Sunday, February 3, 2013

Literacy and Digital Environment


Language is not a static that stays the same throughout generations. It is a means of communication and involves different stages of development.   I agree with Andrea Lunsford, "Technology isn't killing our ability to write". If we go back a couple of thousand years, people used to communicate through drawings. On those old days, there was no paper or pen instead they used caves' wall to put their ideas.  I don't think texting dehydrated our language. As language developed through many years, some words or expressions may not give any sense to our generation. Any language may lose or gain some uniqueness in its contents or characters. For example, many people have difficulties understanding the King James Bible as it was written on 1611. Some of the words are obsolete and non sense. 


As Lunsford's study found, for me as being part of the new generation, the best thing is getting the idea conveyed to the reader. This should be the main thing we should have been concerned. The cavemen expressed their ideas through sketches and drawings. Our generations also might express our ideas and thoughts through texting. Nowadays,   even some business correspondence are informal for instance, I use "FYI" to say "for your information". Who knows in future people may write a letter or email just using short-forms?  

As we see in the picture below, sometimes texting doesn't make sense at all for some readers. However, if the message goes to the right receiver it conveys a message. Based on this picture and the article, I think any digital users need to know to whom they are writing.     

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