Interpersonal relationships are more than ever virtual. E-mails, chats, discussion lists, Twitter, and other communication tools are expanding their use, both in professional environments and in personal life. On account of the virtual revolution, a lot has been said about the language of the Internet, but little effort is made to describe and use it as a source of studies on the current Portuguese language. We believe that the understanding of the structure of the netspeak is useful for several research areas, such as the Corpus Linguistics. Based on this assumption, this paper aims at describing the synthesis processes found on Internet texts in order to prove that there are rules on the formation of abbreviations and other words that are typical of this new form of expression. We found, through quantitative research, patterns of the netspeak, which proves that this language is not configured as an anarchic deviation of cultivated language. These patterns reflect the phonetic and syllabic structure of the Portuguese language rather systematically, showing the speakers implicit knowledge of the grammar and its eagerness to follow the principles of communicability. We also found qualitative and quantitative differences in the use of abbreviation according to the textual gender in which they appear. We believe that the understanding of the processes of the language used on the internet is important for the teaching of writing as well as its formal description can provide answers to criticisms against this form of communicating, which coming from both teachers and students. So, at the end of this thesis, we suggest some tasks that make better use of the increasing activity of reading and writing provided by the boom in online communications, in order to achieve more sophisticated levels of literacy. Rather than describing the abbreviations used on the Internet without suggesting how to deal with them, we try to provide a new perspective to scholars from various fields that deal with the Internet language, as well as to teachers and students who have a wrong view about this language.