I'm not too good at essays and probably should've started practicing since the start of the year, any comments would be good
The essay topic is from the Insight 2010 trial paper, in case you want to look at the stimulus material, theres just too much to type xD
Electronic communication is so prevalent nowadays that it is undermining the very nature of both written an dspoken language. Dicuss. Refer to at least two subsystems in your response.
The emergence of electronic communication has added variety to the English language while simultaneously blurring the lines between written and spoken language. The written mode has been substantially affected by technology, causing prescriptivist such as John Humphrys form the Daily mail to label texters as vandals destroying the English language. Throughout the last few decades, the dominance of electronic communication has reshaped our spoken language; lexemes from texting and online messaging have crossed over to spoken, thus blurring the lines between the two.
The prevalent use of electronic communication in modern society has had various effects on the written mode of language. Electronic communication such as SMS and online messaging has brought out several features such as abbreviations (e.g gtg = got to go, brb = be right back), shortenings (probs =probably) and rebuses (l8 = late, 4 =for, Gr8 = great). Such lexical and morphological changes are due to the space and cost limitations of texting and the ever increasing need for speed. Similarly, twitter has signed up with Penguin books to convert the world’s greatest literature classics into a series of tweets, no more than 20 to aid the short attention span of the contemporary age. Additionally, since the introduction of the internet, there has been a great increase of word class shifts, especially nouns being used interchangeably as verbs. For example, “to google” (from Google), “to wiki” (from Wikipedia), and “to de/un-friend someone” (opposite of adding a friend in Facebook). Although there have been concerns by prescriptivists that “bad” or “lazy” language is taking over, there has been no linguistic evidence to back this up. Shortenings such as those mentioned above have occurred throughout the history of English, long before the emergence of electronic technology. Everyday lexemes such as “pants” and “phone” were derived from their longer originals “pantaloons” and “telephone”. Similarly, evidence of word class shifts appear long before the internet was introduced into society such as the lexeme “task” which can also be used as a verb, “I have been tasked with this job”. Therefore, although the use of electronic communication has caused a change to our written language, it is not going downhill.
Similarly, electronic communication has caused certain changes to the way we speak. With the ever increasing number of inventions today, there have been insufficient new nouns to label them. Due to this, many existing nouns have gone through semantic broadenings, such as the animal “mouse” being labelled as a computer component, “virus” as a software that infects a system, and ”hibernate/sleep” when a computer enters a state which consumes les power than usual. These nouns have been embedded into our language that we barely notice their origins. Additionally, ever since electronic communication emerged, America has laid its roots in Australia due to its dominance in the global market for technology. American lexemes such as “cool”, “dude” and “buddy” have been able to spread easier through the media.
There is no longer a clear distinction between written and spoken language. Language from the written domain can be seen floating around our spoken discourse. Acronyms and shortenings from text and instant messaging such as “rofl’, “cbs” and “probs” are being used in teenspeak. Similarly, language once distinct to the spoken domain has crossed over to the written domain. Informal lexemes such as “dude” and “sup” from spoken discourse are now found all over online messaging. The use of these lexemes adds to the informality of such modes of communication by mimicking a real-life face to face conversation.
Overall, it can be seen that although the written and spoken modes are merging together, the prevalent use of electronic communication is not destroying our language, it is adding colour and variety to it and as Bruce Moore said “language is constantly evolving and this is part of the evolutionary process.”
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