The second person pronoun 'you' is used throughout the Samsung advert as a form of synthetic personalisation. It works to construct a relationship between the reader and the writer of the piece, so that the reciever feels that the product being advertised is perfect for them in specific, and that the producer understands their needs on a personal level. The advertisers explicitly say, 'At last a music phone that reflects both sides of your personality,' as though they are aware of the potential customer's character.
'At last,' also creates a sense of there being a relationship between writer and reader. The tone is one of both excitement and relief, as though the producer of the text knows that the reader has been waiting for this phone and is happy for them.
Monday, 27 January 2014
Friday, 10 January 2014
Language and Technology: Text Talk (Extended)
After researching the language often used in text messages I became interested in seeing how common some of the features spoken about really were. David Crystal's article '2b or not 2b?' made claim that 'texters', especially teenagers, use 'deviant spelling', and it seems Crystal is not the only person to have suggested that this is the case. Online there are even several websites set up to help parents understand texts sent by their children and discuss the reprocussions of "text talk" - one headline claiming that 'Texting May Lead to Bad Grammar'.
Crystal's article was writen in 2008 and so the information within it may be dated, and that is why I have chosen to investigate whether or not teenagers really do use non-standard spelling and grammar while texting.
Being a teenager and having teenage friends means that I have current experience to draw on - and I do not believe that non-standard spelling is as common within our age group as other's might think. In fact, I hypothosise that below ten percent of the data I have collected will contain non-standard spelling, and that other text-features may prove to be more prominant.
For my data pool I am collecting texts sent by teens aged thirteen to eighteen, as not only are they among those accused of 'deviant' spelling, they are also the age group that will be the future of the English language, shaping it via technology like the mobile phone.
I'm aiming to collect samples from at least twenty different people (I currently have only eleven) to ensure that the data is reliable and represents the age group as best as is possible for me. I have also taken at least three texts from each person, so that I know the texts are not 'one offs'. To make sure the data is comparable, the age bracket is slim (only five years) and the participants are all English speakers. They are also all from the same area, Bristol, so dialectal differences should be minimal.
I know that my data is ethical, as each person I used gave informed consent.
The first non-standard grammar I came across when analysing my data was 'Im good hows you (1)'. There is no punctuation here, though (as I found was common) there is capitalisation of the first letter. 'Hows' is non-standard and stands in for 'how is' in this particular message. The use of this word is most probably a result of the texter's Bristolian dialect, as it changes the syntax of the message literally to 'I am good, how is you?' So while there is no 'deviant spelling' in this particular message, there is 'deviant' grammar.
The loss of apostraphes such as that in 'I'm' seemed to be quite common throughout the data, with other contractions such as 'I've' and 'I'll' losing theirs.
Non-standard spellings I have come across so far have included 'teel' instead of tell, 'probs' instead of probably, and 'Yayyyy,' 'Shiiiiiiittt' and 'Plsssss' instead of yay, shit and please. '
Crystal's article was writen in 2008 and so the information within it may be dated, and that is why I have chosen to investigate whether or not teenagers really do use non-standard spelling and grammar while texting.
Being a teenager and having teenage friends means that I have current experience to draw on - and I do not believe that non-standard spelling is as common within our age group as other's might think. In fact, I hypothosise that below ten percent of the data I have collected will contain non-standard spelling, and that other text-features may prove to be more prominant.
For my data pool I am collecting texts sent by teens aged thirteen to eighteen, as not only are they among those accused of 'deviant' spelling, they are also the age group that will be the future of the English language, shaping it via technology like the mobile phone.
I'm aiming to collect samples from at least twenty different people (I currently have only eleven) to ensure that the data is reliable and represents the age group as best as is possible for me. I have also taken at least three texts from each person, so that I know the texts are not 'one offs'. To make sure the data is comparable, the age bracket is slim (only five years) and the participants are all English speakers. They are also all from the same area, Bristol, so dialectal differences should be minimal.
I know that my data is ethical, as each person I used gave informed consent.
The first non-standard grammar I came across when analysing my data was 'Im good hows you (1)'. There is no punctuation here, though (as I found was common) there is capitalisation of the first letter. 'Hows' is non-standard and stands in for 'how is' in this particular message. The use of this word is most probably a result of the texter's Bristolian dialect, as it changes the syntax of the message literally to 'I am good, how is you?' So while there is no 'deviant spelling' in this particular message, there is 'deviant' grammar.
The loss of apostraphes such as that in 'I'm' seemed to be quite common throughout the data, with other contractions such as 'I've' and 'I'll' losing theirs.
Non-standard spellings I have come across so far have included 'teel' instead of tell, 'probs' instead of probably, and 'Yayyyy,' 'Shiiiiiiittt' and 'Plsssss' instead of yay, shit and please. '
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)