Language Changes in the Modern World

[bumab]

Most of our discussions around here often include some sarcasm or ironic statements, and alas! Many are missed because of the text based system we use, and those emotions (amond others) are based on large part on the perception of body language, obviously absent in a online situation.

 

We try to alleviate the situation with those little smily faces we all see, to show anger, frustration, embarassement, or whatever. But obviously those fall short of expression the range of emotions available in face to face speach.

 

So the question- Do you think the advent of the internet, along with textual communication becoming more and more common online, will result in our written language changing in a noticable way? Will our language become more emotivally descriptive to pick up the slack of not having a visual link to the reader? Will our vocabulary improve? :circle:

[pgrmdave]

That would be interesting, and I think it would be possible. I know from personal experiance that textual information, especially with sarcasm, can be easily misinterpreted, and cause fights with friends. I have a difficult time discerning emotion over IM, and I try to use emoticons as often as applicable :circle:

[bumab]

Emoticons are useful, but still subject to misinterpritations. I think they will prove less effectual then good word choice, since words are so much more exacting. I wonder if our vocab will enlarge, or just become better utilized... Or maybe the emoticon library of the world will expand to include all possible permutations of emotions in an infinite library of smilies!!! :circle:

[Doktor Faust]

A short reply- if younger children are picking up on the interent slang lately, and by slang, I'm mostly pointing at abbreviations (i.e. "u", "u're" etc...) I can only see vocabulary deteriorating over time. Or maybe that's just me. Crazy... leet. *shrugs*

[rockytriton]

I think if everyone had a webcam, we wouldn't have these problems. Well, either that or people didn't take things too seriously on a message board.

[Turtle]

___The cry of academedicians(sp :) of every modern age; the youth are corrupting the language!

___I personally don't want to see any body language, faces, or any other such conditions of one to one communication. I exposit here explicityly because those things are absent.

___Language change is societal growth. get wit it bruh!

[gubba]

G'day Bumab et.al.,

 

If we're following the example of our elders we're probably already beginning to form some distinctive forms of written expression suitable to the Internet. If you have some time someday you may like to peruse some volumes of letters at your local library. The way our predecessers were able to, often quite artlessly, express their emotions in modes now basically lost to us may be informative. cheers gubba.

[Tormod]

A short reply- if younger children are picking up on the interent slang lately, and by slang, I'm mostly pointing at abbreviations (i.e. "u", "u're" etc...) I can only see vocabulary deteriorating over time. Or maybe that's just me. Crazy... leet. *shrugs*

 

I think this is inevitable and also desirable. Language is an evolving structure and as such needs to adapt to the needs of people.

 

The short words like "u", "me 2", "y" etc are mostly due to the new technology that was SMS and mobile phones. It is probably not going to last, because the technology is evolving to make it easier to use shortcuts but transmit full text. Like my mobile phone, I can use "smart text" which lets me write full words with only a single press on each key (it will guess the words, and mostly gets them right).

[rockytriton]

Since I've been on the internet (since about '95), people have been using all of those shortcuts, but I think that since those mobile devices have come out, it's just been getting more and more usage. To me it's very annoying and a sign of laziness, just like using all caps for everything. I don't mind it in short bursts, but when people use it in large streams of text it can be annoying because it is not natural to read and it makes me stop slightly to comprehend it.

[UncleAl]

Why don't you begin by breaking language into its component primitive parts? Read some linguistics.

 

Vocabulary is fluid. It reflects the needs of its users. As an Engish speaker listening to two Chinese chemists jabbering abut organic chemistry, I am always mildy amused by how much "English" (technese, really) is in their conversation. Using acronyms as verbs is efficient: "We NMR'd the stuff" vs." we obtained a nuclear magnetic resonance spectrum of the stuff." The five tastes are salt, sweet, bitter, sour, and umami. That's what happens when your goverment allows another government to better fund research.

 

Grammar is not fluid. The obscenity of Ebonics (and to a much lesser extent, French) is that it cannot say something unambiguously. Try to find the French equivalent of "tepid" or "lukewarm."

 

English is an extremely sophisticated language. Latin can be written in any word order without losing meaning. The standard German joke is that all books can be written in two volumes, the second one containing all the verbs. English has traded severe self-reference amidst words for a much simplified grammar (without gender!) wherein meaning is also dependent upon word order and punctuation. English is an extraordinarily terse way of saying things exactly - if you know what you are doing.

 

Don't screw it up.

[bumab]

Since I've been on the internet (since about '95), people have been using all of those shortcuts, but I think that since those mobile devices have come out, it's just been getting more and more usage. To me it's very annoying and a sign of laziness, just like using all caps for everything. I don't mind it in short bursts, but when people use it in large streams of text it can be annoying because it is not natural to read and it makes me stop slightly to comprehend it.

 

Bugs me too! I wish students would stop handing in papers with IMO, RU, etc. Of course, that IS the way things are going, and language is fluid. It will change- so perhaps I'm just getting conservative in my old age :)

 

But language getting more condensed (abbrev's :xx: for example) is common- contractions have been a relativally recent phenomenon, language is less flowery. That fluidity is expected- think of newspeak in 1984, it's highly consensed.

 

I was wondering if you think language is getting more expressive as well, since emotions are notoriously difficult to communicate in text, yet we attempt to all the time. Our grammer ability can go down (with the abbreviations, shortenings, etc) and our vocab and word use can go up at the same time. Or are emoticons picking up the slack left when visual communication began to leave the picture?

 

Perhaps video telephone and internet tech will occur quickly enough that this won't matter...

[rockytriton]

You really have students turn in papers with "RU, IMO, etc"? I think emoticons can help, but I don't think they help completely because a smile can mean many things. If you can't see the eyes, then you really can't tell the emotion just because the corners of the mouth are turned up.

[Fishteacher73]

While the actual volume of english vocabulary is techmically up, (probably in every language due to technology) [An odd aside... The pope is the "official" Latin designator. He gets to add in new words to Latin to keep up with the changing world.] , the actual personal vocabulary seems to be shrinking exponentially. The average US student has an abysmal vocabulary and no real drive to expand it. Many of these text abreviations are replacing truly descriptive terms and have ursurped usage of specific teminology. "LOL" has replaced about 70% of any comment regarding something funny. It is no longer hysterical, quiant, comical or hillarious.

 

As Bumab pointed out we will all be quacking soon.

[Doktor Faust]

You bring up a good point that I myself left out of my quick reply earlier. Today's students' vocabulary. In my English class, few people that score low on vocabulary tests have any desire to turn it around, and it's incredibly easy to study in that all of the words are divided into chapters containing fifteen words. Well, that and our teacher requires students to make vocabulary flash cards *shudders*. I wish there were some way to excite more people over simple vocabulary... and I can't believe students are actually incorporating interenet abbreviations and the like in ACTUAL papers.

 

I don't necessarily think that all the internet abbreviations such as "LOL" or "BRB", et cetera are a bad idea (but like rockytriton pointed out earlier, if I see more than seven or eight of them all together, something will get hurt). And I have seen the smart text technology in work, Tormod; I think it's great myself. It's even moved into video games, if I may bring it up. With the possibility of communicating with others in portable [hand-held] video games lately, even the idea of that has been transfered. Based on the game, developers include game-related text.

 

Okay, that was a much longer reply. ^^

[bumab]

[An odd aside... The pope is the "official" Latin designator. He gets to add in new words to Latin to keep up with the changing world.]

 

That's the coolest job I've ever heard of. I didn't know they added anything to Latin, since it's supposed to be a dead language.

 

...the actual personal vocabulary seems to be shrinking exponentially. The average US student has an abysmal vocabulary and no real drive to expand it. Many of these text abreviations are replacing truly descriptive terms and have ursurped usage of specific teminology. "LOL" has replaced about 70% of any comment regarding something funny. It is no longer hysterical, quiant, comical or hillarious.

 

True. I would have expected the opposite, all other things being equal, because language you'd think would need to pick up the slack. I wonder why that is? The homogenization of the American culture might have something to do with it, although you could drag in the concept of memes from good ol' evolutionary theory. These LOL remarks are simply a little better in the cyber world then all the other pleasent adjectives. The rate of change in the language field has increased so dramatically with everything getting onto the internet and textualized, that most ordinary words couldn't keep up- to cumbersome, or hard to spell. thus, a few words population bloomed until they start crowding out the others, causing an increase in their reproductive rate as less children learn the old, more varied vocab...

 

I realize I'm mixing some allusions up, one could go on and on with that analogy... :xx:

[infamous]

A short reply- if younger children are picking up on the interent slang lately, and by slang, I'm mostly pointing at abbreviations (i.e. "u", "u're" etc...) I can only see vocabulary deteriorating over time. Or maybe that's just me. Crazy... leet. *shrugs*

 

I think you'll find that vocal skills in America have been in decline for quite a number of years. If you don't believe this is true, just take a trip to the innercity sometime. I personaly think this is a tragic state of affairs.

[Turtle]

___One of my favorite classes in 11th grade was vocabulary development,which I took as an elective. I do think most people have poor vocabularys, but I don't think the internet abreviations mean dire circumstance. The net is a unique form of communication requiring unique adaptations in regard to its immediacy.

___Even before the net, one sees that newpapers rarely exceed an 8th grade reading level; moreover journalists receive training to that end. :xx: