1.
Introduction
Our
world of the 21st century witness rapid growth in Information and
Communication Technology (ICT). With the development in IT sector and
technological convergence, especially to computer and internet facilities
resulted into worldwide connection of interconnected network. The world became
a global village, and communication was made easy. In this e-world,
communication becomes an unending process. This communication process enabled
by the hasty progress of ICT led to the birth of new kind of common language,
especially in social network sites and mobile phone text message (SMS). This
language is more likely jargon or slang, and frequently written in
keyboard/keypad generated symbols, abbreviations and acronyms.
This,
the language of social network can have positive and negative effects. In this article,
we will deal with the language of social network and its effects. We will focus
more on writing form of communication rather than verbal communication through
communication technology. Attempts will also be made to response those issues
ethically and theologically. We will end up the article with some comments and
theological reflections.
2. Origin and meaning
The
language in internet, prior to the creation of present day social network sites, in its form of jargon or slang originated in the early days of the
Internet with some terms predates the Internet. Since 1979, users of
communications networks like Usenet created their own shorthand. The language was used in chat rooms, social networks, and in the online community.1 Today, besides shorthand and abbreviations,
smileys and emoticons are extensively used in social network and mobile phone SMS.
Internet language like shorthand, cyber-slang, acronym and
abbreviation refers to a variety of slang languages used by communities on
the internet and cell phone text message. It is difficult to give
standard definition on this language due to the constant changes made to its
nature. However, it can be understood as a type of language that internet and mobile phone users have popularized, and in many cases,
have coined. Such terms often originate with the purpose of saving keystrokes or to compensate for small character limits. Many people
use the same abbreviations in texting and instant messaging, and social networking
websites. Thus, keyboard/keypad symbols, shorthand, acronyms, abbreviations, smileys and emoticons are the most common types of
language for social network sites and mobile phone SMS nowadays.
3. Why do we use such language?
It appears that
such language was used to ease communication.
According to the survey of University of Tasmania, although these kinds of
shortcut language save time for the writer, it may take a longer time for the
reader to understand.2 However, if the users are similar to the use
of such language in internet or mobile phone, it somehow indicates the
feeling and relationship of online communities or groups.
Even though the
language of short forms and symbols were already used earlier in internet, it
became more popularized by the great boost of mobile phone. If a mobile phone
user would like to send text message (SMS) to another user, to save time and to
avoid the difficulties in typing text message, particularly in mobile phone
without QWERTY keypad, one usually used short forms and smileys.
Moreover, using
such language is a sort of fashion and lifestyle for the 21st
century generation. Today’s youth with a philosophy of it’s my life, that does not much care about decent language, and of
others. They always looking for easy way, not solemn in anything, and just did
it resultantly, without thinking what would be the result. This is the common
practice of our today’s youth. So, many of the expectations and practices which
the older generation associates with written language in ICT are not so much
relevant for the new generation.
4. Type
The
language of social network and SMS does not constitute a homogeneous language
variety. Rather, it differs according to the user and type of computer, internet
access and mobile phone situation. Although it is difficult to produce a clear
definition of this language, the following types of language may be observed.
(i) Letter homophones that include
abbreviations and acronyms.3
An
abbreviation is a shortening of a word. E.g. CU or CYA for see you (see ya).
An
acronym is a subset of abbreviations and is formed from the initial components
of a word.
E.g.
LOL for laugh out loud or lots of
love, BTW for by the way, OMG for Oh My God, HBD for Happy
Birthday, and many such others. There are also combinations of both letter
and digital numbers, like CUL8R for see
you later, welcome2 and okay3 to
indicate emphasis.
There are many
such communicating words in use; some are more widely understood than others.
In the meantime, new ones are sprouting all the time. But, one has to be very
careful as some few abbreviations
stand for phrases containing words that may be offensive to some people.
(ii) Punctuation,
capitalizations and other symbols
are commonly used for emphasis or stress. Periods or exclamation marks may be
used repetitively for emphasis, such as ........
or !!!!!!!!!!. Grammatical
punctuation rules are also relaxed on the Internet and SMS. E-mail may simply be expressed as email, and apostrophes can be subtracted
so that Jonathan's book becomes Jonathans book. Examples of capitalizations
include STOP IT, which can convey a
stronger emotion of annoyance as opposed to stop
it. Bold, underline and italics are also used to indicate stress.4
(iii) Stylish
spellings have also become very popular in internet and mobile
phones. E.g. hahaha or ha3 to indicate laughter.
(iv)
Keyboard/keypad generated emoticons and
smileys are generally found in
web forums, instant messengers and online games. They are culture-specific and
certain emoticons are only found in some languages but not in others.5 They
are more likely symbols, and are used to express the feeling and emotion of a
person. The followings are some of the widely used emoticons and smiley in
facebook, one of the social network sites which have largest users.
(v) Direct requests are found in chat engines such as Internet Relay
Chat (mIRC) or online games,
where personal identities may be obscured. As such occasions, questions or deep
requests are commonly posed. E.g. A/S/L?
which stands for age, sex, location?
(vi)
Leet and Flaming: Leet is a
substitute alphabet for the English language which uses various combinations of
keyboard/keypad characters to replace Latinate letters. E.g. \/\/1|<1p3[)14 for
Wikipedia. Flaming refers to the use of rude or irreverent language in
interactions between Internet users.6
5. The upshots of social network and its analytical feedback
Wireless communication, particularly in social
network sites and mobile phone SMS create new virtual communities where
discussion and exchange of ideas through words, images and sounds take place
across national and international borders. It assists families, relations and
friends scattered across the country and the globe to keep in touch sociably,
and to organize their daily lives. As people rebuild and extend their lives
along their networks, they bring with them into these networks, and into their
networking devices, their values, perceptions and fears.7 Thus, we
can say that ICT is not only a technological advancement of human society, but
rather an extension of life, society and culture in cyber world, in all its
dimensions.
Elizabeth M. Reid also describes the formation of new
society out of IRC. According to her, the users of IRC choose to join a channel
and select a nickname under which to interact. They have created a whole set of
written symbols that enable them to express feelings in written form. The
widespread use of emoticons is a strong indication of important role affections
have on internet. By detaching virtual self from real self, the users find it
to communicate the way s/he wanted to. With the use of nickname and emoticons,
there is a communication without transfer of any meanings from one person to
another but the presence of both in the net is what matters.8
ICT makes
communication faster and more convenient. People communicate through it, and
there are good and bad impacts on language that caused by SMS and social
network. First, taking the positive side, typing or texting in English
is becoming a common practice among the educated users. This will improve
writing and reading skill when they communicate in English. It will also make a
person to have more confident to talk to people face to face in English. Second,
taking the negative side, chatting somehow reduces a person’s ability to write,
because they developed some short forms when communicating. E.g. using letter c, u and tmr to represents see you
tomorrow, or use letter b and
number 4 to represents the word before. It is agreeable that the use of
short forms is sometime convenient and can communicate faster, but it is easy
to use accidentally in other formal writings, which is not acceptable.9
One has to be very careful about this language matter.
Language starts changing to short form. Some youths think that using those short forms to
communications are symbol of young generation, and its cool as they called it
is which makes them prefer to use. This
affects their daily life, and even the spirituality of an individual. Nowadays,
it appears that the new generation always think about the short cut and easy
way in life.
English
usage is under fire from new modes of communication, from text-messaging to
social media sites. Some people go with the idea that new forms of technology have
dumped down English language. Text messaging has
reduced phrases to letters and tweets have so many abbreviations and muddle
tags that are barely legible. It is very less obvious the ways in which social
media is strengthening the language. However, rather than focusing on the
negative effects, people like Ben Zimmer wanted to celebrate some of the
innovative linguistic forms that have been bubbling up online.10 Mallary Jean Tenorethat
social
media is having a positive effect on writing and the English
language, viz. increases
awareness of mistakes and helps prevent them, differentiates writers,
spotlights short writing, reminds us that change is constant, creates new words
and meanings.11
What is social
network and SMS doing to the language then? The default answers maybe making it worse. When it comes to
social network and SMS, grammar, syntax, spelling, and all the rest give way to
decompose its meaning. But on the other hand, if the meaning is sustained,
what difference does it make? We can say that it just normally resulted into the possibility of rapid
language fragmentation,
or new online sub-groups generating new languages or language variants.12
So, we can rather viewed this
current situation as language evolution.
6.
Which way forward?
Although unnecessary modification of language may
lead to disrespect of decent manner and way of life, moral degradation, and
increase disgrace language. But we have to take this issue as a challenge
rather than avoiding them. We have to use it, going into it, and then use it
purposefully so that the others could see the living hope which is available in
digital discourse. We can develop online counseling, prayer group, sharing of
experience and sermon, daily spiritual needs of individual and Christian way of
life through the social network and SMS.
Virtual
connectedness is now becoming face to face. We contact each other through
virtual reality, the word became a flesh. How can we make use of this change
for Christian ministry? How are we going to put Gospel to this e-world? We know
that “The earth is the LORD's and all that
is in it, the world, and those who live in it.”13 ICT is
also belongs to God, because it was invented and developed by human beings with
the wisdom God has bestowed upon us. We receive many good things and blessings
from it. Why should we count it as a curse? Why should the devil have all the good
things? As William Carey has once said, we should expect great things from God,
and attempt great things for God. Countless good things reach us through ICT.
It is more likely that we hold the world in our hand that provides us the
greatest potentiality to proclaim the word of God. Though we may not see the
internet as a sacrament table to preach the Gospel, but
it really fits as we have seen from Pauline traditions.14 Since spreading the Gospel to the whole world and those in it, is
the imperative of God. Let’s utilize ICT for the extension of the Reign of God.
There
can be a question of how are we going to blend together ICT and life? because
they are inseparable nowadays. Many people spend more of their time with
computer and mobile phone. This shows that the need to recognize the
individuals and communities search for the meaning of life and of God in the
net. We need to recognize and engage their search, providing our own meaning,
not just condemning them.15 We have to acknowledge and realized the
existence of God in net, because there can be no ICT without God. So let’s use
it to work purposefully. But as if misuse it; it can destroy the life of deeply
committed Christians. It is very obvious that it can also precisely become a
curse.
As a Christian minister, in order to deal with the
difficulties face by present generation, we need to know the present context.
Since the morality and spirituality of many have been digitalized, we also need
to update ourselves all the time. As Christian ministry is acceptance based on
understanding, we have to accept ICT into the realm of Christianity as a gift
of God. We have to understand the condition of its frequent users also. The
present generation needs understanding; they themselves expected their pastor
to enter into their world, their life. As Christ leaves His godliness, sometime
we may need to leave our ministerial zone to become like them, so that we can
turn ICT as a sacrament table for the present generation.
It
is very clear that we cannot reject the potentialities of ICT. It enables
people to stay in contact, to work more efficiently together, to organize
opinions, and lessen social and economic differences through equalized means of
participation. ICT accomplishes all this with more or less efficiency. However,
we must consider carefully and critically the socio-economic, cultural,
political and religious issues of cyber world.16 This interactive
culture of the internet challenges the churches existing practices of
communication. The churches should also consider going more deeply beyond the
existing to reach the unreached virtual/online communities. Why not ICT can
unite us as a world community into one flock?17 By engaging with the
internet communities and culture, the Christian churches and individual can
change society, and thus bearing witness to the extension and solidarity of Missio Dei in the World.
End notes
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
7 Keval J. Kumar, Mass Communication in India, 4th
Edition (Mumbai: Jaico Publishing House, 2010), 575-576.
8 John Joshva Raja and Samson Prabakar, Introduction to Communication and Media Studies (Bangalore: BTESSC/SATHRI,
2006), 258.
10 Ben Zimmer, “The Language of Social Media: “Unlike any
other” in http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/the-language-of-social-media-unlike-any-other/
(30.6.2013).
11 Mallary Jean Tenorehttp://www.poynter.org/latestnews/top-stories/206598/5-ways-that-social-media-benefits-writing-the-english-language/
Michael Byrne, “What is Social Network doing to Language?”
in
http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/what-is-social-networking-doing-to-language#ixzz2XaBTwkNl (30.6.2013).
13 Psalm
24:1.
14 II Timothy 4:2.
15 John Joshva Raja and Samson Prabakar, op. cit., 258.
16 M. Peter Singh, Cybertheology
(Delhi: ISPCK, 2009), 45, 108-109.
17 John 17:20-23.
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