In our 21st society, everyone
relies on technology in their daily life. One form of this technology, is in
telephones. When people text on their phones, they do not use the
regular, proper form of language. They instead say "u",
"ttyl", and "lol". I have even caught myself typing
"u" and not using formal language when emailing a teacher and writing
essays. Through this incorrect way of communicating language, language
itself is devolving into acronyms and less thought provoking speak.
When speaking, the younger
generation now puts their thoughts across using "like" and finishing
with "and stuff" because they cannot form complete thoughts as
compared to the older generation who think before they speak to ensure they are
saying the right thing.
Ever since the introduction of
the telegraph and photograph, society has allowed language to devolve and has
enjoyed this change. “The telegraph,”
according to Neil Postman, “introduced on a large scale irrelevance, impotence,
and incoherence” (Postman 65). The
information the telegraph brought was disconnected. Because the information had
nothing to do with them, the information had no meaning and no impact on people
so they couldn’t act on anything. People began to speak and converse about
pointless topics. If the topics aren’t
important, why talk the same way about unimportant topics, as the important
topics? I believe that since the
information people constituted as their daily “news” was not important, the
people began to care less about how they spoke and let their language
degrade. Some examples could be the
before mentioned such as “like”, “um”, and adjectives like “awesome” instead of
words that conveyed real emotion and thought.
Soon after the telegraph, the
photograph accompanied news articles and information. It brought blips of
information that weren’t connected to each other so the material was fragmented
and incoherent. (Sound familiar). The photograph could not capture any idea or
abstraction, so discussion could not be made, and therefore nothing could be
learned. The new forms information was
being presented in, hindered societal progress.
Without discussion and communication, language does not matter. So, when the photograph did not allow
discussion, language was used less frequently and slightly lost its importance,
making it devolve.
Hopefully with English classes in
the future, more informational books, and the realization of what is happening
to language, it stops devolving and takes a turn in the other direction for the
benefit of society.
Works Cited
Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves To Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. New York: Penguin
Group, 1985. Print.