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?
We often hear news stories report on the possible negative effects texting has on students’ formal writing. These stories usually flash a picture of some student’s formal essay or class assignment containing a text-speak abbreviation in place of a formal word. For example, “u” in place of “you”. Stories like this cause educators and parents to worry that the use of texting is impairing students’ ability to write in a formal setting and is thus becoming detrimental to literacy altogether. However, do these news stories actually hold any merit or are they simply media hype? How often does textspeak actually appear in students’ writing? According to literary scholar David Crystal, “all the evidence suggests that belief in an impending linguistic disaster is a conseq...
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...Service Helps Schools Stop Bullying.” PR Newswire. LexisNexis Academic. LexisNexis. Web. 2 Nov. 2011.
Crystal, David. Txtng: the Gr8 Db8. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008. Print.
Drouin, Michelle, and Claire Davis. “R u txting? Is the Use of Text Speak Hurting Your Literacy?.” Journal of Literacy Research 41.1 (2009): 46-67. Humanities International Complete. EBSCO. Web. 25 Oct. 2011.
Marsh, Louis, Rob McGee, Shyamala Nada-Raja, and Sheila Williams. “Brief Report: Text Bullying and Traditional Bullying among New Zealand Secondary School Students.” Journal of Adolescence 33.1 (2010): 237-40. WorldCat. Web. 2 Nov. 2011.
Schencker, Lisa. “Can texting bring teens, parents closer 2gether?: Texting might improve communication” Financial Times Ltd. (2009). Worldcat. Web. 25 Oct. 2011.
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
... law, government supervisors and to the public through the political system available. (Austin and Coventry, 2001). The private prisons are also answerable to the insurers, investors, competitors and the stockholders. Competition from other competitors therefore acts as a better mechanism for control which is not experienced by public prisons. The problem of funding and allocating space efficiently in the prisons would decrease if there were better markets that sell, buy and rent the prison cells. The private prisons are based in such a way that they have introduced factories behind the bars allowing them to reduce their costs and allowing the inmates to earn some money and pay in their own way and give back to the community where they resided. The public prisons do this to some extent which however cannot match that of the private prisons. (Silverman and Ira, 2001).
“Intermediate sanctions are correctional programs that fall somewhere between probation and prison, (pg. 124, Allen).” Due to over crowded prison in the U.S. the government had to look to an alternative, which is intermediate sanctions, a step up to probation. Intermediate sanctions allow offenders to be released back into the community while still being monitored. “The sanctions are based on the sentencing goal of rehabilitation, which is a type of penalty used to reform the offender and return the offender to society as a law-abiding citizen. Intermediate sanctions alleviate prison overcrowding by allowing more offenders to participate in programs designed to reform the offender while the offender lives as a part of the community, (Study.com).”
One of the key International Organizations that work on behalf of Human right issues is Amnesty International. It is a global nongovernmental organization that is campaigning for a world where human rights are enjoyed by all. It is independent of any political ideology, economic interest or religion. The primary mission of the organization is to investigate and expose the facts, whenever and wherever abuses happen, lobby governments, and other powerful groups such as companies, Making sure they keep their promises and respect international law, By telling the powerful stories of the people we
The fastest growing form of communication in America’s society is texting. David Mercer brings up a valid argument about how the appearance of texting was not a slow process, parents never had an opportunity to experience texting so they have no way of teaching their children how to use it responsibly (Carter). Texting is so common it carries over into our everyday lives easily and at times becomes controlling. America’s society thrives on the conveniences texting provides us. While texting is fast and convenient it has numerous faults that affect our society mentally and socially. Texting can be beneficial as it simplifies our lives at times; however, there are numerous negative effects texting has on our society.
Rehabilitation is less severe than punishment, and the individual can receive treatment. Rehabilitation can deter crime because an offender can go to things like anger management classes and still return to society. Example, a first time offender that does not receive a form of punishment can be required to serve probation. Probation is an alternative sentence for less serious cases and it also mean that the offenses are not serious enough to require incarceration,
“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.
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
Determining the effects of text messaging when it comes to college students and their ability to spell, has resulted in a positive nature. Shaw, Carlson, and Waxman (2007), performed a study on eighty-six college students, whom were recruited from a large Midwestern university (p. 58). The authors conducted this research with the intent to prove that the abbreviations and misspellings in text messaging, has begun to lower many college students spelling abilities. Their study resulted in a completely different aspect than was expected, the information gathered did not support the authors hypothesis. Their hypothesis being that, "...spelling ability deteriorates with the frequent use of and exposure to the abbreviated and misspelled words and phrases of text messaging..." (Shaw, Carlson, and Waxman, 2007, p. 60). Although studies show differently, many instructors have complained that students are using misspellings and abbreviations that they normally would use in text messaging, in their academic writings too.
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
Everyday people are not granted their human rights, whether it is for what they believe in, for doing their job or for what they are. Wrongly punished and forgotten, these people have no one to help them and fight for them. This is where Amnesty International comes and plays a role to give that person his or her human rights that they were deprived from. Amnesty International, an organization, based on the idea that “every person to enjoy all the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights standards” (1) fights for human rights, the forgotten prisoners and many other cases. The organization backed with 3 million members in over 150 countries and territories (1) starts petitions and protests to bring justice and human rights to the forgotten and punished. With those points in mind, is Amnesty International really beneficial? Though it helps to some extent it has many flaws going from bias to time and effort consumed for a certain case.
The “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” is a human right charter that Amnesty International focuses on. The articles in the declarations states the rights every human being in the world should have. An important article the freedom of expression, permits every citizen to speak without censorship and/or limitation. It is a basic human right that every citizen in the world should have but many don’t. In countries such as Burma and North Korea, citizens got beaten up or imprisoned when anything negative were said about the government. Even in developed countries, workers aren’t allowed to complain about their poor working conditions. To raise awareness and aide people about the situations, Amnesty Internati...
Text messaging is damaging our literacy and communication skills as a society. Calling someone on the phone or writing them a letter is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. There is a new language that is being learned and not taught across the globe. It is the language of Textese, and it has quickly consumed the lives of millions across the world. There will always be the protector of language arts. These are the shrinking number of people everyone knows, that will continue to handwrite letters and sign them with proper English and etiquette. It may be as simple as picking up the phone and calling a friend or relative. It may be even simpler than that, in that people put forth an effort to talk to the person sitting next to or across from you and engage them in a conversation. Texting and textisms have become so common and widespread that using proper English, correct spelling, and full sentences is also becoming a thing of the past. People that constantly use text and instant messaging may have difficulty with literacy and expressing themselves in writing form. The research shows that text messaging has deteriorated how we communicate and express ourselves because textisms have become an easier and quicker form of communication that has affected literacy in children and adults.
Amnesty International is a well-known international human rights organization. They defend individuals whose rights have been violated by nations. According to their website, Amnesty International has a mission “of a world in which every person – regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identity – enjoys all of the human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and other internationally recognized human rights standards.” (Amnesty International, 2016a, Our Mission, para 1) According to the UDHR, every person is born free and equal, regardless of race, gender, political status, class, or economic status. (International, 2016b) Additionally, the UDHR states that all human beings have the inalienable right to freedom of speech, freedom of religion,