Electronically Inclined to Not Speak No Good No Mo'

In posting messages on Facebook to friends, or inviting them out for dinner via Facebook inbox message, one is using internet language. While it is a form of a standard language, or a dialect, both parties comprehend the message and the language being used. The language being used is appropriate to the situation. The sender of the message, although it is not in Standard Written English, understands that he has asked a friend out to dinner and the recipient is aware that he is being asked. However, a foreign speaker who has learned English as a second language and has learned Standard Written English may not understand the message. Why is that? How does the use of internet language affect the writing, spelling and other grammatical aspects of the Standard Written English?
Internet language is predominantly found on online blogging sites or social networking sites, such as Facebook. According to Williams and Merten, these sites “involve individuals creating and maintaining personal Internet sites allowing authors and other users to post content, thus creating a personal network” (254).
Williams and Merten define social networking sites and blogging by saying:
Social networking profiles present a unique research opportunity as the process of blogging involves individuals voluntarily posting information about themselves—personal thoughts, feelings, beliefs, activities—in a public arena with unlimited access for anyone with an Internet connection. The amount of personal information contained in a blog is completely dependent on the author's judgment (254).
Personal blogs and sites on which people can broadcast themselves can easily alter others’ opinions. Things done online can change someone else’s view of the blog or site’s host. I have personally discontinued associations with people due to things they have said on a social networking site. Similarly, Gonzales and Hancock report that “the perceptions of others are decreased in computer-mediated interactions” (171). One of my personal pet peeves, even online, is the misuse of words that sound the same but have different meanings, like “there”, “their” and “they’re”, misspelling words and the incorrect use of Standard Written English grammar. For example, phrases such as “they is going” rather than “they are going” drive me crazy. I have not only encountered these mistakes frequently when speaking English to someone, but I have also encountered similar mistakes when speaking with someone in Spanish. Via instant message, I recently told someone “gracias”, or “thank you” in Spanish. To this, I got the reply “tú invitas”. The responder was attempting to say “you’re welcome”, which he did, however, in the wrong context. He told me “you’re welcome” in a way of, for example, offering entrance into your home. The correct response would have been “de nada”. In English, however, we would not encounter this issue since “you’re welcome” is the same for either expressing gratitude or for offering another person access.
Incorrect grammatical use Standard Written English is exhibited by people of many different ages on social networking sites. I have learned this from personal experience and by reading posts and status updates from my friends on Facebook and in text messages. Not only do my twelve-year-old and sixteen-year-old cousins misspell words frequently, omit proper capitalization and punctuation, but I have seen these mistakes often, from a fifty-year-old woman, a sixty-year-old man and from those within those of my own age group as well. With these mistakes in existence so often, blogging or social networking sites would not be an appropriate educational tool.
Although I do not agree, Hourigan and Murray believe social networking sites could be very useful in the educational field.
The potential impact of the blog writing phenomenon upon teaching and learning contexts reveals an important area for consideration for all university educators, and in particular for e-learning practitioners. Today, web users may access a wide variety of media to express themselves and to communicate with others. These may include conventional blog websites such as blogger.com or indeed social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook or Bebo, which continue to integrate blog tools and which also encourage self-expression on the part of the users (209).
The educating of Standard Written English is best learned in person, rather than through distant education. If classes are conducted online, the internet language will integrate with schooling and will slowly demolish Standard Written English. Divergently, regarding online education, Hourigan and Murray reported:
[T]he context in which the actual learning takes place is regarded by many as being paramount to helping the teacher to implement realistic goals throughout the duration of the study (214).
Concerning the younger demographics, though, according to Williams and Merten, “fifty-five percent of teenagers online use and create online social networking profiles” (254). This would make for easy access and communication between the teacher and the student. However, my personal opinion is that education is best completed, when concerning Standard Written English errors, in person, regardless of accessibility.
According to All and Armstrong, there are many ways to use Facebook. To be most successful, they say to do ten things. A few of those ten things are:
1. Update your status
2. Ask your supporters to donate their status
3. Start a cause
4. Promote an event (18-19).
The least spelling, grammar and punctuation errors are found in latter two points. These two topics are more professional than a simple, personal page. A cause typically has an important goal to reach and that goal is more easily attainable when Standard Written English is used rather than a dialect of the English language. An event that is open to anyone with a Facebook account is better understood by their audience in Standard Written English as opposed to a dialect, as well. Alternatively, the most Standard Written English errors I have encountered online on social networking sites have been on Facebook by means of status updates. I have found spelling, capitalization, punctuation and grammatical errors within other aspects of Facebook. However, upon observation and documentation on my own account, I have found that there are approximately 80% fewer mistakes in causes or invitations created by Facebook account holders within a given week, than there are in status updates within that same week.
Page describes status updates as mini-stories. She says:
The stories reported in updates fall outside the literary, conversational, and electronic narrative canon, but are a rich data source for re-examining key concepts in narrative theory, including factors that give rise to perceptions of narrativity (423).
Due to internet language through Facebook status updates, for instance, contain grammatical, spelling and punctual Standard Written English mistakes that are forced into daily vocabulary, omitting and superseding the use of Standard Written English. When writing to someone and saying “u” instead of “you” or updating ones status to say, for example “immago tada apple market” as opposed to “I’m going to go to the apple market” has greatly affected Standard Written English in the educational field. These incorrect uses of punctuation, capitalization, etcetera have found their way into formal written papers and emails to a superior. Emails themselves, whether to a boss, a professor or anyone with whom speech should be formal, can greatly affect the recipient’s perception of the sender. These misuses yield an appearance of less maturity and intelligence than that person may actually have. Page believes that status’ have high importance, despite their toll on Standard Written English. She says:
Given the trend toward using mobile devices (cell phones, e-book readers such as the Kindle) for connecting to Internet services, the importance of small narrative units in online text capable of episodic distribution looks set to continue (440).
I conducted a study to record deviations from Standard Written English among different age groups. This study concludes that Standard Written English errors are exhibited among every age group. Internet language does not affect teenagers or profuse Facebook users solely. In this study, I required that each person send me a twenty word text message, a one hundred word email acting as though I were their boss and they were explaining why they missed a day of work and each person was required to write a letter on paper describing how to make a sandwich. In this study, I analyzed children ages eleven to seventeen, young adults ages eighteen to twenty-five, adults twenty-six to fifty and seniors over the age of fifty-one. The study was conducted in English. From this study, I learned that errors in the text messages came 50% from children, 35% from young adults, 10% from adults and 5% from seniors. In the emails, I found that, again 50% of the mistakes came from children, 35% from young adults, 10% from adults and 5% from seniors. In the letters, however, I discovered that only 35% of the mistakes were made by children, 35% were made by young adults, 20% by adults and 10% by seniors. My study group was more limited than I would have liked for it to be, therefore, affecting my results. The education completion levels among the test subjects were not consistent and the subjects were all from the same area of Missouri, specifically Saint Joseph, therefore, giving me a smaller geographical range as well.
Alongside my experiences with mistakes deviating from the standard language in English, I have also seen spelling mistakes in Spanish on an online social networking site. However, spelling mistakes are the only mistakes I have personally seen, other than the contextual mistake I encountered when I was told “tú invitas”. My inadequate detection of these mistakes is due to my trivial understanding of the language. On Facebook, a native Spanish speaker posted “ola”, in attempt to say “hello” to a friend. However, when “hola” is spoken, the ‘h’ sound is silent, leading this speaker to, in turn, spell the word without an ‘h’ at the beginning. Internet language has not only negatively affected Standard Written English and English speakers, but it has also, the extent to which I am uncertain, affected other standard forms of languages such as Spanish.
In the end, I simply wish for you, my fellow member of society, to be more aware of your language use and misuse. I implore you to represent yourself, online as well as offline, as an adult through your language use, when the situation is formal or public. From this analysis, I would like to be taken simply the knowledge of these misuses and a more in-depth knowledge about representing oneself on an online social networking site updating one’s status or making a post, or when blogging. When writing an important paper for school or in a job, I would like to, with this information, help by saving even a trifling amount of time editing, by avoiding the use of common Standard Written English mistakes found in online situations, rather than later omitting or altering them. Use “you’re” in the first draft, as opposed to “ur”, or “they’re” instead of “theyre”. I would like for this analysis to raise awareness of internet language drifting into and engulfing Standard Written English, with hopes of dismantling the issue of incorrectness being more common than correctness.
 
Works Cited
All, David, and Jerome Armstrong. “Ten Ways to Use Facebook to Get Your Message Out.”
Politics (Campaigns & Elections) Issue 282 (2009): 18-19. Print.
Gonzales, Amy L., and Jeffrey T. Hancock. “Identity Shift in Computer-Mediated Environments.” Media Psychology. 11.2 (2010): 167-185. Print.
Hourigan, Tríona, and Liam Murray .“Using Blogs to Help Language Students Develop Reflective Learning Strategies: Towards a Pedagogical Framework.” Australasian Journal of Educational Technology 26.2 (2010): 1-17. Print.
Page, Ruth. “Re-examining Narrativity: Small Stories in Status Updates.” Text & Talk 30.4 (2010): 423-444. Print.
Williams, Amanda and Michael Merten. “A Review of Online Social Networking Profiles by
Adolescents: Implications for Future Research and Intervention.” Adolescence 43.170 (2008): 253-274. Print.

English 301 - advanced composition
Internet Language
Major Project #1
21 October 2010

The Language of Reading Challenged and Banned Books

Missouri Western State University held their Fourteenth Annual Reading of Challenged and Banned Books, hosted by Dr. Cadden, on Wednesday, September 29, 2010. During this reading, readers gave the reasons that their book of choice was either challenged or banned, and continued with reading a passage from that book. Each reader named and detailed their selections with a tone of comprehension entwined with ambiguity as to why said book was either banned or challenged. Each banned book listed seemed to be banned for ignorant reasons. Whether it is J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, read by Jessica Wilkinson, for being too racy, or Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson’s And Tango Makes Three, read by Mr. John Minnick, for promoting homosexuality; all concepts of these banned or challenged books, despite whether one agrees with the ideologies of the books or not, offer assistance for a well-rounded and open-minded educational experience for men and women of all ages.
With each book read being challenged or banned, every reader projected a section of their book with confidence and intelligence, with no regard for provincial reasoning as to the book’s ban or challenge; Thus showing no consent to the book being banned or challenged. The book reading colloquium was presented more formally, with Dr. Cadden and most of the readers dressed in suits and ties, skirts, or other forms of nice clothing. However, the language that was used by the book readers during the reading was more on the side of informal.
In the region of formality, the reading showed respect for books and authors presented. It showed reverence for the reasoning of books being banned or challenged and showed that it was a university-organized event. On the other hand, the informality of the speech at the reading showed disagreement with the reasons the books chosen were banned or challenged, and provided for a friendly environment that was open to discussion. It showed that the readers felt the books that they chose were banned or challenged for ill-mannered reasons, such as Shel Silverstein’s poem “How to Not Dry the Dishes”, read by Dr. Cindy Heider, being opposed because parents thought that it taught civil disobedience to children. Children, however, learn much more about disobedience though negligence from their parents, and from the things they are exposed to more often, like television and society.
Upon first glance at the program for the reading, one would believe that it was more of a formal presentation than an informal one, due to the list of readers. Going down the list, three out of eight readers have doctrines of some sort and all others are given the title of ‘Mr.’ or ‘Ms.’ along with explanations of their social status. For instance, the reader is enlightened, automatically after the reader’s name, that Ms. Sarah Lawson is an anchor and producer of New-Press 3 Now and Mr. Steve Silvius is the president of the student chapter of the International Reading Association. Notice that the reading continues to uphold the inequalities of society, in its program, between men and women, by labeling the women in regards to whether they “belong” to a man and are married or not. Nevertheless, the curriculum is very well written, detailed and organized. It does, though, have the playful tact of ‘Banned Books’ in the title being crossed out. This shows the audience, before the reading even begins, that it will not be entirely formal and there will be room for personal interpretation and the expression of personal opinions. The crossed out ‘Banned Books’ shows disregard for the fact that the books being presented were either banned or challenged somewhere in the world, at some point in time and proves an embrace for education in all forms, by associates and members of the university, whether the topics in the books are something with which one would agree or not.

English 301 - advanced composition
Language analysis of MWSU Challenged and Banned Books Reading
Outside Activity #1
30 September 2010

An Analysis of Sojourner Truth

Sojourner Truth was unable to read or write. Therefore, her speech was transcribed by the Frances Gage and given the title “Ain’t I a Woman?” in Gage’s 1881 publication of The History of Woman Suffrage. Sojourner Truth was born in New York and grew up in a Dutch family. However, the Gage’s text portrays her of having a seemingly southern drawl. Taking these facts into consideration how did Frances Gage affect Sojourner Truth’s speech in regards to reproducing it from spoken word onto paper?
Sojourner Truth, being from New York and having never been to the south, would not have a southern accent as Gage portrays her to. In Gage’s account of Truth’s speech that includes dialect, found online at About.com, Gage reports that Truth said things such as “I tink dat ‘twixt de niggers of de Souf and de womin at de Nork”, or “Den dey talks ‘bout dis ting in de head; what dis dey call it?”. According to Available Means ”Truth… would not have had a Southern dialect and that therefore any representation of dialect was likely created by the transcriber”. When I read the speech with dialect, it sounded, to me, very much like something that came out of the movie Gone with the Wind. When I read some of the dialect aloud, it reminded me of Scarlet O’Hara’s accent in the movie. It reminded me, more so, of the way Scarlet’s nurse, Mammy spoke in the movie. However, I would imagine that Truth’s voice would be less high-pitched and less “girly” than Scarlet’s, but possibly pretty similar to Mammy’s, assuming she did speak in a southern dialect. The fact that Truth was from New York shows Gage may have added the dialect herself and it was not really said by Truth. Therefore, Gage had an effect on the speech. Not only does Gage have an effect on the speech with the addition of dialect, but the spelling of the dialect is another way Gage’s affect’s Truth’s transcribed speech.
When it comes to the spelling in Gage’s speech, the “dialect” parts are spelled very inconsistently. In Gage’s version of the speech with dialect in it, “and” is spelled out. However, from Redd and Webb’s book, I learned that “and” is shortened to “an”. Gage writes “I have ploughed, and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me!” This selection of speech, though, sounds very much like Standard English. Gage also reports that Truth said, at one point, “wouldn’t ye be mean…”, however, later in the speech, Truth is reported as saying “Whar did your Christ come from?” The first form of ‘you’ is written in dialect, but the ‘your’ is in Standard English. Therefore, my question is: why would Truth say this part in Standard English, yet say other things with a southern dialect? Gage’s spelling of the dialect being inconsistent is yet another way that she affected the transcription of Truth’s speech. Not only is the spelling in Gage’s report a way that she affected Truth’s speech, but the fact that it is argued whether the speech took place or not is another way Gage affected the speech.
The uncertainty of the speech taking place is an example of the affect Gage had. Available Means reports “Some scholars question whether Truth ever delivered this speech at all, suggesting that it was invented by Gage to advance white women’s causes”. This speech could very well have been made up by Gage to assist women in the Women’s Rights movement. The speech, however took place in 1851 and Gage’s book, in which she included the speech, was not published until thirty years later in 1881. Personally, I think it would be very difficult to remember, word-for-word, something that took place thirty years earlier. Since it is argued whether this speech actually took place or not, Gage’s reproduction of the speech is another way that she affected Truth’s speech. Despite whether the speech actually happened or not, including the speech in her own book towards the advancement of Women’s Right’s is another example of Gage’s affect on Truth’s speech.
“Ain’t I a Woman” has been known as an important part of the history of Women’s Right’s. According to Available Means, “These few words… broke open the ideology of the nineteenth century’s assumptions about ‘true womanhood’… [and] presages many of the central issues in women’s rhetoric to this day”. This speech having become such a respected, important document would have been a good reason for Gage to fake the speech to help advance Women’s Rights by putting it in her publication. The speech, in assistance to Women’s Rights makes Gage look good because she supposedly transcribed it. This is a way that Gage had an effect on Truth’s speech.

English 301 - advanced composition
Sojourner Truth analysis
Critical Response Journal #4
28 October 2010

A Negative Language Misapprehension Slowly Altered by Higher Education

I was always taught that African American English, while it may not be proof that the speakers is unintelligent or uneducated, it is not a language on its own. I was taught that it has no rules and it is merely a dialect of Standard English. Growing up in a white, middle-class, conservative family, I had no exposure to anything otherwise. I was blind to African American English, for the most part, all the way from elementary school up to high school. I only knew the language that African Americans spoke as “lazy”, “rebellious” and “dumbed-down” until my Language Awareness class in college.
I had heard it spoken in elementary school and middle school somewhat, but it was something I pretty much just ignored. It was in high school when I began to really comprehend what was meant when things were said like “They’re just lazy and trying to be rebellious, they’re idiots and need to learn to speak proper English”. From hearing these misconceptions my entire life, my friend base was predominantly white and I paid no never mind to those of any other ethnicity because it had been burned into my head that they were less worthy or senseless.
Spanish, on the other hand, is a language that I have always been interested in and interested in learning since I was in elementary school. The discrimination against Spanish-speakers, though, to my knowledge, did not start in my family until Triumph opened in south end Saint Joe. Therefore, I was at an age where I was able to make my own, unbiased decisions and conclusions. I had only heard Spanish in my foreign language classes and through the few words and numbers my mother had taught me at an early age.
When it comes to African American English, I still have a hard time hearing and not automatically thinking “uneducated” or “lazy” because it is so embedded in my up-brining. It has gotten easier with my college courses considering the topic, however, in the back of my mind, occasionally, it is still there. I can ignore it, but I cannot ignore the fact that it exists. The language used in my childhood has been hard to erase and adjust. Its assertiveness and magnitude has been with me, even before I was old enough to really understand it. I do realize and acknowledge the negative effects it can and has had on my life. It has inscribed pessimism in my mind that has taken years to change.
The language that is used around a child, frequently, while they are growing up can strongly affect their entire life negatively and positively, whether intentional or not. Even a simple descriptive word like “lazy”, or calling things “stupid”, if used often enough, can lead to automatic assumptions by a child in later life, causing generalization, racism, segregation and discrimination. Frequently saying “d*mn Mexicans need to learn English or go the f*ck home” around a six-year-old, can, inevitably, lead that child to hating Spanish-speaking people and not being able to properly comprehend, or be willing to learn about the language and ethnicity as a whole. Whether it is being said jokingly by the adult, or very rarely, the more it is said, the less effort is takes for it to stick in young minds. The affect can take a lifetime to reverse. The negative generalizations I have been exposed to certainly have taken a while to repeal.
African American English, I know now due to my college classes, has its own rules and guidelines. An openness to accepting African American English as a language rather than a dialect and allowing its speakers to be accepted as opposed to categorized and classified by how they talk would, in my person opinion, but an effective way to eliminate some of the racism and discrimination in American society. With African American English known as “rule-governed” rather than “lazy” and “incorrect” would be an efficient way to eradicate the low self-esteem and instructional sacrifices of African Americans in the world of education all the way from elementary school to the college and university level as well. Doing away with these characterizations begin at the home front and changing the language taught to children.

English 301 - advanced composition
AAE analysis
Critical Response Journal #3
13 October 2010

An Analysis about Defining Men by Their Weakest Link

The language of Andrea Dworkin’s speech “I Want A Twenty-Four-Hour Truce During Which There Is No Rape” is harsh and demanding. This way of talking at other people can do one of two things: It will both draw attention and recruit them to side with the speaker, or turn them away from what is being said completely. Either way you perceive her speech, Andrea Dworkin states facts. She does not cloud her stated opinion with “pretty” phrases as other female rhetors do.
Dworkin said “Everybody raise your hand who believes you have the right to rape. Not too many hands will go up. It’s in life that men believe they have the right to force sex, which they don’t call rape.” While many men will disagree with this statement, she is stating facts about the beliefs of some men. This statement is false in that not every man truly, deep-down, believes it. However, it is true in that society does teach men and women both that men have authority over women in every aspect, including that men have the right to do whatever they please, sexually, with women, even if the woman does not concur to the action.
Society teaches us that men, exclusively, have the ability to hold higher-paying, better jobs than women. It teaches us that men, opposed to women, are allowed to be whatever they choose to be, whereas women must have a title labeling them by whether or not they “belong” to a man. This is the point Dworkin attempts to make in her speech: That men have power over women in every aspect, including willing and reluctant sexual situations. To which Dworkin reported “[P]ower… is the sum and substance of women’s oppression.” Were men not taught, from birth, that they could excel further than women; there would be no female oppression. Were men not taught that they are better, by right, than women; there would be no female oppression. Were men not taught that they have the ultimate power in this world over women; there would be no female oppression. Did men not hold that ultimate power, rapes and sex-related crimes against women would not take place.
Andrea Dworkin simply wants the men whom are not doing the raping, to, instead of insisting that they are not rapists and they do not do the crime, to take a stand and convince their fellow, guilty men to discontinue the crimes against women they are committing. However, yelling at men, telling them they are all rapists, will either force them to take a stand and prove her wrong, or become defensive and turned off to her goal. She said, “Tell the pornographers. Tell the pimps. Tell the war-makers. Tell the rape apologists and the rape celebrationists and the pro-rape ideologues… These men presume to speak for you. If they don’t, then you had better let them know.” Wherein she asking men to stop talking and do something. Dworkin does not believe that having a rapist’s nature is true of all men, but she is defining men by their weakest player, so to speak.
If the rapes were stopped, male dominance would decrease, allowing equality among the sexes to enhance and escalate in every aspect, let alone in sexual situations. If the innocent men took a stand against the guilty men, showing respect for women, their proclaimed beliefs in equality would be established rather than simply just verbalized. It is said that “seeing is believing” and the character of Sandy in the movie Grease says it best when she says “I’ll believe that when I see it.” As well, the ever-famous court-related quote “guilty until proven innocent”, are all perfect associations to Dworkin’s belief, “I will believe it when I see you on the streets… when I see an organized political opposition… when pimps go out of business because there are no more male consumers.” The demanding challenge to all men is to prove her wrong and to do something about it.

English 301 - advanced composition
Andrew Dworking analysis
Critical Response Journal #2
30 September 2010