Written Task 1

Is Texting Killing the English Language? People have always spoken differently from how they write, and texting is actually talking with your fingers By John McWhorter

Dana Farah

18 October 2014

Dear editor,

Having seen your article in Times Magazine, It was fascinating to read about the discussion that has caused controversy around the world, along with the argument of whether or not texting has a negative or positive impact on language. John McWhorter believes that over the years texting as gotten and continues to be a rich and complex “spoken” language, he actually defines texting as fingered speech. He says that we can now thanks to texting write the way we talk, it is seen as interesting and yet it is easy to see a sort of decline in it. McWhorter states that we are able to see the loose structure and the lack of consideration towards using capital letters or punctuation, and yet he justifies it in a way by saying “No one thinks about capital letters or punctuation when one texts, but then again, do you think about those things when you talk? No, and so therefore why would you when you were texting?”

Texting has caused a revolution through out the world, due to fact that now because of technology such as laptop's, tablets and phones we are able to write as we are talking. In the past around 5,500 years ago, writing was invented and was seen as prolonged and predetermined whereas talking was seen as prompt and subconscious, and they still are till this day. Over the years texting has developed it's very own grammar and usage which eventually has led to the creation of 'text speak', now you may be wondering what is 'textspeak'?. Text speak is the language of texting, it is a language that the younger generation use and are quite fluent in as they use it everyday in order to communicate with their friends. Now this is when the controversy of the subject begin's as many people believe because the younger generation are so comfortable with using ' text speak' it causes them to perform poorly at school which aggravates school teachers, whereas other people argue that ' text speak' does not fully effect the students performance in school.

Multiple researchers have researched the effect of textspeak and the results have comeback both positive and negative. The negative effects have been that textspeak has effected people's lingual ability to not only accept new words but to also encourage not limited language. In general teachers are the main ones that claim to have a serious issue with this form of writing as they say that students who use abbreviated words and sentences are wasting their time and that by using such elements of text speak they are corrupting and damaging their chances to express themselves through their writing. The main issue is that the students have been using inappropriate punctuation, grammar and abbreviations. On the bright side of this controversy there have been many studies that have proven that textspeak is not as horrible as everyone makes it out to be. In 2006 two professors conducted a study at Coventry University in Britain, the results displayed that 11 year olds who were able to easily switch between textspeak and standard English actually were greater in both writing and spelling.

I have come to the conclusion that although there has been controversy revolving this specific subject, I see textspeak as a positive effect on the younger generation, as to me personally I see that textspeak has no effect on standard English. As part of the younger generation I can say that we are all able to distinguish between textspeak and standard english when it comes to writing tests or essays, it is rare when someone can not but I will admit to the fact that sometimes we do tend to accidentally apply textspeak into or work with out realizing. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion in the end, many people believe that textspeak is just a temporary phase that we will overcome in time, or a phase that we gradually continue to develop and will eventually turn into a new from of modern jargon.