New communication channels such as chat rooms, e-mail and SMS are helping language take on a new form, where emoticons (a graphic representation of emotions), acronyms and abbreviations are becoming more commonplace when we communicate. It has been referred to as “broken English”, “Internet-speak” and, maybe more neutrally, as “digital literacy”. Language is going to hell in a handbasket. Or is it?
Internet-speak started out on bulletin boards, then chat rooms and e-mail, and has been taken beyond computers to cellphones.
People want to communicate quickly in chat rooms, so they need emoticons, acronyms and abbreviations. And cellphones allow for only a limited number of characters on a screen. So great becomes gr8, later becomes L8R, and age, sex and location, a standard chat room query, becomes A/S/L.
Some educators and academics are crying foul, saying that language is being diminished. If it is not in the Oxford English Dictionary, it is incorrect. Others see it as part of a natural progression in the development of language.
“Languages are in a constant state of evolution, and language guardians are in a constant state of agitation about it,” comments James Watt, director of the Social Behavioural Research Laboratory at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York.
“Language critics’ concern is valid, but their focus is misdirected. The question, as I see it, is not whether language is being diminished, it is whether communication is being diminished. Language and communication are not necessarily synonymous, although cultural analysts, being trained in literary traditions in which language is paramount, often take this as a foundational assumption.”
But is digital literacy making it harder or easier to communicate and understand one another?
Jonathan Alexander, an associate professor at the University of Cincinnati, says he has not seen any deleterious effects on people’s ability to communicate effectively. Instead, he has seen his students make use of technology to enhance their ability to communicate. Digital literacy is already spilling into popular culture. In Britain, The Guardian held an SMS poetry competition, which was adjudicated by two of Britain’s foremost poets, Peter Sansom and UA Fanthorpe. The BBC has asked readers to translate classic texts, titles or quotations into SMS shorthand. They came back with, among others, “4 Im a br f v ltl brn & lng wds bthr me” (“For I am a bear of very little brain and long words bother me.” — AA Milne/Winnie the Pooh). It headlined its story: “Is txt mightier than the word?”
And readers of Computing SA, a local computer trade newspaper, are already familiar with editor Samantha Perry’s musing in a scaled-down version of digital literacy. Her columns often feature emoticons and now standard abbreviations.
Perry argues that as print media often lacks tone of voice or facial expression, emoticons and Internet-speak enable a writer to add all of those missing elements in a relatively unobtrusive and compact way. If this new way of writing increases person-to-person communication and if it suits our modern lifestyle, and all indications are that it achieves both, why does a sense of concern remain?
Watt thinks our concerns stem from a fear that digital literacy might change the way people relate to each other. This critique is focusing on a side-effect, says Watt, and not on the fundamental issue: Does ubiquitous, constant, fragmented communication change the way people perceive each other and the world?
He believes the jury is still out and that we won’t know for sure for years to come.
Net-speak
The lingo:
2d4 — to die for
Cu — see you
FOAD — f**k off and die
GMTA — great minds think alike
RUF2T — are you free to talk?
T+ — think positive
ZP — zero perspiration (no sweat)
Emoticons:
:-|| Angry
%-} Intoxicated
:-* Kiss
(_x_) Kiss my butt
😀 Laughter
🙁 Sad
:- Sceptical
:-@ Shouting
🙂 Smiling