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Text messaging affects teen literacy and language abilities
Texting effects on language and writing skills
Negative effects of texting on written communication
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These days, smart-phones and cellphones have dominated most of our lives. If you look at someone after school or work, you'll see at least one person on their phone, whether it's checking their email, calling a friend or killing some time with Angry Birds. However, you might see someone jabbing at their phone, with their index finger, or both thumbs, and most people know what that the action they're doing is probably what is known as texting. However some people don't appreciate the function of this "texting". They don't dislike texting itself, they just hate the language some texters use. This language includes phrases like "LOL", which means laugh out loud, and "YOLO", which means "you only live once", which drives English language conservatives crazy.Well one of these literary conservatives, John Humphrys', also a British journalist, radio and television presenter released an article in 2007 in the Daily Mail, titled "I h8 txt msgs: How texting is wrecking our language", states that this new language, the texting language is ruining English, it is ruining the younger generations ability to write, and will affect the future if the English language in a negative way. Humphrys writing style consists of popular beliefs and his own voice in his article, and shows his hatred toward texting. In his controversial article, it is evident he is afraid that the English language may deteriorate into a bunch of emoticons and become a giant mnemonic system due to the large amount of abbreviations. Well is he true? David Crystal, another British writer and lecturer of the English language, with a worldwide reputation and over 100 books to his name, answers that question in an article he wrote on July 15, 2008, headed “2b or not 2b” which was a...
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...t means that all the debates that Humphrys stated are untrue, and texting is not destroying our language, nor negatively affecting it's users and the future of it. Before reading these articles, I believed text messaging was just another form of communicating with someone, but now I believe it is more than just a tool to some people- to people like Humphrys- in which it an enemy they wish to eliminate- as well as other people like Crystal who believe it is a useful to tool to communicate as well as improve your literacy skills. However IMHO, I believe that texting is not negatively affecting English, neither the future of it, nor it's users. For those who oppose my claim,I respectfully disagree, because I believe that nothing, nor anyone is destroying our language; the English language itself keeps changing. Is it right to treat this evolution as a negative aspect?
In the article, “Does Im Make U dum”, the author states how instant messaging has made us become “dum”. The issue of using popular texting abbreviations like, “lol”, “brb”, or “gtg” can either be an effective or unproductive way of expression. Using abbreviations through texting are so commonly used by children, teenagers, and adults. Statistics show that children are younger than ever for when they are first exposed to mobile phones and text messaging. A 2005 ChildWise study that one-in-four children under the age of eight had a mobile phone.
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
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
Instead of trying to draw in the readers with mostly facts he brings up things that are very rare and unlikely. This seems more of an essay of him showing his hatred rather than giving us facts of why texting is bad. Although he did have facts many of them were still very biased and overdrawn. His strong usage of vocabulary toward this not only made me resent his thoughts but turn against
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
Turkle warns that too much texting can lead to generations hiding behind screens and becoming completely isolated. As technology advances, the world becomes less social and more sheltered behind screens. When texting becomes a main source of communication, there can be words that are lost in transition. People will often take your words and contort them to make it either sound better or worse, depending on the topic of conversation. These twisted words can be used against you and make you look extremely different from what you wanted.
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.
“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.
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.
With only “160 characters per message. To increase the amount of information they could cram into each message and save time on tapping them out, people started inserting abbreviations, skipping punctuation and using phonetic spelling” (“How Cell Phones”). When writing formal papers we all know that we have to spell out words, but some of the texting language have become a habit that slips into our writing every once and a while, and we have started talking and writing in this texting language as well. This has made our talking and writing informal and we are beginning to lose the original language. Another downfall to texting found by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, “the risk of being involved in a car accident rises dramatically when cell phones are involved; the lives of drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists are endangered daily by irresponsible people who are too distracted by their phone to pay attention to the road” (“How Cell Phones”). It really is sad that we continue to look at our phones even though we know we risk not only ending our lives but the lives of others as
Step onto any college campus and take a look around. You will find clumps of students standing around in circles, phones in hand, typing away. What is it they are doing? Texting. Ever since the first text message was sent in 1993, the use of text messaging as a means of communication has spread like wild fire, especially amongst the adolescent generation. And with this new form of communication a new language has appeared; text-speak, the shortening of common words into abbreviations and acronyms (Drouin 49). While texting and the text-speak language seem to have been welcomed by many, what affect is this new technology having on the way we communicate? Is it possible that texting is negatively affecting our ability to use formal written communication, or is this idea just a myth perpetuated by negative media attention? And what changes has texting brought to the way we communicate person-to person? Are these changes positive, negative, or perhaps a mixture of both?
Since the Industrial Revolution, technology has permeated and become an integral part of our everyday lives. In fact, a life without technology seems almost impossible to imagine. Almost everyone, around the globe, has access to technology in one form or another. Consequently this type of technology has become ingrained into our culture. Its roots are so deep that it is now peculiar to see someone without a smartphone than with one. Consequently, smartphones and the Internet have radically changed the manner in which we communicate and how we communicate with one another. Our speech has metamorphosed so much from that of our grandparents that it almost seems like a foreign language due to the incorporation of slang and “text talk.” With the sudden surge of email, blogs, and instant messaging that occurred within the last couple of decades, the impact that technology has on our linguistics has become more pronounced. Technology has helped to bridge the gap between people by allowing us to communicate as easily as we breathe. On this note, one would think that the dawn of the Era of Technology would give birth to a renaissance of the English language but, instead, the converse is taking place. With such widespread prevalence of technology such as smartphones and computers, the degradation of the English language is a problem now more than ever.
According to Hudson, a variety is ‘a set of linguistic items with similar social distribution’ . Since the term dialect has acquired a negative connotation throughout the years, academics have started to use the term variety, which is considered more neutral, instead.
Standardization of the English Language There are several important events before 1500 that, when listed together, show a series of steps in the struggle for English language supremacy. These steps are mainly governmental, legal and official events that pushed English usage. In 1356 The Sheriff's Court in London and Middlesex were conducted in English for the first time. When Parliament opened in 1362 the Statute of Pleading was issued declaring English as a language of the courts as well as of Parliament, but it was not until 1413 that English became the official language of the courts everywhere. Thirteen years later in 1423, Parliament records start being written in English.
These days the world has become one village (Atcham, 1962). It is easy to communicate with any person, company no matter where their locality is and at any time in the many linguistic and it can be relating financials, politics, and culture. For instance, make directly contact to others through internet using international language.