Title: LOL: A Linguistic Analysis of the use of Internet Language in the Informal Speech of Students on the University of the

West Indies, Cave Hill Campus. Research Problem: The purpose of this study is to examine the use of Internet Language in the informal speech of the students of the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus; and the factors which account for its presence in the students' speech. Research Questions: The research sets out to answer the following questions: 1. What link or correlation is there between the use of Internet language online and its incorporation in the students' informal speech? 2. Which age group of students uses the Internet language most in their speech? 3. Which gender of students uses the Internet language most in their speech? 4. What factors influence the use of the Internet Language in the the students' speech? Research Design and Methodology Because of the descriptive nature of the study and the need to gather data from a wide range of persons across campus, the researcher chose the survey research design. This design was split into two parts: the administering of a paper and pencil questionnaire and an informal focus group. Firstly, using the cross-sectional approach to administer the ten-question survey, the researcher selected 100 students using the stratified sampling technique to participate in the research. The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill is distributed among the faculties of Law, Humanities and Education, Pure and Applied Sciences, Social Sciences and Medical Sciences; therefore, using the faculties as strata, the researcher selected 20 students from each faculty, 10 males and 10 females.This sampling technique is appropriate because it ensures better coverage of the campus population thus reducing errors that can be produced by an unrepresentative or under-representative sample. The researcher distributed these questionnaires at different times during the day to ensure that both fulltime and part-time students would be part of the sample. As a result, the primary variables the researcher looked at through this survey were the age of the participants, their gender, the amount of time spent on the internet and whether or not they used the Internet Language in oral communication. This aided in the collection of quantitative data. Secondly, data was collected from a group of 7 students on campus (4 females and 3 males) between the ages of 18 and 25. Hailing from diverse backgrounds but sharing similar interests and personalities; these were chosen because of their exposure to the Internet Language both online and in speech; their difference in majors, faculty and current year level; their ability to code-switch effortlessly and efficiently; and their several nationalities. This allowed the researcher to document first hand the examples of Internet Language that were heard in the casual speech of the interlocutors and their attitudes towards using it. The focus group interview was done in a familiar and comfortable setting - one of the participant's home - where the interviewer for a period of two hours utilized an unstructured approach to gather data.

The room was arranged in a circular fashion with a small coffee table in the middle that held the researcher's voice recording device. Permission was granted to record the conversation. This method is justifiable because it provided qualitative information from a well-defined target group and the group provided naturalistic data that led to important insight about human behaviours such as underlying tones and emotions.