Information Technology and Human Communication Problem - Essay Example

Information Technology and Human Communication Problem Modern slang is increasingly becoming more popular in modern social media communication. Indeed, there is arguably more slang than official communication language in social media platforms. Whereas modern slang still allows communication to take place, it greatly impedes communication to those who are not familiar with the slang. Google and other forms of translators have been doing a good job in language translation but can not to keep up with new slang especially considering the number of languages in the world. Slang also dies as fast as it comes up. The solution to such human communication and problem probably is due to the absence of more powerful and up to date slang translators. Slang is one form of language evolution especially in the social media platform such as Twitter and Facebook. In fact, many users enjoy using them, as most of them are just shortened words and phrases to make communication faster. The challenge of coming up with translators that are up to date is a big challenge owing to the emergence of new slang every day. Social sites have different slangs making it difficult for translators such as Google to come up with the meaning of each slang. Some examples in Twitter are ‘da’ instead of ‘the’ and ‘CT for the cut tweet (Mashhady and Maryam n.p). The slang translators find it overwhelming coming up with a dictionary to aid in the translation of every slang word or phrase that comes up. Indeed, if the translators were to have all the words explained to the user, they would require a daily update to keep up with the new words that emerge every day. Another major challenge of slang translation is the lack of rules on how the make the translation bring out a sensible meaning for translators. The translator has to set priorities by choosing the most suitable words for the slang meaning. Different translators might give different meanings and translations for the same phrase or word if there is no consultation. Slang language emerges every day depending on the media platform. Slang for Twitter is different from that of Facebook or SMS texts. To come up with a good translation of the slang texts, translators require spending more time analyzing the meaning of the words by using the available slang dictionaries. Since each social media has its own sang, the translators will require various sources to come up with the meaning of the words. Some abbreviations may have several meanings making it more challenging for translators to give the actual meaning. The definition of slang poses a problem to many scholars, as different definitions exist. For instance, one definition by Webster dictionary defined slang as “low, vulgar, and unmeaning language” (Mashhady and Maryam n.p). Such definitions make it difficult for many people to appreciate slang and engage in their translation. The translators have difficulties of translating it into different languages and cultures meaning that any translator must understand various cultures and languages. Many of the translators of the slang language cannot keep up with all the slang words and phrases that are emerging every day from many followers and users of the social media sites. Facebook has its words that differ from Twitter and other social sites, implying that there are thousands of slang words, phrases, and abbreviations that require translation. Defining slang as a vulgar language makes it difficult for many people to appreciate that it is a language like any other, which requires dictionaries just for the other languages of the world. Parents find it difficult to understand their sons and daughters who are fond of using slang even when talking to their parents. Searching the meaning of slang in the normal English or other dictionaries can be fruitless as most of the words lack vowels, are shortened, or completely distorted such as “brah” for bro. The fact that the slang keeps on changing discourages the translators from coming up with a reliable dictionary that can help parents, friends, and other users know the meaning of the words in a text. Every year many slang vocabularies come up indicating that the translators must work on finding the meaning of the words to keep their dictionaries, and translations up to date. Most of the slang words do not remain in use for long posing another challenge to the translators. The process of translating can also be expensive sine the translators have to filter all the messages posted in the social media and identify the slang from the formal language. The process also requires that the dictionaries remain updated all the time to avoid replacing some words with an earlier meaning even after it has changed. Some words may appear abusive in their slang for and translation is very necessary to make them more accommodative only powerful translators can do such tasks and help people in appreciating the slang language since it has become a norm for the young generation. The possible solutions to the problem of communication are the slang translation by the use of the various methods such as literal translation or the word-to-word translation since it retains the meaning and content of the original translation (Mashhady and Maryam n.p). The literal translation gives the audience the direct message from the slang and maintains the originality of the word. There is no additional interpretation by the translator although it may not achieve the absolute equivalence except for a vulgar slang. Sometimes the translators may use literal softening to neutralize the negative effect of the slang. The softening may help in the adaptation of the inappropriate words or phrases for the readers. Some words that are associated with swearing require softening to prevent offending people in communication or the readers especially in texts messages. The translation in such a case gives a partial dynamic equivalence of the meaning of the word. Another method that can aid translator in translating slang language is the stylistic competition technique that involves making up for the lost text in the source and recreation of an analogous effect in the target text. The translator aims at reducing any possible loss of the text through merging or splitting. There are some phrases without slang equivalent in the target language and helps in avoiding frequent repetition of the same slang compensation is also appropriate when short slang exclamatory phrases such as the phrase “to kill” which means to make one laugh uproariously (Mashhady and Maryam n.p). Compensation may be used to make slang words less offensive for the readers. All translators must take slang and chat seriously to come up with accurate translations and bring out the meaning and tone in a conversation. Slang language is one of the modern communication barriers especially between parents and their kids. Translators must give accurate meaning of words to avoid creating tensions between the social media users. Modern dictionaries for the slang words are important for providing the meaning of each slang word in specific social sites. For instance the Twitter dictionary should have a list of all the slang words and phrases such as “swag” to enable the users communicate with one another (Mashhady 477) The steps taken by Twitter in generating its slang acronyms is very important in solving the slang language problems. The social site has also developed a list of abbreviations in its dictionary to help the users understand and communicate with one another. Some examples of Twitter abbreviations are RT for retweet, OH for Overheard, and many more (Asden n.p). The Internet Lingo Dictionary gives the meaning of many internet acronyms, words, and phrases common to the social media users. The dictionary aims at addressing the communication challenges experienced by different internet users and prevent the possibility of creating tension between the communicators. The dictionary has many of the modern day words, symbols, and initials common to computer and mobile phone users. The other way of solving communication problems due to the use of the slang language is by employing the sentiment Detection system to help in detecting the subjective phrases in the social media and classify them as positive, negative, or neutral. With dictionaries such as the Twitter and Wiktionary, the words are allocated three scores and the polarity calculated to come up with the rating. The emotional dictionary also helps in determining whether the slang words and abbreviations are positive, negative, or neutral for public use. The other tool to aid in the detection of sentiments is the wordnet although it does not contain many phrases mostly in the social media. To detect sentiments, the features are divided into two groups General and social media and the lexical stylistic features occurring in data sets used. Once the words are classified, the users and other people such as the parents can rate the language and regulate the usage of the social media by their children. For instance, if a symbol “:)” means happy in the emotional dictionary, and parents and other social media users will not get furious if they come across the symbol in a text (Asden n.p). The detector portrays the symbol as positive. Another way of solving communication challenges associated with the use of slang language is by text normalization in which the slang word is mapped to its meaningful forms by use of slang dictionaries. The use of the slang’s spell checker can also assist in getting the actual meaning of the phrase, word, or symbol. There are machine translators that translate slang words as well as websites such as "Translate" that help in matching the text from the social media or SMS texts. Passing a word through a normal spell checker and then the slang spell checker it is possible to get the actual meaning of the word. For instance, in the statement ‘am not a prvt’, prvt is a slang that can be mapped to private or pervert but somebody needs to scrutinize the sentence for its meaning (Mapa et al n.p). The best meaning of the slang is the pervert and not private. The use of text normalization will reduce the challenges faced by many people in communication if they take the time to visit the dictionaries and try matching the words. My recommendation for solving the problem posed by the use of the slang language in the social media applying the modern way of tackling slang translation by the use of the Natural Language Processing (NLP) and modern linguistic technology. The main goal of the NLP is to have software that analyzes understands and generates languages used by humans to enable human beings to communicate directly with the computer orally or in text form. By using the machine translation, the existing slang language will be translated so that the users will know the meaning of every word or phrase. The NLP can assist in giving the meaning of the social media slang so that people understand one another by having an installed slang dictionary. Words such as “brah” in twitter means brother referring to any friend and not the real brother (Nadkarni, L. Ohno-Machado and Chapman 548). The machine can generate the slang language and enable a direct communication such that the computer gives the meaning of a slang word once mentioned or by a mouse click. The translation will require a translation program able to translate one human language to another such as English to French and slang to other languages. The system should also have a program that can read other materials such as slang dictionaries to enable it carries out the translation work. By the use of semantic analysis, the computer processes the meaning of the slang by comparing it to the already installed slang dictionary. The computer will take the text input directly from the keyboard for interpretation to bring out the meaning. With slang, dictionary installed in a computer people can type the word and read the translation within seconds. Appendix I learned many things while doing the project since I was able to understand the challenges people experience when using the social media due to the slang language. I never thought that slang can pose challenges to some users and never bothered to find out the dictionaries or the translators necessary for the language. After doing the research, I appreciated the rich slang texts in use at various social media sites such as Twitter. In fact, Twitter and Facebook have the highest number of slang words, symbols, signs, and phrases. I encountered some surprises especially the use of normalization of texts as a way of translating the slang language by using the slang spell checker. I never knew that a slang spell checker existed and only relied on my slang understanding to get the meaning of words. I also encountered so many tags and abbreviations used on the internet and their meanings during the research. In fact, some of the abbreviations are quite difficult to interpret without a slang dictionary. If I were to do a similar project, I would research on all slang translators and dictionaries and compile them to assist people who lack awareness of their existence. The other thing I would do is to highlight all the websites that deal with slang translations to help individuals with challenges of slang interpretation. Availing the information concerning the slang phrases and words will assist parents to monitor their children especially on matters dealing with the social media. Focusing on the problems facing parenting in relation to social media language will be important by availing a list of with slang dictionaries and translators to them. Works Cited Mapa et al., Eranga. Text Normalization In Social Media By U Sing Spell Correction And Dictionary Based A Pproach. N.p., 2015. Web. 8 May 2015. Mashhady, Habibollah, and Maryam Pourgalavi. Ojs.academypublisher.com. N.p., 2013. Web. 8 May 2015. Nadkarni, P. M., L. Ohno-Machado, and W. W. Chapman. Natural Language Processing: An Introduction. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association 18.5 (2011): 544-551. Web. 8 May 2015. W Asden, L Awrence. A Parents ’ Guide To Codes Used In Chat R Ooms, Instant Messaging, Text Messaging, And Blogs. Internet Lingo Dictionary. N.p., 2010. Web. 8 May 2015. Read More