I don't think internet or media reinforces bad English. For western countries, some school don't stress grammar or spelling. Like some of my British friends, their English grammar is not correct and they always play with spelling and are unable to spell words correctly. This is ironic because English is their first language.
For ESL learners like us Chinese people, I think instant chat has positive effect on my English. Back to the ICQ age, everyone used 'chinese-english'. I used English alphabets to compose Chinese phonetics to make them sound like Chinese character, such as 'ng hai ar' , dim ah'. However, if the people I was talking with used proper English , I would response with proper English also. And actually instant messenger is a very good tool for us to communicate with people from different places because we barely have chance to talk to native speakers in real life face to face. The language we use in instant chat is semi-written and semi-spoken form, so it actually facilitates my spoken skills in certain extents. For instance the native speaker net friends will help to repair or correct my meaning if I make mistakes, as well as to share and exchange ideas.I can also learn slangs from netspeak which is impossible to learn from schools.
Also, the grammatical rules of English are different in different places, for example the use of prepositions and tenses. Therefore it is good to learn from those people rather than just stick to only British English that we have to learn in school. I think the example in the powerpoint slide 17 'smart or stupid' is a bit too extreme, such as 'Ps' and 'wr' . We don't really talk like this in most of the time because we aware of people outside our country don't understand our own way to abbreviate words. I accept chat lanugage like ' cu ' and 'ttyl' as it is universally understood. Since SMS is known as short message service and ICQ is known as I seek you, definitely the invention of them is for convenience and save time. Especially for SMS, the idea is to use the fewest words to convey or express the maximum concepts and meanings. That's why we develop this kind of writing manner. But it won't be a problem for us, for me at least. It is only a habit for me when I chat with people who use netspeak language. When we write for examinations, interviews or business documents ,we understand the importance of them so we know when should use proper English.
For ESL learners like us Chinese people, I think instant chat has positive effect on my English. Back to the ICQ age, everyone used 'chinese-english'. I used English alphabets to compose Chinese phonetics to make them sound like Chinese character, such as 'ng hai ar' , dim ah'. However, if the people I was talking with used proper English , I would response with proper English also. And actually instant messenger is a very good tool for us to communicate with people from different places because we barely have chance to talk to native speakers in real life face to face. The language we use in instant chat is semi-written and semi-spoken form, so it actually facilitates my spoken skills in certain extents. For instance the native speaker net friends will help to repair or correct my meaning if I make mistakes, as well as to share and exchange ideas.I can also learn slangs from netspeak which is impossible to learn from schools.
Also, the grammatical rules of English are different in different places, for example the use of prepositions and tenses. Therefore it is good to learn from those people rather than just stick to only British English that we have to learn in school. I think the example in the powerpoint slide 17 'smart or stupid' is a bit too extreme, such as 'Ps' and 'wr' . We don't really talk like this in most of the time because we aware of people outside our country don't understand our own way to abbreviate words. I accept chat lanugage like ' cu ' and 'ttyl' as it is universally understood. Since SMS is known as short message service and ICQ is known as I seek you, definitely the invention of them is for convenience and save time. Especially for SMS, the idea is to use the fewest words to convey or express the maximum concepts and meanings. That's why we develop this kind of writing manner. But it won't be a problem for us, for me at least. It is only a habit for me when I chat with people who use netspeak language. When we write for examinations, interviews or business documents ,we understand the importance of them so we know when should use proper English.
I don't agree with people who hold the internet responsible for bad English. It always depends on how we use the internet. Like we always have a choice to choose what we eat. We can't blame Mcdonald's because we are fat.
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| So... Enjoy it =D |
