Assessment: Spoken Language study
Explore the view that speaking, and/ or web based interactions can be very creative form of language use.
Spoken and text language are very creative forms of language, using nuances and other language features, such as sarcasm. Sarcasm is a very inventive language feature, in the way that it uses paralinguistic features, such as facial expression and tone of voice, to convey more information than the words of the sentence may have done. An example of this is, if someone came late to a lesson in school, the teacher may say “glad to see you are arriving on time as usual”, this just as text without a context, could easily be taken literally and misunderstood, however with the correct tone of voice and facial expression it is easy to tell the person is being sarcastic. In text language the way in which we show sarcasm is usually shown through context, as in some situations it is obvious the persons actual thoughts. Sarcasm can also show how familiar the people talking are as sarcasm is usually used in informal conversation, as it would be considered rude in a formal situation.
It is clear that the use of sarcasm is a very creative way of communicating, as it goes beyond the words of a conversation and can sometimes make the sentence mean the complete opposite thing to what the words in the sentence have already said. This makes it a very complex language tool to use in texting where the only way it can be understood is through the context of the conversation.
Another reason that spoken and text based communication is creative is the use of emotion. Emotion is the way that a person feels and how they communicate that feeling, for instance if someone is happy they would characteristically have a smile on their face, this is a paralinguistic feature that has been adapted for text language through the use of emoticons. Emoticons, or as they are more colloquially known “smileys” are a form of text language used to display emotion, an example of an emoticon is a happy face “:)”, this is used in text language to show the emotion of an individual. This is important to adding to the amount of nuances text can replicate from speaking.
Speaking and texting are developing in new and extremely creative ways around the world, dialect from around the world are very diverse, using features such as accent, slang, which is a word that is used specifically between people in the same social group. An example of this is the dialect of the youth of south east London, the use of idiom and slang terms is very widespread and common, evidence of this is the use of the word “bare” by this group, in standard English bare means naked or empty, for example “the cupboard was bare.”, however when used by this social group the word “bare” is a word that can be used as a synonym for the word “really” for example “This is bare heavy” would mean this is very heavy to anyone within the social group, however it would not be obvious to people outside of this group. This use of idiom and slang terms that, for the most part, only the youth understand has had adverse effect to the perception of the youth in south east London, as most of the older generations do not understand the idioms and slang that the youth are using they label the youth as stupid and ignorant, where in fact the youth are using complex and inventive language devices such as idiom and slang to add to their conversation.
Yet another reason spoken language and text language are very creative is the way they adapt and form around each other, in recent years spoken language has been greatly influenced by text, including abbreviations that were previously only used in texting have made their way into modern day dialect, an example of this is the abbreviation for oh my God, “OMG”, this abbreviation has been carried over from text language and is now used in spoken conversation, Spoken language has also immensely influenced text language, one of the many examples of this is the use of fillers, such as “err” or “umm” to give the speaker time to think, this would seem weird to use in text language as with texting an immediate answer isn’t required, however in text language fillers are used to make the text seem more human and more like a spoken conversation, this is another way in which text language has been evolved through the use of existing language features from spoken language. This merging of languages is helping to develop both of the language types and improve the quality of conversations in these language types.
I believe that these language types are extremely creative ways of communicating, the rate of the development in these two languages is immense, with new slang words and idioms being created every day, a social groups slang terms can change massively with new and inventive words very quickly. This is clear evidence to the fact that spoken and text language is very creative..
These languages will eventually adapt so much that they will almost be identical in the way they are used and there nuances will be very similar, this will lead to spoken and text language being almost one in the same. Also the use of slang and idiom will be even more creative then it is now if the development of these language devices continues on the path they are on now. To summarise, both of these languages are very