Saturday, 22 November 2014

Ted talks: Txting is killing language. JK!!!

In this TED talk (click here), John McWhorter confronts the common fear that new technology is destroying our language. According to him, the contrary is in fact true.
He says we speak how we write so we write how we speak. We text not thinking about grammar rules because we do not think about it when speaking - why would we?
Now however, technology has given us smartphones, and it's actually easier to click the predicted word than use an abbreviation - so now we have less 'text talk'!
McWhorter also goes on to say that nothing has changed since 100 years ago to today. There will always be students who struggle with reading and writing, but texting and new technology (such as simply having a dictionary on your phone) is actually helping kids to better their literacy skills.

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