This chapter presents an analysis of economised language in textchat data from non-native English-speaking students on an MA programme in English Linguistics. Previous research by the author demonstrated that forms clipped or otherwise reduced from their full version can be considered evidence that an Internet community of practice has formed. We argue here that this implies that the learners are exhibiting autonomy, and we also demonstrate that the same can be concluded for ellipsis. The functions of ellipsis are identified, which demonstrates that students are interacting, and therefore are at least in the process of forming a social learning community.