Abbreviated language: 

Innovation or Linguistic laziness?

Undoubtedly, the answer for the teachers is the latter one. Not only do they see this as linguistic laziness but they also view this as a big headache and the death of English. Is this really true? I mean, have the teachers or educators overstated the seriousness of the phenomenon?

However, according to Hazadiah Mohamad Dahan and Noor Zaina Idris, who have done a study about 'How technologies affect language use and how this can potentially lead to language change in Malaysia", "New objects, concepts, new activities may require new terms, new ways of expressing... This involves creation & innovation in language use (Stockwell, 2002; Coulmas, 2005)." (Quoted from a study on Research, Asia Research News)

Nowadays, many students are blamed for using abbreviated language which they use in electronic communication in their classroom writing. Students tend to write what they want to say with as few words as possible. Actually, those students are not lazy or stupid at all! To play with the abbreviated language, students must have a good sense of how the sounds of the shortened words connect with the letters. They need to think before they spell the words. Why don’t we consider this as creativity and innovation instead of laziness?

In fact, there are many abbreviated forms are closely related to our daily life. Have you ever thought that why we add “A.M.” after the morning time? It is actually an abbreviated language that was recorded long time ago. “A.M.” stands for “Ante Meridiem” which means before noon in Latin. Imagining we always write “Ante Meridiem” after a specific of time, does this imply that we are very smart and not lazy? No! Conversely, people may think that we are a weirdo. So why is this abbreviated form generally accepted but not “skool”, “gr8” or “oic” that are mostly used in text messaging?

I remember Rodney mentioned about Shakespeare creating many words by himself in the lecture. Yet, we don’t think that they are the errors or affecting our spelling skill even though we learn them. Instead, we see his poems and poetries etc as one of the most beautiful and important literature in the history of mankind. Why?

I think people accept “A.M.” or “thee” but not “u” because the former ones were created much earlier than the text message-abbreviated language and have been recorded in the dictionaries for many decades. However, text messaging is criticized a lot and some people think that they were made up by children. Ironically, the tendency towards text messaging in growing and sweeping all over the world nowadays. There are not only students use it, my student’s mom also uses it!

I don’t think people should be old fashioned anymore! The world is changing because of the advanced development of technology. However, if we fear, that will only hinder the progress. We need innovations!

    

Tagging or Folders?

Because of flickr as well as Facebook, I think “tagging” has gained a lot of popularity in the recent years. Whenever I think about “tags”, I will associate them with “keywords” or names of categories. And these keywords are exactly used to describe some photos, documents or web pages on the internet.

Although many people like using tagging nowadays, I am not a big fan of it. Imagining you want to look for a picture which is about kissing. You have tried all the possible keywords but still cannot find a good one. Later, you find a kissing picture that you really love by accident. However, when you look at it carefully, you find that its tag is made up of symbols only. Don’t you feel annoyed about discovering that? I mean, why are they relevant? I sometimes encountered this problem and I would feel very upset even though I had found the picture I wanted. I am not saying that that tag is used wrongly but what I am trying to say is, the meaning of a tag can be very personal and ambiguous. Sometimes, some tags may have no meaning at all!!!At least, those symbols are really not meaningful for the rest of us. I guess that the reason behind this is that the folksonomy users don’t have a set of formal guidelines to follow when they create the tags. 

There is still one advantage of using folders. That is, everything  will be very organized but not messy. Take a look at this video which is about "SmartFolders". Don't you think that everything is well organized and appropriately located? 

Of course, some people may argue that folders also have some limitations. Like Rodney said, people have to decide which folder they should put a picture or whatever item in each time. They can only put the picture in a single folder at a time if they don’t duplicate it. Yet, personally, I still like folders more. I can always find the pictures I want somewhere in a right folder but they are not floating around in a big sea. For example, I can easily find those vineyard pictures in a folder called “Vineyard”. =] I don't have to search 10 different keywords to get a picture I really want! 

At last, I want to share another video that teaches the lovers and owners of iPhone 4 who want to create folders on their phone.

Which one do you guys favor? Tagging or Folders?

My digital life

Due to the advanced development of the technology, people’s lives have changed a lot from the past decades. This is particularly obvious in the aspect of human communication.

Nowadays, I use 3G mobile phone, MSN, Facebook or sometimes email to keep in touch with friends. Thanks to their convenience and efficiency, I just need to click on a button “send”, my friends will be able to read my messages or even picture messages in a minute. I can’t imagine how my life will be without them. I remember when the first day I landed in Sydney, I was so anxious about calling my parents that I had arrived. In the old days, people would write letters or use pigeons to deliver their messages. Yet, nowadays, it would be insane for me to write a letter to my parents since it would take approximately a week for them to receive it. I just used my 3G phone to call them and they could even see me walking around in Sydney.

For entertainment, I use ipod Nano to listen to music. Sometimes, I like to watch TV series on Tudou or YouTube. Whenever and wherever I go, I always bring my digital camera with me. All because I love taking photos!!! What’s more, I like sharing some fashion news with other online friends in my friend’s BeautyExchange blog. The above is a post talking about hats. 


Talking about blogs or online journals, the language used in this kind of media is pretty interesting. What I mean is, people like to add smileys to express or emphasize their feelings or meanings. They also like to use abbreviation. For example, “ttyl”, which means “Talk to you later”. It is also very common in digital telecommunication. People like to abbreviate words so that they can cram a long message into one single SMS. It’s true that it’s very convenient but it sometimes causes miscommunication or misunderstanding. The older generation like our parents may not even understand what they are.

So, I really wonder why and how these new communication technologies are changing or perhaps have greatly influenced the way we communication with people in terms of language use. I also want to know whether they have changed the relationship between different people. How do people construct their identity in those online blogs or Facebook compared with that in real life? What is the relationship between these two kinds of identities? By studying this course, I want find out the answers.