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Is Twitter Killing English?
By siliconindia
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Thursday, 03 November 2011, 01:09 IST |
1 Comments
Linguist Noam Chomsky in an interview with DC blog Brightest Young Things calls Twitter "very shallow communication". He says, "It requires a very brief, concise form of thought and so on that tends toward superficiality and draws people away from real serious communication. It is not a medium of a serious interchange."
Language has always been subjective to changes, feel some critics. Text messaging and tweeting are only accelerating the pace of this change. Social media is just making these changes visible as they arise. We no more speak high polished English like hundred years ago; sometimes we slip back to slang instead of soliloquies. It?s unlikely to halt any changes or reverse them, and there?s nothing bad in changing. Some feel Twitter is not demolishing the English language, rather it's making it better. It only allows for 140 character musings, providing abbreviations that don't accurately chase usual spelling or grammar rules.
It does not matter much if this type of communication doesn?t live up to English ideals. The New York Times's Ben Zimmer points out, "Social scientists can simply take advantage of Twitter?s stream to eavesdrop on a virtually limitless array of language in action.? Whether people approve or not, Twitter is happening and it's really not all that bad. Language evolves and Twitter is presently making it easier to pathway what's happening.
