ARE TEENEGAERS OBLITTERATING THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE?

Parents are left confused by the neologisms used by their children and other people on social media sites.

Now more the ever before the English language is adapting at such a fast rate that the older generations are finding it hard to keep up with the new “lingo”.

Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and other social media websites are jeopardising the future generation’s language potential. The English language has changed so drastically over the last 10 years that people in older generations may be concerned that the future generation’s language may deteriorate and change so much that the English language as we know it today may be forgotten.

Texting is manipulating today’s language.  English exam grades will begin to drop as the students are developing their texting vocabulary as shortened lexis rather than Standard English. Language such as ‘lol’ is rapidly becoming more and more common as the younger population are drilling it into the brains of the elder generations as  ‘lol’ is no longer just a texted expression but people are also beginning  to speak it.

As the use of modern technology begins to grow so does the children’s use of non-standard English. Research suggests that it is indeed the developing in modern technology which is degrading the younger generations’ use of language as they are growing up adapting their language to the sort of language that appears on social networking sites and electronic devices. Scientists as well as teachers are wary of the fact that as the technology develops and expands the younger generation’s choice of vocabulary will decrease and become less varied than it already is.

As well as shortening words by using acronyms and abbreviations some ‘textacholocis’ even prefer to use letters rather than words to illustrate what they are saying such as ‘a’ for ‘hey?’ and ‘y’ for ‘why?’ This is not only shortening the words but just using a one letter symbol to indicate what they mean just because it sounds like the word they mean. Is this really how we should be teaching the younger generation about language?

Using symbolic figures as well as letters is also being used to adapt and shorted our language ‘GR8 M8’ rather than ‘great mate’.  Also to block out the use of taboo words symbols such as ‘*!@’ are used to block out the main part of the word to hide what it actually saying, however still making it clear to the audience what it says.

 As well as shorting text people now also, (thanks to apple and android phones) emoji’s are now build in to their smart phone keyboards to illustrate visual images to also shorten the amount of text that is used. The use of emoji’s arguably won’t be as habitual as shorted texting as when you are writing on paper the use of emoji’s are not available to students however, the incorrect use of non-standard language is still going to become habitual to us.