‘Webbish writing’ for global communication in the Web 3.0

Abstract

Advances in information technology and the needs of globalization made English the lingua franca (EFL) of the Web 1.0. Later, multi-modes of computer-mediated communication in the Web 2.0 fostered hybrid English as a new EFL by combing English with other languages. Moving into the Web 3.0 for information mining and knowledge acquisition without a language barrier, the author proposes ‘Webbish’, a controlled form of English, to write web texts for the purpose of gisting through the production of multilingual machine translation (MT) outputs. To demonstrate the effectiveness of ‘Webbish’, an empirical survey was conducted to measure the comprehensibility of the MT of ‘Webbish’ texts based on a 1–100 grading scale. An average score of 89.9 was earned from twenty-four international participants, showing a high degree of MT comprehensibility. Meanwhile, set within the framework of postmodernism, ‘Webbish’ writing takes on postmodernist significance of non-fixed norms, dynamic meanings and an equal right of comprehensible Web information access for global non-English audiences. Its linguistic features are suited to MT application and its fluid meanings are produced due to the MT system’s rendition and different target audiences’ different interpretations. ‘Webbish’ writing suggests acceptance, inclusiveness and equality. It is also an easy way to influence and improve global communication.