Timeline of language and technology
- pictographic hieroglyphs (Egypt)
- Mesopotamia
- Caxton’s printing press
- Johnson’s dictionary
- telephone
- fax
- pagers
- textese
- emoticons
- emojis
-world wide web
Sapir- Whorf
- determinism, language dictates how we think (world shaped by words)
opposing view
- reflectionism, language mirrors reality
Jean Aitchison
- Prescriptive metaphors
Unpredictability
-difficult to predict long- term future of language given all the unforeseeable factors ( social, political, economic, religious) that could affect its development
Electronically mediated communication
- world wide web
- opens up more language varieties
- not exactly like writing, not entirely like speaking, different medium ( Crystal)
Textese
- proper noun an abbreviated form of language used in texting, messaging, chatrooms
Features of textese
- initialisms
- morphology
- emoji’s
- omission
- slanguage
Eric Nakagawa 2002
- LOL became well known because of LOLCATS and LOLSPEAK
- non stnadard grammar (I wants, I are, I eated)
- phonetic misspellings (nuthing, colloquial)
Ameriolation
made better ‘nice’ use to mean ‘ignorant’
prejoration
made worse ‘cunning’ use to mean ‘knowledgable’
semantic reclamation
taking language that has negative connotations and trying to overturn them by using language in new ways
neologism
newly coined word or expression e.g. carbicide
borrowing
loan words e.g. chick noir
blending
blending two words together e.g. smog
compounding
joining two words together e.g. miniskirt
clipping
shortening words e.g. app
initialism
each letter is pronounced e.g. MP3
change from ‘above’
tech companies can also initiate change
change from ‘below’
changes initiated by users of tech
emojis
ideograms and smileys
emoticons
first generation smileys
