🚀 go-pugleaf

A thesis topic in here somewhere?
	Lise

>Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1999 07:23:28 -0700
>From: William.Bright@Colorado.EDU (William Bright)
>Subject: NYT: The Internet Has Spawned a Language of Its Own
>To: Menn Lise <LMENN@clipr.Colorado.EDU>
>>From: Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer@midway.uchicago.edu>
>>Subject: NYT: The Internet Has Spawned a Language of Its Own
>>Mime-Version: 1.0
>>Sender: owner-linganth@cc.rochester.edu
>>Precedence: bulk
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>>
>>http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/02/biztech/articles/20language.html
>>
>>New York Times
>>February 20, 1999
>>
>>
>>The Internet Has Spawned a Language of Its Own
>>
>>By AMY HARMON
>>
>>Consider the linguistic life of Andrew Walker, 12, a k a Off Cpring. Like
>>most seventh graders, he talks quite a bit to his friends and parents. He
>>also writes any number of school reports and the occasional Christmas card
>>or thank-you note.
>>
>>Then there is his fluency in the chat room, where written and spoken
>>language slur together. Here, a correctly spelled word is a sign of the
>>inarticulate and an innovative abbreviation is prized above all else.
>>
>>OFF CPRING: Wuzup?
>>PRETTYFLI5: n2m
>>OFF CPRING: well g/g c ya
>>
>>Loose translation: Not too much is up with Prettyfli5, and Off Cpring has
>>got to go and will see Prettyfli5 later.
>>
>>Once in a while, Andrew slips, like the time he lapsed into onlinespeak in
>>a social studies paper: "Surplus is an excess," he wrote, "But surplus can
>>also mean 2much." His teacher took off 10 points.
>>
>>Unfazed, Andrew, of Woodstock, N.Y., continues to log on to America Online
>>three or four times a day. And no one is worrying about whether he's going
>>to get into college. But the protocol of informality that marks electronic
>>communication for Andrew and millions of others has set off a debate about
>>whether the Internet invigorates language or strips it of its expressive
>>power.
>>
>>"What the Internet has done is to create a space for language that runs and
>>slips over the boundary of public and private language," said James J.
>>O'Donnell, author of the recently published "Avatar of the Word: From
>>Papyrus to Cyberspace" (Cambridge University Press, 1998). "And so people
>>find themselves gradually using language in public in ways they never would
>>have before."
>>
>>O'Donnell, a classics professor at the University of Pennsylvania, argues
>>that the trend toward informality points to a society moving toward less
>>institutional control, a less hierarchical social structure and a more
>>democratic marketplace of ideas. That is a trend he says should be
>>embraced, even if it will probably lead to the elimination of tenured
>>authorities like him.
>>
>>The subject of how the Internet is shaping language was discussed at the
>>annual meeting of the Modern Language Association last month and is a focus
>>of several new books and online forums.
>>
>>Although judgments vary, what seems clear so far is that the Internet has
>>propelled the traditionally deliberate pace of language evolution to higher
>>speeds.
>>
>>"This is a setting that is a hotbed for change," said Susan C. Herring, an
>>associate professor of linguistics at the University of Texas in Arlington.
>>Her scrutiny of thousands of Internet e-mail messages found that sentence
>>complexity was not reduced, although politeness was. "The Internet is a
>>giant context that invites informal communication, and there is lots of
>>experimentation going on."
>>
>>She would get little argument from people who regularly type e-mail all in
>>lowercase letters or forsake standard grammar for stream-of-consciousness
>>or incorporate acronym cliches into standard sentences. (Even chat room
>>neophytes know to use LOL to signify "laughing out loud.") Indeed, the
>>linguistic foibles of Internet communication have been well documented
>>since the early 1990s, when the computer network morphed from an academic
>>preserve into the general public's favored receptacle for business memos,
>>political rants and love notes.
>>
>>But the initial fascination with such shorthand as :-) and :-( , used to
>>convey tone of voice, has evolved with the syntax itself. Sanguine
>>e-mailers now seem to prefer a more direct description of the implied
>>sentiment placed in parentheses, such as (grin) or (shrug). Likewise, the
>>novelty of watching old words take on new meaning (spam, flame, surf) has
>>worn thin.
>>
>>Now linguists are studying the qualitative changes in the construction of
>>ideas that have brought on the casual spelling and the multitude of
>>parentheticals that mark Internet exchange.
>>
>>Sven Birkerts, an English professor at Bennington College, is not so
>>optimistic about what he agrees is the melding of public and private
>>communication in the context of the Internet. Birkerts, who mourned the
>>fate of electronic age reading in his 1994 book, "The Gutenberg Elegies,"
>>touches on the unraveling of language in a new collection of essays to be
>>published by Greywolf Press.
>>
>>"I never see a sentence with a semicolon in it anymore," Birkerts said in
>>an interview. "People don't tend to read the kind of writing that has
>>semicolons. We tend to read the prose of the age, and the prose of the age,
>>influenced by the ethos of electronic communication, is almost
>>overwhelmingly flat, punchy and declarative."
>>
>>Nor is Birkerts consoled by the evidence that people who would not
>>ordinarily write letters take quickly to e-mail, or that those who would
>>never write a book happily self-publish on the World Wide Web. It is
>>precisely the Internet's seductive instantaneousness, he argues, that leads
>>to the impoverishment of language.
>>
>>"The fact that there are floods of five-line communiques going back and
>>forth between the circuits has little to do with the health of the
>>language," Birkerts says. "Have we added anything to the world if a lot
>>more people are dashing off written things in the key of casual
>>conversation?"
>>
>>To avoid the pitfalls of instant delivery, The Paris Review, a leading
>>fiction journal, refuses to take submissions by e-mail.
>>
>>"I like to encourage anything that causes writers to slow down and think
>>about what they're doing," said Daniel Kunitz, its managing editor. "With
>>e-mail, it's too easy for them to throw anything that seems like less than
>>a first draft at us."
>>
>>But Larry Friedlander, a professor of English at Stanford University, where
>>a required humanities course for first-year students has been revamped to
>>include e-mail and Web site design, says the informal nature of Internet
>>communication has improved his students' language skills. As students
>>discuss readings in online forums, he says, they are using the technology
>>to develop what he calls "collage text writing," incorporating
>>fellow-students' responses and other resources into their own work.
>>
>>"The skills you see emerging quickly are qualitatively different from the
>>ones students had before," Friedlander said. "They are learning to quickly
>>formulate ideas into written language and create an argument. What gets
>>lost is a certain kind of polish and formal organization. But what they're
>>getting is a fluency in writing that they didn't have."
>>
>>The professors who organized the Stanford class also considered how
>>language should be defined when technology is changing the ways people
>>communicate, enabling them to mix words with graphics, sound and video. For
>>example, Friedlander explains that by encouraging students to design Web
>>sites to express their ideas, "we're trying to accept what the conceptual
>>cultural climate is and to move forward instead of acting like it doesn't
>>exist." People forget that "language is a tool," he said. "It's a tool with
>>which we bring things together and create intimacy in our lives."
>>
>>
>>Amy Harmon at amy@nytimes.com welcomes your comments and suggestions.
>
>William Bright
>(Editor, Language in Society; Written Language & Literacy; Oxford Studies
>in Anthropological Linguistics; Native American Place-names of the United
>States)
>1625 Mariposa Ave.
>Boulder, CO 80302
>Phone 303-444-4274
>Fax 303-413-0017
>Email William.Bright@Colorado.Edu
>
>
>
Lise Menn
Professor and Chair
Linguistics Department - Box 295
University of Colorado
Boulder CO 80309-0295
303-492-8042; fax 303-492-4416

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