A language which does not change during a long period of time is considered to be a dead language. A language that is broadly used by people “is always changing, evolving, and adapting to the needs of its users” (Birner n.d.). The fact that the English language develops and changes significantly during the history proves that this language is alive and active. There are a variety of reasons for the language changes: social, political and economic factors. However, nowadays we frequently witness the changes in language because of the innovations in technology, industry and products. The connection between the language and new technologies is close. Not only the way people live today can be explained by the development of technologies, but also the way they speak. Mobile texting is one of the main technological developments, which enriched the Modern English language by devising abbreviations, words made out of a combination of letters, logograms, pictographs, and contributed to the changes of spelling, punctuation and grammar.
“The English language is spoken by 750 million people in the world” (Fennel 2001) and is the second most spoken language in the world after Chinese. The history of the English language began in the 5th AD. Since that period distinguish Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English and Modern English. Each of these types had some differences in vocabulary, sentence structure and pronunciations. Nowadays reading Shakespeare’s writing, for example, can look like reading in another language. The rules of using the language had changed much, however it does not mean the language is becoming worse; it is just becoming different (Birner n.d.).
As the English language has always been evolving, it is not a surprise that it differs from the language people spoke 500 years ago. The languages usually evolve constantly however, what concerns English, over the last 15 years it took a big step forward. And technology innovations are mostly responsible for such changes. In the modern world technology has changed not only the language but also the way we use it: how we write and communicate with other people, using emails, text messaging and e-books. The Internet and mobile devices played and still continue to play a key role in the replenishment of the language vocabulary. They are the main driving forces that cause language changes. Through the development of innovations increase the necessity to name them, so people pick up new words and integrate them into the language.
One of the changes caused by the extensive use of internet had supplemented the meaning of word “Google”. The word “Google” refers to the company or product; nevertheless, it is universally understood as a verb over the last decade. Since 2006 “Google” has been considering a verb in the Oxford English Dictionary and some other dictionaries. The definition of “Google” as a verb is “To search for information about (a person or thing) using the Google search engine” (Schwartz 2006). Other example is concerned with the use of the world “tweet”. The original meaning of this word is “a short, high-pitched sound made by a small bird”. With the advent of one of the social networks Twitter, the word “tweet” is now considered to be “a message, image, etc. posted on Twitter” (Oxford University Press n.d.). There are also two definitions of this word as a verb – “posting a message, image, etc. on Twitter” (Oxford University Press n.d.) and the process of communication with someone on Twitter (Oxford University Press n.d.).
There are a huge number of new words listed in dictionaries during the last decade. For example, the word “selfie - a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website, is named Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year 2013” (Oxford University Press n.d.). The word “unfriend”, which mean removing (someone) “from a list of friends or contacts on a social networking website” was considered to be the Word of the Year 2009 by the New Oxford Dictionary (Oxford University Press n.d.). What is more interesting, and that proves the impact of innovation technologies on the language is that in 2015 the Word of the Year by the Oxford Dictionary was selected pictograph – “Face with tears of Joy” emoji. Such pictograph “was chosen as the ‘word’ that best reflected the ethos, mood, and preoccupations of 2015” (Oxford University Press n.d.).
Since 1983, when the first mobile phone emerged, the communication between people has been changing dramatically (Thomas 2012). However, later in 1992 after the first text message was sent, people started a new way of communication and now distinguish the language we use in texting called “Textspeak” (Gorney 2012). Textspeak – “language regarded as characteristic of text messages, consisting of abbreviations, acronyms, initials, emoticons, etc.” (Oxford University Press n.d.). Especially during the last decade increased the number of people who own a phone and today it reached its maximum. Now we see that people are talking less than texting. Mostly youth nowadays is using a great amount of new words, which are often used in mobile texting. People have created many abbreviations, new words which are made out of a combination of a few letters; they use different logograms, logographs and pictograms in every day texting.
Some of the most often used “words” in mobile texting, which means the whole expressions are (Crystal 2006):
ASAP – as soon as possible
BBL – be back later
BTW – by the way
CM – call me
CU – see you
CUL (CUL8R) – see you later
F2F – face-to-face
JK – just kidding
NP – no problem
LOL – laughing out loud
SOL – sooner or later
2L8 – too late.
There are also abbreviations, the meaning of which is only one word:
2MORO – tomorrow
B4 – before
THX – thanks
L8R- later.
Another thing we use in mobile texting are emoji, which “are changing the way we communicate faster than linguists can keep up with or lexicographers can regulate” (Robb 2014). In 2015 BBC in one of the articles stated that “to many, emoji are an exciting evolution of the way we communicate; to others, they are linguistic Armageddon” (Cohn 2015). As we communicate face-to-face, we usually use non-verbal communication. Writing does not involve using gestures that is why some scientists claim that emoji may allow us to include it into our texting. To constitute the language of emoji it is necessary to have some grammatical system. However, as there are many examples when emoji are just connected by linear order and can fully convey meaning. The psycholinguist Susan Goldin-Meadow claims that such orders appear in many other systems which would not be considered a language (Cohn 2015). These are pictures of an animated cartoon, communication of people by using only gestures or in gesture system used by deaf people. So, “although emoji do not constitute a language at the present time, they could develop into one over time” (Cohn 2015).
Without doubts, technology, and especially mobile texting, changed and still changes the English language. The processes of technological innovations cause many new words; however, there are also changes that are considered to be not very good for the language. “Texts have changed the way we write, obliterating conventional punctuations and replacing properly spelled words with abbreviations, initials and ‘emoticon’ smiley symbols” (Thomas 2012). According to the researches around 16,000 words are used without hyphens in recent editions of the dictionaries (Thomas 2012). It is for sure better to type on phone keypads without hyphens. Now we have many no hyphenated words however, some scientists are concerned that English may even turn into Swedish (Jury 2011). There are also studies which prove that texting affect grammar. According to certain surveys, the increase in texting use causes the decrease of scores on grammar assessment tests among students (Akanegbu 2012). The other issue is that while texting people face the lack of punctuation marks and these changes can in the future have some impact on the English language. “Another possible impact of texting might be the formation of formal and informal modes in English” (One Hour Translation n.d.). “Texting might split the language into a formal written mode and an informal one, based on texting conventions” (One Hour Translation n.d.). There are many differences between the English language and Textspeak language that is why texting can be viewed as a separate language.
As technologies have such an enormous impact on each aspect of human’s life, it is not surprising that the language also changes. The invention of mobile texting “has allowed us to develop a new set of words for communication when our messages are limited to certain amount of characters” (Gorney 2012). The Modern English language is subject to many grammar, punctuation and spelling changes in addition to the emergence of new words. There is also a risk that English can blend with other languages by non-native speakers. The fact is that the “developments of language from texting through abbreviations and acronyms will lead to permanent changes in the English language itself” (Gorney 2012).
Reference List
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