In the argument over whether or not “chatspeak” is destroying English, I have to agree with Linda Howard. Chatspeak is clearly detrimental. Greg Monfils, a proponent of chatspeak, opens his argument for it with this enigmatic line, “A student of mine recently asked via e-mail, ‘hey, I cant find hw n the conf can u help.’” (Monfils, 2007) After reading that line for the twentieth time I still cannot entirely decipher it, and the “sentence” ends a question with a period!
I believe chatspeak is a disrespectful and inappropriate way of addressing a teacher. Howard states that chatspeak has “no place in academic, business, and other formal writing settings where it is essential that all individuals involved are using language that is clear and concise.” (Howard, 2007)
It is interesting that Monfils, who believes that chatspeak is just fine, teaches at a school where each student is given a laptop upon enrollment. That is hardly standard, and if it were to become so, schools should be the first place to insist upon following the basic rules of the English language. Monfils admits that, “the kids want to see if they can get away with it,” and then admits that he lets them. (Monfils, 2007) I am certain that he is trying to seem hip to his students by connecting with their new language, but he is setting a negative example by this allowance.
Students from the age prior to chatspeak commonly misspell words using spellings such as lite and nite due to mass marketing campaigns. With this new beast called chatspeak undermining students' proper use of the English language the only question I am left with is: why let it into your classroom?
References:
Howard, L. & Monfils, G. (2007). Learning and Leading with Technology: Is Chatspeak
Destroying English? International Society for Technology in Education.
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Great post Anna. I agree with you to a certain extent, but believe that there is a time and place for chatspeak. If students have a strong command of the English language and purposefully break down those rules in their use of chatspeak, then I feel that this is acceptable. They are playing with language and thus engaging the language in a new and different way. Language will never lose meaning, but will only change with time...and what is better then change?!
ReplyDeleteI agree Anna. I will not allow chatspeak in my classroom - more so because I teach English. I just feel it isn't fair to the student to allow it - it's just sends mixed messages. If I allow that what about the student who doesn't like to use punctuation or capitalization? Oy!
ReplyDeleteI totally agree, Anna-Banana. It seems that writing and speaking skills have been watered-down and even lost over time, and chatspeak is only furthering that phenomenon. Nice post, dear!
ReplyDeleteAnna -
ReplyDeleteThank you for pointing out the weak points that Monfils use in his argument. I also had to re-read that example. I am puzled why Monfil seems to think a sentence like that is ok or acceptable. Our students should be communicating (speaking/writing) in English and chatspeak is not proper English