Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 34
Posts 1 - 10

Se parler pour de vrai

(To talk to each other for real)

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Newspaper | 24 heures
Date | 25.6.2017
Language | French
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | language threat, social media, spelling, texting
Summary | We constantly 'click' and 'follow', but we don't talk to each other anymore. As a result, some people are trying to find new ways to make people talk again.
Image Description | N/A

Schamlosigkeit hilft

(Shamelessness helps)

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Newspaper | Die Zeit
Date | 10.8.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | cyberbullying, social media, spelling, threat
Summary | A German TV show host has just responded to a hate comment on social media by mimicking the commenter's faulty spelling and reversing his accusations and insults. The commenter, confronted with an imitation of himself, apologized. A German artist sprayed hateful tweets on the Twitter building to show how much illegal hate speech they have not managed to remove. This strategy of shaming is nothing new in disciplining members of a community but it seems to work.
Image Description | Portrait of the TV show host.
Image Tags | female(s)

Diese Wörter finden Sie jetzt im Duden

(You can now find these words in the Duden dictionary)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 7.8.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | Facebook, fake news, online dating, selfie, spelling, word/writing
Summary | The new Duden complete orthographic dictionary has grown by 5000 words. Many new entries are from the world of technology: selfie, tindering, to like (as in Facebook likes, ""liken" in German), Dropbox, cyber war, fake news, click number ("Klickzahl"), to facebook ("facebooken"), live stream, and many more.
Image Description | N/A

Words are getting shorter due to social media as 'Jomo' and 'mic drop' feature on word of the year list

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Newspaper | Telegraph
Date | 3.11.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | social media, spelling, texting, word/writing
Summary | With social media and texting, it seems that words are getting shorter. For instance, “jomo” stands for the “joy of missing out”; the acronym has been included on the Collins list of words that have seen a significant rise in usage. Other terms are: mic drop, throw shade, sharenting, uberisation, or dude food.
Image Description | Photograph of a group of people cheering, video of Obama dropping his mic, and photograph of Trump smiling
Image Tags | female(s), male(s)

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

France Plans a New Keyboard to Shift Control to Typists

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 22.1.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | language threat, spelling, word/writing
Summary | The French language is notoriously difficult to write and computer keyboards are not very well suited to facilitate typing for French typists. Important letters and diacritics are oftentimes hidden behind complicated shortcut combinations and discourage people from writing correctly in French. Since keyboards arrived, the false rumor that diacritics can be omitted on capital letters has spread around. Now the French governement is looking into designing a better keyboard standard for French typists.
Image Description | N/A

'Ha' Isn't a Laugh. Seriously?

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 9.7.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | spelling, texting, word/writing
Summary | When the author of the article was dating a man and would text him jokes, she was surprised to see that he would always text her back with HAHAHAs (even if the jokes were not that funny). She then realized the HAHAHAs were not representative of his laugh, but it was the result of the autocorrect function. Even though textual representations of laughter go back to Chaucer and Shakespeare, the difference between HAHAHA or HA only exists nowadays. Michelle McSweeney, a researcher at Columbia University, says that laughter helps establish cohesion. There are many ways people can express laughter online: hahahahaha, haha, HAHAHA, haaaaaaa, hehe, lol, etc. In 2015, LOL was the most common way to express laughter online. Electronic laugh has been evolving like any other dialect.
Image Description | N/A

Mobile Devices' Built-In Keyboards Aren't the Last Word

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 30.6.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence, Google, smartphone, spelling, texting
Summary | The built-in keyboards that we have on our smartphones are the only options available. Gboard, a third-party keyboard app works the same way and also offers punctuation and emoji options. Gboard also offers some extras: for instance, its space bar also works as a track pad, and it incorporated a search feature into the keyboard. On Gboard, you can also glide-type. Another third-party keyboard app is SwiftKey. It's good at autocorrecting mistakes thanks to artificial intelligence. Finally, there are other available apps: Fleksy, Swype, and Microsoft's Word Flow.
Image Description | N/A

Suivre Le Petit Robert sur Twitter, c'est trop lol mdr

(Follow Le Petit Robert on Twitter, it's lol mdr)

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Newspaper | 24 heures
Date | 5.2.2016
Language | French
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | spelling, texting, Twitter
Summary | When people first starting texting, they would use abbreviations such as "lol", "mdr", or "tkt". In order to promote French language and eradicate "text message language", Le Robert Dictionary uses its Twitter account to share jokes related to text message features.
Image Description | Photograph of an open dictionary and screenshots of Tweets.
Image Tags | dictionary, Twitter

Erik Orsenna: «N'oublions jamais qu'une langue est un cadeau!»

(Erik Orsenna: "Let's never forget that a language is a gift!")

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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)

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