Laura Clark Daily
Mail HQ,
Daily Mail Sheikh Zayed Rd
PO
Box 112323
14th
October 2016
Dear Editor
After reading your article on the negative influences of
“text speak” on younger generation’s language skills, posted on Daily Mail at
on the 24th of March, it has come to my mind that, although you have
a very solid argument, this viewpoint is not exclusively true.
Throughout history, the English language has been thoroughly
developing, as each generation has molded the tongue to suit their own wants
and needs, therefore “text speak” may be the most straightforward style of
speech that suits the modern day era. In addition, the influence on abbreviations
and misspelled words are strongly emphasized in your article. On the other
hand, there are only about 10% of words in most text messages or social media
posts that have grammatical errors or spelling mistakes, therefore highlighting
the fact that many children are aware of the normal conventions present in
English, along with the idea that in order to change a word, they must know its
original definition or spelling, as well as having the ability to use the word
in practical terms. Abbreviations originally came to mind in the early 1900’s,
and have been greatly used since then, even being put to play in educational
and formal terms, such as PPC for Production Possibilities Curve, or AAVE for
African American Vernacular English. Another point is that texting is mostly
carried out by adults by about 80% in contrast to children or teenagers. Social
media is another huge topic you have discussed, and I don’t see how it can limit
one’s vocabulary. Of the 78% of teens that have a smartphone, 98% of them use
social media, most of which are very likely to run into some sort of news
report, update or article based on a topic of their interest from any fan base
or page they’re following. Many of them will also use social media as a terms
of expressing their feelings or perspectives on a specific topic of debate,
improving their communicational skills through written command. As you can see
this, in turn, increases daily practice of reading and writing, which is a very
significant practice when attempting to blossom linguistic abilities.
In conclusion, I hope you can revamp your approach towards
this somewhat overstressed subject, which is singlehandedly blamed for the degradation
of the English language within the youth, and perhaps look at it as more of a
blessing in disguise.
Yours sincerely
Ali Awan
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis is a well presented letter. I quite like how at the start you said that they had a valid argument, but that their viewpoint is not exclusively true. In addition I liked how you included how the english language has thoroughly developed as each generation moulds the language to suit their own wants and needs.
ReplyDeleteFinally, I found the facts and figures within the body of the letter very interesting as this information shows how the language only changes very slightly. This was a well constructed response
I think your letter is an effective response that addresses many of the points raised by the Daily Mail article. You provide effective and well structure arguments, and use evidence based on our previous English lessons, making your response/letter to the editor an effective counter to the original article. You make various compelling arguments and points in your text, such as the actual percentage of texts that are grammatically incorrect, which damages their argument, and to an extent refutes their claim that text speak is 'eroding schoolchildren's language'.
ReplyDeleteI think your letter is an effective response that addresses many of the points raised by the Daily Mail article. You provide effective and well structure arguments, and use evidence based on our previous English lessons, making your response/letter to the editor an effective counter to the original article. You make various compelling arguments and points in your text, such as the actual percentage of texts that are grammatically incorrect, which damages their argument, and to an extent refutes their claim that text speak is 'eroding schoolchildren's language'.
ReplyDelete