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We're In the Midst of a Literacy Revolution
Mike Sauter sends in a piece from Wired profiling research by Andrea Lunsford, a professor of writing and rhetoric at Stanford, from which she concludes that we don't need to worry about computers and the Internet causing a decline in general literacy. "[Lunsford] has organized a mammoth project called the Stanford Study of Writing to scrutinize college students' prose. From 2001 to 2006, she collected 14,672 student writing samples — everything from in-class assignments, formal essays, and journal entries to emails, blog posts, and chat sessions. Her conclusions are stirring. 'I think we're in the midst of a literacy revolution the likes of which we haven't seen since Greek civilization,' she says. For Lunsford, technology isn't killing our ability to write. It's reviving it — and pushing our literacy in bold new directions."
The Internet facilitates easy plagiarism. I assume papers for sale on the 'net generally have good grammar. Is it possible an increase in Internet plagiarism caused the increase in literary quality?
We certainly know no-child-left-behind did not help the early stages of the pipeline.
Just a thought...
-Todd
Omne ignotum pro magnifico.
But... but... societal decline! The good ol' days! My generation and my recent ancestors' generations were the best, not like these spoiled rotten immoral kids! Everyone knows that Generation $NEWEST_BUZZWORD has been been corrupted by $NEWEST_MORAL_PANIC! This is obviously just some... some ivory tower elite INTELLECTUAL manipulating statistics (which every God-fearing American knows are less reliable than unexamined personal biases) to justify violence and sex in $NEW_MEDIA (which is much worse than the $OLD_MEDIA that I consume).
I found this interesting:
Of all the writing that the Stanford students did, a stunning 38 percent of it took place out of the classroomâ"life writing, as Lunsford calls it. Those Twitter updates and lists of 25 things about yourself add up.
It's almost hard to remember how big a paradigm shift this is. Before the Internet came along, most Americans never wrote anything, ever, that wasn't a school assignment. Unless they got a job that required producing text (like in law, advertising, or media), they'd leave school and virtually never construct a paragraph again.
It makes a lot of sense. This idea of their being a golden age of people hand writing letters to each other is bullshit for the vast majority of the populace.
She might not be popular with some people in actually praising a new generation. I remember watching a discussion on some TV show once where a professor stated that in his experience the current young people were much more diligent and hard working than previous generations. It didn't go down well at all with the rest of the tut-tuting panel.
One thing that is important is to remember that in nearly every generation for at least the last three hundred years there's been a tendency for a certain kind of comfortable intellectual to shake their heads and decry the downfall of civilization, the irreverence of youth and the death of literacy and wisdom. Noticing that trend does not necessarily make it incorrect, but it certainly makes it suspicious. I suspect it says more about a certain type of person than it does about our culture. With that said however, there is change going on, although unlike Dr Lunsford I think that any judgment of what is going on exactly is a bit premature: it's all guesswork right now. Her analysis isn't too bad, but it's not necessarily better than anyone else's guess. What Dr Lunsford has undertaken is very subjective, and it's almost impossible for her to get any kind of objective research or testable results. Given a century or two of distance and perspective that may become easier. (If we're still around then. ha)
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This sound familiar to the wonky research that was showcased a couple of weeks ago - that gamers are fat, depressed, and have an average age of 35. Data collection is everything. A sample of students taken only from Stanford, or Harvard, MIT, CalTech, is hardly representative of the nation as a whole. Those who get into these schools typically have SAT and ACT scores well above average - in both Math and English (viewing the demographics page at the study's homepage confirms this). In fact, if other research is to be believed, these are the types of people that are least likely to use Twitter, Facebook, etc excessively.
A more comprehensive study would grab a frequency weighted sample that looked at a larger number of students at large public universities, as well as a significant number of students from community colleges.
Unfortunately, when I go to the site, all of the pages under "methods" are giving me 404s.
I wonder then if the amount of drivel you see is more about the fact that the internet exposes what's there, rather than bringing the level down. The fact is that 50 years ago you wouldn't read something that wasn't written by someone who had specifically developed their literacy. I'm always surprised at how much more ignorant some of my relatives sound on Facebook than they ever did in person. My relatives closer to my own age, however, are very articulate online.
So the internet makes the world seem less literate (by exposing the lack of literacy that otherwise would never be seen), but in fact on average makes the world in fact more literate (by encouraging people to express themselves in words and thus get more practice doing so).
TCP: Why the Internet is full of SYN.
If nothing had ever happened to Anne Frank, probably none of us would have seen her writing, ever - she'd just be a normal girl too embarrassed to let other people see what she penned in her free time. Now through the internet, anyone with a will to write can be published.
It may be it's always been there, but now it's more visible.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
altslashdot.org: The future of slashdot.
In linguistics, we discussed how the older generations always think the young people are ruining the language. How language is always in a state of devolution from when the one pondering it remembers their youth. So, ever since the first speakers, language has devolved. Just for the record, your Proto-Indo-European is horrible. By the same token, your great great grand children will have no idea what you are mumbling.
I wonder what this world will be like in fifty years. Will these revolutions help make this a much better place to live? Or will we find a way to fuck it up?
I sometimes think it'll be the latter. Maybe I've been watching too many dystopian movies, but technology, for all its benefits, can also change societies for the worse. Assume that 50 years from now we have the capability to put chips into people's brains. What will governments do with that sort of capability? I can easily see a proposal being introduced that would allow remote brain monitoring of sex offenders, for example. Science and technology will continue their advance and fifty years from now, I think we'll all be less likely to die from cancer, less likely to be mentally debilitated by Alzheimer's, and physically healthier overall, but I think we'll also have less freedom.
lolwut? I c wut shee did thar. Were all loosing r minds, u no?
I really hate people who type in this manner. It saves almost no time, so what's the point in purposely making the spelling error? What does it prove? That you're some sort of Internet badass? I don't think so, it makes that person look like a complete moron. One time, I ran into a message board where the whole thread was like this, my head almost exploded.
The internet doesn't influence literacy all that much.
How old are you? The internet is mostly a text medium. When I was a kid (WAY before the internet), if you had a book under your arm everybody thought you were a nerd. If you had a slide rule they KNEW you were a nerd.
But most kids in my generation didn't read unless forced to. Today, all the kids read a lot, even if all they read is the internet and text messages on their phones.
Free Martian Whores!
In linguistics, we discussed how the older generations always think the young people are ruining the language. How language is always in a state of devolution from when the one pondering it remembers their youth. So, ever since the first speakers, language has devolved.
That's great, as long as morons don't take that to mean "... and therefore your horrible grammar and spelling errors aren't actually errors, but the natural evolution of language." I've seen a lot of people who seem to think the fact that language evolves means that they are the instruments of said evolution, rather than semi-literate tards.
To them I say: Someday, "loose" may be the correct spelling of "lose". Until that future day, you still need to learn the difference because you're wrong.
The enemies of Democracy are
So I don't think grammar is the most significant thing, and I don't think simply giving more people the chance to write and be read is the most important thing (although it is important). The big revolution is feedback.
I would argue the Industrial Revolution was the last true "revolution", and it's been virtually continuous change ever since then.
Actually, there are many historians who assert that the Industrial Revolution didn't exist; that the idea is a modern construction of how series of events were connected. The revolution (if one must use the term) is all one piece, and pigeonholing history into little boxes like this becomes self-defeating and meaningless.
I was formerly unconvinced of this, but my wife (who happens to be a PhD history academic) pointed me in the direction of lots of papers, and the evidence has led me to change my mind.
That's great, as long as morons don't take that to mean "... and therefore your horrible grammar and spelling errors aren't actually errors, but the natural evolution of language."
Natural evolution is mutations weather they are wanted or not.
To them I say: Someday, "loose" may be the correct spelling of "lose". Until that future day, you still need to learn the difference because you're wrong.
At what point do we determine that is? I mean can you specifically pick a time between the 1500 to 1700s where people stopped using "thee" and "thou"?
Either way you can say its wrong all you'd like and people are still going to do it. Eventually it will change. That is the point the linguists are trying to put across. A million Grammar teachers are screaming out in anguish but not much anyone can do about it.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Having studied Latin a fair deal, I have a great appreciation for solid grammar, well-formed sentences, and intricate structures. I loathe the apparent devolution of language and despise the rampant misspellings, poor grammar, and horrific stream of consciousness run-ons I've witnessed on the boards and in gameplay.
However, language really is a self-correcting form of communication. I hate the use of "ur" as a bastardized "your," but linguistically speaking, it's pretty efficient. People who spell horribly usually spell with a more consistent logic than centuries of archaisms -- why not spell "dependent" as "dependant" when we have words such as "rampant, occupant," and attendant?" Other than the baggage caused by inherited languages, why do we persist in using "right" instead of "rite?"
In my lifetime, I've seen "donut" become the de facto spelling rather than "doughnut," and I haven't even lived that long. People can say poor spelling creates ambiguities, but our language is already rife with 'em. If a term becomes too ambiguous, the term will die in its collective usage, or split. We know from context what "your" means, otherwise we wouldn't step in to correct people when it's used in place of "you're." I think it's lazy, but from another perspective, it's could be considered an ever-changing process of optimization.
I try to remind myself of this. Doesn't mean I have to like it.
The moon may be smaller than the earth, but it's much farther away!
I have mod points that I wanted to use on other posts but this one forces me to reply.
I'm glad you enjoy English. I love it, myself. Unfortunately, I think you're a bit too generous with your praise of the beauty of dialects. Most to the point, you say:
I must disagree in the strongest terms. Language that incorporates seemingly random variations is exciting only to the extent that you enjoy solving puzzles over clear communication. On the contrary, to me language is most exciting when it communicates.
It can do so in many ways. Beautiful poetry can be hard to read but well worth it. Ebonics might be the only way to talk to some people. 4chan-isms may work on 4chan. (Personally, the learning curve is too steep for me; 12chan was my limit for understanding such things.) But none of these is useful outside their niche.
"Good English" does, in fact, exist. It changes and is influenced by all the things you mention but it is not rendered incomprehensible by them. It evolves slowly enough that it can be used as a common communications channel between *all* readers without regard to generation or lifestyle. When new words or ways of using the language are accepted into "Good English", they may sound a bit funny to an older generation but they don't prevent that older generation from understanding. Context should be sufficient to suss out the meaning.
When a new form of speech is sufficiently radical that it can't be understood by everyone (perhaps with a little effort) and when the author insists on using it anyway out of some misguided belief that their way of doing things is ordained by the universe as their right, then these wonderful, poetic, profane strains of the language become, to be blunt, wrong.
If someone speaks a strong flavor of cajun or ebonics or what-have-you, that's just fine. If they create written works where those flavors are so strong as to hinder understanding then offer up their works for the world to read, then they just don't write well.
For people who share my hobbies that mostly involve shooting, I often cite the example of Zediker's Handloading for Competition, a technical book concerning how to make ammunition. In the forward, the writer says he has a degree in English from Ole Miss and that this gives him permission to murder the language because he actually knows better. He then proceeds to murder the language repeatedly in the book, putting into print deep-south faux-regionalisms so thick as to be occasionally incomprehensible. If the book hadn't contained so much wonderful technical insight, I would have thrown it away after reading the first chapter.
Nobody has permission to murder the language if they want to communicate broadly. In limited circumstances, feel free to go nuts. Good things often result. But don't forget that, yes, there is such a thing as "Good English" and, most of the time, it's the preferred method of communication hereabouts. "Good English" is not merely "writing English in a way that I can relate to", it's writing English in a way we can all relate to.
Unless you don't speak English. :-)
"Either way you can say its wrong all you'd like and people are still going to do it. Eventually it will change. That is the point the linguists are trying to put across. A million Grammar teachers are screaming out in anguish but not much anyone can do about it."
You miss the GP's point - it's not that change is happening, but that come people will use the general concept of linguistic evolution to justify their individual behavior. The same thing happens with the concept of moral relativism: while it is an undisputed fact that different cultures place different moral value on certain actions, that does not mean that the moral rules of THIS society don't apply to YOU. This is not an academic problem - look at "honor" killings of Muslim women in western countries.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
The error is in number agreement. The phrase peers that doesn't should read peers that don't
"Communication that doesn't", however, is perfectly fine. "With peers" is a prepositional-type phrase.