Texting

Rationale:

In this unit the topic that truly interested me is texting and how it is affecting language, which is what my written task was based on. The creative writing piece I have chosen was a letter to the editor on from the perspective of a teacher and the other from a job recruiter at a marketing firm. The reason I chose this type of imaginative response because I wanted to show both the negatives and positive sides to texting without being bias (as in not from the perspective of a linguist). The reason I decided to choose an English teacher is because because it could show the reasons from a person that has to deal with students who might use that type of language in class. And I chose a job recruiter simply because when they look for new recruits for their firm they always are interlinked with technology and texting. The target audience is anyone who texts and doesn’t see both the benefits and limitations of texting. Since texting is such a recent concept there is not much history to back it up and get all sorts of facts and evidence, therefore the time period that will be discussed is now. The cultural status of this article is that it is based in the UK. Lastly for the ‘social’ part, it will be basing off how the topic links people socially. Lastly, the language that is being is used is basically just facts and graphs, so I guess the language that is being used is factual language. It provides information of how texting affects language, in society today (both the benefits and limitations) connected with personal and cultural identity, with no bias. 

Written Task 1: Letter to the Editor

Dear Anuli Akanegbu,

            My name is John Smith I am an English teacher of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme here in the UK. I have been teaching in this sort of programme for over thirty years, and I have noticed a downfall in the way kids are using language these days. Thus since you wrote the article ‘Is Texting Killing the English Language?’ I thought that I should give my insight on the topic due to my experience, which is why I am composing this letter to you right now.

            Firstly I agree with your statement that ‘texting is a lot more global now’, however since I have been a teacher for so long I now can see a difference between how students used language before texting rather than how it is being used now. Simply because it affects students spelling and grammar. There is even research to back this statement up http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/3346533/Pupils-resort-to-text-language-in-GCSE-exams.html, where it states that students started using ‘textspeak’ in their GCSE exams. Including text message spelling such as ‘U’ for you, or not using apostrophes, or full stops etc. That being said how can anyone argue that texting is not killing language as a whole?  Thus leading to your second point that ‘some text words have been around a lot longer than when texting was ever created, such as OMG’. Yes, this might be true however back then it had no effect on language because people did not use it as much as they obviously do now. Therefore I completely disagree with that statement. As mentioned before texting is killing language in the sense of how it affects people grammatically, but what about socially? This topic is not mentioned in your article however, I wanted to bring it up because I believe that this is an important factor of how texting has affected language not only individually and personally but socially as well. As for the third statement ‘texting helps shape paralinguistic restitution and drives language brevity and speed’. Paralinguistic restitution the study of vocal signals beyond the basic verbal message or speech. If this is the case then texting is provoking it, since it has nothing to do with vocal speech, but more to do with ‘textspeech’. Lastly texting does not help language speed whatsoever bearing in mind that when people are texting they lose focus on their surroundings and focus mainly on their phones, thus decreasing the speed of vocal language.

            In conclusion Anuli, I believe that since you are a writer and editor of a big website (rather than just some blog), all your statements lack detail and it really does not portray the negative impacts of texting to be as bad as they actually are. I hope this letter has changed your mind on what texting is really doing in the world; to individuals and communities.  

To Anuli Akanegbu,

            My name is Jennifer Dawson and I work for a marketing firm in downtown London, as a job recruiter. I read your article on ‘Is texting killing the Language?’ And it seemed that you were sort of confused whether to say it was or wasn’t. You might be thinking is why I (a job recruiter) is composing this letter to you? The reason is I am here to give my insight and personal opinions on the matter, due to the fact that since I am a job recruiter I deal with texting, social media and that sort of language every day.

            Right from the start I agree with your statement that ‘texting is more global now’. In my eyes this is a great thing, because there is no need to meet the people I need to interview face to face (unless I consider them as serious candidates). What I mean by this is that since I am a recruiter I need to be able to make assumptions on the candidate. Before texting this was very hard to do with just one 20 minute long interview. Whereas now I am able to text my candidates, check their social media to see what kind of people they really are etc. In my opinion texting is a form of communication, and even though some might say that it is killing language grammatically at the same time it is its own separate form of language. Not only has it linked people all over the world, but also it has created a sense of community and togetherness. Due to me experience on the topic I can honestly say it has helped me and my firm to pick out the best candidates for this style of work. Yes, I agree that 95% of people who text are 18-24, but that shouldn’t be the case. People need to start being more open to this form of language because it is the most global way of communicating with one another in this time period. Another point is due to texting my firm is able to keep communicating with each other and keep it concise and not waste time, because we are always to the point and focused on the topic at hand whatever that may be. As well as that, in my firm we send out a page of questions for any potential candidates before we even talk to them in person or through text. This provides us with the knowledge we need, to make our assumptions on the person before we even think about researching this person.

            To sum up texting is most definitely not killing language due to the reason that there are many different forms of language. For example: there are different forms of English such as Singlish or Konglish etc, and whether people nowadays can accept it or not; texting is a form of language. In my opinion it is helping evolve language for the better rather than destroying it. I hope this letter has been of some use to you, and I hope to read more from you soon.