With word limits and the need to be fast and efficient in communicating, we have contracted and abbreviated almost every word possible. I think the point of CMC affecting our expression is something that I see very often in younger students these days. As an English tutor, I often find broken sentence structures and spelling mistakes in many of my students' work. Many times because they could only remember the spelling of the contracted word and not the full spelling. These are the kids who had grew up in the technology era, and this early exposure might have done them more bad then good in their proficiency of the language.
Here's a classic case. Not from my student's work, but was an answer I got when teaching a primary school kid. All thanks to video gaming.
As mentioned in class, proficient users of the language is capable of switching between contexts easily, but if children are still learning the language, wouldn't it be jeopardizing their learning development if they are exposed to CMC too early in life?
On the other hand, abbreviated forms add some colour to a conversation. It has become so popular that there is an entire website on CMC abbreviations!
Internet slangs: http://www.internetslang.com/
Now we can form an entire sentence with letters that don't make sense, and still make sense! YKIMS. =)
I think you're right. For little kids who are still learning the language, it will be good that they are too much exposed to non-standard use of the language.
ReplyDeleteWhat's the second answer? noob?
ReplyDeleteBut 'hopefull' shouldn't be correct, should it?
You are right Dr. Deng, it is spelt wrongly too. "N00b" is a gamer's slang for newbie, or amateur.
ReplyDeleteI think the opposite of "pro-" is "anti-".
HAHAHA noob. it's really gaming language. used far too commonly.
ReplyDeleteI think it's not going to be easy at this day and age to prevent young kids from being exposed to CMC. With primary school kids using the internet to do their work, it's almost unavoidable in fact.
Even if schools don't expose their students to the internet, these kids will use the internet at home to chat with their friends. What's more, since almost everyone has a handphone now, it isn't going to stop them from being exposed to CMC.
It is scary to know that some of these words encountered on the Internet/computers may eventually become accepted into ‘standard’ vocabulary. For eg.‘netizens’(community of Internet users) and ‘vlogs’(video blogging) have recently found their way into std EL dictionaries.
ReplyDeleteWith prolonged and frequent usage by a large number of people, some of these words become acceptable. Thus, with the current dynamism of communication on IT platforms, it becomes hard to really block out some influences from the Internet/computers on our language.
ReplyDelete