Comments on: IM: Language Builder or Buster

By: Comments Galore « Expressions of the Written Kind

Comments Galore « Expressions of the Written Kind — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 02:50:29 +0000

[...] Comment 8 [...]

By: Comment Trails « Particles of Spirit

Comment Trails « Particles of Spirit — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 04:44:51 +0000

[...] :Kristie: IM: Language Builder or Buster [...]

By: spiritparticles

spiritparticles — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 15:30:47 +0000

Friday I drove down to Chicago to pick up my brother who was there for some work related training. On the way home he was driving (which was a mistake in itself, he scared me to almost death) and I was over in the passenger seat typing out text messages to my teenage daughter who was just getting out of school.

My brother looked at me disdainfully and asked, “are you sending a text message?”

“Yes” I said, “I wanted to make sure Samantha picked Shelby up from school,” which sends my brother who is tree years older than I into lecture mode.

“I swear modern technology will eventually throw us back to the equivalent of the dark ages,” he exclaims while throwing me toward the windshield breaking for the horrendous I94 Chicago traffic. I look at him stupidly and he gone on, “Socrates said, ‘writing would be the end of memory’ and I believe that e-mail and text messages will be the end of verbal communication.” “It wont take long,” he went on, “and we’ll be back to dragging our knuckles on the ground.”

I disagree. It’s human nature to find different ways to communicate. One form of communication doesn’t cancel out another. While Socrates may have been somewhat right, the capacity for memory is still available, it’s just not as necessary as it was before the written word. The telephone certainly wasn’t certainly didn’t end face to face communication, it’s simply expanded it and made it easier and faster for people to communicate from long distances. Same with the internet, e-mail, cell phones, and text messages, they are simply ways to expand communication.

The shortcuts we use to communicate through e-mail and text messaging doesn’t have to be the downfall of the written word either. We, as thinking human beings, have the capacity to communicate in many ways and also write in many different capacities. For example, I go to AA meetings on a regular basis and around those meetings you’ll hear a language only AA people can understand. They tend to use pithy statements and cliché’s and acronyms that anyone in AA can recognize but someone who has never been there may be left scratching their head. I call it AA speak. It drives me crazy but I understand it, and it doesn’t make it a bad thing. I certainly don’t use in when I communicating with people not related to AA or in my written assignments at school. My grammar and punctuation skills are sometimes lacking but that comes from my lack of knowledge of those skills. Either I don’t remember what I was taught in elementary school 30 years ago or I never really learned. I can, however, separate AA speak from other forms of communication, so I don’t see why text message and e-mail language cannot be intentionally separated from the written language.

So, I guess this was my long winded way of saying I agree with the author of Kristie’s articles. Text language is not the downfall of written language.

By: stephcj

stephcj — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 02:39:50 +0000

I agree with Mr. Craig. Teacher’s taking declining English scores out on students’ use of IM rather than their lack of teaching the basics is just plain wrong. In my opinion, the use of instant messenger and text messaging on cell phones is a good thing. It is returning students to reading and writing, not just listening like in a regular phone conversation. I personally think that writing on instant messenger has made me a better writer. I have to think about what I want to type – not just blurt the first thing that comes into my mind – and I have to make sure that it will make sense to the person to which I am writing. I’ve also come to the realization — through personal experience – that you have to be much more careful when you are joking with someone or saying something sarcastic when you are communicating with them on instant messenger than when you are talking on the phone. You have to be more careful with your words when using instant messenger, and I think that is a helpful thing, not a hurtful thing.

By: jauntypag

jauntypag — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 00:55:18 +0000

hello!
I think I can see both points on the issue of IMing and writing skills. I can see how it would influence their classroom writing and cause them to use abberveations instead of full words, not capitzlize etc. For the most part however, I think it helps with writing skills. it forces student to write and practice their typing as well. yes, it is true that the sentence usualy consists of “lol, omg u r right” type of things, but they are getting the sentence out there. Also, I am in a basic linguistics class right now, and I can see this as a way to increase and further develope our language. The constant iming between students increases their writing ability and perhaps their own verbal ability as well. I really like this subject and I think it was a great choice to blog about!