David Crystal - Texts/Tweets Myth/Realities
Texts and Tweets - myths and realities
-David Crystal - world's greatest expert on English language. —linguistic expert
-John Humphreys - people using textspeak are doing to modern world what Ghengis Khan did to Asia - killed 120 million.
-difficult to get info - data - w/ internet and texting
-is so new
-chatrooms - late 90's
-Web - '91
-email - 95
-Google - 99
-weblog - 97
-blogging - 2000+
-social networks - 03-05
-send messages over web - 140 characters
-Twitter - 06
-trying to replicate mobile phone w/ 160.
-'the SMS of the internet. - need your name on Twitter so reserve 20 characters.
-myth - new text messaging thing and tweeting is full of newfangled abbrev's.
-2003 hoax essay - supposedly written by student and teacher couldn't understand
-written all in abbrev and was a 'disaster' cuz students now all do.
-myth…
-NEW FANGLED abbrev - introduced cuz wanna build new language adults won't understand - or cuz kids can't spell.
-myth - kids no longer know how to spell.
-leads to 4th myth - in school kids no longer know diff between correct and incorrect spelling
-these mistakes turn up in essays and exams and many kids failing - kids now have no responsibility to language.
-none of these myths are true.
-know this cuz 10-years of texting and lotsa research has been done.
-myth1 - texts not FULL of abbrev.
-only 10% of texts consist of abbrev.
-c u lol l8r
-from 5% to 18%
-don't abbrev so much cuz 80% texts between ADULTS.
-Obama texting campaign supporters
-TV asks for texts to vote
-textiquette asks to not have abbrev - too ambiguous
myth2 - newfangled abbrev cooked up by kids
-hx of Eng language - 19th ephemora - ads, etc
-frequent abbrev used 100 years ago!!!
-called them 'rabises' (sp?)
-Lewis Carol - played with these as language games
-Victorian era - fascinated w/ lang games
-annuals - puzzles w/ those abbrev that had to figure out - very old.
myth3 - leaving out letters cuz don't know
-Crystal asks kids why leave out - saves space and money
-main reason do cuz is cool
-if cool to leave them out, then have to know they belong there in the first place
-not cool if don't know what doing
-actually, best texters are best spellers
-more texting leads to better literacy
-texting is writing and reading - duh.
-good writer/reader - practice, practice
-youth now have more motivation to write and read!
-kids gotta be quite literate.
myth4-kids unaware of what doing - irresponsible and so are putting into schoolwork and exams
-teachers, MOST, don't see this - remember occasional examples - kids think would be stupid to put abbrev in homework.
-kids know diff between styles of language - one texting and other essays and exams.
-very universal set of myths - we've all felt these.
-texting as genre is very creative
-'01 - first textmessaging poetry comp
-poem in 160 characters - can use abbrev
-far East - texting novels - 160 characters received a day
-Tweeting-Twittering - needs longer time to develop to be more.
-another myth - sentences are always short
-Twitter - are evolving rules all the time
-used to be prompt, "What are you doing?"
-now is "What's happening?"
—NOTE: very fundamental diff in point of view - first is inward and second is outward
-now Twitter is info exchange. - that's how big the change in perspective/inward/outward is.
-if wanna know what's happening, Twitter is place go cuz will see it there first
-i cannot believe that - i think Twitter is annoying, useless, and superficial shit.
-waste of time - who wants to read thru all that shit?
-gotta look and do search of area of interest and will find
-Twitter score - people send mssges to Twitter during lecture and speaker is already on internet.
-Twitter feed - can go look at Twitter feed during performance and see how doing.
-not enemies of literacy
-cognitive function and social lives changed?
-is cog function less now? -real risk.
-now people find more difficult to read longer paragraphs, etc - minds are being honed into more succinct paradigm.
-too soon to generalize
-cannot change cog functions in 20 years
-worries now appear - so gotta manage new technology - start early on
-managers are the teachers - internet management - not taught explicitly
-teachers gotta be alert of need to balance 2 kinds of cognition - short and long
-use technology so motivated to read novel
-we see book as central and technology as marginal
-youth see other way around -
-so, gotta put book in technology
-skills in comm in these venues should be part of instruction in schools - social and moral implications.
-yep, should do this.
-is already part of curric.
-appropriateness of lang - not correct/incorrect anymore which is black/white
-now, is more complex - each style has appropriateness and gotta see where they are to be used -
-exercise - take essay and turn into text message and vice versa
-what sorts of info communicated by each.
-www.theRSA.org
David Crystal - How is the Internet changing language today?
GLOBAL LANGUAGE
HOW IS THE INTERNET CHANGING LANG TODAY
-tech always changes a language.
-printing did this - new spellings and new punct systems
-telephone did this - new patterns of dialog
-broadcasting - 20's - styles like sport commentary, weather reporting
-internet - SO diversified - no one predicted cuz didn't know variety of tech there would be
-www, email, chatroom, virtual worlds, blogging, im, social networks like facebook, mobile phone texting
-ea produces new lang and new style
-ea medium has new style
-actual lang hasn't changed that much - not new patterns of grammar or verb endings
-not huge change in vocabulary
-some new punctuation - emoticons - exaggerated punct as well
-new pronunciation? not really
-same Eng lang as before
-new styles to exploit
-lang is now richer.
www.macmillanenglish.com/global
David Crystal - Which English?
-WHICH ENGLISH SHOULD YOU TEACH YOUR STUDENTS
-Engl learners need to know what's going on worldwide w/ Eng language
-diff dialects - British Eng, Australian,
-not a single variety / see above
-ea has diff vocab, grammar, pronunciation, strategies of discourse
-which to teach?
-more students aware of variations, better - gotta know alternative ways
-otherwise no credibility
-10-20 yrs - now complicated by other forms of regional eng from around world - new zealand, south african, etc
-more variants
-explain variants and why
-never considered cuz never introduced to this!