As I posted at the start of this
blog, What Grinds My Gears- Calgary
Edition was for a class at Mount Royal University called Writing in a
Digital context, and with the semester coming to an end, this may be my very
last post for this blog. So to end on a high note today, we are going to be discussing
the important influences that the Internet has had on the evolution of the
human language, but some people choose to ignore this fact or simply think that
the way the English language is evolving is an abomination or just simply a
perversion of the English language.
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In his
book Language and the Internet, David
Crystal describes the evolution of the English language as a natural occurrence
and simply reflects the ideas and thoughts of the citizens of the Internet or
as he describes them, netizens, and the advancement of the way we communicate as
a whole. This not only effects the English language but all languages as a
whole due to the global use of the Internet and the global connections that
have been established through such things such as social media. The reasoning
why the English language is evolving, as explained by David Crystal, is that it
is adapting to meet our need or needs and simplify and help with the way we communicating
on a global scale.
“There is of course nothing new about fears accompanying the emergence
of a new communications technology. In the fifteenth century, the arrival of
printing was widely perceived by the Church as an invention of Satan, the hierarchy
fearing that the dissemination of uncensored ideas would lead to a breakdown of
social order and pit innumerable souls at risk if damnation”- David Crystal
Now to properly
understand the changes in languages that are happening due to the usage of the
Internet, it is important to remember that the Internet is a global phenomenon and
no matter if we like it or not it affects all of us in some way or another. Not
only has communicating effected the social aspect of language, it has also
effected the way we communicate for business and often times both styles of
communication have been lapsing over and merging helping created a new, yet somewhat
less orthodox style of speech and written communication. This kept in mind the way we communicate online
is still heavily dependent based on the situation, there is a concept of
linguistic variety that is heavily dependent on various factors such as the audience
which controls both the language we use and the level of formality.
"In a setting where linguistic differences are likely to loom large, the
concept of a language variety will be helpful. A variety of language is a
system of linguistic expression whose use is governed by situational factors.
In its broadest sense, the notion includes speech and writing, regional and
class dialects occupational genres (such as legal and scientific language),
creative linguistic expression (as in literature), and a wide range of other
styles of expression. Varieties are, in principle, systematic and predictable.
It is possible to say with some degree of certainty in a given language, how people
from a particular region will speak, how layers will write, or how television
commentators will present a type of sport. Notions such as ‘British English’ or
‘Liverpool English’, ‘legal French’, and ‘sport commentary’ are a result.” –
David Crystal
The way we write a memo or
report at work and a personal text or Facebook massage to a friend is much
different, one being a lot more formal than the other but some of the writing style
from both seems to blend together. This is
happening for many various reasons from new emerging technologies to the size
of screens to a limitation of the amount of letters we can place into an SMS
massage. The constantly changing and
evolving technologies require us to both adapt and in some cases simplify languages
to some degree to be able to effectively communicate and the future
technologies will distinctly impact on the evolutions of languages as well as
the way we communicate.
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The
impact the Internet and other new forms of technology are having on the evolution
of the English language, as well as other various languages, is more or less
positive rather than negative for several good reasons. Due to the
globalization of communication and the ease with which people from various
places in the globe can communicate, it is almost a necessity for some slang as
well as simplification of some words to exist so as to make it easier for
people to understand one another. New words are also created because of
influence from other cultures; a word that exists in one language may not exist
in another language or dialect, so essentially a new word is created to
describe an object or activity. This slang also makes it substantially easier
for quick and easy communication through technologies such as text, Facebook
chat, or Twitter by shortening words and creating abbreviations that are both
easy to understand and simple. Although the technologies that exist today will
be quickly replaced by other, better technologies, the evolution of languages
will continue. Even though some critics will say that this evolution is wrong
and may even go as far as saying ‘that it’s
the work of the devil,’ they should look at history and see the languages
have been adapting to the technologies of the day for as long as we have been
able communicate and no skeptic has ever been able to change that.
With
that, I bring my last post to an end (or what may be my last post), and I hope
that it wasn’t too horrible of a read. Summer is almost upon us and the cold,
nasty weather should be clearing up soon for that beautiful sunshine we have
all been waiting for the last 9 months here in Calgary. If any of you good old Calgarians
are like me, then you are probably going to be celebrating an end to another
long winter and school year in style by camping with a couple good friends at a
lake with a substantial amount of beer and just kicking back. As always, stay
classy Calgary.
The book I used as a reference for this article by David
Crystal can be found at the following link: http://library.mtroyal.ca:2052/lib/mtroyal/docDetail.action?docID=5008037
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