Response to Squires and Netspeak

A collaborative piece by myself, Jake Regal and John Zimmerman

Speaking from two generations of experience, we have witnessed the use of slang and variations of language in our lifetimes. For instance, from the days of Arthur Fonzarelli to Justin Bieber different slang and language shortcuts have been prevalent. Language changes and evolves over time in relation to social trends and technology.

          

We believe that netspeak is not a new phenomenon and is not a threat to the  health of the English language. By looking at formal and informal communication and historical examples, it can be seen that education has an important role in maintaining the standards of proper English.

        

There are two distinct forms of communication, formal and informal. Netspeak would be classified as a means of informal communication because it happens in the context of interpersonal relationships. Whereas formal communication takes place in business applications, academia, and the legal world. Because these two forms of communication have different functions in society, there is little opportunity for netspeak to contaminate formal communication. For instance, a client proposal would not use nonstandard spelling replacements for “you” and “are.”

Teaching and protecting the English language is still vital.

Social groups have always had their own dialects. Even though they use their own lingo, slang, and language shortcuts, they have always relied on standard English. The standard English is a common ground of communication so we maintain this knowledge in order to communicate with different social, generational, and ethnic groups. Using social group slang as an example of a prominent language, we can say with certainty that netspeak will not be detrimental to standard English.

The creation and evolution of netspeak is not a new phenomenon. In her article “Enregistering Internet Language,” Lauren Squires admits, “many features named as belonging to Netspeak have long been prevalently used in other written contexts” (2010). As previously stated, different iterations of language have often evolved out of social trends and technology. Abbreviated languages can be dated back to the use of the telegraph. This medium provided the genesis of texting because there were space and character constraints on the message. The telegraph was introduced well before the internet and has not proven to be a detriment due to standard English.

Although netspeaking is becoming a common practice, there is still a need to practice and strengthen the use of standard English. Formal education has always had an important role in teaching proper language use despite informal social influences. Education needs to maintain that role today by rejecting the practices of netspeak in classroom settings. Teachers should eliminate netspeak from the classroom and demand the use of proper English in assignments.

Written and verbal communication skills are still highly valued in the professional world. It is imperative that the next generation is taught these skills so that they can be successful communicators. Netspeak may be the appropriate dialects on the streets, but in the professional world, formal communication is the standard practice.

Netspeak can be defined as a language of the new generation but as history has shown, the standard English reigns supreme.