* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
LINGUIST List logo Eastern Michigan University Wayne State University *
* People & Organizations * Jobs * Calls & Conferences * Publications * Language Resources * Text & Computer Tools * Teaching & Learning * Mailing Lists * Search *
* *
 

Ask-A-Linguist - Message details
Subject: Is Twitter destroying the English language?
Question:
Dear linguists,

My name is Vy. Some people says that twitter, along with instant message and text message is destroying the ability to use correct grammar of people who speak English. However, some say that it is such a ridiculous idea because people are born with grammar and nothing can take it away from us. So, what do you think about the effect of Twitter on the English language?

Thanks,
Vy

Reply:
I concur with my colleagues but add two comments.

First, nobody is "born with grammar" in the sense of a specific grammar of a specific language. My ancestors spoke the Gaelic, Welsh, and French -- but I wasn't born with their grammars and the two that I know tolerably well I had to study as foreign languages and spend time there picking up.
The Orthodox Chomskean Linguistics takes 'innate universal grammar" as dogma and all data not in conflict or counterexemplary to it are taken as necessarily supporting it. But knowledgeable linguists and anthropologists who have thought about it disagree. But humans do seem to be poor at memorization but good a generalization and in that sense one might loosely say that humans are born with a tendency to create or invent grammars.

In a different vein, one thing that does happen with the texters and twitterers is that the forms tend to carry over by the young -- including elder adolescents and young adults -- into their emails and even their hard copy writing they submit to adults. That is, they appear to extend that "genre" to venues where mature adults in the English speaking world take a dimmer view of it. But I suggest this is not a matter of grammar but rather a matter of the young having failed to realize that they have to use different registers for emails to adults, term papers, legal briefs, &c. But that's at least in the States partly due to a generation's having been given trophies for merely showing up and for not having spent enough time around adults talking to adults, &c.

U of Cincinnati
Dept of Anthropology

Reply From: Joseph F Foster    click here to access email
Date: Aug-10-2009
Other Replies:
  1. Re: Is Twitter destroying the English language? Elizabeth J Pyatt    (Aug-10-2009)
  2. Re: Is Twitter destroying the English language? Susan Fischer    (Aug-09-2009)
  3. Re: Is Twitter destroying the English language? Anthea Fraser Gupta    (Aug-09-2009)
  4. Re: Is Twitter destroying the English language? Charley Rowe    (Aug-09-2009)
Back to Most Recent Questions
Page Updated: 24-Nov-2009

Please report any bad links or misclassified data

LINGUIST Homepage | Read LINGUIST | Contact us

NSF Logo

While the LINGUIST List makes every effort to ensure the linguistic relevance of sites listed
on its pages, it cannot vouch for their contents.