Text Messaging Is Destroying Our Language
In response to Eric Uthus’ “Text messages destroying out language”.
I found this piece very convincing but I personally do not agree with Uthus. Uthus believes people have a “weaker understanding of correct grammar” and use “little or no punctuation”, which he believes could lead to a decline in one’s education.
One’s diction and ability to form coherent and complete sentences is very important for future job opportunities, exams and in everyday life. In my opinion children and the youth of future generations are not suffering academically due to this newfound skill for communication. They are, in fact inventing and exploring the English language and as a result actually learning more than their fore fathers into the use of grammar.
Children of the digital generation don’t have a problem with language (research suggests that they are actually more sophisticated in this area) so much as they have a problem with etiquette and understanding what works in any given context. But that has always been true of children and teenagers. The truth is that we all could probably do with a bit more civility. The use of text language is filtering into the school system, as discussed by a practicing Language Arts and Social Studies Teacher, Debbie Frost, “Abbreviations commonly used in online instant messages and text messages are creeping into formal essays that student’s write”.
Not all teachers feel that this new form of communication is aiding in the destruction of the English language and outline that the lack of understanding for the English language is due to the school curriculum not from the student’s use of social networking sites and text messaging.
Although instant messaging may expose problems, it does not create them. If students use their text messaging literacy in the wrong settings, it is because their other scholarly literacy’s have not been attended to well enough. It is not, however because text messaging has damaged their literary abilities or
I found this piece very convincing but I personally do not agree with Uthus. Uthus believes people have a “weaker understanding of correct grammar” and use “little or no punctuation”, which he believes could lead to a decline in one’s education.
One’s diction and ability to form coherent and complete sentences is very important for future job opportunities, exams and in everyday life. In my opinion children and the youth of future generations are not suffering academically due to this newfound skill for communication. They are, in fact inventing and exploring the English language and as a result actually learning more than their fore fathers into the use of grammar.
Children of the digital generation don’t have a problem with language (research suggests that they are actually more sophisticated in this area) so much as they have a problem with etiquette and understanding what works in any given context. But that has always been true of children and teenagers. The truth is that we all could probably do with a bit more civility. The use of text language is filtering into the school system, as discussed by a practicing Language Arts and Social Studies Teacher, Debbie Frost, “Abbreviations commonly used in online instant messages and text messages are creeping into formal essays that student’s write”.
Not all teachers feel that this new form of communication is aiding in the destruction of the English language and outline that the lack of understanding for the English language is due to the school curriculum not from the student’s use of social networking sites and text messaging.
Although instant messaging may expose problems, it does not create them. If students use their text messaging literacy in the wrong settings, it is because their other scholarly literacy’s have not been attended to well enough. It is not, however because text messaging has damaged their literary abilities or