Twitterspeak

"'You haven't a real appreciation of Newspeak, Winston,' he said almost sadly.  'Even when you write it you're still thinking in Oldspeak.  I've read some of those pieces that you write in the Times occasionally. They're good enough, but they're translations.  In your heart you would prefer to stick to Oldspeak with all its vagueness and its useless shades of meaning.  You don't grasp the beauty of the destruction of words.  Did you know that Newspeak is the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year?....Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?...Every concept that can ever be needed will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meanings rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten...The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect.'"
-Syme to Winston in Gorege Orwell's 1984.

"Brevity is the soul of wit"
-Lord Polonius in Shakespeare's Hamlet

"THANKS!!!!! N Y MY NAM HAD 2 B NEAR LAST MAURYA LML" (Translation: "Thanks! And why (did) my name had (have) to be near last Maurya? Laughing Mad Loud." )
-A student, my facebook wall.

The Economy of Language

Since I started using Twitter, I've become more connected to the world around me by following several major news organizations and individuals who tweet commentary about current events.  However, Twitter and other more modern forms of communication impose an economy of language on users such that each word becomes a good in the marketplace of ideas and complex issues are said in catch phrases that don't always explain full meanings. When I speak about the economy of language, I don't mean to limit my argument to just Twitter. I also mean the language used in text messaging, and to some extent Facebook.  I will refer to this new form of language as "Twitterspeak," because Twitter currently imposes the most strict character limit of these forms of communication.

My ambivalence towards these forms of communication comes from the economy of language they impose and what that means for human communication, particularly for young people still learning how to effectively communicate in a written format.

Brevity is the soul of wit, but the enemy of thoughtfulness.

Some argue that forcing a writer to be more succinct produces better writing. Paul Krugman of the New York Times recently wrote this blog post on the subject.  He believes length constraints force him to be more concise and make each word more meaningful. Every paper returned to me in my first philosophy class said "Eliminate Needless Words" boldly in red on each page.  Over time, I learned the importance of being clear in my writing.  I am supposed to carefully select words to maximize meaning and precision.  Like an economy, I am striving to reach the appropriate intersection of cost and benefit.  I have fallen out of practice a bit since college, but I know it is always something to aspire to when writing.  Twitter, in the extreme, forces me to do this.
  
I believe in the immense networking power and the free exchange of ideas that is facilitated by Twitter and Facebook.  Recently it became clear that these mediums are so powerful that they are able to catalyze revolutions.  However, it remains unclear whether or not they will be effective in helping citizens form a plan of governance.  It's easy to write "Overthrow Mubarak" in under 140 characters, but it's much more difficult to exchange ideas on the formation of government in the same length. When Speaker Boehner tweets something like "House passed bill 2 keep govt running, cut spending; if Sen. Reid won't pass it, we'll pass shorter one 2 keep govt running, cut spending" there is very little complexity in the expression.  Twitterspeak is similar to politicians arguing in sound bites and catch phrases.  No one can give an in-depth reflection on fixing the economy in sixty seconds.  One might argue that tweets can contain links for further information, or that a compilation of tweets can give an idea about a trend that is occurring, but a tweet in itself rarely can convey a complex thought. 

Code Switching  and Neuropathways

Just because these modes of communication are short does not not make them inherently bad. Not everything that needs to be said needs to be complex.  The problem arises when people use these short statements as their primary mode of communication.

 My students use Facebook, Twitter, and text obsessively.  They write messages that make some sense in  Twitterspeak.  However, when they need to produce a piece of writing with fully formed sentences and thoughts, they are often unable to do so. In this case, the argument that being more concise produces better writing fails because it presupposes that the user knows how to use the English language properly in the first place.  Instead of writing "eliminate needless words," I find myself commenting "spell out complete words" on the tops of their essays.

Perhaps I am not being fair. I am making a value judgment on the importance of stringing a coherent sentence together. Maybe these values are elitist and antiquated, and maybe we are moving to a new form of communication.  Who am I to say that one form of communication is better than another?  Languages have shifted before, and they are bound to do so again.  

In graduate school, I learned that successful students are able to "code switch"--they have the ability to switch back in forth between one dialect or language to another when it is appropriate to do so.  For example, I can code switch between writing "hahaha's" and "LOLs" and ":)" in instant messenger, and more formal language when it is appropriate, such as in an academic paper or formal letter.  Students who are growing up in the generation behind me have been exposed to "Twitterspeak" at a much earlier age, so my norm and their norms of communication are different. If a student lacks experience or knowledge of more formal writing, he will be unable to code switch.  When I am reading a student's essay, I do not think I should be reading "LOL"s in place of "This is funny," "ur" in place of "your" or "you're," "IDK" in place of "I don't know" or "n" in place of the word "and."  Unfortunately, students that are growing up in an Internet generation without a lot of exposure to formal writing might understand "Twitterspeak" as the correct form because that is what they are used to reading. 

These mediums of communication are constantly reinforced.  Students instant message, text, and tweet more than they use the phone.  They no longer pen love letters, or even email that much for that matter.  Instead, they send an @tweet and cram as much into 140 characters as possible.  As John Stuart Mill said "The mental and moral, like the muscular powers, are improved only by being used." Moreover, the teachings of modern neuroscience help explain what I read in student essays.  With each repetition of Twitterspeak, the child's ability to Twitterspeak grows and improves.  Sadly, my students don't get nearly enough "reps" at writing actual sentences.  These behaviors all build mental pathways.  The longer form writing pathways are generally shoddy.  


The danger of this is that the absence of well executed expression leads to an absence of in-depth and analytical thought (see Orwell's quote and article linked below).  We should only teach our students how to be concise after they have learned to be long winded.  The problem, then, does not lie with Twitter, Facebook, or texting as modes of communication, but with parenting and education. 

It is possible to teach a student to read and write well, even in a society that has begun to function in an economy of words.  Teachers and parents are doing it everyday, and there are plenty of students who can code-switch between "Twitterspeak" and formal English.  This use of language is only a current manifestation of an age old problem, after all.  There have been several critiques on the use of colloquial languages throughout history.  I, for one, will not be giving up Twitter, or my Twitterspeak, but I will be making a more concerted effort to teach students how to write, and therefore think, clearly.

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"A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers."


-George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language" http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm