Number of Posts: 8
Posts 1 - 8
Erik Orsenna: «N'oublions jamais qu'une langue est un cadeau!»
(Erik Orsenna: "Let's never forget that a language is a gift!")
Newspaper | Le Monde
Date | 9.3.2017
Language | French
Country | France
Topic Tags | language threat, spelling, texting, word/writing
Summary | Writer Erik Orsenna talks about language and why it shapes us. He talks about the new French spelling reforms, the French Academy, the relationship between language and people's identity, rap music, useless anglicisms, and texting.
Image Description | Photograph of interviewee Erik Orsenna
Image Tags | male(s)
Comment donner le goût de la lecture?
(How to instill the love of reading?)
Newspaper | Le Figaro
Date | 20.3.2016
Language | French
Country | France
Topic Tags | childhood, school, spelling, texting, threat, word/writing
Summary | Teenagers don't read a lot. This is not new, but nowadays texting and social networks are a priority among young people. They want immediacy, community, and noise, and reading equals silence, long time, and solitude. Young people read differently, which is why Bayard decided to focus on short stories instead of novels. Elementary schools are experimenting something new: the reading machine. Users can alternate on a tablet reading and listening phases.
Image Description | Photograph of an open book
«Nous n'avons jamais autant écrit à travers l'histoire de l'humanité»
("We have never written so much through the history of mankind")
Newspaper | Le Figaro
Date | 27.7.2017
Language | French
Country | France
Topic Tags | emojis, grammar, language threat, social media, spelling, word/writing
Summary | Linguist Louise-Amélie Cougnon answers some questions related to digital language and language threat. She talks about social media language and emojis, and claims that we should not worry about the spread of digital language. Also, research does not show a link between digital language use and language impoverishment. However, it seems that pupils have lower spelling and grammar skills than before.
Image Description | N/A
Pierre Halté : «L'émoji n'est pas un appauvrissement du langage»
(Pierre Halté: "emojis are not impoverishing language")
Newspaper | Le Figaro
Date | 17.7.2017
Language | French
Country | France
Topic Tags | emojis, language threat, word/writing
Summary | Linguist Pierre Halté talks about the emoji phenomenon. Emojis are not used to compensate a lack of vocabulary. Indeed, they do not replace words, but they replace a gesture, a tone of voice that we would use while speaking. Also, people have always been communicating with images. Furthermore, emoji is not a universal language because of cultural differences between countries. Halté also talks about the difference between emoji and emoticon, the origin of the first emojis, emoji users, and the future of written language.
Image Description | N/A
Le point à la fin du SMS: un mauvais signe
(A period at the end of a text: a bad sign)
Newspaper | Le Monde
Date | 5.1.2016
Language | French
Country | France
Topic Tags | abbreviations, misunderstanding, punctuation, spelling, texting, word/writing
Summary | Texting is becoming very popular among younger people who will soon be getting their smartphone transplanted on their hand. The language of texting is "cool", does not necessarily follow traditional rules, uses phonetics and abbreviations. Moreover, to replace the tone of voice and other nonverbal cues that are lacking in writing, people use emoticons. Now, it seems that adding a period at the end of a text can lead to misunderstandings.
Image Description | Photograph of a businessman walking and looking at his phone
Image Tags | male(s), smartphone
Le numérique de "A" à"Z" avec Frédéric Martel
(The digital world from "A" to "Z" with Frédéric Martel)
Newspaper | Le Monde
Date | 15.2.2016
Language | French
Country | France
Topic Tags | anglicisms, threat, word/writing
Summary | In his magazine Soft Power, Martel explains the meaning of several expressions related to the digital world such as "digital literacy", "crowfunding", "cloud", "social TV", "Big Data", "unicorn", or "digital empowerment".
Image Description | N/A
D'où vient l'acronyme Osef ?
(Where does the acronym Osef come from?)
Newspaper | Le Figaro
Date | 15.12.2016
Language | French
Country | France
Topic Tags | hashtags, texting, Twitter, word/writing, youth
Summary | The term "osef" seems to be very popular among teenagers nowadays. It means "on s'en fout" (we don't care). The expression was born on Twitter and was preceded by a hashtag or mot-dièse (the English term won).
Image Description | N/A
Les «mèmes» plus forts que «Jésus»
("Memes" stronger than "Jesus")
Newspaper | Le Monde
Date | 15.12.2016
Language | French
Country | France
Topic Tags | meme, politics, word/writing
Summary | Google Trends allows people to compare users' searches on different topics. A chart shows the results of two searches: "Jesus" (red curve) and "memes" (blue curve). In September, the blue curve passed the red one, which means that memes were "stronger than Jesus". Google Trends can also be used for political polls. However, the tool is not perfect and has some limitations.
Image Description | N/A
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