the ramble dump

The idea of getting to know people on the internet has, in recent years, received a lot of bad press. Once in a while a horror story hits the news about some dangerous person who has pretended to be someone he's not. Both children and adults are, with reason, warned about meeting people they've spoken to online because, after all, with just white space and text, anyone can easily pretend to be someone else. But for those people who are more or less genuine, how well can you get to know them?

Another unrelated area of attack for modern communication in general, whether it be emailing, instant messaging or texting, is the arguable degeneration of language. 'Prescriptivist!' one of my English teachers would cry accusingly. 'You prescriptivist! Language changes, it doesn't degenerate!' So I suppose I have to defend my use of that word. In a wider, more general sense, I don't think text or internet speak has much of a negative effect on the language. All the words that might be mutated and compacted for efficiency (or laziness) in text speak still continue to exist in their complete, grandiose forms elsewhere in other contexts, for the most part. Text speak is more of an offshoot appropriated for the technology that can exist alongside conventional language.

So how is it degenerative? I have a prejudice that dictates that whenever someone uses text or chatspeak to me, their words are mentally framed as those of a five year old child with stunted speech. Even if I already know the person. Maybe it's because I read it phonetically, or maybe it's the degeneration of grammar that goes with it, but something about it makes it read like someone with a very low IQ. And it bugs me.

(I do use 'lol', though. Even though I read it phonetically, it still signifies at least vague amusement and by itself doesn't really contribute to the weird stunted speech thing unless you, say, tack it on to the end of a sentence. Like this lol.)

But all this could be just me being a snob. That doesn't make it degenerative. What makes it degenerative in my experience is that the language you use has other functions during online communication. Clarity, for one. Another reason links back to this thing about getting to know people online. While you're sat typing away to someone on the other side of the world, all they're getting from you is your text. That's you. You might have some kind of avatar, or send the other person photos, and they might contribute to your overall mental picture of that person, but just like it would if you were to meet with someone face to face, personality glares through. When you're instant messaging or posting on a message board, all of this is contained in your text (ignoring people who choose to present their personality through lists of their favourite bands, colours, etc).

You can glean a lot about a person from their text. Even if they form their instant messages pristinely - capitals, punctuation and all - that says something about them. From the words they use and how they use them, and with all the subtleties of both written and spoken language (as well as, of course, what they're talking about), you can build up a pretty comprehensive mental conception. You can pick up a general tone, assign an accent (which may not even be their true accent but contributes to your mental image of them anyway), identify all kinds of subtle and less-than-subtle features of their language. And the more you talk to them, just as would be the case offline, the better you get to know them. Which is why text or chat speak is degenerative. When you're talking online, the person you're talking to consists, for you, of those words appearing on your screen. Which makes words more important than ever, allowing you, for as long as they're being genuine, to really get to know a person. Possibly more so than any other situation.

Labels: i am the ramblemaster, language

# posted by Chris @ 5:01 PM