OMG, u cant b 4real?!
"Most teenagers do not think of their e-mail messages, text messages and social network postings as 'real writing', the study found."
-Informal Style of Electronic Messages is Showing Up in Schoolwork, Study Finds
When I began reading this article, it made me think of a presentation Karissa Kilgore and Jay Pugh did in our Literary Criticism class where they argued that IM chat and text messaging is a new form of writing and language.
As Karissa wrote on her blog, "With its pervasiveness, IM language is becoming a genre all its own. It has conventions like any other, and develops as the technology does. Although many find IM language to be a lack of form, the reality of the language is that the lack of 'form' creates the newer version of form."
As the English language evolves, writing in this new form will slowly be accepted. Within the first paragraph of the article, Lewin explains how this new language has blended into school. I, personally, have never used emoticons, text shortcuts or omitted proper grammar and puncuation in my schoolwork, but outside of essays and other schoolwork, I find myself using this new form of communication frequently.
Any type of writing is real writing even if it is improper. They are still expressing their views, ideas and thoughts just with using shortcuts and other forms of the new English language to express it in a quicker manner.
I can't wait to see what the English language will look and sound like in the year 2025.
I guess I will just have to wait and see.
-Informal Style of Electronic Messages is Showing Up in Schoolwork, Study Finds
When I began reading this article, it made me think of a presentation Karissa Kilgore and Jay Pugh did in our Literary Criticism class where they argued that IM chat and text messaging is a new form of writing and language.
As Karissa wrote on her blog, "With its pervasiveness, IM language is becoming a genre all its own. It has conventions like any other, and develops as the technology does. Although many find IM language to be a lack of form, the reality of the language is that the lack of 'form' creates the newer version of form."
As the English language evolves, writing in this new form will slowly be accepted. Within the first paragraph of the article, Lewin explains how this new language has blended into school. I, personally, have never used emoticons, text shortcuts or omitted proper grammar and puncuation in my schoolwork, but outside of essays and other schoolwork, I find myself using this new form of communication frequently.
Any type of writing is real writing even if it is improper. They are still expressing their views, ideas and thoughts just with using shortcuts and other forms of the new English language to express it in a quicker manner.
I can't wait to see what the English language will look and sound like in the year 2025.
I guess I will just have to wait and see.
Here's a look at what English might sound like in 1000 years.
2000 AD: We children beg you, teacher, that you should teach us to speak correctly, because we are ignorant and we speak corruptly...
3000 AD: *ZA kiad w'-exùn ya tijuh, da ya-gAr'-eduketan zA da wa-tAgan lidla, kaz 'ban iagnaran an wa-tAg kurrap...
Futurese
http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/futurese.html
As an English teacher, all that I have to say is that these IM's and text messages are destroying the English language faster than anything else, and that it is truly spreading like a virus. Writing in this form will NOT be accepted in any academic sense, and should be discouraged at all levels, particularly in high school and college/university. I find it seriously hard to believe that any teacher or professor of English could accept this ridiculous take on the English language as anything but laziness and dangerous apathy.
This abomination of our language is not cute, hip or expressive; it is dangerous. Orwell mentioned that "if people cannot write well, they cannot think well, and if they cannot think well, others will do their thinking for them."
Miserable.
I don't agree with you, MS, that if you can't write well then you can't think well. Just because you lack in the area of writing does not mean that you aren't intelligent or stupid.
I'm not saying that this language should be accepted in the high school or college/university level, but it should be noticed that many young adults are using this new form of language, whether you think it is bad or good.
MS, would you consider American Sign Language to be an abomination of the English language? It's a specialized offshoot, designed for speed and efficiency for a certain subset of our society. It's far more efficient to make a gesture than, for instance, scribble on a portable whiteboard. It serves an important purpose in its own community. The word order and syntax sometimes differs from standard English in important ways, but thought expressed by ASL is still thought, even if ASL users have to make a conscious effort to follow different rules when communicating with outside audiences.