Slashdot Mirror
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."
I think you have a point but:
As an avid fanfiction reader I can say that I see both sides of the spectrum. Sure, a lot of it is abysmal but there are some masterpieces among them that overshadow even the originals from whence they are derived.
I believe the truth is this: The internet doesn't influence literacy all that much. I just think it puts both ends of the spectrum in starker contrast.
Also, I think chat logs can not serve as evidence. Just as spoken language differs greatly depending on who you are talking to, the purpose of communication has a big influence on the level you are using to bring your thoughts across. You seldom chat with your superior. You usually chat with peers. Few of us would use the same phrases, figures of speech and abbreviations in a professional document, yet most of us have at one point used such language, to a degree.
I think that is what has been the definition of the modern society over the past four or five decades. We are no longer in a period where "revolutions" happen every so often, divided by long periods of stability. We are now in a period where the revolution is continual.
From material sciences to the internet revolution, we are seeing things happen on a monthly basis that have huge impacts on us. We are mostly numbed to this because we are used to seeing it. Yet go back three or four generations and look at how life was. Certainly nothing like today.
My mind still boggles at the fact that I can talk with people half way around the world without leaving my house. That I can collaborate with people with more ease than I would have been a decade ago who lived only fifty miles away. This ability to communicate easily, I think, is the foundation for all of the other revolutions we are seeing.
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?
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Why not study the "prose" of high-school students? Particularly the "prose" of the ever increasing number of high-school drop outs?
"Reviving [out ability to write]"? Yeah. And if I did a study that only looked at NASA engineers, I'd think we were all rocket scientists.
I've always thought the "the internet is going to destroy literacy" argument was strange at best. I mean what do you do on the internet? You read, and write, and read. Then you look at porn. But still, kids are reading a lot more now than they did back when I was young. Back then they talked on the phone for hours instead. In some ways this internet culture is a throwback to Victorian times when people wrote letters to each other constantly.
I read the internet for the articles.
I was happy to read this article. It reflects what has slowly become my perspective on online use of language.
Speaking as an immigrant who originally struggled with the English language for the first few years I spent in North America, I love English. I love how some parts make no sense, and how it's infused with slang from cultural experiences gathered from far and wide. Formal english is completely different from slang english, pigdin english, or online english... but I don't see the latter examples as _inferior_, simply different... wonderfully different.
People often confuse the notion of "writing English in a way that I can relate to" with "writing good English". This is not so. Language is most exciting when it is adulterated, compromised, and infused with the particulars of its speakers. I spent 3 years of adolescence in Louisiana, back in the 90s. While others were scoffing at the notion of ebonics, I was lapping up inner city slang: that beautiful, musical, profane prose. While others bemoan the so-called regression identified with online linguistic idioms, the 4-chanisms, and earlier the Jeff-K-isms, the flippant irreverence which with modern youth take ownership of their speech, I celebrate it.
Who wants to read things in the same way they've always written? Not to say that great writers of the past are stale - I still relish my Twain, Irving, Rushdie, and other masters of script - but I don't see the point in taking an adversarial perspective on the evolution of language.... and have no doubt, language IS evolving online. Literature is evolving online. The presentation is changing, the context is changing, the composition is changing, the references are changing... it's fucking exciting to watch.
-Laxitive
"The batter pushes currency through the wire." ... even with spellcheck my students manage to sound like dipshits (college EM lab)
So, her sample of *Stanford* students says we're in a writing revolution eh? Since Stanford's $36,000 a year in tuition from the bank of mom and dad it stands to reason the kids entering the institution have been matriculated to a similar degree before entering Stanford.
Let's replicate her experiment in a State college and see what the outcome is eh?
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
But still, kids are reading a lot more now than they did back when I was young.
;-) Yes, I know this is Slashdot, and etiquette requires that we don't read the article, but this one actually isn't too far off-beam.
Which is exactly the point of the article.
But the prof's claim: "As for those texting short-forms and smileys defiling serious academic writing? Another myth. When Lunsford examined the work of first-year students, she didn't find a single example of texting speak in an academic paper." is slightly doubtful.
It might be largely accounted for by the fact that competition for university places is much more intense than it was 20 or 30 years ago. Plus the fact that students are aware that if they have a problem with their writing, most of the more egregious offences are easily picked up by grammar or spell-checkers, which were obviously unavailable to those of us who used dip-pens and inkwells. But I suspect it might only be a matter of time before smileys or other emoticons become manifest in "serious" work.
As she correctly says, it's a matter of knowing your audience. I wouldn't bother with emoticons when I am communicating with someone whom I know will appreciate subtle expressions, say, of wry irony, but some audiences need to be poked in the eye with a ";-)" to get the message across.
True. Also, I think that digital communication has actually increased people's acuity to grammar and writing etiquette. For whatever reason, when it comes to hand-written notes and letters, capitalization, punctuation, spelling, and other things considered to be part of "netiquette" are generally ignored. Part of it, I guess, is that people are more concerned with legibility and the message itself. If it's legible, and you can understand what's being conveyed, then the note/letter has achieved its purpose. It doesn't matter if the author wrote in all caps, used a bunch of abbreviations, left out words or made other grammatical errors.
But with digital communication, people get much more hung up on writing etiquette. Legibility is no longer an issue so the scrutiny gets placed on other things. Perhaps part of the reason is that people perceive typing to be a much easier and less laborious task than writing by hand, so there are higher expectations. If you misspell a word or leave out a comma, it's fairly effortless to go back and fix your mistake. And whereas it's harder to break the habit of writing in caps by hand, it's fairly easy to turn off Capslock on the computer. Add to that the immediacy of internet communication (chatrooms or IM versus a post-it note or letter), and it's a lot easier and more tempting to complain to the other person about your pet-peeves.
All of this is again compounded by the casualness of digital communication. A lot less time and work (and thus thought) goes into sending out an e-mail than mailing a letter. With IM, messageboards and chatrooms, you have an even more casual social atmosphere. As such, people are more relaxed about their writing etiquette and naturally make more mistakes. Add to that the fact that there's a much lower age barrier to digital communications (13 & 14-year-olds have cellphones these days and even a 12-year-old can post to a messageboard), and you start getting a false impression that the literacy level of society is dropping when it's quite the opposite.
An auto mechanic who has only a hammer is inferior to an auto mechanic with the same skill at car repair who has a full garage of tools. Words are tools for thought and if your vocabulary is stunted you are, in effect, dumber than someone with the same "IQ" but a much wider vocabulary. So be careful who you accuse of bigotry. They might accuse you of blind political correctness.
Syntax error: loose != lose, affect != effect, then!=than