Welcome to cygnoir's online home. The word "cygnoir" is a portmanteau of "cygne" and "noir" — the French words for "swan" and "black". the linguistics of texting
// December 4th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // Intarweb
From ‘Gr8 Db8′ Defends The Linguistics Of Texting on NPR’s All Things Considered:
All the popular beliefs about texting are wrong, or at least debatable. Its graphic distinctiveness is not a totally new phenomenon. Nor is its use restricted to the young generation. There is increasing evidence that it helps rather than hinders literacy. And only a very tiny part of the language uses its distinctive orthography. A trillion text messages may seem a lot, but when we set these alongside the multi-trillion instances of standard orthography in everyday life, they appear as no more than a few ripples on the surface of the sea of language. Texting has added a new dimension to language use, indeed, but its long-term impact on the already existing varieties of language is likely to be negligible. It is not a bad thing.
I don’t agree with David Crystal about texting helping literacy. How does abbreviating language help literacy? I suppose I’ll have to read the book.
