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#linguistweets #lt1515 Today we’re talking about a new phenomenon on the Francophone Twittersphere: people behind Twitter accounts of cats talking like a cat, as if they were a cat. For English, we know it as Lolspeak/Kitty Pidgin: it’s a Special Internet Language Variety. 1/ 
Anglophone cats are known for their baby voice + specific ortho, gramm & lex features. Francophone cats combine a childlike code AND a formal register. Both features create the sociolinguistic persona of cats as ambivalent animals… who made it into the newspaper! (trad: ALT) 2/
I explored 100 Twitter accounts of cats. My hypothesis was that very few, pivotal accounts are leading sociolinguistic change and the dissemination of pragmatic and sociolinguistic norms of use—one of them being @SutterlinKatz, self-established & recognized as such (trad: ALT) 3/
