Number of Posts: 41
Posts 11 - 20
Englisch gut. Deutsch mangelhaft
(English good. German bad.)
Newspaper | Welt
Date | 29.10.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | language threat, school, youth, YouTube
Summary | Today's youth have much better foreign language competencies in English than previous generations. That could have many reasons related to changes in the educational system but one reason is certainly that they are becoming global citizens digitally. They don't want to miss out on anything on Netflix or YouTube because their English is too poor so they tend to know English quite well.
Image Description | N/A
Die Frau, die ungewollt mit Emojis ein Haus mietete
(The woman who inadvertently rented a house with emojis)
Newspaper | Welt
Date | 24.5.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | emojis, language threat, law, misunderstanding
Summary | The debate around whether emojis count as words or seriously meaningful content is very heated - not only in academics but also in law. The Oxford English dictionary only reheated that fire by choosing an emoji as word of the year. Multiple law cases have centered on misunderstandings around emoji use, most recently a case where a woman indicated interest in renting a house with emojis (flamenco dancer, dancer girls, squirrel, comet, a victory sign, and a bottle of Champagne). The house owner sued her for using misleading emojis after she decided not to rent the house after all.
Image Description | An image of a woman's hand holding a smartphone and picking out an emoji and a portrait of the Israely judge who worked on the emoji case.
Image Tags | emojis, female(s), hand(s), male(s), smartphone
Punkt: Am Ende
(Period: the end)
Newspaper | Die Zeit
Date | 31.3.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | diversity, emojis, language threat, punctuation, research/study, texting
Summary | The neutral punctuation mark "." is disappearing from our written language. The most likely reason is that with text messages we no longer need a period to tell us when a sentence is finished. Linguists are not worried about the extinction of the period. Language is ever-changing, they say. It is quite sad though, that the period is being omitted more and more and hardly anyone cares. All debates now center around emojis: can Apple just replace the gun emoji with a water pistol one? Is it racist to use a black emoji as a White person?
Image Description | The sunset over the ocean.
Hieroglyphen von heute
(Hieroglyphs of today)
Newspaper | Die Zeit
Date | 30.3.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | emojis, language threat, research/study, translation
Summary | Emojis have permeated contemporary life in all aspects. Experts say it is the most quickly expanding language worldwide.Companies are being hired to Interpret emojis for adverising, and the police have to rely on emoji experts when text messages are part of the evidence. Whole books have been translated into emoji.
Image Description | Emoji riddles.
Image Tags | emojis
Das neue iMessage strapaziert die Nerven
(The new iMessage gets on my nerves)
Newspaper | Welt
Date | 15.9.2016
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | emojis, language threat, texting, word/writing
Summary | The updated iMessage has tons of new functions. It suggests appropriate emojis to replace words of a message, it now has sticker packages like the Facebook Messenger and allows for text messages to be animated. Users can also send short handwritten Messages - that it if they can still write by hand. All of the updates combined make for a much more obnoxious iMessage service.
Image Description | Images of iPhones using iMessage.
Image Tags | smartphone
Emojimode
(Emoji fashion)
Newspaper | Welt
Date | 14.8.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | emojis, language threat, marketing
Summary | Some think emojis are the bane of our existence, a regression into cave painting and giving up our sophistication of language. Others all for emojis and not prominent people in the fashion industry are designing pieces with emojis on them because emojis are all the rage.
Image Description | N/A
Wo geht's hier zur #bikinibridge?
(Which way is the #bikinibridge?)
Newspaper | Die Zeit
Date | 18.7.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | (mental) health, gender, hashtags, Instagram, threat
Summary | Instagram is the new place where beauty ideals are reproduced and policed. Such hashtags as the #thighgap and the #bikinibridge let users pull up a sea of skinny women's bodies which can be compared with each other. Although these trends are said to be about fitness and health, but the comments and likes show that the trends are more about a beauty ideal. This is misleading and dangerous.
Image Description | Shutterstock Image of a woman in a gym taking a selfie.
Image Tags | female(s), selfie, smartphone
Handliche Hitliste für klares Formulieren
(Handy hit list for clear articulation)
Newspaper | Appenzeller Zeitung
Date | 19.5.2016
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | Facebook, language threat, social media, word/writing
Summary | Our ability to write clearly and poignantly is very important if we want to succeed in life. It is a complex skill that needs to be practiced and Facebook and co. do not help our sharpening of a writing style at all. Social media nurtures a much too simple genre of writing.
Image Description | N/A
«Sprache verfällt nicht»
(«Language does not deteriorate»)
Newspaper | Appenzeller Zeitung
Date | 15.11.2016
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | code-switching, language threat, research/study, social media, youth
Summary | German linguist Eva Gredel claims that language does not deteriorate because of its informal use online. Internet language is more differentiated and divided in subcultures the language itself is not at risk. Many people fear this when they visit social media and see how people disregard conventions. This is because many people want to be innovative with their language online. Parents do not need to be worried about their children's language online - it is good if they learn various codes/registers of speaking.
Image Description | N/A
«Jemandem zu sagen, er solle sich ficken, ist ziemlich schlimm»
(«Telling soeone to go fuck himself is pretty bad»)
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
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