Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 8
Posts 1 - 8

I can't be trusted with Google's texting app

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Newspaper | Telegraph
Date | 19.5.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | Google, language threat, texting, word/writing, youth
Summary | Google's new Allo app is supposed to make you save time while you're texing, but it can sometimes lead to misunderstandings. The author of the article doesn't really like emojis and doesn't know how to use them well. She doesn't follow young people's digital habits. Their generation favors brevity, which can have a negative impact on language.
Image Description | Photograph of two young girls on their smartphones, two smartphones displaying chat conversations, and a man standing in front of a screen displaying "Allo" and "Duo".
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), smartphone, text

The rise and rise of international diplomacy by WhatsApp

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 4.11.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | politics, privacy, texting, WhatsApp
Summary | WhatsApp diplomacy is a thing: when leaders gather to talk in the same room, they can exchange emojis and other documents to other people without the whole room knowing. WhatsApp is more secure than other government information systems and has been used at the UN and EU headquarters.
Image Description | Photograph of a group of diplomats looking at their phone, screenshot of a WhatsApp chat, photograph of a man holding a phone and a woman standing next to him (both are looking at the phone)
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), smartphone, text, WhatsApp

Why Kids Can't Write

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 2.8.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | grammar, punctuation, school, smartphone, social media, spelling, texting, threat, word/writing
Summary | Many students struggle with writing despite various pedagogical models that have been implemented in past years to tackle that perpetual issue. This is all the more suprising considering that today's students may do moret voluntary writing than any generation before it. They text and post on social media a lot but the writing register is different there. The format's main principle is shortness so grammar, spelling, and punctuation take a back seat.
Image Description | GIF of a hand writing and a group of teachers in a workshop.
Image Tags | female(s), gifs, text

«Jemandem zu sagen, er solle sich ficken, ist ziemlich schlimm»

(«Telling soeone to go fuck himself is pretty bad»)

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Newspaper | Tages-Anzeiger
Date | 5.4.2017
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | anglicisms, language threat, research/study, texting, word/writing
Summary | Linguist Elisabeth Stark is research texting communication with a corpus of 18000 text messages and even more WhatsApp messages. She says that about 2-3% of the words are anglicisms and that their amount does not seem to be rising rapidly - the word "fuck" for instance is still too strong for most German speakers. In German, sex is too taboo for taboo language. Her data also shows that Swiss people choose the local dialect rather than the standard variety when texting. Most people's langugage competencies are not compromised by this informal communication, most can adhere to conventions when a formal register is appropriate.
Image Description | Portrait of the interviewee and a Keystone image of a protest with a sign reading "fuck".
Image Tags | female(s), text

«Jpp», «wtf», «oklm»... maîtrisez-vous le parler jeune?

("Jpp", "wtf", "oklm"... do you master teenagers' language?)

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Newspaper | Le Figaro
Date | 25.8.2016
Language | French
Country | France
Topic Tags | abbreviations, language threat, texting, youth
Summary | Young people tend to use a lot of words and abbreviations that are unintelligible, according to many parents and professors. Their language is very creative and is influenced by our ancestors' language. Writer Stéphane Ribeiro claims that young people's language is a melting pot; it is a mix of American and historical expressions. Moreover, the language used by today's youth has been influenced by new technologies and the texting culture. It is not a threat to the French language; language is constantly changing and evolving
Image Description | Photograph of five young people looking happy, screenshots of two tweets depicting the use of abbreviations, and "Top Wesh" video.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), text, Twitter

No imprta q este scrito asi

(It doesnt matter how its written)

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Newspaper | El País
Date | 19.3.2014
Language | Spanish
Country | Spain
Topic Tags | abbreviations, language threat, spelling, texting, youth
Summary | A study in France demonstrated that text message characteristics have no impact on spelling skills. If you child texts using a lot of emoticons to replace words, or mispells certain words, it doesn't mean he or she is going to make more spelling mistakes in a writing assignment. He or she might even master spelling rules better than someone who doesn't text. Young people play with language and know when it is appropriate or not to use text message characteristics. However, some people disagree and think that texting can have a negative impact on spelling skills, the Spanish language, and calligraphy.
Image Description | Photograph of a group of young girls sitting and using their smartphones, and photograph of someone (hands) texting.
Image Tags | emojis, female(s), hand(s), smartphone, text

Schriftliche Forschheiten: Vom Niedergang der Höflichkeit

(Written briskness: On the demise of politeness)

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Newspaper | Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ)
Date | 1.9.2014
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | email, language threat, politeness, school, texting, WhatsApp, word/writing
Summary | Communication researchers agree that politeness in professional writing has decreased with the rise of digital communication. Rules of formal writing are omitted: what was“Honored Professor So-and-so” is now a simple “Hello”. Both students and also professors are reported to have a relaxed level of formality in email exchanges. This is usually seen as an influence of texting, where traditional messages of respect are omitted, but it can also be argued that the new brief communication style is a form of respecting the addressee’s time by writing efficiently.
Image Description | Photograph of a female texting; the shot does not show the person's face but emphasizes the phone.
Image Tags | female(s), hand(s), smartphone, text

Les mamans 2.0 ont tous les trucs pour garder leurs enfants à l'oeil

(Moms 2.0 have all the tricks to keep an eye on their kids)

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Newspaper | Le Matin Dimanche
Date | 11.5.2014
Language | French
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | childhood, smartphone, technology-free, texting, threat, youth
Summary | New technologies are changing family relations. Mothers think that giving their kids a phone will allow them to always keep in touch with them. However, the sooner children get a phone, the faster they grow apart from their parents. New technologies also change relations of authority in a family. Parents should not prohibit the use of screens; they should always talk to their kids about new media use. Parents who are not interested in new technologies are making a mistake; they are missing occasions to communicate with their kids and their authority is compromised.
Image Description | Illustration of a mother reading a "Happy Mother's day" text and being nostalgic of old times.
Image Tags | female(s), smartphone, text

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