Theories Flashcards
Autocorrect
Lunsford & Lunsford
We’ve become lazy.
The most common errors in undergraduate papers were spelling mistakes as the result of incorrect spell-checker suggestions
This seems to suggest that this dependence on spell-check and expectation of computers to be correct has had an overall negative impact on typing.
This issue is amplified by either individuals no longer proof-reading the texts and papers due to their reliance
Autocorrect.
Buckwalter (2016) - Learning from mistakes:
Autocorrect automatically corrects your mistakes but this may provide a barrier to learning to spell and correct misspelled words as you do not have the opportunity to review your word and identify any mistakes.
An important part of learning is working through experiences and making adjustments in order to reinforce learning, but when mistakes are automatically corrected, this learning does not take place.
Autocorrect
Greenfield (2013) - pro autocorrect
As generations are being raised in a more digital world, more communications are taking place in a digital ormat and the main benefits of Autocorrect are removing the stresses or concerns of typing correctly as any mistakes will be corrected by the software.
As these stresses have been removed, we are encouraged to type and read more which leads to society being more literate
Autocorrect
Buckwalter (2016) the benefits of autocorrect
There is an increase in productivity as a result of being able to spend less time on making corrections and more time communicating and typing (Buckwalter, 2016)
Autocorrect
Buckwalter (2016) - What is the main concern involving autocorrect
The main concern with Autocorrect as Buckwalter states is to improve efficiency as opposed to educating ourselves and teaching us to spell.
If advances in technology can streamline communications and eliminate mistakes and become more efficient, surely these will help justify any
negative effects?
Autocorrect
Greenfield (2013) quote
“The BBC informs us that Autocorrect and spellcheckers have turned us into a bunch of illiterate idiots”
The improvements of autocorrect of allowed us to be less careful when typing and spelling as the artificial intelligence software will take care of these mistakes for us. Will Autocorrect cause us to be lazy and build poor spelling habits?
Texting effects on children:
Van Dijk et al (2016)
Regression analyses showed that omissions were a significant predictor of children’s grammar performance after various other variables were controlled for.
The more words children omitted in their text messages, the better their performance on the grammar task.
Texting effects on people
Powell et al (2011)
spelling test was conducted which evaluated the spelling of undergraduate students when previously exposed to textisms or incorrectly spelled words.
Surprisingly, the study suggested that exposure to textisms had a positive affect on spelling ability.
This seems to suggest that abbreviations are used to save time and not the result of people not knowing how to spell the intended word and that text messaging between individuals may have an overall positive affect on spelling ability.
Texting
Gretchen McCulloch quote
(To support that it encourages children)
Writing has now “become a vital, conversational part of our ordinary lives.”
Texting effects on children
Cingel and Sundar
(+Criticism)
Cingel and Sundar obtained a negative association between the number of text messages children sent and received and the number of textisms used and children’s grammar abilities.
The Study lacks full evaluation.
The findings are hard to interpret, as the authors did not calculate the textism ratio—which is a relative measure that takes text length into account—but used raw scores.
In addition, textisms at the word level (spelling), rather than at the sentence level, were responsible for this effect.
Texting effects on children
Kemp et al.
Found that primary school children’s (8-10-year old) performance on a grammatical spelling choice task was related to the proportion of grammatical violations they made in their text messages.
Children who did not perform well on the spelling task made more grammatical violations in than children who obtained a better spelling test score.
These observations have to do with missing and unconventional punctuation, missing capitalisation, word and grammatical errors (missing words, lack of verbal agreement, verb and preposition merged; and grammatical homonyms).
- These are common features of textese, so there could be a correlation between the two.
Criticism;
Cross section of children is unclear, so the validity is up for question especially since other studies differ.
Texting effects on children
Wood et al
Asked children to transcribe their natural messages and assessed their grammar skills on various tasks.
For the primary school children, grammatical violations in their text messages did not predict development of their grammatical skills over the year.
Emojis
Adobe computer scientist Kamile Demir quote
“Emoji can do a lot of the heavy lifting when we’re trying to communicate quickly, especially in the workplace”
Emojis
Gretchen Mculloch “Because internet: Understanding the new rules of language”
Languages are ever-evolving.
As we now incorporate Emojis into informal conversations, they aren’t killing our languages. Instead, they are making it easier for others to clearly understand what they are trying to say.
Schegloff
He introduced the opening sequence of a telephone conversation:
1. summons/answer
2. identification
3. greeting sequence and how are you sequence.
You can adapt this to how language is changed in msn conversations.
Caroline Tagg (2014)
People can present themselves in different ways to communicate their updated sense of identity, and technology has made this much easier and faster.
Essentially, creating an online version of yourself that you can present to the whole world is much more efficient than distributing your new sense of self to every person you know individually.
Haraway 1990?
Internet communication might remove some of the social stereotyping associated with language differences.
Endley 2010 quote
“All language changes, and there is no way to stop this from happening.”
Zappavinga on the purpose of language
Forming and maintaining social bonds is one of the main functions of language.
John Mcwhorter
Described textese as Fingered speech.
David Crystal - effects of texting + Statistics
- Crystal argues that texting contributes positively to our literacy abilities.
It’s exposure.
- 3 billion phones, 2/3 text, 80% are adults.
Children aren’t necessarily affected (an adults language is already developed)
Hardakar 2010
Highlighted the issue of trolling and its prominence - the level of anonymity allows for bullying and hate. This could create a degree of linguistic insecurity.
Christopher werry - how IRC imitates real life discourse
He argues that online conversations in IRC share features with spoken language, such as informality, rapid exchanges, and interactive elements.
However, they also incorporate unique linguistic adaptations, like abbreviations, emoticons, and non-standard spelling, to compensate for the lack of vocal tone and body language.
Werry suggests that users manipulate text creatively to simulate speech-like immediacy and engagement, making digital communication a hybrid of written and spoken discourse
