Something about pictures of animals is expressive, fascinating, and thoughtful, regardless of the fact that animals cannot truly show emotion in ways that have meaning to us. But behold! Does it not appear as if this cold-blooded reptile is happily smiling at the millions who have encountered him?
Does the "look" on this dog's "face" not clearly show that he is displeased and disgusted with his unfortunate predicament?
Anyone who uses imageboards, Facebook, email, or text messaging services cannot deny that the annoying habit of adding smiley faces and pictures to posts has rubbed off onto them. Sometimes in formal emails or college essays or even in daily conversation we miss being able to use pictures to express ourselves. After all, who wants to go through the great trouble of saying:
"Sir, I regret to inform you that I am truly and utterly disappointed, annoyed, and repulsed by your actions. I am entirely unappreciative of your thoughtless, foolish, or inappropriate behavior and can barely put my anger into words..."
when you can just say:
I don't know. Perhaps the former would catch my attention, but--ooh, look, a cat!
Is Internet lingo killing us? My high school English teachers would never pass up the opportunity to point out misspellings, grammatical errors, and overuse of clichés when handing back our mediocre papers, and now they can criticize the use of 'lol', 'IMHO', and ':D'. After all, my history teacher in the 12th grade did encounter 'u' a lot, thanks to the rise of cell phones and texting.
So, is the Internet here to add new and creative forms of expression to our routine, or will it simply destroy the English language and corrupt our youth in the meantime? Only time will tell (geez, how many essays have I ended this way in my life?)!
- Heather
Interesting points about the blending between the formal and the informal lexicon. I experienced similar things in high school where my peers wrote like they were texting in formal papers. Likewise, my teachers got upset when they saw this because it was clearly not the correct time to use that jargon. As for the Internet's affect on the English language, I foresee that the English language will continue to develop as more and more foreign words are added and more English is incorporated into other languages. Languages change slowly over many years, perhaps this technology inspired lexicon is the next form of English.
ReplyDeleteYou hit some pretty good points about where the use of the internet-incorporated in our lives, not only affect our privacy and etc that people worry about but it also indirectly affect the way we view communicative language and emotions' expressions today. Though today, it is often disregarded and made into jokes. I think that the education system must educate people and show society what is happening with language over time as we are moving to fully engaged technological individuals before it is too late and future generations grow into this!
ReplyDeleteAbove all, I find it quite saddening.