( Naranjo, 2014 ). Consequently, the choice of functional style depends upon the goal set by the speaker. The choice of speech styles will vary depending on social ambience of the communication. Extra linguistic factors govern functional styles’ formation associated with pragmatic situations of communication, because functional styles become manifest in various communicative circumstances. The pragmatic situation of communication includes agents of communication, subject and circumstances of communication.

Familiar colloquial speech unlike literary speech promptly assimilates slang and new words. Slang is an emotionally colored vocabulary characterized by a more or less pronounced familiar coloring of the vast majority of words and phrases. This property of slang limits the stylistic boundaries of its use. Slang is relatively stable for a certain period, widely used and stylistically marked lexical layer. Partridge stresses out that slang is “very fragile, unstable, not codified, and often completely colloquial subjects of lexemes, reflecting the public consciousness of people belonging to a particular social or professional environment” ( Partridge, 1993, p. 148 ).

In accordance with the statements of some linguists ( Aguilar & Franco, 2018 ; Gallego, 1993 ), the concept “slang” can have such kinds as:

1) Social slang, as its name suggests, is the slang created by wide range of people with two different objectives: to stand out from the rest or to avoid being understood by others. Thus, in line with its name, this type of slang could be categorized as that used by urban tribes or groups of adolescents.

2) Professional slang, are terms and specific terminology of a profession. To understand professional slang one should have knowledge of certain area or profession. Given the importance of understanding these terms for the development of a profession, there are dictionaries on this type of slang.

The language is dynamic. It is rather difficult to determine the boundaries between language layers; slang words can easily go to other layers and vice versa. Slang takes many words from the standard language and at the same time gives many words to the standard.

Computer mediated communication has helped shape a special texting language that is a set of generally accepted abbreviations and allows conveying a maximum of meaning using a minimum of text characters and developing such type of communication as Internet discourse.

As David Crystal stresses ( Crystal, 2006 ), the main characteristic of the Internet discourse is the synthesis of written and oral speech that occurs in a specific communicative situation designated as “Internet-using situations”. In our research, we explore youth slang on the Instagram page “Confesiones” in Spanish, using methods of discursive analysis, which allows us to reveal the meaning hidden in the text, to identify its goals, to establish links between language and social processes.

Problem Statement

Language is not a static phenomenon, but variable and multifaceted, and primarily in terms of expression. Nowadays communication technologies develop with extraordinary speed, quickly change our reality, give rise to new cultural phenomena and modify the language system. Texting language has expanded beyond Internet communication into everyday life. The linguistic phenomenon extends, modifies and spreads extremely fast because of social networks such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Currently, slang is one of the most interesting language systems of modern Linguistics. From the point of view of Stylistics, slang is not a harmful layer of a standard language that vulgarizes the speaker’s oral speech, but an organic and somewhat necessary part of this system. Slang cannot be ignored or not given due attention to it.

Research Questions

Lexicology is concerned with various lexical units and studies vocabulary of a language regarding its origin, development and use. Slang performs such diverse interconnected functions as communicative function for communication between people, nominative function for naming objects, expressive function including emotional-expressive attitude to the content of the message, demonstrative function of belonging to a certain social group and the function to compress the utterance. In this context, the research questions are as follows:

To give definition of slang and to point out some reasons of using slang among young people;

To reveal young peoples’ preferred social nets in Spain;

To investigate communicative situation in the “Confesiones” chat group;

To consider the ways of Spanish slang formation and to reveal spelling features of texting in Spanish.

Purpose of the Study

The aim of the research paper is to identify the main trends in Spanish youth slang formation used in the “Confesiones” chat group on Instagram, to reveal the specific ways in which this vocabulary forms up and to describe the most characteristic features of Spanish texting language.

Research Methods

In accordance with the methods of discursive analysis, we take into account all components of the communicative situation, namely: the context of speech activity or sphere of communication; communicative goals or intentions; subject of the message; agents of communication, i.e., the author and the addressee or audience, number of participants; circumstances in which communication is carried out. In addition, ways of word formation processes and procedures for the formation of Spanish slang words are considered. The methodology relies on the studies of the following scientists: Gallego ( 1993 ), Partridge ( 1993 ), Allen ( 1993 ), Crystal ( 2006 ). During the analysis, we processed 250 chat messages posted on Instagram page “Confesiones”, including from one to ten comments written in the period of 2019-2020, using method of continuous sampling.

The Internet has made the world a large global field that strongly influenced our speech. The new virtual world contributes to the origin and use of slang words, many of them lost over time, but new ones constantly appear.

There is a great number of definitions given to the term slang since it is a wide and multifaceted concept. Allen ( 1993 ) says that slang is “a class of language used, among other for social and psychological uses, to assert social opposition and to deny allegiance to genteel, elite, and proper society and to its standard linguistic forms” (p. 267).

Lighter ( 1994 ) points out that the term slang can “rarely been defined in a way that is useful to linguists. Everyone has its own opinion of what constitutes slang, but no clear linguistic effort or model has come forth in producing criteria for which words should be regarded as slang and which are not” (p. 220). The linguist defines slang as “an informal, nonstandard, nontechnical vocabulary” that consists of “novel-sounding synonyms for standard words and phrases, associated with youthful, raffish, or undignified persons and groups”.

We are inclined towards the definition given by Eble ( 1996 ) who suggests that:

Slang is the distinctive vocabulary either of groups or of people who wish by their vocabulary to identify with a popular or avant-garde style. Slang is a class of language used, among other for social and psychological uses, to deny allegiance to genteel, elite, and proper society and to its standard linguistic forms. Slang is thus used to assert social opposition (...) Slang is an urban phenomenon which originated in the socially diverse urban subcultures. (pp. 289-297)

As for the functions of slang, Spolsky ( 1998 ) stresses that: “A specialized jargon serves not just to label new and needed concepts, but to establish bonds between members of the in-group and enforce boundaries for outsiders. If you don’t understand my jargon you don’t belong to my group” (p. 35).

Partridge ( 1993 ), British lexicographer, revealed fifteen reasons people use slang. Among them there are such as to demonstrate that one belongs to a certain group or class, to be secret, to be different and brief; to break the solemnity of a conversation, to play with words and to be novel.

Briz ( 2003 ) considers the following important differentiating factors in the linguistic behavior of individuals for using slang: age, sex, ethnic group, socioeconomic class and educational level. Generally, young people speak differently than adults, and sometimes use specific subcodes of a natural language.

Nowadays, the Internet is not only a worldwide computer network, but also a sociocultural environment, an independent cultural phenomenon that affects all areas of a person’s life, including language. The computer mediated communication created a new language of communication, which Crystal ( 2006 ) called Netspeak or Cyberspeak that relies on features belonging to written and oral speech. Netspeak is a texting language that represents a code used on social media websites by participants in Internet communication, mainly young people, in order to demonstrate their affiliation with the network group.

According to the statistic published in 2020 ( Concepto05, 2020 ), the preferred social networks of Spanish young people are Instagram, Tik Tok, YouTube, and Twitter. Chats, forums and social networks are the most popular means of internet communication, and most of them can be attributed to the entertainment genre of the global network.

The principle of communication in chat group “Confesiones” is to enjoy communication, discussing on a certain topic or confessing secrets to chat participants using a set of specific means to implement communication activities. The communicative situation is characterized by superficiality of contacts and increased emotionality, it has mass character, i.e. consists of various participants. The agents of communication, often anonymized, may interact exchanging messages in real time, in so-called synchronous situation, or join the conversation any time they want which means asynchronous situation. The non-disclosure of the identity of the participants makes them feel more at ease. The main characteristics of chat communication are spontaneity, informality, emotionality and dialogism, that is, inherent properties of colloquial speech. The use of visual channel for transmitting information is a prerequisite for successful interaction in the chat group. The author of each message focuses on the recipients and selects vocabulary that is most suitable for the target audience on social networks. The process of communication in chat group “Confesiones” contributed to the emergence of a special slang texting language and we will consider its features below. While analyzing the chat messages we could identify such ways of Spanish youth slang formation:

Semantic changes: tronco – friend; inflar – to lie; estar salado – to be unlucky; ser tapόn – of short stature; ser un bocas –whisperer, cagao - coward, taladrar – to pester; rayarse – to try one’s best; coco, tarro, calabaza for head; pasta, pavos for money, etc.

Morphological way of slang formation.

Compound words: ser gordibuena - fat and good; ser abrazafarolas- drunk; -ser un aguafiestas - party pooper; follamigo - friend with benefits; ser un metemierda - to sow discord, etc.

Word reductions: tranki – tranquilo; mates – matemáticas; insti – instituto; uni- unversidad; finde- fin de semana (weekend), Cíu- University Campus.

Affixation: jodedor - merry fellow; mamόn, fiestuqui – attractive party.

Telescoping: NM – no mucho; NPN – no pasa nada; tb – también; MÑ – mañana; HP- hijo de puta; NPI – Ni puta idea; Bb – bebe; TKM – te quiero mucho, etc. From English: LOL, OMG, YOLO, NC.

Onomatopoeic way: estar de jajas - to have fun; ser un bla-bla - to be chatterbox; tener o dar yuyu – to be afraid.

English borrowings: ir a full - to rock out; sanamambiche – sun of bitch; poster; flipar, ser cul (cool); ser friki, crush – love, ser random – improvisation, etc.

Due to the analysis of the chat messages on Confesiones Instagram page, we have revealed the following features of spelling used in texting language:

1. Use of symbols for whole words: xa – para; xfa –porfa / por favor; es= es igual; xq – / porque, por qué; xo – pero.

2. Mixture of numbers and letters: s3- estrés; prpar2- preparados.

3. Untypical writing tending to contraction: Xao – chao; toy– estoy; to – todo, cucha - escucha.

4. Changing words for a letter/letters: t – te; s– ese; c – sé; tx –taxi; qn - quien.

5. Use of w instead of gu – wapa (guapa).

6. Omitted diacritical marks, incorrect capitalization and punctuation marks.

7. Use of nonverbal symbols as emoticons / emoji.

The expressive function is evident in most chat messages given the nature of the Chat. In the chat messages, we can observe many expressive signs such as vocatives, interjections, and diminutives.

After the conducted investigation we can conclude that computer mediated Spanish youth slang is a special sublanguage within the national language used by young people aged 14 to 25 years in easy communication with peers and characterized by a special set of lexical units and the specificity of their spelling while texting. A characteristic feature of youth slang is the use of constantly transforming language means of high expressive power. While considering the corpus of chat messages posted on Instagram by Spanish young people, we revealed the main types of Spanish youth slang formation, which are the following: semantic, morphological, onomatopoeic and English borrowings, being semantic and morphological types the most productive. Modern linguistic research highlights the concept of youth slang since its main thrust is to analyze and explore language and speech in order to study the linguistic personality and linguistic identity. Thus, when studying the problem of youth slang, linguists not only investigate the linguistic features of this type of slang, but also consider the youth subculture.

Acknowledgments

This research has been prepared with the support by RUDN University Program 5-100.

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Dmitrichenkova, S. V., Dolzhich, E. A., & Sanchez Pozuelo, Y. (2020). Youth Slang In Social Nets (A Case Study Of Spanish Language). In V. I. Karasik (Ed.), Topical Issues of Linguistics and Teaching Methods in Business and Professional Communication, vol 97. European Proceedings of Social and Behavioural Sciences (pp. 26-32). European Publisher. https://doi.org/10.15405/epsbs.2020.12.02.4

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Effectiveness of a Web-Based Individual Coping and Alcohol Intervention Program for Children of Parents With Alcohol Use Problems: Randomized Controlled Trial

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• Håkan Wall 1 , PhD   ; 
• Helena Hansson 2 , PhD   ; 
• Ulla Zetterlind 3 , PhD   ; 
• Pia Kvillemo 1 , PhD   ; 
• Tobias H Elgán 1 , PhD  

1 Stockholm Prevents Alcohol and Drug Problems, Centre for Psychiatry Research, Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, & Stockholm Health Care Services, Stockholm, Sweden

2 School of Social Work, Faculty of Social Sciences, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

3 Clinical Health Promotion Centre, Department of Health Sciences, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

Corresponding Author:

Tobias H Elgán, PhD

Stockholm Prevents Alcohol and Drug Problems, Centre for Psychiatry Research

Department of Clinical Neuroscience

Karolinska Institutet, & Stockholm Health Care Services

Norra Stationsgatan 69

Stockholm, 11364

Phone: 46 700011003

Email: [email protected]

Background: Children whose parents have alcohol use problems are at an increased risk of several negative consequences, such as poor school performance, an earlier onset of substance use, and poor mental health. Many would benefit from support programs, but the figures reveal that only a small proportion is reached by existing support. Digital interventions can provide readily accessible support and potentially reach a large number of children. Research on digital interventions aimed at this target group is scarce. We have developed a novel digital therapist-assisted self-management intervention targeting adolescents whose parents had alcohol use problems. This program aims to strengthen coping behaviors, improve mental health, and decrease alcohol consumption in adolescents.

Objective: This study aims to examine the effectiveness of a novel web-based therapist-assisted self-management intervention for adolescents whose parents have alcohol use problems.

Methods: Participants were recruited on the internet from social media and websites containing health-related information about adolescents. Possible participants were screened using the short version of the Children of Alcoholics Screening Test-6. Eligible participants were randomly allocated to either the intervention group (n=101) or the waitlist control group (n=103), and they were unblinded to the condition. The assessments, all self-assessed, consisted of a baseline and 2 follow-ups after 2 and 6 months. The primary outcome was the Coping With Parents Abuse Questionnaire (CPAQ), and secondary outcomes were the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale, Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT-C), and Ladder of Life (LoL).

Results: For the primary outcome, CPAQ, a small but inconclusive treatment effect was observed (Cohen d =–0.05 at both follow-up time points). The intervention group scored 38% and 46% lower than the control group on the continuous part of the AUDIT-C at the 2- and 6-month follow-up, respectively. All other between-group comparisons were inconclusive at either follow-up time point. Adherence was low, as only 24% (24/101) of the participants in the intervention group completed the intervention.

Conclusions: The findings were inconclusive for the primary outcome but demonstrate that a digital therapist-assisted self-management intervention may contribute to a reduction in alcohol consumption. These results highlight the potential for digital interventions to reach a vulnerable, hard-to-reach group of adolescents but underscore the need to develop more engaging support interventions to increase adherence.

Trial Registration: ISRCTN Registry ISRCTN41545712; https://www.isrctn.com/ISRCTN41545712?q=ISRCTN41545712

International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID): RR2-10.1186/1471-2458-12-35

Introduction

Children who grow up with parents who have substance use problems or disorders face extraordinary challenges. Approximately 20% of all children have parents with alcohol problems [ 1 - 5 ], while approximately 5% have parents with alcohol use disorders [ 4 , 6 , 7 ]. Children growing up with parental substance abuse are at an increased risk of several negative outcomes, such as psychiatric morbidity [ 8 - 12 ]; poor intellectual, cognitive, and academic achievement [ 13 - 15 ]; domestic physical abuse [ 16 ]; and early drinking onset and the development of substance use problems [ 9 , 17 , 18 ]. Thus, children exposed to parental substance abuse comprise a target group for selective interventions and prevention strategies [ 19 - 22 ].

In Sweden, municipalities account for most of the support offered to these children. An annual survey by the junior association of the Swedish branch of Movendi International (ie, an international temperance movement) reported that 97% of all municipalities provided support resources [ 23 ]. However, estimates from the same survey showed that approximately 2% of the children in the target group received support. Hence, an overwhelming majority never receives support, mainly because of difficulties in identifying and attracting them to intervention programs [ 22 , 24 ].

The internet has become an appealing way to reach and support a large number of people [ 25 , 26 ]. Web-based interventions seem particularly attractive to adolescents, as they generally use digital technology and social media. Furthermore, research has shown that adolescents regard the internet as inviting because it is a readily accessible, anonymous way of seeking help [ 27 ]. Web-based interventions can reduce the stigma associated with face-to-face consultations in health care settings [ 28 ], and young people appreciate the flexibility of completing web-based sessions to fit their own schedules [ 29 ]. The positive effects of web-based interventions have been detected across a broad range of conditions. A recent review by Hedman-Lagerlöf et al [ 30 ] concluded that therapist-supported internet-based cognitive behavioral therapy for adults yielded similar effects as face-to-face therapy. To date, most web-based interventions have been designed for adults. Although the number of web-based interventions targeting children or adolescents is increasing [ 25 , 31 - 33 ], the number of digital interventions aimed at children of substance-abusing parents is still scarce [ 22 , 34 - 38 ]. Those described in the literature, however, all have in common that they are quite extensive, with a duration over several weeks, and a brief digital intervention could complement these more extended interventions. For instance, our research group initiated a study on a web-based group chat for 15- to 25-year-old individuals who have parents with mental illness or substance use problems [ 35 ]. The duration of the program is 8 weeks, and it is a translated version of a program from the Netherlands [ 34 ], which has been shown to have inconclusive treatment effects [ 39 ]. In Sweden, 2 other programs with inconclusive treatment effects have been tested that target significant others and their children [ 37 , 38 ]. Finally, a digital intervention developed in Australia for 18- to 25-year-old individuals with parents with mental illness or substance use disorder [ 36 ] was tested in a pilot study demonstrating positive findings [ 40 ].

To meet the need for a brief, web-based intervention that targets adolescents having parents with alcohol problems and build on the evidence base of digital interventions targeting this vulnerable group, we developed a novel internet-delivered therapist-assisted self-management intervention called “Alcohol and Coping.” Our program originated from a manual-based face-to-face intervention called the “Individual Coping and Alcohol Intervention Program” (ICAIP) [ 41 , 42 ]. Previous studies on both the ICAIP, which aimed at college students having parents with alcohol problems, and a coping skills intervention program, which aimed at spouses of partners with alcohol dependency [ 43 ], have demonstrated positive effects regarding decreased alcohol consumption and improved mental health and coping behaviors [ 41 - 44 ]. Furthermore, the results from these studies underscore the importance of improving coping skills [ 42 , 44 ]. Among college students, those who received a combination of coping skills and an alcohol intervention program had better long-term outcomes [ 42 ].

The aim of this study was to test the effectiveness of Alcohol and Coping among a sample of adolescents aged 15-19 years with at least 1 parent with alcohol use problems. We hypothesized that the intervention group would be superior to the control group in improving coping skills. Secondary research questions concerned the participants’ improvement in (1) depression, (2) alcohol consumption, and (3) quality of life.

This study was a parallel-group randomized controlled trial in which participants were randomized to either the intervention or waitlist control group in a 1:1 allocation ratio. The trial design is illustrated in Figure 1 .

Recruitment and Screening

The participants were recruited from August 2012 to December 2013 through advertisements on social media (Facebook). The advertisements targeted individuals aged 15-19 years with Facebook accounts. Participants were recruited on the internet through advertisements on websites containing health-related information about adolescents. The advertisements included the text, “Do your parents drink too much? Participate in a study.” The advertisement contained an invitation to perform a web-based, self-assessed screening procedure. In addition to questions about age and sex, participants were screened for having parents with alcohol problems using the short version of the Children of Alcoholics Screening Test-6 (CAST-6), developed from a 30-item original version [ 45 ]. The CAST-6 is a 6-item true-false measure designed to assess whether participants perceive their parents’ alcohol consumption to be problematic. The CAST-6 has demonstrated high internal consistency ( r =0.92-0.94), test-retest reliability ( r =0.94), and high validity as compared to the 30-item version ( r =0.93) using the recommended threshold score of 3 or higher [ 45 , 46 ]. We previously translated the CAST-6 into Swedish and validated the translated version among 1450 adolescents, showing good internal consistency (α=.88), excellent test-retest reliability (intraclass correlation coefficient=0.93), and loading into 1 latent factor [ 47 ]. Additional inclusion criteria included having access to a computer and the internet and being sufficiently fluent in Swedish. Participants were excluded from the study and were referred to appropriate care if there were indications of either suicidal or self-inflicted harmful behaviors. Individuals eligible for inclusion received further information about the study and were asked to provide consent to participate by providing an email address.

Data Collection and Measures

All assessments were administered through email invitations containing a hyperlink to the web-based self-reported assessments. Up to 3 reminders were sent through email at 5, 10, and 15 days after the first invitation. A baseline assessment (t 0 ) was collected before randomization, and follow-up assessments were conducted at 2 and 6 months (t 1 and t 2 , respectively) after the initial assessment.

Participants were asked for age, sex, whether they lived with a parent (mother and father, mother or father, mother or father and stepparent, or alternate between mother and father), where their parents were born (Sweden or a Nordic country excluding Sweden or outside of the Nordic countries), parental status (employed, student, on parental leave, or unemployed), and any previous or present participation in support activities for children having parents with alcohol use problems. The primary outcome was coping, measured using the Coping With Parents Abuse Questionnaire (CPAQ) based on the Coping Behavior Scale developed by Orford et al [ 48 ]. Secondary outcomes were the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-DC) [ 49 ], the 3-question Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT-C) [ 50 ], and the Ladder of Life (LoL), which measures the overall quality of life by asking about the participants’ past, present, and future ratings of their overall life satisfaction [ 50 ]. CPAQ has been shown to be reliable [ 41 , 42 ]. For this study, this scale was factor-analyzed to reduce the number of questions from 37 to 20. The resulting scale measures 6 coping typologies (discord, emotion, control, relationship, avoidance, and taking specific action) using a 4-point Likert scale, with a threshold score above 50 points (out of 80) indicating dysfunctional coping behavior. The CES-DC measures depressive symptoms during the past week using a 4-point Likert scale, where a higher total score indicates more depressive symptoms [ 49 ]. A cutoff score of ≥16 indicates symptoms of moderate depression, while a score of ≥30 indicates symptoms of severe depression [ 51 , 52 ]. The scale measures 4 dimensions of depression: depressed mood, tiredness, inability to concentrate, and feelings of being outside and lonely, and has positively stated items [ 52 ]. Additionally, this scale is a general measure of childhood psychopathology [ 53 ] and has been demonstrated to be reliable and valid among Swedish adolescents [ 52 ]. Alcohol consumption was measured using a modified AUDIT-C, which assesses the frequency of drinking, quantity consumed on a typical occasion, and frequency of heavy episodic drinking (ie, binge drinking) [ 50 ] using a 30-day perspective (as opposed to the original 12-month perspective). These questions have previously been translated into Swedish [ 54 ], and a score of ≥4 and ≥5 points for women and men, respectively, was used as a cutoff for risky drinking. This scale has been demonstrated to be reliable and valid for Swedish adolescents [ 55 ]. Furthermore, 2 questions were added concerning whether the participants had ever consumed alcohol to the point of intoxication and their age at the onset of drinking and intoxication. The original version of the LoL was designed for adults and asked the respondents to reflect on their, present, and future life status from a 5-year perspective on a 10-point Visual Analogue Scale representing life status from “worst” to “best” possible life imaginable [ 56 ]. A modified version for children, using a time frame of 1 year, has been used previously in Sweden [ 57 ] and was used in this study.

Randomization

After completing the baseline assessment, each participant was allocated to either the intervention or the control group. An external researcher generated an unrestricted random allocation sequence using random allocation software [ 58 ]. Neither the participants nor the researchers involved in the study were blinded to group allocation.

Based on the order in which participants were included in the study, they were allocated to 1 of the 2 study groups and informed of their allocation by email. Additionally, those who were randomized to the intervention group received a hyperlink to the Alcohol and Coping program, whereas the control group participants received information that they would gain access to Alcohol and Coping after the last follow-up assessment (ie, the waitlist control group). All participants were informed about other information and support available through web pages, notably drugsmart [ 59 ], which contains general information and facts about alcohol and drugs, in addition to more specific information about having substance-abusing parents. Telephone numbers and contact information for other organizations and primary health care facilities were also provided.

The Intervention

As noted previously, Alcohol and Coping is derived from the aforementioned manual-based face-to-face ICAIP intervention program [ 41 , 42 ]. The ICAIP consists of a combination of an alcohol intervention program, which is based on the short version of the Brief Alcohol Screening and Intervention for College Students program [ 60 ], and a coping intervention program developed for the purpose of the ICAIP [ 41 , 42 ]. Like the original ICAIP intervention, Alcohol and Coping builds on psychoeducational principles and includes components such as film-based lectures, various exercises, and both automated and therapist-assisted feedback. Briefly, once the participants logged into the Alcohol and Coping platform, they were introduced to the program, which followed the pattern of a board game ( Figure 2 ). Following the introduction, participants took part in 3 film-based lectures (between 8 and 15 minutes each, Figure 3 ) concerning alcohol problems within the family. The respective lectures included information about (1) dependency in general as well as the genetic and environmental risks for developing dependency, (2) family patterns and how the family adapts to the one having alcohol problems, and (3) attitudes toward alcohol and how they influence drinking and the physiological effects of alcohol. After completing the lectures, the participants were asked to answer 2 questions about their own alcohol consumption (ie, how often they drink and how often they drink to intoxication), followed by an automatic feedback message that depended on their answers. It was then suggested that the participants log out of the intervention for a 1- to 2-day break. The reason for this break was to give the participants a chance to digest all information and impressions. When they logged back into the intervention, they were asked to answer 20 questions about their coping strategies, which were also followed by automatic feedback. This feedback comprised a library covering all the prewritten feedback messages, each of which was tailored to the participants’ specific answers. The participants then participated in a 5-minute–long film-based lecture on emotion and problem-focused coping in relation to family alcohol problems ( Figure 3 ). This was followed by 4 exercises where the participants read through vignette-like stories from 4 fictional persons describing their everyday lives related to coping and alcohol problems in the family. The stories are presented by film-based introductions that are each 1-2 minutes long. Participants were then requested to respond to each story by describing how the fictive person could have coped with their situation. As a final exercise, participants were asked to reflect on their own family situation and how they cope with situations. The participants then had to take a break for a few days.

During the break, a therapist composed individual feedback that covered reflections and confirmation of the participant’s exercises and answers to questions and included suggestions on well-suited coping strategies. Additionally, the therapist encouraged the participants to talk to others in their surroundings, such as friends, teachers, or coaches, and seek further support elsewhere, such as from municipal social services, youth health care centers, or other organizations. Finally, the therapist reflected on the participants’ alcohol consumption patterns and reminded them of increased genetic and environmental risks. Those who revealed patterns of risky alcohol use were encouraged to look at 2 additional film-based lectures with more information about alcohol and intoxication (4 minutes) and alcohol use and dependency (5 minutes). Participants received this feedback once they logged back into the program, but they also had the opportunity to receive feedback through email. The total estimated effective time for completing the program was about 1 hour, but as described above, there was 1 required break when the individualized feedback was written. To keep track of the dose each participant received, each of the 15 components in the program ( Figure 1 ) is equal to completing 6.7% (1/15) of the program in total.

Sample Size

The trial was designed to detect a medium or large effect size corresponding to a standardized mean difference (Cohen d >0.5) [ 61 ]. An a priori calculation of the estimated sample size, using the software G*Power (G*Power Team) [ 62 ], revealed that a total of 128 participants (64 in each group) were required to enroll in the trial (power=0.80; α=.05; 2-tailed). However, to account for an estimated attrition rate of approximately 30% [ 34 ], it was necessary to enroll a minimum of 128/(1 – 0.3) = 183 participants in the trial. After a total of 204 individuals had been recruited and randomized into 2 study arms, recruitment was ended.

Statistical Analysis

Data were analyzed according to the intention-to-treat (ITT) principle, and all randomized participants were included, irrespective of whether they participated in the trial. The 4 research variables were depression (CES-DC), coping (CPAQ), alcohol use (AUDIT-C), and life status (LoL).

Data analysis consisted of comparing outcome measurements at t 1 and t 2 . The baseline measurement t 0 value was added as an adjustment variable in all models. The resulting data from CPAQ, CES-DC, and LoL were normally distributed and analyzed using linear mixed models. The resulting AUDIT-C scores were nonnormally distributed, with an excess of 0 values, and were analyzed using a 2-part model for longitudinal data. This model is sufficiently flexible to account for numerous 0 reports. This was achieved by combining a logistic generalized linear mixed model (GLMM) for the 0 parts and a skewed continuous GLMM for the non-0 alcohol consumption parts. R-package brms (Bayesian regression models using Stan; R Foundation for Statistical Computing) [ 63 ], a higher-level interface for the probabilistic programming language Stan [ 64 ], and a custom brms family for a marginalized 2-part lognormal distribution were used to fit the model [ 65 ]. The logistic part of the model represents the subject-specific effects on the odds of reporting no drinking. The continuous part was modeled using a gamma GLMM with a log link. The exponentiated treatment effect represents the subject-specific ratio of the total AUDIT-C scores between the treatment and waitlist control groups for those who reported drinking during the specific follow-up period.

Handling of Missing Data

GLMMs include all available data and provide unbiased ITT estimates under the assumption that data are missing at random, meaning that the missing data can be explained by existing data. However, it is impossible to determine whether the data are missing at random or whether the missing data are due to unobserved factors [ 66 ]. Therefore, we also assumed that data were not missing at random, and subsequent sensitivity analyses were performed [ 66 ]. We used the pattern mixture method, which assumes not missing at random, to compare those who completed the follow-up at 6 months (t 2 ) with those who did not (but completed the 2-month follow-up). The overall effect of this model is a combination of the effects of each subgroup. We also tested the robustness of the results by performing ANCOVAs at the 2-month follow-up, both using complete cases and with missing values imputed using multilevel multiple imputation.

The effect of the program was estimated using Cohen d , where a value of approximately 0.2 indicates a small effect size and values of approximately 0.5 and 0.8 indicate medium and large effect sizes, respectively [ 61 ].

Ethical Considerations

All procedures were performed in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional or national research committees, the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments, and comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was obtained from all the participants included in the study. This study was approved by the Swedish Ethical Review Authority (formerly the Regional Ethical Review Board in Stockholm, No. 2011/1648-31/5).

To enhance the response rates, participants received a cinema gift certificate corresponding to approximately EUR 11 (US $12) as compensation for completing each assessment. If a participant completed all assessments, an additional gift certificate was provided. The participants could subsequently receive 4 cinema gift certificates totaling EUR 44 (US $48).

The trial profile is depicted in Figure 1 and reveals that 2722 individuals who were aged between 15 and 19 years performed the screening procedure. A total of 1448 individuals did not fulfill the inclusion criteria and were excluded, leaving 1274 eligible participants. Another 1070 individuals were excluded because they did not provide informed consent or complete the baseline assessment, leaving 204 participants who were allocated to 1 of the 2 study groups. A total of 140 (69%) and 131 (64%) participants completed t 1 and t 2 assessments, respectively. Of the participants in the intervention group (n=101), 63% (n=64) registered an account on the Alcohol and Coping website, 35% (n=35) completed the alcohol intervention section, and 24% (n=24) completed both the alcohol and coping intervention sections.

Sample Characteristics

The mean age of the sample was 17.0 (SD 1.23) years, and the vast majority were female, with both parents born in Sweden and currently working ( Table 1 ). Approximately one-third of the participants reported living with both parents. The mean score on the CAST-6 was 5.33 (SD 0.87) out of a total of 6, and the majority of the sample (147/204, 72.1%) perceived their father to have alcohol problems. Approximately 12% (25/204) had never consumed alcohol, whereas approximately 70% (144/204) had consumed alcohol at a level of intoxication. The mean age at onset was 13.7 (SD 2.07) years and the age at first intoxication was 14.8 (SD 1.56) years. The proportion of participants with symptoms of at least moderate depression was 77.5% (158/204), of whom 55.1% (87/158) had symptoms of severe depression and 42.6% (87/204) had symptoms of dysfunctional coping behaviors. The percentage of participants who consumed alcohol at a risky level was 39.7% (81/204). Table 1 provides complete information regarding the study sample.

a Significance levels calculated by Pearson chi-square statistics for categorical variables and 2-tailed t tests for continuous variables.

Treatment Effects

For the primary outcome, coping behavior (CPAQ), we found a small but inconclusive treatment effect in favor of treatment at both 2 (t 1 ) and 6 (t 2 ) months (Cohen d =–0.05 at both t 1 and t 2 ). For the secondary outcome, alcohol use (AUDIT-C), we found a treatment effect in that the intervention group scored 38% less than the control group on the continuous part (ie, drinking when it occurred) at t 1 and 46% less at t 2 . Regarding depression (CES-DC) and life status (LoL), all between-group comparisons of treatment effects were inconclusive at both follow-up time points ( Table 2 ).

a CPAQ: Coping With Parents Abuse Questionnaire.

b CES-DC: Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale.

c LoL: Ladder of Life.

d AUDIT-C: Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test.

e N/A: not applicable.

Missing Data

In contrast to the ITT analyses, the sensitivity analyses showed that the treatment group, averaged over the levels of dropout, scored higher (ie, a negative effect) on the main outcome, coping behavior (CPAQ), at t 1 (2.44; P =.20). However, the results remain inconclusive.

Dose-Response Effects

We did not find any evidence for greater involvement in the program being linked to improved outcomes with regard to coping behavior.

We did not find any support for the primary hypothesis: the intervention was not superior to the control condition with regard to coping behavior. Inconclusive results with small effect sizes were observed at both follow-up time points. However, for the secondary outcomes, we found that those in the intervention group who drank alcohol drank approximately 40%-50% less than those in the control group at both follow-ups. These results corroborate previous findings on the precursor face-to-face ICAIP intervention program, demonstrating that participants who received a combined alcohol and coping intervention reported superior outcomes with regard to alcohol-related outcomes compared to participants in the other 2 study arms, who received only a coping or alcohol intervention [ 41 , 42 ]. In contrast to this study, Hansson et al [ 42 ] found that all groups improved their coping skills, although the between-group comparisons were inconclusive and the improvements were maintained over time. These differences could be explained by the different settings in which the precursor program was provided (ie, face-to-face to young adults in a university setting), whereas this study targeted young people (15-19 years of age) through a web-based digital intervention. Additionally, the poor adherence in this study may explain the absence of primary results favoring the intervention group. In a recent study, parents without alcohol problems were recruited to participate in a randomized trial evaluating the web-based SPARE (Supportive Parenting and Reinforcement) program to improve children’s mental health and reduce coparents’ alcohol use. In line with our study, the authors did not find the primary outcome of the SPARE program to be superior to that of the active control group (which received written psychoeducation); however, both groups reported decreased coparental alcohol consumption [ 38 ].

Considering that approximately 3600 children in 2022 participated in various forms of support provided by Swedish municipalities [ 23 ], our recruitment activities reached a large number of eligible individuals, pointing to the potential of finding these children on these platforms. There were unexpectedly high levels of depression among the participants in this study. Although the intervention did not target depressive symptoms per se , there was a trend for the intervention group to have decreased depression levels compared to the control group. A large proportion of participants had symptoms of severe depression, which may have aggravated their capacity for improvement at follow-up [ 28 , 67 ]. Targeting dysfunctional coping patterns could affect an individual’s perceived mental health, and studies have shown that healthy coping strategies positively affect depression and anxiety in a positive way [ 68 ]. Using dysfunctional coping strategies, such as negative self-talk and alcohol consumption, can lead to depressive symptoms [ 69 ]. Targeting these symptoms in the context of healthy and unhealthy coping strategies may be a viable route to fostering appropriate coping strategies that work in the long run. Given that the young people who were reached by the intervention in this study displayed high levels of depression, future interventions for this group should include programs targeting depressive symptoms.

Almost 37% (37/101) of the intervention group did not log into the intervention at all, and only 24% (24/101) of the intervention group participants completed all parts of the program. The fact that a high proportion of the participants had symptoms of severe depression could explain the low adherence. Another reason could be that the initial film-based lectures were too long to maintain the participants’ attention, as the lectures ranged from 8-15 minutes. Yet a final reason could be that we had a 1- to 2-day break built into the intervention, and for unknown reasons, some participants did not log back into the intervention. However, we did not find a dose-response relationship indicating favorable outcomes for those who completed more of the program content. High levels of attrition are not uncommon in self-directed programs such as the one in this study; for example, in a study on a smoking cessation intervention, 37% of the participants never logged into the platform [ 70 ], and in a self-directed intervention for problem gamblers, a majority dropped out after 1 week and none completed the entire program [ 71 ]. Increased intervention adherence is a priority when developing new digital interventions, particularly for young people. One method is to use more persuasive technologies, such as primary tasks, dialogue, and social support [ 72 ]. Considering children whose parents have mental disorders, Grové and Reupert [ 73 ] suggested that digital interventions should include components such as providing information about parental mental illness, access to health care, genetic risk, and suggestions for how children might initiate conversations with parents who have the illness. These suggestions should be considered in future studies on interventions for youths whose parents have substance use problems. Representatives of the target group and other relevant stakeholders should also be involved in coproducing new interventions to increase the probability of developing more engaging programs [ 74 ]. Moreover, one cannot expect study participants to return to the program more than once, and for the sake of adherence, briefer interventions should not encourage participants to log-out for a break. To keep adherence at an acceptable level, similar future interventions for this target group should also consider having symptoms of severe depression as an exclusion criterion [ 28 , 67 ]. Further, to improve adherence, strategies of coproduction could be used where all stakeholders, including the target group, are involved in intervention development [ 75 ]. Other important factors identified to improve adherence to digital interventions are to make the content relatable, useful, and even more interactive [ 76 ]. Those participants who have symptoms of severe depression should be referred to other appropriate health care. Finally, it is probably beneficial to develop shorter psychoeducative film-based lectures than ours, lasting up to 15 minutes. Future self-directed digital interventions targeting this population should, therefore, focus on a very brief and focused intervention, which, based on theory, has the potential to foster healthy coping behaviors that can lead to an increased quality of life and improved mental health for this group of young people.

Another concern for future projects would be to use a data-driven approach during the program development phase, where A/B testing can be used to test different setups of the program to highlight which setup works best. Another aspect that must be considered is the fast-changing world of technology, where young people are exposed to an infinite number of different apps that grab their attention, which also calls for interventions to be short and to the point. Furthermore, if the program is to spread and become generally available, one must consider that keeping the program alive for a longer period will require funding and staffing for both product management and technical support.

Strengths and Limitations

This study had several strengths. First, Alcohol and Coping is a web-based intervention program, and it appears as if the internet is a particularly promising way to provide support to adolescents growing up with parents with alcohol problems because it offers an anonymous means of communicating and makes intervention programs readily accessible [ 25 ]. Our recruitment strategies reached a considerable number of interested and eligible individuals, demonstrating the potential for recruiting through social media and other web platforms. Additionally, this program is one of the first brief web-based interventions aimed at adolescents with parents with alcohol-related problems. We used the CAST-6, which has been validated among Swedish adolescents [ 47 ], to screen eligible participants. Another strength is that the intervention program involved personalized, tailored feedback in the form of prewritten automatic messages and therapist-written personalized feedback, both of which have proven to be important components of web-based interventions aimed at adolescents [ 77 , 78 ]. Finally, this study evaluated the effectiveness of the Alcohol and Coping program using a randomized controlled trial design, which is considered the strongest experimental design with regard to allocation bias.

This study had some limitations. First, the design with a passive waitlist control group and an active intervention group, both unblinded to study allocation, may have resulted in biased estimates of treatment effects. Intervention adherence was low, and most of the study participants had symptoms of depression, where 55% (87/158) had symptoms of severe depression. This may have contributed to the small and overall inconclusive effects on the primary outcomes of this study. Many digital interventions have problems with low adherence, and in a review by Välimäki et al [ 79 ], some studies reported adherence rates as low as 10%. A vast proportion of the study participants were women, making the findings difficult to generalize to men. However, another limitation concerns selection bias and external validity. We recruited study participants through social media and other relevant websites containing health-related information, including information about parents with alcohol-related problems. It is, therefore, possible that the study population can be classified as “information-seeking” adolescents, who may have different personality traits relative to other adolescents in the same home situation. Additionally, as an inclusion criterion was having ready access to computers and the internet, it is possible that participants belonging to a lower socioeconomic class were underrepresented in the study. It should also be noted that the data presented here were collected approximately 10 years ago. However, we believe our findings make an important contribution to the field since, like our intervention, many recent web-based interventions use strategies of psychoeducation, films, exercises, questions, and feedback. Further, the number of web-based interventions for this target group remains scarce in the literature, which underscores the need for future research. Finally, the study was powered to detect a medium effect size. However, given the small effect sizes detected in this study, it is plausible that too few participants were recruited to detect differences between the groups.

Implications for Practice

Although growing up with parents who have alcohol problems per se is not sufficient for developing psychosocial disorders, many children need support to manage their situation. Therefore, it is difficult to recruit children to support these groups. In Sweden, not even 2% of all children growing up with parental alcohol problems attend face-to-face support groups provided by municipalities.

Offering support through web-based intervention programs seems particularly attractive to adolescents whose parents have alcohol-related problems. To date, evidence for such programs is scarce, and there is an urgent need to develop and evaluate digital interventions targeting this group of adolescents. This study makes important contributions to this novel field of research. The results provide insight into effective strategies for delivering intervention programs to children of parents with substance abuse issues, highlighting the potential for digital interventions to reach a vulnerable, hard-to-reach group of adolescents. Our findings underscore the need to develop more engaging interventions in coproduction with the target group.

Conclusions

We found that a digital therapist-assisted self-management intervention for adolescents whose parents have alcohol use problems contributed to a reduction in the adolescents’ own alcohol consumption. This result highlights the potential for digital interventions to reach a large, vulnerable, and hard-to-reach group of adolescents with support efforts. Findings were inconclusive for all other outcomes, which may be attributable to low adherence. This points to the need for future research on developing more engaging digital interventions to increase adherence among adolescents.

Acknowledgments

This work was undertaken on behalf of the Swedish Council for Information on Alcohol and Other Drugs (CAN) and was supported by grants from the Swedish National Institute of Public Health and the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research.

Conflicts of Interest

HH and UZ developed the study interventions. However, the parties did not derive direct financial income from these interventions. HW, PK, and THE declare no conflicts of interest.

CONSORT-eHEALTH checklist (V 1.6.1).

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Abbreviations

Edited by YH Lin; submitted 24.08.23; peer-reviewed by X Zhang, C Asuzu, D Liu; comments to author 28.01.24; revised version received 08.02.24; accepted 27.02.24; published 10.04.24.

©Håkan Wall, Helena Hansson, Ulla Zetterlind, Pia Kvillemo, Tobias H Elgán. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (https://www.jmir.org), 10.04.2024.

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