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.
45 comments:
I think text-speak is a type of Newspeak in today's society because it can be detrimental to this generation. There are way too many people who don't know how to write a professional letter or email because they've grown up with text-speak as one of the languages they learn; they don't know how to speak on the phone or in person either. Texting can be a very good thing, but can also be a bad thing because so many people don't know how to successfully conduct face to face interactions. Also, there are many people that don't fully understand text-speak because they didn't grow up with language, or because they never bothered to learn it. This is especially seen in the older people of today's society.
Texting in the 21st century, has altered how we, as people, communicate. Text speak can make things more convenient and faster, but it has altered communication.
Texting makes things easier to be misinterpreted, emotion doesn't always come across the same way to everyone through their messages. The way someone sends a message is not how it always comes across to the receiver.
Text speak does allow for a clearer difference to be noticed between formal and informal language, but it is not always positive.
I believe texting is harming our generation as people easily will mix up text speech with actual english language on just a normal basis without realizing your doing it and when this occurs on something important such as applying for a job it would be detrimental for that person.
Texting isn't really the new Newspeak. The acronyms of "LOL", "TTYL", still mean "Laughing out loud", and "Talk to you later". Newspeak is like good++ or good +-, which aren't acronyms for "great" or fantastic. Since acronyms are just abbreviations for phrases, it isn't bad. People understand what they mean. Good++ isn't an acronym. Texting isn't even a form of a new language, but it is used more in writing, than talking.
Great ideas so far guys but I think no one is going to go around saying LOL or stuff like that I don't think it is like newspeak because they are taking out words but with this texting language we are just making words shorter. I doubt ever we will go around talking like we do like we do over text so I don't believe it is like newspeak. We are just making our lives easier for over text because when we are over text it is not formal so we can talk like that.
I believe that new age texting with it's acronyms is an accomplishment for the human race. Does it represent stupidity to shorten words and still express a meaning? Then Mom, Dad, and other words that where shortened to save time should be bad as well. I don't believe it should be labeled bad to express simplicity.
When speaking casually to a friend or family member, I sometimes find myself saying "LOL" or "BRB" out loud. However, in a formal conversation or in essays and other professional documents that require formal english, I know better than to use "LOL," "BRB," or "GTG". Texting language isn't one that can affect my formal and thoughtful language and I feel as though it is the same for every other person who uses the texting language.. It is simply just a new form of language, as John McWhorter had explained.
I believe that texting language can harm societies way of communicating. I have a friend who has a sister in college, for some reason she would talk in almost fluent texting lingo. When referring to a friend she would say bff, but instead of saying it in the individual letters, she would say it like biff. If I didn't know who she was before hand and she talked to me in the ways she did, I would consider her illiterate and rather dumb. I do believe that texting language can be harmful and people need to distinguish boundaries.
I believe that texting is the Newspeak of the 21st century. I don't think it causes much harm in societies ability to communicate. In some ways, it could be harmful in holding us back from expanding our vocabulary. We get in a habit of using those texting terms, and we may even use them in times where it is not appropriate. When students constantly use texting language it becomes a habit, I believe it eventually affects us negatively. We end up using it in situations we shouldn't, for example, in a job interview. In conclusion I believe that the new texting language may have a negative affect on students.
Texting is not the Newspeak of the modern world. It is more just a method of communication amongst individuals. Personally, the use of text language is not really a big deal because I write out words like you and are. I will use some of the text language for showing signs of laughing because telling the other person you are laughing out loud takes too long and using text language is just more convenient. This language does not affect students in a negative way because they obviously will not use this language in oral conversation or on papers. The language is just a means of communication. Texting does not limit oral face to face conversation it just provides more opportunity for conversations and I agree with the TED talk.
No, not at all. Texting is nowhere near becoming the Newspeak of the 21st century. It is simply acronyms used to type faster and get the point across without writing every word out. I don't believe using this language is harmful either because when speaking orally, nobody says these acronyms, they say the words. Texting language does not negatively affect students because they don't use these acronyms when speaking. Texting is simply a separate form of language from written/oral thought. It is a quicker way to get your point across to people when texting, direct messaging, or emailing.
I do not think that texting is the Newspeak of the 21st century. Newspeak completely eliminates words from existence, where texting simply shortens them to make it easier and quicker to type and send your text. People still know what LOL stands for, and no one uses it outside of texts. I do not think it is harmful for society. People understand the difference between formal writing and a quick text to friends. Texting acronyms are not created to destroy the current language, they are created to make conversing faster and it is actually a form of speech, not of writing. People text in the way that they speak, not in the way that they write. Texting is not the Newspeak of the 21st century
I would have to say that texting is not the newspeak of our time, as I feel that it is just an extension and another way to express our language. Having said that, I agree in saying that it will not harm our language. In a way, I feel that it can strengthen people's oral skills within our language, as some people will make the distinction between the words and grammar they use in a text as opposed to when speaking to others. At the same time, however, it can harm some students. I've heard others who speak terribly and as if they were texting somebody instead of talking to them. This isn't the fault of texting however, as it is more the fault of the person who is texting. People need to understand correct usage of words and proper grammar. Texting is informal, and therefore can be written without proper rules and used without proper conduct. But the differences between oral/written language and texting must be understood.
I think texting allows for a common forum for people to communicate quickly in today's fast-paced society. It serves the purpose of sending a message in abbreviated form, meaning that it is not detrimental to oral or written skills. As long as a student does't attempt to use terms like "lol" and "haha" in formal assignments, then I do not think it negatively affects the student's development of speech/written capabilities. Texting is the new method of emoting what has been so common in normal speech and relies on technology, meaning that it could possibly exclude those in the older generation or who are not tech savvy. Those that may not understand it may think it is a detriment to language, but it is actually a means of communicating in written form like we speak in a normal conversation.
I think that texting is not todays type of Newspeak. Instead of being harmful to society's ability to communicate it is actually just a unique way of talking through written communication. There is no defined texting language since everyone has their own style of 'writing' that is usually similar to their personal way of talking. Every time I text someone new I learn how to interpret their own style which is very similar to learning to interpret writing styles from different published authors. John McWhorter says that texting is just the written version of talking, similar to how presidential speeches are just the spoken version of a written document, which is true in a way. The difference is no one is taught how to text in school (at least not purposefully) there are no specified classes in elementary school that are dedicated to texting languages like there are for reading, writing, and, in some cases, speaking.
I believe that texting is causing harm to how we communicate to each other. Yes, texting is more convenient and faster, but it can cause conflict. You could be sending a text to one of your friends and they could think it means something totally different. Texting can be negative, because when you have to write a letter or a report for school, you could be so use to how you text someone, you would be confused as to how to write the letter. That would not be good if you wrote LOL in your report. Then you would have to pretty much learn how to write without putting new words in that report. That's why I believe that texting is negative for our generation.
texting isn't modern day Newspeak because words that you only see while texting are acronyms for real words. Texting acronyms are meant to make texting faster and more convenient. While Newspeak is meant to restrict the vocabulary of the user texting lingo can be replaced with real words when necessary.
Similar to how any event you might go to has a specific dress code, each situation you are in has a specific "speech code". It is not simply a difference between formal and informal speech anymore. Texting has a specific code of grammar and syntax, much like an APA style lab report or a news article does. I agree 100% with what the TED speaker said. Text-speak is appropriate for casual situations only - we know exactly where and when to use it effectively. with acronyms such as SMH or TFW evoking a certain specific emotion behind a sentence. This language isn't a shallow reduction of the written English language, it's what we found works best for conveying our emotions to each other efficiently in a specific environment - and to me, that's what language is all about.
I found the video very interesting, and I agree with everything that he said. Viewing texting as a grammatical structure is something new that I had not thought of before, and I think that it is accurate. Texting has developed in the way that it did because it is more convenient to use shortcuts for phrases rather than writing them out when you are sending texts. This idea also goes along with the fact that texting is "written speech", also explained in the video, and is accurate. After seeing this video, I am not convinced that texting is the "Newspeak" of the 21st century, but I can now see how it may be considered that. I do not think that texting has a severe negative impact on people, however, I do believe that the contrast and clash between the formality of conventional writing and the shortness and haste of texting takes the formality out of writing and makes it more concise and speech-like. The more often you text, the more the habits of texting will bleed into your writing, making your writing more speech-like.
I don't think that texting is newspeak, it's almost just like a different way of speaking. No one speaks like that in writing or in person. Its not like it is taking over the current speaking language we use. It isn't eliminating words out of our vocabulary like the newspeak is.
I do not believe that texting is newspeak. I believe it could be a new way of communication and a way to just shorten our sentences and thoughts down. However the more we text the more we forget how to correctly speak and sometimes write. People tend to speak in 5 to 10 words so of course we kind of bleed our talking into our writing.
No, I don't think that texting is not the newspeak of the world today. Texting language is just used to type less words to get the point across quicker. This texting language doesn't harm the communication of written/oral because nobody todays talks like they do text. Texting like this also doesn't harm students either. Students adjust their words when going to school. I think that texting is its own type of communication and oral/written is separate from it.
I don't think that texting is the newspeak of the 21st century, it is just a way of talking to people. Not many people use texting language when they speak, texting isn't a whole other language, it is just a bunch of acronyms that people use so they don't have to write out full words, and most people use it just to talk to their friends. I know for me I don't send my grandparents a "lol" or "brb". I don't think texting language is harmful for the society's ability to communicate since most people can separate their texting language from formal expression.
No because we don't speak that way. We still use whole words because people enjoy speaking. When you are having a conversation, the goal isn't to get it over with and finish it as soon as possible like it is when you are texting. If you're trying to continue a conversation, you will use complete sentences and use real words. We also use these acronyms to indicate how we are feeling or show facial expressions. When we are speaking in person, we do not use these and never will because we can show how we feel and our facial expressions can be shown.
I do not think that texting is a form of newspeak because it only makes it faster and easier to say what we want to. Abbreviating and shortening words does not eliminate them from existence. They will always still be there, but shortening them to a few letters is less time consuming action than writing the entire word out. Even though I do not believe texting is a form of newspeak, I do still believe it causes our society harm. So many teenagers and young adults are so addicted to their phones that they can not even hold a conversation with someone. Texting every day can cause this separation from the real world. People can easily get caught up in this make believe world that cell phones provide. Whether that be texting, games, or social media, it all does harm. Everyone will only get used to talking through texting and they will not know how to properly talk to someone in person. It could also become harmful because people resort to solving issues over texting instead of in person. This happens because it is less nerve racking to resolve a fight when you can not see the other person's facial expressions. Having conversations in person helps to build your people skills and will also help to strengthen your experiences you have in your every day life.
I think the newspeak texting language can be bad for us. It can be bad cause it's meant for short texts but people start writing it in letters, emails and even start to use the texting languages in their daily vocabulary. It can effect us in a negative way because people are going to continue to use the text talk so much it will evolve and we are going to start talking the text talk and not talking properly. Even the text talk we have now can evolve into different meanings from the past to now the meaning of text talk can change at any moment.
I don't think texting is newspeak but I think it marks a movement toward newspeak. Abbreviations and simplified sentences don't change language as much as newspeak would. However, texting definitely changes they way we interact. The actual language isn't being changed but the way we structure conversations and how we listen to each other while we speak is changing. I think this marks a movement toward hurting our language, but as of now our interactions are the only thing being effected.
I feel that today's society may have changed text into a "newspeak". Throughout highschool and even just outside I have noticed people have used texting language in their everyday vocabulary. People vocally using "lol" in their sentence or abbreviating a word in their sentences. I do not feel that this is harmful to society, I believe that it is just a phase possibly. Using text is not eliminating words from the dictionary, it's actually adding new words to it.
In my opinion, I would have to say that texting is not the newspeak in our world today and I don't think that it ever will be. We use some of the words and acronyms that we do in text to make talking to other people over the phone more convenient and easier to read. We aren't trying to make up no words, trying to get rid of words, or even trying to make our own language. Today, we are just trying to make things easier and faster to do. In now way are people trying to create new words and languages, people are just trying to be innovative and make things such as texting a much easier and faster process than it has to be when you spell out all of the different words we use the acronyms for.
I don't think texting lingo like LOL or OMG is newspeak in the 21st Century. It isn't narrowing the range of thought because its just making an often used term more simple. Texting doesn't often show emotion like a normal conversation, but if you are talking to someone and using texting lingo, thats just dumb. I hope nobody would have a face to face conversation with me and when the conversation is over, they would say "T T Y L". Maybe they would say "talk to you later" which is the same thing, but TTYL is used over texts because it makes it much faster and more simpler to type. I do agree with the term LOL talked about in TED talk. The acronym LOL is used loosely in texting, but I think its just used to make the conversation more casual when youre talking to your friend, but I wouldnt use it if im in a serious conversation because im not actually laughing, most of the time.
I do not believe that texting is a form of Newspeak because I don't believe that people are purposely destroying language. Texting is meant to be a fast form of communication, it doesn't have to be formal. Texting slang is a faster way to communicate our informal messages. People know when formal language needs to be used, and when it is appropriate to use texting slang. It is not harmful to people's ability to communicate; it doesn't prevent people from knowing how to use proper grammar. Taking a break from proper grammar and sending a quick message to a friend will not take away all knowledge you have of grammar.
In a way, it is modern day newspeak and at the same time it is not. It isn't taking over all modern day language, it's just a new form of communication. It is like newspeak as it is simplifying words and phrases into shorter words, for example: newspeak turns bad to ungood, we turn laughing out loud to LOL. Personally, I don't think this is harming society's communication at all. Think about when a new language was created before, it helped unite people and form a new society around it. I don't believe it is harmful to students as we still write essays normally, we aren't changing everything to acronyms and such. We just use it in private texts and communication via modern devices.
I believe that text language is almost the exact opposite of Newspeak. In Newspeak, the end goal is to remove superfluous words and eliminate shades of meaning. Though acronyms are often used when texting, this does NOT mean that there is less meaning or that the "writer" is lazy. Oftentimes, these acronyms convey different meanings than the separate words they represent. Take the text acronym "LOL" for example. Though it does mean "laughing out loud", one who types "LOL" is very rarely actually laughing out loud. The even-more-colloquial meaning of "LOL" is that something is sort of funny, but not funny enough to truly go in depth about it. There is another layer of meaning to it as well. "LOL" is often used as an expression of disappointment, or annoyance, or in a sarcastic sense. If I were texting a friend and they told me something funny, I would most likely not reply with "lol" because of the connotation it has developed. The same can be said for many other texting terms. "Haha" and "BRB" carry the same connotations. Capitalization plays a major part, too. In response to something funny, "LOL" conveys a genuine sense of laughing at something, while "lol" is more of an expression of sarcasm. Even still, typing out "I'm laughing so hard" communicates that the recipient actually was affected enough to put in the time to type out the extra letters. Rather than stripping down a language to its bare bones like Newspeak, text slang is instead adding a vast expanse of extra meaning and neologisms to our language.
-Brad Blaszynski
I agree with the man said in the video. Also I don't agree that it is the Newspeak. It isn't harmful because people are able to switch out of texting speak. It doesn't affect students in a negative way. It's just a way to write like people speak. This is a form shorthand. I can see why people think that texting is Newspeak. But Newspeak's purpose is to erase words completely whereas texting is just a way of letting you write like you're speaking. It's like a second language.
I believe that the key difference between texting and Newspeak is the thinking behind it. While both forms of language are simplified, people who use texting lingo still have the range of thought of someone who doesn't type regularly. Simplifying 'be right back' to 'brb' does not narrow one's range of thought, but does streamline texting. Newspeak, on the other hand, is handed down by the government with the intent of restricting free speech. Texting does not restrict free speech; if anything, it is an outlet for it.
I think that texting is entirely different from newspeak. Texting is just another form of casual speech we use in today. Newspeak is actually destroying words to make a more definite way of speaking, it tries to simplify the vocabulary to make sure there are no hidden meanings or so someone can't interpret something other than what was said. Texting does not eliminate words, it is another way of having casual conversation without all the rules and boundaries of the writing. It makes conversations more convenient for the user.
I don't think that texting can be equated to newspeak because they are two different means of communication. Newspeak is a way to narrow speaking and vocabulary, while texting lingo is a way of shortening words. Because words are shortened as they are in texting lingo, it does not necessary mean that the meaning of the shortened words has been reduced. These words are still being used in the same capacity and are being shortened simply to reduce time in texting. Additionally, newspeak is a way of communicating orally, while texting lingo is exclusively written communication. These two different mediums - writing and speaking - do not cross the bridge and do not cross over. People may say LOL when they text, but they will actually laugh out loud when they talk to a person. People do not say "I LOL'ed so hard" in real life. Texting is a means of quick communication with simple words, not complex sentences. Speaking is a way of conveying emotions, ideas, and thoughts to others, with the aid of gesticulation and non-verbal communication tactics. Newspeak diminishes the meaning of words in a way that texting never will, because texting never will replace oral communication 100%.
I do not believe that texting is the Newspeak of the present day. I think that John McWhorter was correct in his TedTalk about how texting is an entirely new language and not a destruction of the existing one. Along with texting we also write formal essays in school and emails when contacting teachers or coworkers. We still use the casual language of today but we also use a separate kind of language in our technological conversations.
Texting is not (in my opinion) a form of newspeak because it is just a different form of communication. It is a much faster way of communicating especially if we need to say something urgently and don't have the time to do so. It does not mis-inform people of proper spelling and grammar, but is just a different way of communicating.
I don't believe that texting is the "Newspeak" of the 21 at all. Texting is just a faster way to speak to someone really. In real life or other types of writing, most people would never actually use acronyms like we do in texting. I don't think it harms language at all either because people don;t talk like that out loud either. Like Mcwhorter said, it is just something we use, alongside our normal writing and speech. I don't think texting is harmful at all to our vocabulary either because when using an acronym you still know what the person is trying to say and you can also decipher them.
I feel like texting is the new Newspeak of the 21st century. i feel this way because just like Newspeak in 1984 texting is giving us the opportunity to say more words with less letter. Texting uses a combination of letters and each letter means a certain word in the specific sequence. This I feel was the goal of Newspeak in 1984. I feel using this texting language does affect society because people start to type the way they text. in some classes i have had the students had to proof read each others papers and many students had texting lingo in their essays. people become accustomed to using this lingo and it affects their writing overall.
I do not think that texting or slang is todays form of newspeak. The point of some of the things said in texts are either just shortening what you wanted to say to just simply save you time from typing it all out, or even to just add a small piece of emotion to the text. People, especially kids, thrive on communication and texting makes it possible to communicate with someone when they aren't actually with or near you. It's also fun for kids and it can also just be a joke and not meant to be taken seriously.
Like the man in the video, I believe that texting is almost like another language that is developing. New words are constantly being added to the slang dictionary, but they aren't destroying any old words. I don't think it is similar to Newspeak because Newspeak is destroying one language to make it a simpler language, while texting is almost like another language along side of the regular English language. People can switch back and forth between the two languages, while in Oceania they are only creating one language.
I do not personally think that texting is killing our language. I can understand how people believe that it is ruining peoples ability to communicate orally and written. This does not mean that the language is being destroyed. It isn't a negative or positive change, it is just a produce of convenience. It is only used for quick conversation like communication. It is not todays newspeak.
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