David Crystal Linguistics Videos Notes

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!