Txtng is killing language. JK!!!
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0:01 - 0:04We always hear that texting is a scourge.
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0:04 - 0:08The idea is that texting spells the decline and fall
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0:08 - 0:12of any kind of serious literacy, or at least writing ability,
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0:12 - 0:15among young people in the United States
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0:15 - 0:17and now the whole world today.
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0:17 - 0:20The fact of the matter is that it just isn't true,
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0:20 - 0:23and it's easy to think that it is true,
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0:23 - 0:25but in order to see it in another way,
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0:25 - 0:28in order to see that actually texting is a miraculous thing,
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0:28 - 0:31not just energetic, but a miraculous thing,
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0:31 - 0:33a kind of emergent complexity
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0:33 - 0:35that we're seeing happening right now,
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0:35 - 0:38we have to pull the camera back for a bit
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0:38 - 0:41and look at what language really is,
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0:41 - 0:43in which case, one thing that we see
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0:43 - 0:48is that texting is not writing at all.
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0:48 - 0:49What do I mean by that?
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0:49 - 0:52Basically, if we think about language,
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0:52 - 0:56language has existed for perhaps 150,000 years,
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0:56 - 0:58at least 80,000 years,
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0:58 - 1:02and what it arose as is speech. People talked.
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1:02 - 1:05That's what we're probably genetically specified for.
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1:05 - 1:07That's how we use language most.
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1:07 - 1:11Writing is something that came along much later,
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1:11 - 1:13and as we saw in the last talk,
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1:13 - 1:16there's a little bit of controversy as to exactly when that happened,
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1:16 - 1:18but according to traditional estimates,
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1:18 - 1:21if humanity had existed for 24 hours,
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1:21 - 1:27then writing only came along at about 11:07 p.m.
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1:27 - 1:30That's how much of a latterly thing writing is.
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1:30 - 1:34So first there's speech, and then writing comes along
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1:34 - 1:35as a kind of artifice.
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1:35 - 1:39Now don't get me wrong, writing has certain advantages.
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1:39 - 1:42When you write, because it's a conscious process,
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1:42 - 1:44because you can look backwards,
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1:44 - 1:47you can do things with language that are much less likely
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1:47 - 1:49if you're just talking.
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1:49 - 1:53For example, imagine a passage from Edward Gibbon's
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1:53 - 1:57"The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire:"
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1:57 - 2:00"The whole engagement lasted above twelve hours,
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2:00 - 2:03till the graduate retreat of the Persians was changed
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2:03 - 2:05into a disorderly flight, of which the shameful example
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2:05 - 2:08was given by the principal leaders and the Surenas himself."
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2:08 - 2:12That's beautiful, but let's face it, nobody talks that way.
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2:12 - 2:17Or at least, they shouldn't if they're interested
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2:17 - 2:19in reproducing. That --
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2:19 - 2:22(Laughter)
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2:22 - 2:25is not the way any human being speaks casually.
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2:25 - 2:27Casual speech is something quite different.
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2:27 - 2:29Linguists have actually shown
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2:29 - 2:32that when we're speaking casually in an unmonitored way,
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2:32 - 2:35we tend to speak in word packets of maybe
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2:35 - 2:36seven to 10 words.
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2:36 - 2:39You'll notice this if you ever have occasion to record
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2:39 - 2:42yourself or a group of people talking.
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2:42 - 2:44That's what speech is like.
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2:44 - 2:48Speech is much looser. It's much more telegraphic.
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2:48 - 2:52It's much less reflective -- very different from writing.
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2:52 - 2:54So we naturally tend to think, because we see language
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2:54 - 2:57written so often, that that's what language is,
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2:57 - 3:01but actually what language is, is speech. They are two things.
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3:01 - 3:04Now of course, as history has gone by,
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3:04 - 3:07it's been natural for there to be a certain amount of bleed
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3:07 - 3:10between speech and writing.
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3:10 - 3:15So, for example, in a distant era now,
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3:15 - 3:17it was common when one gave a speech
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3:17 - 3:20to basically talk like writing.
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3:20 - 3:23So I mean the kind of speech that you see someone giving
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3:23 - 3:25in an old movie where they clear their throat, and they go,
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3:25 - 3:28"Ahem, ladies and gentlemen," and then they speak
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3:28 - 3:31in a certain way which has nothing to do with casual speech.
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3:31 - 3:35It's formal. It uses long sentences like this Gibbon one.
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3:35 - 3:39It's basically talking like you write, and so, for example,
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3:39 - 3:41we're thinking so much these days about Lincoln
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3:41 - 3:43because of the movie.
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3:43 - 3:46The Gettysburg Address was not the main meal of that event.
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3:46 - 3:50For two hours before that, Edward Everett spoke
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3:50 - 3:53on a topic that, frankly, cannot engage us today
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3:53 - 3:55and barely did then.
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3:55 - 3:57The point of it was to listen to him
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3:57 - 3:59speaking like writing.
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3:59 - 4:01Ordinary people stood and listened to that for two hours.
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4:01 - 4:03It was perfectly natural.
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4:03 - 4:05That's what people did then, speaking like writing.
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4:05 - 4:08Well, if you can speak like writing,
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4:08 - 4:11then logically it follows that you might want to also
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4:11 - 4:14sometimes write like you speak.
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4:14 - 4:16The problem was just that in the material,
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4:16 - 4:20mechanical sense, that was harder back in the day
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4:20 - 4:23for the simple reason that materials don't lend themselves to it.
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4:23 - 4:25It's almost impossible to do that with your hand
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4:25 - 4:28except in shorthand, and then communication is limited.
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4:28 - 4:31On a manual typewriter it was very difficult,
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4:31 - 4:33and even when we had electric typewriters,
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4:33 - 4:35or then computer keyboards, the fact is
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4:35 - 4:38that even if you can type easily enough to keep up
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4:38 - 4:40with the pace of speech, more or less, you have to have
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4:40 - 4:43somebody who can receive your message quickly.
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4:43 - 4:46Once you have things in your pocket that can receive that message,
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4:46 - 4:49then you have the conditions that allow
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4:49 - 4:52that we can write like we speak.
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4:52 - 4:55And that's where texting comes in.
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4:55 - 4:59And so, texting is very loose in its structure.
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4:59 - 5:03No one thinks about capital letters or punctuation when one texts,
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5:03 - 5:06but then again, do you think about those things when you talk?
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5:06 - 5:09No, and so therefore why would you when you were texting?
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5:09 - 5:13What texting is, despite the fact that it involves
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5:13 - 5:15the brute mechanics of something that we call writing,
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5:15 - 5:19is fingered speech. That's what texting is.
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5:19 - 5:22Now we can write the way we talk.
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5:22 - 5:25And it's a very interesting thing, but nevertheless
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5:25 - 5:30easy to think that still it represents some sort of decline.
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5:30 - 5:33We see this general bagginess of the structure,
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5:33 - 5:36the lack of concern with rules and the way that we're used to
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5:36 - 5:39learning on the blackboard, and so we think
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5:39 - 5:42that something has gone wrong.
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5:42 - 5:45It's a very natural sense.
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5:45 - 5:49But the fact of the matter is that what is going on
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5:49 - 5:53is a kind of emergent complexity.
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5:53 - 5:55That's what we're seeing in this fingered speech.
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5:55 - 5:58And in order to understand it, what we want to see
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5:58 - 6:03is the way, in this new kind of language,
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6:03 - 6:07there is new structure coming up.
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6:07 - 6:12And so, for example, there is in texting a convention,
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6:12 - 6:15which is LOL.
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6:15 - 6:18Now LOL, we generally think of
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6:18 - 6:20as meaning "laughing out loud."
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6:20 - 6:23And of course, theoretically, it does,
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6:23 - 6:25and if you look at older texts, then people used it
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6:25 - 6:28to actually indicate laughing out loud.
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6:28 - 6:32But if you text now, or if you are someone who
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6:32 - 6:35is aware of the substrate of texting the way it's become,
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6:35 - 6:37you'll notice that LOL
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6:37 - 6:39does not mean laughing out loud anymore.
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6:39 - 6:43It's evolved into something that is much subtler.
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6:43 - 6:46This is an actual text that was done
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6:46 - 6:50by a non-male person of about 20 years old
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6:50 - 6:52not too long ago.
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6:52 - 6:55"I love the font you're using, btw."
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6:55 - 6:58Julie: "lol thanks gmail is being slow right now"
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6:58 - 7:00Now if you think about it, that's not funny.
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7:00 - 7:03No one's laughing. (Laughter)
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7:03 - 7:05And yet, there it is, so you assume
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7:05 - 7:06there's been some kind of hiccup.
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7:06 - 7:08Then Susan says "lol, I know,"
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7:08 - 7:10again more guffawing than we're used to
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7:10 - 7:14when you're talking about these inconveniences.
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7:14 - 7:16So Julie says, "I just sent you an email."
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7:16 - 7:18Susan: "lol, I see it."
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7:18 - 7:22Very funny people, if that's what LOL means.
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7:22 - 7:24This Julie says, "So what's up?"
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7:24 - 7:26Susan: "lol, I have to write a 10 page paper."
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7:26 - 7:29She's not amused. Let's think about it.
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7:29 - 7:31LOL is being used in a very particular way.
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7:31 - 7:35It's a marker of empathy. It's a marker of accommodation.
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7:35 - 7:38We linguists call things like that pragmatic particles.
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7:38 - 7:42Any spoken language that's used by real people has them.
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7:42 - 7:44If you happen to speak Japanese, think about
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7:44 - 7:47that little word "ne" that you use at the end of a lot of sentences.
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7:47 - 7:50If you listen to the way black youth today speak,
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7:50 - 7:51think about the use of the word "yo."
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7:51 - 7:53Whole dissertations could be written about it,
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7:53 - 7:56and probably are being written about it.
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7:56 - 7:59A pragmatic particle, that's what LOL has gradually become.
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7:59 - 8:03It's a way of using the language between actual people.
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8:03 - 8:07Another example is "slash."
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8:07 - 8:10Now, we can use slash in the way that we're used to,
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8:10 - 8:11along the lines of, "We're going to have
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8:11 - 8:15a party-slash-networking session."
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8:15 - 8:17That's kind of like what we're at.
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8:17 - 8:20Slash is used in a very different way
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8:20 - 8:23in texting among young people today.
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8:23 - 8:25It's used to change the scene.
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8:25 - 8:28So for example, this Sally person says,
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8:28 - 8:30"So I need to find people to chill with"
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8:30 - 8:31and Jake says, "Haha" --
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8:31 - 8:34you could write a dissertation about "Haha" too, but we don't have time for that —
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8:34 - 8:37"Haha so you're going by yourself? Why?"
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8:37 - 8:39Sally: "For this summer program at NYU."
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8:39 - 8:42Jake: "Haha. Slash I'm watching this video with suns players
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8:42 - 8:44trying to shoot with one eye."
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8:44 - 8:45The slash is interesting.
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8:45 - 8:48I don't really even know what Jake is talking about after that,
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8:48 - 8:53but you notice that he's changing the topic.
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8:53 - 8:55Now that seems kind of mundane,
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8:55 - 8:56but think about how in real life,
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8:56 - 8:59if we're having a conversation and we want to change the topic,
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8:59 - 9:01there are ways of doing it gracefully.
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9:01 - 9:02You don't just zip right into it.
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9:02 - 9:07You'll pat your thighs and look wistfully off into the distance,
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9:07 - 9:11or you'll say something like, "Hmm, makes you think --"
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9:11 - 9:13when it really didn't, but what you're really --
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9:13 - 9:15(Laughter) —
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9:15 - 9:18what you're really trying to do is change the topic.
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9:18 - 9:20You can't do that while you're texting,
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9:20 - 9:24and so ways are developing of doing it within this medium.
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9:24 - 9:26All spoken languages have what a linguist calls
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9:26 - 9:29a new information marker -- or two, or three.
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9:29 - 9:34Texting has developed one from this slash.
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9:34 - 9:37So we have a whole battery of new constructions
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9:37 - 9:39that are developing, and yet it's easy to think,
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9:39 - 9:42well, something is still wrong.
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9:42 - 9:45There's a lack of structure of some sort.
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9:45 - 9:47It's not as sophisticated
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9:47 - 9:50as the language of The Wall Street Journal.
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9:50 - 9:51Well, the fact of the matter is,
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9:51 - 9:54look at this person in 1956,
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9:54 - 9:56and this is when texting doesn't exist,
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9:56 - 9:58"I Love Lucy" is still on the air.
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9:58 - 10:02"Many do not know the alphabet or multiplication table,
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10:02 - 10:03cannot write grammatically -- "
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10:03 - 10:05We've heard that sort of thing before,
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10:05 - 10:09not just in 1956. 1917, Connecticut schoolteacher.
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10:09 - 10:121917. This is the time when we all assume
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10:12 - 10:15that everything somehow in terms of writing was perfect
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10:15 - 10:18because the people on "Downton Abbey" are articulate,
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10:18 - 10:19or something like that.
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10:19 - 10:22So, "From every college in the country goes up the cry,
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10:22 - 10:24'Our freshmen can't spell, can't punctuate.'"
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10:24 - 10:27And so on. You can go even further back than this.
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10:27 - 10:30It's the President of Harvard. It's 1871.
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10:30 - 10:32There's no electricity. People have three names.
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10:32 - 10:35"Bad spelling,
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10:35 - 10:38incorrectness as well as inelegance of expression in writing."
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10:38 - 10:40And he's talking about people who are otherwise
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10:40 - 10:42well prepared for college studies.
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10:42 - 10:44You can go even further back.
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10:44 - 10:481841, some long-lost superintendent of schools is upset
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10:48 - 10:51because of what he has for a long time "noted with regret
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10:51 - 10:55the almost entire neglect of the original" blah blah blah blah blah.
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10:55 - 11:00Or you can go all the way back to 63 A.D. -- (Laughter) --
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11:00 - 11:02and there's this poor man who doesn't like the way
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11:02 - 11:03people are speaking Latin.
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11:03 - 11:07As it happens, he was writing about what had become French.
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11:07 - 11:13And so, there are always — (Laughter) (Applause) —
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11:13 - 11:15there are always people worrying about these things
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11:15 - 11:18and the planet somehow seems to keep spinning.
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11:18 - 11:23And so, the way I'm thinking of texting these days is
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11:23 - 11:27that what we're seeing is a whole new way of writing
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11:27 - 11:28that young people are developing,
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11:28 - 11:32which they're using alongside their ordinary writing skills,
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11:32 - 11:35and that means that they're able to do two things.
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11:35 - 11:38Increasing evidence is that being bilingual
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11:38 - 11:40is cognitively beneficial.
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11:40 - 11:43That's also true of being bidialectal.
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11:43 - 11:46That's certainly true of being bidialectal in terms of your writing.
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11:46 - 11:51And so texting actually is evidence of a balancing act
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11:51 - 11:54that young people are using today, not consciously, of course,
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11:54 - 11:58but it's an expansion of their linguistic repertoire.
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11:58 - 11:59It's very simple.
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11:59 - 12:02If somebody from 1973 looked at
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12:02 - 12:07what was on a dormitory message board in 1993,
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12:07 - 12:08the slang would have changed a little bit
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12:08 - 12:10since the era of "Love Story,"
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12:10 - 12:14but they would understand what was on that message board.
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12:14 - 12:16Take that person from 1993 -- not that long ago,
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12:16 - 12:20this is "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" -- those people.
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12:20 - 12:22Take those people and they read
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12:22 - 12:25a very typical text written by a 20-year-old today.
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12:25 - 12:28Often they would have no idea what half of it meant
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12:28 - 12:32because a whole new language has developed
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12:32 - 12:34among our young people doing something as mundane
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12:34 - 12:36as what it looks like to us when they're batting around
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12:36 - 12:38on their little devices.
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12:38 - 12:42So in closing, if I could go into the future,
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12:42 - 12:46if I could go into 2033,
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12:46 - 12:49the first thing I would ask is whether David Simon
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12:49 - 12:53had done a sequel to "The Wire." I would want to know.
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12:53 - 12:56And — I really would ask that —
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12:56 - 12:59and then I'd want to know actually what was going on on "Downton Abbey."
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12:59 - 13:00That'd be the second thing.
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13:00 - 13:03And then the third thing would be,
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13:03 - 13:06please show me a sheaf of texts
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13:06 - 13:08written by 16-year-old girls,
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13:08 - 13:10because I would want to know where this language
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13:10 - 13:12had developed since our times,
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13:12 - 13:16and ideally I would then send them back to you and me now
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13:16 - 13:19so we could examine this linguistic miracle
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13:19 - 13:21happening right under our noses.
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13:21 - 13:22Thank you very much.
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13:22 - 13:28(Applause)
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13:28 - 13:31Thank you. (Applause)
- Title:
- Txtng is killing language. JK!!!
- Speaker:
- John McWhorter
- Description:
-
Does texting mean the death of good writing skills? John McWhorter posits that there’s much more to texting -- linguistically, culturally -- than it seems, and it’s all good news.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 13:48
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