Education and Technology

 

Thanking Activity : 

Education and Technology

1.. video

      

      

He said that the use of language and how it changes would not be affectedby new technologies, which is very true. But at least in Switzerland thelocal dialects in the "german speaking part of Switzerland are the ONLY tool to communicate in daily life ,even university professors speak Swiss -german outside of the lectureand also during appointments!Texting on the internet really helped these dialects, because now casual texting is in the local dialects(whic hare highly distinct to the standardgerman language). Before the internetand SMS style of communicatinge very single piece of written languge was the standard german language,not the language the people actually spoke, the Swiss variation of the Proto-Germanic language. Therefore the new methodsof communicating helped to keep a(non-standardised) language alive in away. Therefore new technologies canhave a big influence on language,maybe not on standard languages buton the use of a language that would other wise go extinct.

David Crystal and support the argument that new technologies, rather than degrading (as some would argue) the English language actually enhance it, as they facilitate new pursuits by developing a new style of the English language. I find Crystal's observations about the influence on language of a particular technological medium very interesting, and also the idea of how a very minor change in a question, or sentence expecting a response, can so very dramatically influence the response itself and the language used. It is also noteworthy what Crystal says about the timescale of observing the influence of technologies like the internet, and how it will take a very long time for us to actually see any prominent changes to the structure of the language- that it could be a relatively temporary phenomenon, but that we will not know for certain for a long time.

Crystal mentions how we speak differently when we text rather than speak, as the shortage of characters we are given, for example on twitter means that we have to be more creative in the way we talk to each other to get our message across which is why we use abbreviations and non standard english. He also puts forward that when twitter first began it urged people to tweet in first person by posing the question "what are you doing?" and later changed it to "what is happening?" which changes the language to third person. This is a clear example of how technology and especially twitter has changed the way we speak and talk to each other in real life and online and I personally think it is a good thing that we have technology that gives us the ability to change the english language and make it more exciting.

   As Professor Crystal pointed out, once a country has been conquered and a foreign language imposed, that nation will look for its own identity. In other words, the new language is adopted and adapted. That is how ‘localisms’ and language variations are born. Thus, despite having the same roots, American English is not the same as the English spoken in South Africa, Australia, or India. Which one is the ‘correct one’? Fascinatingly, all of them are; we cannot consider even the most seemingly obvious grammar mistake as such when it is being made nationwide. It is not a mistake anymore: it has entered into the daily usage as a reflection of national or local identity, a means of cultural understanding. Just as we humans do, our language also adapts to new needs.

     The influence of technology and internet on modern English language is clearly seen and touched in various ways and means. First, it adds lots of "jargon vocabulary". Second, it provides meaning to existing words and terms, such as the meaning of 'mouse' and 'keyboard' and so on.

 There was spoken language, there was written language, and everyone knew which was which. Then along came the Internet, and everything that we thought we knew about the way the English language worked in speech or in writing had to be reinterpreted. All of the old certainties about usage, frequency, context and style had to be rethought with the emergence of electronic communication. One big question that the Internet brought with it was, “is this an acceptable evolution of language or a bastardisation of it?” Many people had a kneejerk reaction and assumed the latter. Were they right? To really answer the question, we first need to consider how the language of online communication has evolved.

Many new abbreviations were the result of practical constraints. Originally, electronic messages had to be very short. With the rise of mobile phone-based messaging in particular, the screen size created a serious space constraint in terms of how much you could write.

A more general reason for the rise of abbreviations is that they showed that someone was an internet insider and “one of the gang.” as a general rule, whether it’s a group of journalists, doctors, lawyers, students or internet enthusiasts, people tend to develop a specific style of communication, a “slang” that is unique to that group.