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posted by Fnord666 on Monday November 04 2019, @01:34AM   Printer-friendly
from the kewl dept.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Because Internet makes a linguist's case for l33t speak, other online-text fads

The Internet has done good things to the English language.

That's the most important thing linguist Gretchen McCulloch has to say in her book, Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language. Though many prominent opinion-havers rage about the imminent death of the English language at the hands of emoji-wielding teenagers, the Internet has done no more harm to English than television, radio, or dime novels.

In fact, McCulloch makes a compelling argument that Internet language, and emoji in particular, is restoring life to the relatively emotionless medium of text. For hundreds of years, public writing was limited to formal contexts like newspapers and books, written by educated people using very formal language for the edification of other educated people. Even fiction draws a clear line between informal dialogue and formal narration. On the Internet, on the other hand, the lines are much less clear. Private, informal writing (like shopping lists or notes passed between students at the back of a classroom) is now publicly visible, and the conventions developed by individuals or small groups for writing informally can spread and interact on a global scale. To McCulloch, this is more exciting than it is scary, and reading Because Internet might convince you to feel the same.

[...] McCulloch is on a mission to make linguistics relatable—and, hear me out, she's on a roll in that respect. She does this not only through Because Internet, but also through Lingthusiasm, the podcast she co-hosts with fellow linguist Lauren Gawne. As its name suggests, Lingthusiasm shows off the hosts' enthusiasm about linguistics and calls on its listeners to get excited about a wide variety of linguistic topics, such as how vowels work, the ways people from different cultures talk about time, and why efforts to create a single world language never catch on. On Lingthusiasm, McCulloch and Gawne dispel myths about language and inspire the kind of excitement that turns curious students into scientists. And in Because Internet, McCulloch continues to demystify and delight.


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  • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday November 04 2019, @07:38PM (1 child)

    by Freeman (732) on Monday November 04 2019, @07:38PM (#915856) Journal

    I would say that with the advent of the internet, we've greatly increased the speed of change. The telephone may have brought the world much closer, but most people still called and talked with people they knew. With the internet, you have people from every country in the world sharing their own unique perspective, all at the same time. Where, once you had to find a book to read up on Japan/Korea, do actual research for information. You go to Siri, Google, DuckDuckGo, etc. and the information is spoon fed to you.

    Now, insert radical dogmas, celebrities with cult like followings, and instant access to all of it. You're going to be getting a lot of change, for better or worse, a lot faster.

    One of the biggest issues I have with people promoting "Change", is that the proposed change isn't necessarily a better alternative. How do you think we got the likes of Trump? It wasn't, because we had such awesome candidates. He was the response to the change that was Obama. I'd have likely voted for LL Cool Jay, before Obama or Trump.

    --
    Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
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  • (Score: 2) by legont on Tuesday November 05 2019, @02:55AM

    by legont (4179) on Tuesday November 05 2019, @02:55AM (#916098)

    Internet is great, but, forgive me, say adoption of fractional reserve system have done a few orders of magnitude more for change.

    --
    "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.