Use 'shrt wrds', become unemployable
By siliconindia   |   Tuesday, 12 January 2010, 14:52 IST   |    8 Comments
Printer Print Email Email
Use 'shrt wrds', become unemployable
London: Using vocabulary of just 800 words a day, can make today's generation of teenagers unemployable. Their range is more limited than the 1,000 words regarded as the minimum for non-native speakers to understand basic English, reports Sunday Times. Jean Gross, UK Government's new adviser on childhood language development plans to launch a national campaign to prevent children failing in the classroom and the workplace because of their inability to express themselves. Jean said, "Teenagers are spending more time communicating through electronic media and text messaging, which is short and brief. We need to help today's teenagers understand the difference between their textspeak and the formal language they need to succeed in life, 800 words will not get you a job." Gross's campaign, which is likely to be launched next year, will mainly focus on primary and secondary schools. "I want teenagers going into workplaces and making videos of how people communicate and then putting them on YouTube for others to study," said Jean. According to the government's first children's communication czar, today's teenagers avoid using a broad vocabulary and complex words in favor of the abbreviated 'teenspeak' of text messages, social networking sites and internet chat rooms. Their range is more limited than the 1,000 words regarded as the minimum for non-native speakers to understand basic English. By the age of 16 the majority of teenagers develop a broad vocabulary of 40,000 words. However, Linguists have found that many teenagers choose to limit themselves to a much smaller range of words in regular conversation. John Bald, Language Teaching Consultant and Former Ofsted Schools Inspector said, "There is undoubtedly a culture among teenagers of deliberately stripping away excess verbiage in language. When kids are in social situations, the instinct is to simplify. That's partly prompted by the habit of shortening language when texting but it's seen as uncool to use complex vocabulary. It's part of a wider anti-school culture that exists among some children which parents and schools need to address." According to a recent study from Sheffield University, a teenager knows about 40,000 words and a graduate knows 60,000 or more. In the 1920s Charles Kay Ogden, a pioneer of simplified language techniques, devised Basic English - a lexicon of 850 words that was sufficient to communicate.

Votal AI: Redefining Workforce Efficiency Through Ethical AI