LANGUAGE EVOLUTION - SOMETHING TO FEAR OR SOMETHING TO EMBRACE? -by Diya Gurung, University of Kent

Rating: 19 user(s) have rated this event
Posted by: santosh, on 12/5/2009, in category "Gurkha Youth Forum"
Views: this event has been read 865 times

LANGUAGE EVOLUTION - SOMETHING TO FEAR OR SOMETHING TO EMBRACE?

Throughout different epochs in history, ‘change’ was, is and will continue to be a recurring, significant and inevitable feature of the human language in its various forms, taking into account aspects such as race, ethnicity, regional dialects, mode (written/spoken) etcetera. Individual factors as well as a combination of factors have been observed to contribute towards this phenomenon. For instance, political dominance, social change, cultural impact, individual influence, language as a trend. One such aspect that has of late taken the entire world by storm is the huge, rapid advancement in modern technology, IT in particular.

Technology is the fastest growing industry in the world. It is also one of the main contributors to modern language. The scientific and technological advances of the Industrial Revolution have created numerous amounts of vocabularies. Nowadays, it is not rare for people, young teenagers in particular, to communicate via new technological means such as texts, e-mails and social networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace. More than two million text messages are sent every hour in the UK, more than 8 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day (worldwide) and an average teenager spends around thirty-one hours per week online. These are the mediums where colloquial language is used. They encourage a supposedly less prestigious form of language use from the one that we, as a society, regard as standard.

So how do all these changes affect the youth of today e.g. in contemporary Britain? Based on my own peer group experience and comparing it with what is happening at the wider social arena, society can be very judgemental and we are judged on our level of speech and written abilities almost on a daily basis, as verbal alongside written communication is considered to be a crucial representation of oneself. Furthermore, these traits are often seen as a measure of good education. Education is seen as a measure of good status. Many people today assume that teenagers cannot speak and write properly; there are both supporters and detractors to this line of argument. Nonetheless, it is a subject that demands attention as these types of generalisations are what create and encourage fallacies of stereotyping.

Not all teenagers are the same, nor every young person rowdy, vandal or mugger targeting the vulnerable. Such extreme associations are not always valid as we are being generalised and the whole youth race is labelled.  Despite people’s awareness of this, it is an undeniable truth that today’s adolescents are perceived from similar viewpoints. However, this is quite understandable as, let’s face it, teenagers do tend to have a language of their own. As the new generation, the youth culture has developed a new mode of communication for themselves. This notion of inclusion, however, could be perceived negatively by others as more of a congregation within themselves and segregation from the rest of society which may result in vilification of the youth race due to society’s lack of understanding and thus, fear of the unknown population.

Slang is one of the most significant examples of language change and is usually invented in subcultures who wish to differentiate themselves from the majority of society. They have a specialised language which includes invented terms which only they can understand. Teenagers are notorious for this, often shifting the meanings of existing words to suit their own means. Examples would be words such as wicked (ill > excellent) and cool (chilly > superb). Many slang terms eventually get accepted as their usage grows. An example would be the term bootylicious. It was originally used to describe well-formed, sexually attractive derriere of celebrities such as renowned female artists, Jennifer Lopez and Beyoncé; its increasing usage in the media ensured firm understanding of the word’s insinuations amongst the target audience, hence the inevitable entry in English dictionary meaning, sexually attractive esp. in the buttocks. In today's media saturated world, such processes are often accelerated by the appearance or frequency of a word on television or online.

Likewise, in developed nations, technology mediated communication such as text and instant messaging have become second nature to the whole human race and not just young people. Certain attributes of text speech such as abbreviations where the vowels and punctuation marks are dropped have proven to be widespread and thus, eventually acceptable. For instance, c u l8er instead of see you later and lol instead of laugh out loud or lots of love. In fact, I have known several people to use the term “lol” while speaking, indicating that people adapt certain features of written language into their speech. As a majority of people approve of such usages, this compels the rest to follow suit as it is a case of adapt and learn or be left behind. In addition, the extensive availability of the internet, a global phenomenon, is aiding in the spread of this new technology-influenced language. In November 2006, the internet was announced one of USA Today’s New Seven Wonders of the World.

On opposition, there are people who believe that slang is a form of creativity and imagination, it promotes people’s innovativeness and this is not necessarily false. It often serves as part of one's identity, giving them a unique characteristic. A well-known example here in the UK would be features of Cockney English often associated with working class Londoners and more interestingly, “chavs”, a certain group of young people, which includes examples such as innit instead of isn’t it and safe (originally incorporated from Jamaica) which can denote greetings, gratitude and so on. They use language as a badge. This is what separates them from everybody else.  Does it fit the normative criterion of Standard English? No. However, we definitely cannot say that they cannot speak properly because they can. They just choose not to. Similarly, while text messaging, numbers and letters are used instead of full words mainly for the purpose of saving time but what about words such as aint (isn’t), yew (you) and woz (was)? They are written as such just for the sake of it. It is a trend. Young people try and grasp such techniques because it is their way of “fitting in with the crowd”, their way of constructing individuality.

As with most things, there are pros and cons to the language change and what constitutes as either varies depending on one’s point of view. It is true that the continuation of language evolution may result in the death of its originality, its engrained cultural ideologies. Nevertheless, languages are products of centuries of change and looking at the rate at which technology is advancing, who are we to say that they have reached their pinnacle?