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The definition of language
Effects of texting on language
Effects of texting and language arts
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Three years ago, linguist John McWhorter spoke at a Ted Talk conference about whether texting is killing language and went so far as to question the definition of language itself. His video, “John McWhorter: Txtng is killing language. JK!!!” distinguished to the reader the difference between writing and speaking and how texting was one in the form of another. Texting, he said, is a way of writing as one speaks, or specifically fingered speech, rather than as many believe, a mutilated version of the English language. According to McWhorter, texting is becoming a second language for many people, and those who do text are actually, in a sense, being bilingual. Texting itself is not very different from a foreign language, other than for its strong …show more content…
To ensure that formal written language is preserved, a clear distinction must be made between formal writing and texting. Students -as well as adults- must also be given sufficient practice in both areas if they are to clearly communicate their thoughts to others through either means. As quoted from Nicole Wood and Becky Wang in their presentation “Is Texting Killing the English Language”, “the most common misuses by students are ... using only the letter ‘u’ … [and] using the letter ‘r’...” These errors in formal essays are often -and in most cases- caused by confusion of the distinction between texting and formal writing, leading to an overlap between the two. The value of formal written language is its ability to clearly and distinctly communicate one’s ideas to another -and because of its overall consistency regardless of time- even those in the future. Texting, in some cases however, loses this ability to clearly communicate thoughts and ideas, and exclusively texting at home could lead to a decline in one’s ability to clearly communicate with others through writing.
Michaela Cullington, a student, wrote a paper “Does Texting Affect Writing?” in 2010 for an English class. The paper is an examination of texting and the belief that it negative effective student’s writing. Cullington goes into detail about textspeak- “language created by these abbreviations”- and their use in formal writings. She organizes the paper in a way that is confusing to understand at first (pg. 1). At the end of the paper, she discusses her finding in her own research which comes to show that texting does not affect writing. But this is contradicting to the information she received from the teachers. The students and the teachers were seeing differences in the use of textspeak in formal writing. Cullington has good support for her
In John McWhorter’s argumentative speech “Txtng is killing language. JK!!!!” he uses logical and emotional appeals to showcase his argument. He begins by explaining the roles of speech and writing in language, stating that there is a natural amount of bleed between the two linguistic methods. Throughout the speech he compels his audience by using primarily logical appeals, such as since it is typical to “speak like you write” then it must be possible to “write like you speak.” John McWhorter uses historical knowledge and linguistic research, building a logical claim that texting is creating a newer advanced level of digital speech.
“Our generation doesn't ring the doorbell. They text or call to say they're outside,” this line is from one of the well-known social networks, Tweeter, which shows how the way of communication has change in this modern life. According to 2013 statistics by Business Insider, in United States alone, smartphone owners aged 18 to 24 send 2,022 texts per month on average — 67 texts on a daily basis — and receive another 1,831 texts (Cocotas). Nowadays, technology such as text messaging has practically replaced traditional face to face communication among the society primarily in young generations because texting allows messages to be sent fast and effortless. In order to quickly type what they are trying to say in text messaging, people are frequently using textspeak; the language created by using abbreviation rather than complete words. Based on this phenomenon, David Crystal, an honorary professor of linguistics at the University of Wales has published an article entitled ‘2b or not 2b?’ in the Guardian on July 5, 2008 comes out with the research and studies that state texting can actually improve the literacy of children and create creativity of writing. However, by observing more critically, texting do decrease a person’s ability to switch between textspeak and the normal rules of grammar and adversely affect formal writing and conversational skills.
In the article, “Does Texting Affect Writing?”, the author Michaela Cullington conveys her speculation that texting does not correlate to how students write formal essays. At the beginning of the article Cullington introduces the term texting and the convenience texting brings. Later expressing her concern that the texting language “Textspeak” is actually affecting students writing; then contradicts these views by using primary and secondary sources (news articles, books, her own surveys and research). In addition, she uses an anecdote to tell of her own experience with texting and writing. Together with other evidences and research put together, she uncovers the debate between textspeak and formal writing. On the basis of her research, she concludes that the state of texting does not interfere with writing or writing abilities.
Furthermore, technology affected my language in more ways than one. Before technology humans would communicate through letters or in person. Everything was written out in full sentence and in details. But once technology was introduced everything started to become abbreviated/ shortened. There is even sometimes where no words could be spoken but an emoji can be sent and the person receiving the message would be able to completely understand. In the article Is Texting Killing the English Language? it states “Civilization, then, is fine — people banging away on their smartphones are fluently using a code separate from the one they use in actual writing, and there is no evidence that texting is ruining composition skills. Worldwide people speak
Text messaging has become a norm in our generation, as technology rapidly advances and gives way to more efficient forms of communication in a fast-paced world; and many are skeptical about the influence this new form of interaction is having on our society, especially with our younger generation. David Crystal, a professor at the University of Wales, writes “2b or Not 2b?” in support of text messaging. He insists, despite those who underestimate or negate the beneficial influence text messaging has on language proficiency, that “there is increasing evidence that [texting] helps rather than hinders literacy” and that the fairly recent form of communication has actually been around for a while and “is merely the latest manifestation of the human ability to be linguistically creative and to adopt language to suit the demands of diverse settings. In contrast, Jeffery Kluger argues in “We Never Talk Anymore: The Problem with Text Messaging” that text messaging is rapidly becoming a substitute for more genuine forms of communication and is resulting in difficulty among young peoples of our generation to hold a face-to-face conversation, engage in significant nonverbal expression, and ultimately build effective relationships with family, friends and co-workers. Both writers’ present valid arguments, however, my personal experience with text messaging has led me to agree more with Crystal’s view on the matter. Text messaging is indeed having a positive effect on society by making frequent texters primarily aware of the need to be understood, as well as offering betterment of spelling and writing through practice, and reinventing and expanding on a bygone dimension of our language through the use of rebuses and abbreviations.
In the article, “Is Texting Killing the English Language?” The author focuses on how people think that texting is ruining the English language, but he argues that it is not. The author used specific examples in which he uses to support his claim that texting is just creating its own grammar just like writing. This article can be written in a different perspective such as a different Language, or for a different audience, and it will have some changes in order for it to be a good article. If this article were to be written for a different time, It would not be a good article because texting is a new trend that is going on today in society, so the whole point of the article will change and it will be useless. If this article were to be written
With children’s increasing use of mobile phones, concerns have been raised about its influence on their literacy skills. One well-known feature of children’s text messages is that they do not always adhere to conventional written language rules and use a register. In this register, children make use of phonetic replacements, such as lol and drop words . This has led to the assumption that characteristics of textese may leak into children’s general writing, ultimately resulting in language deterioration . However, this is in sharp contrast to findings from several studies showing that children who used textese frequently did not
The use inventive spelling, abbreviations. As high school students start to use short texting, some of their grades dropped due to the spelling errors they make. So many teens get used to wing abbreviating that they just begin to write that that way. Some teenagers writing skills have turned into sentence fragments, because of the limited space they put into text sentence. In my research how does texting affect teen literacy the percentage was 64 percent of students who say they incorporated text language in their writing, 25 percent said they did so to convey have used text shortcuts a lot of students, vocabulary and grammar is also affecting their literacy. The outlook of the teachers is that. Text plus recently released results of its own survey of 1,214 teens that use their services. 43 percent of which have texted in class, they seem to pay more attention to their phone than what the teacher is teaching. They seem to have the phones that will spell the word for them so they have to worry about spelling. In the age of text message, where words are reduce to no stand abbreviating, symbols, But in my research I pointed out that technology has put new emphasis on reading and
In some cases it is true. As a High School student preparing for the external examinations, CSEC, I began to write in the way that I would text my peers by shortening my words, spelling them incorrectly and even mixing letters and numerals to make words shorter. This happened often during dictation. The biggest argument is that texting is ruining our English. Is texting really a major factor in our grammar today?
Drouin, M., & Davis, C. (2009). R U Txting? Is the Use of Text Speak Hurting Your Literacy?. Journal of Literacy Research, 44(1), 46-67. Retrieved from http://eric.ed.gov/?q=texting+spelling+grammar&id=EJ862013
Texting is not killing language and it is a new language and form of speech. The video, “Txtng is killing language. JK!!!” proves that. Many people think that language has gotten more imperfect lately due to texting, but there has been proof of people having issues with their writing skills since back to 63 AD. For example, John McWhorter (the speaker in the video) says that in 1956 an English professor said, “Many do not know the alphabet or multiplication table, cannot write grammatically, and seem to have been trained to hate mental exercise...often they cannot read intelligently, and dislike any reading.” This is proof that even people from the mid-1900s were complaining about students not writing well, just like today and they did not
“Buzz buzz!” Everyone is familiar with the vibration of their simple, yet sudden notification that you have just received a text. Texting is a quick way of sending and receiving information, good or bad; is this adept way of communicating having an acute long-term effect on our literacy? David Crystal a professor at the University of Wales known for his work in English language studies and linguistics. He wrote the essay “2b or Not 2b”, and in his work he claims that texting helps rather than hinders literacy (337). From this perspective, he reminds us that abbreviations have been around for ages, even before texting; he gives the example of Eric Partridge and his Dictionary of Abbreviations that has many SMS looking examples. Later he also
Texting is killing language,” Ted starts off the video by saying that “The idea is that texting spells the decline and fall of any kind of serious literacy, or at least writing ability, among young people in the United States and now the whole world today (Ted, 2013). Throughout the film discussion, what stuck out to me the most was how drastic language has changed via technology.
Previously most text messages were limited to 160 characters, so in order to get their message across users frequently used common abbreviations and most rules of grammar and punctuation no longer applied . The excessive abbreviation used in today's world is affecting the way we speak in everyday conversations and will also worsen people's our spelling and grammar skills. In the article “I h8 txt msgs”, John Humphrys claims that people are, “destroying it [language]: pillaging our punctuation; savaging our sentences; [ravaging] our vocabulary. And they must be stopped," (p. 173, para 1, line 1). When we text, we ignore most of what we have learned about the English language. As we ignore what we have learned, we also tend to forget, and our language skills begin to deteriorate. Many teachers today will disclose you how they are finding more misspellings, punctuation errors, and abbreviations in writing than ever