Twitter Impact on Language Essay example

Submitted By ben_schierman
Words: 872
Pages: 4

Twitter Impact on Language
Our learning outcome for our FOA is, “Student(s) will demonstrate an awareness of how language and meaning are shaped by culture and context” with an emphasis on Pop Culture. This emphasis can be seen through twitter as we interact through fingered speech. In fingered speech, we see a relaxed structure and in this new kind of language there is a new set of standards including a breakdown of English Grammar. This new language is creating a cultural jargon that over time incorporates it into our language. The desire to share our life on social media consumes our interest in physical social interaction and creates a new culture where sharing dominates our experiences. Two different concepts of communication shared between individuals are Interpersonal and Intrapersonal. Twitter is putting an emphasis on Interpersonal communication as we crave online attention towards ourselves and the things we share. Interpersonal communication is that kind which takes place within or between two people with use of different methods of communication. Intrapersonal communication takes place within one person, which is meant to reflect oneself to clarify something.

This text demonstrates the use of jargon. As we can see in this photo, when people tweet, they are not conscious of punctuation, grammar, or spelling as if it was a dialogue between individuals. This is influenced by the restrictions twitter has on the character count as people try to convey an idea in the fastest way possible. In order to quickly produce this message, they have to omit certain letters and characteristics of the English language thus creating Jargon that over time incorporates itself into the English language. This speed causes laziness such as the fact that the author of this tweet most likely hit the Return button on accident while composing the tweet at the end where “Convo” has its own line. They subconsciously did not fix this error as a result of the rushed aspect of the twitter atmosphere. Another example of this new structure is the ellipses that acts more as a break in speech. Normally, a conversation such as this is held between individuals in a private manner. However, twitter has created a mentality that everything should be shared and the idea of privacy and private lives is beginning to break down.

This tweet strongly represents fingered speech. The relaxed structure can be seen through lack of punctuation and literal spelling. This is called fingered speech because when you do speak, you are not conscious of punctuation, spelling, or capital letters and just worried about the expression of the word itself. When you are talking, the only thing you are focused on is the meaning of the word and what message it conveys. If someone says the word “hello” to you, you are not worried about the spelling or how the sentence is written but only what the word is and how it is expressed. It has gone so far as to the fact that adding certain punctuation or grammar can convey a completely different meaning on the platform that its presented. For example, on Twitter or through texting adding a period can produce a message suggesting the author is communicating various emotions differentiating on the context of the tweet or text message. This text message conversation is between Emily and the same author of the tweet. As you can see he produces the same language and vocabulary structure in both examples of text. Twitters character count is not only