5. Read or listen to John McWhorter: Txtng is killing language. JK!!! He
argues that texting is another form of communication. https://goo.gl/gmuwBT
John McWhorter is an associate professor of English and comparative
literature at Columbia University and the author of What Language Is (and What It Isn't
and What It Could Be).
What are your thoughts about texting killing the English
language? Any other ideas? Is email on its way out? (or been out for quite some
time:)
Write two paragraphs.
I believe that texting is killing our English language. I
can see where the guy from this video is coming from when he says texting is
more like speech than writing and that is technically what texting is. However,
I believe that English is being simplified too much with some words, and a lot
of these habits may transfer over to a student’s writing when it comes to
school and later on in work. Today everyone texts more than they communicate
with people in person in some instances. People are always on their phone,
messaging someone or just looking at their phones in general. Texting a lot,
even if we don’t know it, can get us into bad spelling habits, modified words,
and acronyms. Casual speech is in word packets of 7-10 words as said on the
video, which I agree with. I like that texting is a lot like talking in that
way and I think it is good to write to someone you are talking to like you
would if you were talking to them in person. The only thought I have about this
is that we don’t shorten words when we speak in person like LOL, soz, BTW etc.
If people are texting like they would really speak without those kinds of
words, I believe that texting would not be killing the English language. As
long as people are spelling words correctly and not abbreviating them too much,
but still texting in short sentences, sending emoticons or a little ‘haha’ to
show expressions, I believe that texting it is fine. It is just showing us how
we speak, but this is not possible with shortened words and abbreviations. It
is good to have a balance between having to write ‘properly’ and being able to
write casually. A bad thing about texting is that people put too much empathy
in and use different symbols to express what they want to come next. This would
not be expressed as much if we were talking in person. It would flow more
accurately face to face in person. Texting would be much better if it TOTALLY
resembled in person communication, with the right punctuation, no abbreviations
etc.
When I was in high school, I believed that emails were going
out. Since coming to college my thoughts have changed a bit. I think that
emails are not as popular as they were before. They are not as easy to respond
to at all times, so since everyone has mobile phones, it is easier to get in
touch with people through them as they always have them nearby. However, being
a college student I find that I keep in contact with all my professors,
advisors etc. through emailing. It is easier for them to keep track of everyone
emailing them and respond. They check daily as they know they will be getting
emails, where as other people don’t check them as regularly because they know
that people will text them or Facebook them if they need to get in contact with
them. Emails also take longer to write, receive etc. Even though emails are not
used as much as they were, they are still definitely used a good amount. People
still need to have an email address in order to communicate in different
situations as needed.
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