Impact of SMS Language on English Language and Education - Essay Example

? Online Communication [Institute’s ONLINE COMMUNICATION Introduction Computer-mediated communication, by means of networked structures, is known as online communication. According to experts (Warschauer, 2001, pp. 207-212), in the late 1960s, US researchers developed protocols that made possible the receiving and sending of messages via computer. Whereas in educational jurisdictions with the speedy usage of personal computers were introduced in 1980s. Particularly, online communication is the fastest growing new form of communication in the history of humankind, having a long term and significant impact (Warschauer, 2001, pp. 207-212). Online communication has become the major and most significant advancement in human communication after the development of printing press. Communication through Short Messaging Service (SMS) Communication through mobile phone text messages is the most slang and commonly used online communication protocol. Since only 160 characters are allowed in a single SMS, application of brief letters and lesser number of words are used to overcome time and space constraints. The main aim is to ease the communication as much as possible. No doubt, SMS has been enhancing communication and global business in general terms but on the other hand, it has been harmful for language proficiency of the learners. Learners mix up the SMS language with the Standard English language committing numerous errors like that of grammar, punctuation etc. Impact of SMS Language on English Language and Education The influence of SMS language on learner’s language proficiency and especially in official work like assignments, reports, has been widely noticed. The use of SMS language has influenced badly on the performance of students, since they are not observing the grammatical rules of English language. It has influenced the educational field largely as people have now become habitual of using short forms even in official notifications, circulars, etc. Educators use short forms as they find it convenient in usage, and the language used in acceptable as well. There are numerous examples of such official notifications, such as: Notification: To all members, there is an emergency meeting to be held at the Conference Hall between 9.15 to 11. See you There!! B on time. The educators should try to eliminate slang and short form of SMS language from official work, and try promoting the actual English language as much as possible. Communication through Social Networking Sites The last 20 years or so have brought significant modification in communication. The ‘response time’ has dropped significantly and communication has become shorter as well as regular (Warschauer, 2001, pp. 207-212). Moreover, instant messaging is yet another interaction tool where style of interaction is more conversational and length of messages is shorter. Broadcast technologies, such as Twitter, have changed communication to news, by letting users post short messages about what are they doing or experiencing; these posts can be related to anything including enjoyment, academics, work life, and / or social activities. It is often regarded as the cousin of instant messaging; a tool for social networking, learning activities, and showing creativity, which is not being used to its maximum potential Anon., 2007). Pear Analytics - an American market research company - reported that around 40 % of posts on Twitter are nothing but “pointless babble” (Anon., 2007). Even though the results provided by this report are supported in individual judgments of people, it sheds light on the usage of Twitter. Not only Twitter but also all social media sites must be seen as revolutionary not vague in their design, but also in their re design as there is no rules or limits on how you want to use it. Clive Thompson (2007, pp. 7) has classified this phenomenon as “social proprioception. It explains where the nodes of our community are and provides a sense of connectedness to and awareness of others without direct communication. Twitter enables us to have this sense even when the members of our community are not within sight”. New Places of Communication Internet has become a gateway for social media communication where one can work and play. Social networking “sites (such as ‘Facebook’ and ‘Google+’) and virtual environments (such as ‘World of Warcraft’ and ‘Second Life’) have turned into online spots where subscribers, members, and users can cooperate and have fun” (Saffer, 2007, pp. 36-49). The communication within these online communities goes from text messages and voice chat to public message board and private messages. It provides an opportunity to keep in touch with the social and professional communities and groups. Moreover, users can communicate frequently to keep in touch, can have conference chat with office colleagues. Yet another type of online file sharing community is YouTube and Flickr, where users can share their videos and pictures. Users or subscribers of YouTube can browse movies, and Flickr can upload or browse photos, express personal preferences by uploading their creative work. YouTube on the other hand is a source of browsing Television shows, movies, songs, music videos of the user’s interest (Lamy, Marie, and Hmapel, 2007, pp. 11-29). This sort of sharing shows the level of customer’s interest. Facebook being the most popular social networking media claims to have 845 million active users currently in 2012. Most of them are associated with education. The Social Media Giant has becoming enormously popular and has more or less 425 million more users. There are more than 8 million worldwide active users on ‘World of Warcraft’, and at any given time, ‘Second Life’ has 40,000 to 50,000 online users (Lamy, Marie, and Hmapel, 2007, pp. 33-37). YouTube serves over 100 million videos per day. In a recent NMC survey of educators using Second Life, 49% reported that time spent in Second Life has substituted their TV time, indicating that some online activities are convincing enough to shift traditional leisure time activities. New Avenues of Communication By bridging the gaps between people and allowing more interactions, online communication channels have turned the world into a ‘global village’. At the same time, online communities, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+, facilitates in maintaining a convenient record of all the contacts (Ke et al, 2008, pp. 935-949). In addition to all this, VOIP services like Skype or Yahoo! Voice turns any processor into a video phone. Another way for individuals to share their thoughts is the use of blogs, which has seen a sharp raise during the past couple of years. Both of these services - calling via internet and blogs - are based on already known models, there they are accepted easily by users. Influence of Social Networking on Spoken Language It has been debated that whether social networking and instant messaging have created a negative impact on spoken language or not. It has been said that social networking and instant messaging have incorporated widely in our daily affairs. According to experts (Ke et al, 2008, pp. 935-949), instant messaging language is a mixture of both formal and in formal spoken words, and it can rightly be called as hybrid language. There is a big sweep in the mode of communication throughout the globe where every individual is texting, typing, tweeting their own unique language. It has moved from computer to phone on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace. As revealed by some reliable media authorities, these online communities are negatively affecting the English Language of a large number of people mainly the younger generation. In accordance with statements of experts (Ke et al, 2008, pp. 935-949), instant messaging shapes an objectionable and detrimental reading / writing skills, hence, is a threat to the literacy of young people. On the contrary, there is a debate on the fact that social media has an adverse effect on young generation. It has been argued that social networking has not influenced the youth academically. They have started being updated with information more as compared to their fore fathers. Linguistic Changes due to Social Networking The use of social networking media such as Facebook has opened a door to abbreviations, emotions, text lingo, and short form of messages. Such messages include spelling and grammatical errors. This has now become a daily ritual for us. The most productive contribution until today on language change is through internet, such as commercial website, personal website, organizational website, educational website, entertainment website, news website, blog, etc (Lamy, Marie, and Hmapel, 2007, pp. 58-64). Many websites are a mixture of all these and the most popular today is social networks sites. Recently, online communities, such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and LinkedIn, are becoming the center of attention for an enormous majority of users, and have introduced new terminologies in English language. For example: “A status update on Facebook: ‘’ A gr8 day @ school, had loads of fun with frendzz!” Abovementioned is one of the examples of usage of English on a social networking site where slang and informal way of communication is common. Impact of Linguistic Changes on Education Majority of educational institutions, these days, have prohibited social networking sites including Facebook, MySpace, and Google+, because of distracting influence of such sites. Other than the obvious impact, too much internet use for young children can cause learning infirmities in the future (Anon., 2007). Internet use has evolved to a huge extent today and children as young as primary school children are becoming more and more media literate to the internet. Educational networking sites, such as blogger.com, are lesser in number, where people can share their educational knowledge and understanding with the global audience. This falls under the category of 'social networking’ (n.d, 2007). Social networking in middle and high school can become impairment to education because students go through the transition from becoming a kid to a teenager. Self-awareness along with recognition, are the two most important aspects of a youngster’s life, hence, they are inclined to wrongly use social networking sites and use them for meeting new people rather than utilizing it for educational purposes. Younger generation is likely to be more engrossed with such sites instead of their instructors because these social networking sites act as a distraction for them. Social networking in the primary and software education area is most commonly used for interacting with others to blogging or chatting. There are certain age restrictions for the children to interact socially mostly to sign up for a new account, as it would be subject to adult usage. Entrapment of pedophiles is the most risky aspect of online communities, and is mostly found on MySpace. Other problems relate to family issues such as children not spending enough time with the family, and not giving proper attention to education. References Anon., 2007. Social Networking, the “Third Place,” and the Evolution of Communication. The New Media Consortium. Ke, J., Gong, T., & Wang, S. Y. William. 2008. “Language Change and Social Networks.” Communications in Computational Physics. Vol. 3, No. 4, pp. 935 – 949. Lamy. N. Marie & Hmapel, R. 2007. Online Communication in Language Learning and Teaching. Palgrave Macmillan. Saffer, Dan. 2007. The Continuum of Online Communication. Adaptive Path. Thompson, Clive. 2007. “Clive Thompson on How Twitter Creates a Social Sixth Sense.” Wired Magazine. Issue 15, pp. 7. Warschauer, M. 2001. “Online communication.” The Cambridge guide to teaching English to speakers of other languages, pp. 207-212. Read More