Texting generation forms new language

Lauren Bana/Staff Writer

As college students, or the younger generation rather, we are constantly immersed in our phones. We use it to pass the time or to avoid a particularly boring or awkward conversation.

We log onto Facebook or Tumblr or Twitter and within seconds, are capable of completely ignoring the world around us.

Not only do we have the world of social networking at our fingertips, but we also have access to every person in our address books.

We use text conversations with other people as a serious form of communication and have now completely morphed text speak into a completely new language, according to CNN Opinion.

Upon reading the article by John McWhorter on the opinion section of CNN.com, I learned that we have actually turned texting into a specific form
of grammar.

Even LOL, which we all know means “laughing out loud,” has become a way to “signal basic empathy between texters.” According to McWhorter, “What began as signifying laughter morphed into easing tension and creating a sense of equality.”

What’s even more intriguing is the fact that he sees it as a good thing in the way that our generation has actually created a new form of speaking.

Of course, this new form of speaking is not nearly as tailored to the specific structure of intelligent writing as to the way that we have been taught to write throughout our general educational experience, but it is a new language nonetheless.

I, however, see this as the beginning of a possible downward spiral for our language to form into a less articulate form of speaking, which will inevitably leak into our day-to-day conversations.

There is no way that we can continue to speak so incoherently in our texts, and not allow for the language to slip into our “screen-less” conversations.

Senior political science major Doug Soler said, “I don’t think that we will be so stupid as to not be able to differentiate the text language from our real life conversations. It doesn’t make sense.”

But, unfortunately, it already has entered our daily dialogues. In conversation, friends will unknowingly slip a “LOL” into their sentences.

It might seem silly to notice such a slight slip-up, but this could evolve into a much worse scenario. This might appear to be a distant occurrence, if it even happens, but we could potentially waltz right into a world where people no longer speak coherently.

I can already feel Virginia Woolf and Mark Twain turning in their graves.

 

lauren.bana@fiusm.com 

Source:

1. “LOL isn’t funny anymore,” via CNN Opinion