{"id":243,"date":"2016-06-08T12:49:14","date_gmt":"2016-06-08T12:49:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.languagetesting.com\/blog\/?p=243"},"modified":"2018-06-04T15:33:27","modified_gmt":"2018-06-04T15:33:27","slug":"is-texting-killing-the-english-language","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.languagetesting.com\/blog\/is-texting-killing-the-english-language\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Texting Killing the English Language?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"Texting has long been accused as being the downfall of the written word, \u201cpenmanship for illiterates,\u201d as one critic\u00a0called it<\/a>. To which\u00a0the likely response is LOL. Proper testing is not\u00a0writing at all \u2014 it\u2019s actually more like the spoken language. It’s a \u201cspoken\u201d language that is evolving and becoming more complex as time passes.<\/p>\n

But let’s go back a while. Writing was invented over 5,00 years ago,\u00a0and language\u00a0likely traces back perhaps 80,000 years.\u00a0So\u00a0talking came first; writing is just an artifice that came along much later.\u00a0Due to this, writing was first\u00a0based on the way people talk, with short sentences \u2014 think of the Old Testament. However, while talking is largely subconscious and rapid, writing is slower and more deliberate.
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\nLike language assessment tests, speaking tests are always shorter in duration than written tests. But in getting back to texting –\u00a0It’s\u00a0developing its\u00a0own\u00a0type of grammar (no pun intended). Take\u00a0LOL for example<\/em>.\u00a0It doesn\u2019t actually mean \u201claughing out loud\u201d in a literal sense anymore.\u00a0LOL<\/em>\u00a0has evolved into something much subtler and sophisticated and is used\u00a0even when nothing is remotely amusing.\u00a0Jessica texts \u201cWhere have you been?\u201d and\u00a0David texts back \u201cLOL at the library studying for two hours.\u201d\u00a0LOL<\/em>\u00a0signals basic empathy between texters, easing tension and creating a sense of equality. Instead of having a literal meaning,\u00a0it does something \u2014 conveying an attitude \u2014 just like the -ed ending conveys past tense rather than \u201cmeaning\u201d anything.\u00a0LOL<\/em>, of all things, is grammar.<\/p>\n

Over time, the meaning of a word or an expression\u00a0evolves \u2014\u00a0meat<\/em>\u00a0used to mean any kind of\u00a0food<\/a>,\u00a0silly<\/em>\u00a0used to mean, believe it or not, blessed.<\/p>\n

Civilization, then, is fine \u2014 people\u00a0typing away on their smartphones are fluently using a code separate from the one they use in actual writing, and\u00a0there’s no evidence that texting is ruining composition skills. Worldwide people speak differently from the way they write, and texting \u2014 quick, casual and only intended to be read once \u2014 is actually a way of talking with your fingers.<\/p>\n

All indications are that America\u2019s youth are doing it quite well. Texting, far from being a scourge, is a work in progress.<\/p>\n

This essay is adapted from McWhorter\u2019s\u00a0talk<\/a>\u00a0at TED 2013.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Texting has long been accused as being the downfall of the written word, \u201cpenmanship for illiterates,\u201d as one critic\u00a0called it. To which\u00a0the likely response is LOL. Proper testing is not\u00a0writing at all \u2014 it\u2019s actually more like the spoken language. It’s a \u201cspoken\u201d language that is evolving and becoming more complex as time passes. But […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[27,46,47],"class_list":["post-243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-educational","tag-language-proficiency","tag-texting","tag-writing-language-assessment"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.languagetesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.languagetesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.languagetesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.languagetesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.languagetesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.languagetesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":350,"href":"https:\/\/www.languagetesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243\/revisions\/350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.languagetesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.languagetesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.languagetesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}