In this modern era, technology is dramatically developing and evolving at an astounding rate. The advancement in technology affects almost every aspect of today’s society. The English language is a prime example of this. Linguists from different universities have begun noticing changes in the modern English language; most of the alterations tend to be significant. The English language has been negatively affected by the rise of the Internet, smartphones and social media. To begin with, the Internet has had a significant impact on the teenagers’ lifestyle. This in turn has brought about a dramatic change in the level of English used. Firstly, adolescents in schools have recently created new acronyms to be used on the Internet such as in discussion boards or blogs. Examples of acronyms include: “FYI” (which stands for ‘for your information’), “TMI” (which stands for ‘too much information’), “BRB” (which stands for be right back) and “TTYL” (which stands for ‘talk to you later’). As a result, these new acronyms have caused students’ English proficiency to deteriorate. The spread of the recently created acronyms have been incorporated into students’ writings which therefore gives the teachers a harder time of ‘reiterating’ the importance of being able to distinguish between the ‘social networking language’ and ‘academic writing’ This means that the students might later suffer in university when it comes to writing a professional report in their field of interest. Additionally, Michael Schut, an English literature teacher, documented how texting has affected students writing. He noticed that his students dropped more consonants, vowels and punctuation marks (M. Schut 5). He felt as though his students could be better writers than they... ... middle of paper ... ...Disadvantages of the SMS Language." EHow UK. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Jan. 2014. "I Love English Language." I Love English Language. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Jan. 2014. Howard, Cory. "The Gr8 Deb8 of Teen Txting: Text Messaging Ruining The English - Spokane, North Idaho News & Weather KHQ.com." The Gr8 Deb8 of Teen Txting: Text Messaging Ruining The English - Spokane, North Idaho News & Weather KHQ.com. N.p., 15 Feb. 2012. Web. 20 Jan. 2014. Sterbenz, Christina. "The 11 Most Common Grammatical Mistakes And How To Avoid Them." Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 12 Sept. 2013. Web. 20 Jan. 2014. Shores, Michael, and Rob S. "Bad Title." Error. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Jan. 2014. "Is Txt Ruining the English Language?" BBC News. BBC, 03 June 2003. Web. 22 Jan. 2014. Abrams, Rachel. "Experts Divided Over Internet Changes to Language." VOA. N.p., 16 Jan. 2010. Web. 23 Jan. 2014.
1. The main point Kirk Johnson, writer of “Today’s Kids Are, Like, Killing the English Language” published by the New York Times, illustrates is a shift in the way society nowadays communicates and expresses themselves with the emergence of technology and other forms of media in this new era compared to the precedent and placid century.
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
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
“Your Ability to Can Even: A Defense of Internet Linguistics” by Tia Baheri, is a great read. The article focuses on the new language that has been created among Internet users and how some critics think it is a negative impact on the English language and how others, such as Baheri herself, think that there is nothing wrong with the change what so ever. After reading the article, I agree with Tia Baheri, I also think that language is as she states, “Supposed to flex and shape itself to convey what we mean to say as directly and efficiently as possible”. Yes, some who do not spend a lot of time on the Internet may not understand some of the newly used phrases but for others it is the best way to express themselves.
Clive Thompson asserts in his essay, The New Literacy, that people today are writing more than ever as they socialize online. Nowadays, almost everybody uses social media, but it is more popular amongst younger people. Teenagers text and tweet every little thought that pops up in their head. However, numerous scholars can argue that texting and tweeting defiles the serious academic writing with slang and “text speak.” By way of contrast, Thompson claims that using shortened language and smileys online does not degrade a person’s abilities to write well in an academic paper. Furthermore, composing texts and tweets online can help an individual with their writing. By communicating online, we are able to learn grammar and writing through our own
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.
It's taking over our lives. We can do it almost anywhere. What is it? It's texting! Texting is a reliable, easy and convenient form of communication that is most commonly used by, but not limited to millenials and those in the workforce. Many people use it as a way to express themselves as well. In Michaela Cullington’s article, “Does Texting Affect Writing?” she targets two different attitudes in relation to texting. Cullington explains that there is often an assumption that students who use abbreviations when they text, will bring those same abbreviations over to their formal writing pieces. Cullington then adds that the other attitude in relation to writing skills and texting insists that texting is harming student’s writing capabilities. Because of her research as well as experiments done by other colleagues of hers, it shows that
Over the last decade, the English language has taken a great leap forward. And the main reason for that,is modern technology.
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.
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
All languages change over time, and there can be many different reasons for this. The English language is no different – but why has it changed over the decades? In this informative essay I will be explaining some of the reasons why I think the English language has changed over the years. I will give some examples of things I believe have changed the language for the better.
Firstly, it is very common for people to believe that Social Media has had a negative impact on the use of language by teenagers . This is because of a variety of reasons. The first being that communicating online is almost like a 'mid-ground between spoken language and written language for communication' [1] The term used for this is 'written-speak' or 'spoken-writing' [2] If young people are continuously using this form of communication, it may have severe ramifications on young people’s communication and literacy skills, as it can lead to the learning of...
Penelope Trunk said, “the type of writing that students do--via IM, Twitter, Facebook, and so forth-- is actually great for building communication skills” (Trunk 2). The reason behind communication skills being built through social media is our generation is practicing with our reading, and writing constantly while on social media. “The fact that students today almost always write for an audience gives them a different sense of what constitutes good writing” (Thompson 2). Our generation has a diverse audience of people that “likes” what we post, making it tempting to come up with a status or post that is well written and appeals to the audience. No matter if it’s an debate, opinion, or planning something with a friend, social media has made us adapt to writing for an audience of different people that we want to impress. It has also helped the generation with code switching, because based on the intended audience we have adapted to making changes in the way we communicate to appeal to a person or group of people. Verbally, our generation takes the skills learned from social media and speak the way they type on social media, appealing to whoever is listening to
North, S. (2012), 'English a Linguistic Toolkit' (U214, Worlds of English), Milton Keynes, The Open University.
In the last twenty-five years, advancements in technology combined with the unbridled growth of social media, has dramatically altered not only the methods used to communicate but the linguistics as well. The meteoric rise in the use of new media sources have resulted in the creation of a type of shorthand English. With today’s social media, abbreviations such as LOL, OMG, BRB, and ROFL are easily recognizable by its followers yet remain a mystery to those not connected. The preference of the younger generation for social media such as texting, Twitter, and Facebook over face–to-face communication has not only had an effect on communication skills, but has also led to a further disconnect with the adult population. Twenty years ago, when a family went out to dinner it was considered family time; an opportunity for all the family members to get caught up with what was going on in each other’s life. Today, watching that same family outing, one is much more likely to see each of them sitting at the same table, looking down at a smart phone texting, and very little if any co...