The Decay of English as a Language
But today, in a world filled with computers and keyboards and various applications like Microsoft Office to facilitate our writing and even correct our errors, do we really need to know how to write properly anymore? In the modern world where we use our phones and messages to communicate with the least amount of effort, short and concise text to get to the point regardless of punctuation, grammar nor orthography. In a fast living world where everybody seems to have less time, Is there really room for linguist? According to John Humphrey, a newspaper author mentioned in Crystals essay, exiting is ruining our Language.
Ever since the mobile phone was introduced and along with the way to communicate with messages, companies have been using this invention to make the most profit of it by developing the Global System for Mobile Communications Network in the mid sass’s. Messages at that time had a limited amount of characters, so the message people are trying to forward had to be short and concise. There was no room for orthography nor grammar. The beginning of SMS, short message service. Testing as a trend rocketed In the 21 SST century and a ewe creative style of writing has emerged.
However, David Crystal is not agreeing with the majority, he states, that it rather “helps than hinders literacy’ (b or not b, David Crystal, 337). He also argues that even though a lot of grammar and general linguistic rules are often broken, the messages are still understandable. And Isn’t that the point? Furthermore, the longer the messages become the less linguist errors occur. Symbols and single letters to replace words (b or not b, David Crystal, 337-338) In fact, this so called problem is not new. People have been solving puzzles and riddles in newspapers using this structure of text in the 19th century.
English has a lot of abbreviation words ever since it began to be written down. A different approach David Crystal is bringing up, is that author are using “textile” to write poems, short- stories or even novels. But the mobile phone is limiting the capabilities of this new found style. So authors craved for a platform with more expressive power. Therefore, “textile” moved to the PC where people have more possibilities like color, font, type- size and shape. This shows creativity for the English language (b or not b, David Crystal, 344). And isn’t that Just a development of Language?
Like Languages have always evolved and changed over time? At the same time, increasing evidence from different researches, form a team at Coventry University, came to the conclusion that testing does not effect children’s ability to write or read. Instead, it improves. One of the researches show that the more abbreviations they use, the better is their grade in test’s on reading and vocabulary. This research also states that the younger the age is, where they get heir first phones, the better their skills in linguistic (b or not b, David Crystal, 345).
The main argument is that children could not be good at testing if they had not already developed a secure considerable literacy awareness, hence children who are able to use this kind of communication style already have a sense of how the language works and sounds. David Crystal isolates himself clearly from other authors or professors by not sharing the same opinion. And this essay depicts it coherently. I think that it is true that English as a Language is changing and its not going to be he same as it was. But is that a bad thing? Personally.
