In the novel 1984, Syme explains to Winston that the purpose of
Newspeak in the novel is to "narrow the range of thought." Syme becomes
excited when he explains to Winston how "we're destroying words-- scores
of them, hundreds of them, every day." After viewing the TED talk on
"Texting is Killing Language" by John McWhorter, write a response to the
following question:
Is texting the Newspeak of the
21st century? Is using this texting language harmful for society's
ability to communicate (written/oral)? Does it affect students in a
negative way? Or, is texting just a new form of language used today
separate from formal written/oral expression? Think about the
presentation you just viewed from the TED talk with McWhorter.
15 comments:
i feel like it does negatively affect formal communication because in modern communication punctuation is easier to be forgotten and also spelling mistakes and pronunciation mistakes are more easily made unconsciously. This also affects younger children who are still developing their language skills
I have never seen texting talk used harmful in school. i do not think that it messes with students or is harmful because kids know when and when not to use this type of language.
I think that newspeak is todays new language but it will not diminish ever. Things in texting get shortened but not like the newspeak in 1984. I think the new words we create some people might be offended by the words and texting language. I believe that it does affect students in a negative way because we are transferring our language into the formal writing we have to do it a paper. I think that the texting and the speech are being combined by people today. People today are getting lazy and just want to use the texting language that they use more than the other.
Yes there is a new version of Newspeak and there are good and bad parts to it. An advantage to it, is that we have so much more entertainment from it. Honestly people get a kick out of making up words and phrases and they are meant to be funny or quick witted. That isn't a bad thing. But a disadvantage to it would be how our generation can't distinguish between texting language and writing a paper. We can't "turn that language off". We keep the shortened, choppy, humorous words/ phrases and use it throughout every aspect in which we communicate. There are times and places for it and some people just don't understand how to stop casual talk sometimes. So there are both good sides and bad sides to talking in a shortened language.
Texting is becoming part of our language, however it is not becoming a major problem. Language will forever change, good or bad, and we can not help that. There are simply too many people in our world that speak this language to change the language in a good way. Unfortunately, we are becoming a less formal society. Everything is becoming easier to do in our society, including talking.
Yes, I would say that texting could be considered the "Newspeak" of the modern era. However, I do not believe that it is totally negative or harmful to society's ability to communicate. While texting often does decrease a person's ability to speak face to face it also brings benefits such as ease and efficiency. Texting is much easier to do than just write someone a letter or email in order to maybe ask just a simple question. To add to that texting also brings such an efficiency, that you can have your quick question mentioned earlier in a matter of seconds. Students that can use texting in the correct way will benefit greatly from it however, this varies depending on that student. An example for this positivity includes but is not limited to getting help from a friend on what the homework is or even how to do it. I believe that texting can be considered the "Newspeak" of today's society however I do not think that it is "just a new form of language" used today.
In a way you could say that texting is the Newspeak in the 21st Century. As long as people are able to distinguish between formal and informal writing/texting then I believe it is alright to have both a texting language as well as a formal language. I do not think that it is dangerous as long as people can separate the two. When you go to write an essay, you need to write in formal language. If you are just texting with friends, or talking with friends, it is ok to use informal language. Even though students should know to use these two different types of language it can be dangerous because many students just use informal language and just put aside formal language. As long as informal language is only used between friends and texting, and formal language is used the rest of the time, then it is not dangerous.
I believe texting can sometimes be detrimental to writing and common speech. Only in certain situations is texting bad for it. Most of the time people are texting exactly as they would be speaking. I write the same way as I talk as do so many others. In occasions the two mix and the I's are not capitalized then I have to go back to fix them. Yet most of the time they are perfectly normal. Writing is changing to become more like spoken word.
It is somewhat similar to the Newspeak but I would not say that it is the Newspeak of the 21st century. The reason for this is that as from what we saw the Newspeak in the book sometimes takes two words and merge them into one. In our case texting is using single letters. I do not think that texting is too harmful, no one talks in text. I do think that texting spellcheck feature does hurt our language. Spellcheck fixes words that we do not how to spell, but we will not learn how to spell them properly if they are always fixed for us automatically. For me I do not use texting language that much, I continue to write fully except for remembering punctuation in my text. It has lessened the use of formalities today to the point where our normal talking is the formality. I still use formalities for they are important to succeed in the future. I do have a friend that does use text talk orally for example "OMG". Most students understand the importance of proper communication for we are taught that it is the only expectable form for papers. Texting seems to only be a small form of new language that is limited to texting. In a way it is similar to conjectures, where it is bring words together to simplify the writing.
i believe that texting and social media today is going to adventually drastically change our language. texting now a days people use letters to replace some words and use a lot of slang to get there point across. texting is very loose in its structure because no one uses capital letters or proper punctuation.
Cara Gibson
I believe that texting IS the Newspeak of the 21st century. Mainly every teenager does it, through texting, emailing, messaging, talking to family/friends... they even do it in their reports for school! Even smaller children are starting to do it. It appears that social media helps spread text talk throughout the whole world. It is very dangerous to use in our lives today, it creates less vocabulary that we can use in our work and limits what we can actually think about. If we don’t have the right words to think about something, we can’t think about it! It is a very negative thing for students to use in the world today, socially and educationally. The words we use in our school work should be informative- not things like LOL and “it was gr8!” Once people use them in their reports, their grades go down due to bad spelling and poor punctuation- which is very bad for their future. All in all, text talk just looks very stupid. It brings our intelligence down and we shouldn’t have it in our world today.
I think in a way texting is like the newspeak of today. It is true that in the novel newspeak was the narrowing of language. Some people abbreviate words to make them shorter for a text, but the point of sending a text is to send a quick message to someone when you cant call or see them. I don't think there is an intentional meaning of changing the way we speak. I don't think people speak face to face in the way they text each other. I actually think texting has made communication better between people of all classes, races, and genders. I don't think texting has become the newspeak of today in the way it was used in "1984".
I feel as if the abbreviations that people use while texting are like the Newspeak Language. Not all words have abbreviations so, people are still writing out majority of words. Although, the abbreviations that are made take down the vocabulary that we already know. I would say that texting language is not overall harmful because nobody is really talking in text. People still are able to verbally communicate well face to face, but when it comes to texting like stated there is a small problem. However, there are kids who are capable of writing properly in papers, but some kids do have problems with written communication. Kids aren't realizing that they are writing abbreviations, no capitalization, or punctuation. With the advancement in technology kids have spell check and autocorrect to help them out, but of course it doesn't solve all problems. I feel as if texting is evolving into a new type of language. People are using it in everyday conversations, and is now becoming a problem with a lot of the younger generations.
I believe that texting could be the Newspeak of the 21st century. The speaker on the Ted Talk, tells the audience that writing is our speech. Today, in the 21st century the word speech is different than the word speech in previous years. In the past, people would have long speeches vs. today a speech is just talking. The speaker also shares that when we text, yes we use different structures or vocabulary… like “LOL”. Also, when we text we don’t use the proper punctuation or grammar. But, if you think about it when we speak these sentences out loud, do we really think about this grammar when we talk about it. Different ways today are developing how we use “slash” or “lol” in the text messages. Well, we thought "lol" meant laugh out loud, but it shows that we changed this meaning. We are using this new language aside our other language.
-Megan Caton
I believe that texting in today's society is similar to newspeak. Newspeak is removing words from the language and the texting is adding new slang to the language. It's not that adding new words is the problem, it's that we are trying to replace old words with ones that seem less intelligent. Texting has its pros and cons, it lets us communicate easier,but it also takes some of our language away. Riley
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