I don't own a cell phone and never will. I've been a journalist, copywriter for radio, television and print for over 40 years. I like contributing to these discussions, however the grammar and spelling, not to mention those "text abreviations" make me wonder what ever happened to taking the time to be specific? I've also noticed there are many contributors who are asking the same things. Has tecnospeak actually contributed to a breakdown in communication? I have a theory. It happened when the tower of Babel was being constructed. Language was confused because the project was so huge everyone involved in the details developed their own terminology for what they were doing. Eventually, communications broke down. Sound familiar? Comments.
2007-03-12 19:08:13 · 4 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Languages
To everyone who has answered so far, #1 the tower was never completed. #2 The concept of the tower bridged the gap between a basic hunter-gatherer society and technology they were't prepared to cope with and #3 if there was one basic language at the time the tower was incepted, the confusion of languages and the ramifications would have resulted from from that departure from the norm.
2007-03-12 20:39:27 · update #1
#4 There was also the theory that after the flood, a tower could be built to save people should there be another. #5 Building a tower to "Get closer to God" would have been a great incentive provided God only exists "Up High". Perhaps that is where they wanted to go, but obviously they never got that far.
2007-03-12 21:03:10 · update #2
To prove my point I challenge anyone to rebuttal using common syntax if you even have a concept of what that is. If not, you have proved my point.
2007-03-12 21:27:35 · update #3
Next point: If language does indeed have a "target" that further aggrevates a breakdown in communications between those who understand "techno-speak" or "text-speak" and those who do not if that isn't "Babel" I don't know what is. Finally, after languages were confused and the tower was left incomplete, the tribes of people split up and moved on carrying there language changes away from the region in every direction. After that, obviously more dialects developed.
2007-03-15 08:06:12 · update #4
Maybe I read the story wrong since I thought the Tower was being built so the people could get closer to God in heaven and when God saw what the people were doing he became afraid of what else they might come up with so to avoid any further problems he supposedly fixed it so noone could understand anyone else and spread the people across the land. ( I think the person who came up with that little story was drinking a bad batch of wine and were tripping real hard) .
I am no writer or anything but the only thing that I have ever seen to make or break communications is power and greed. Since day one there has always been different ways of expressing ones self yet the world keeps moving on. Sorry I just dont see it the way you do but thats the beauty of life and you see we are still communicating.
2007-03-12 19:26:47 · answer #1 · answered by hersheynrey 7 · 1⤊ 1⤋
I'll just make a few bullet-point-type comments.
- Language changes all the time. Language change didn't just start since technology was invented.
- Change is not necessarily for the worse. Just different.
- Writing doesn't usually drive language change. Language changes, and then it's reflected in the writing system sometimes.
- Most grammar rules were invented in the 1700s, and generally prohibit features of English that were in existence for a few hundred years before the rule was created. (Do a little search on "history of prescriptivism" to learn more about this.) Therefore, when people break rules, they are usually just doing what English speakers have been doing for hundreds of years.
- If people couldn't communicate with each other using "technospeak", they wouldn't use it. They're using it because it facilitates communication. Those who don't understand it aren't part of the target audience.
E-mail me if you'd like more information. The field of linguistics that addresses this question is sociolinguistics.
2007-03-13 02:14:23 · answer #2 · answered by drshorty 7 · 2⤊ 1⤋
I can see some parallels between the development of modern technological language and the Tower of Babel story.
Modern techno-language does confound those who are not familiar with it. That leads to misunderstandings and the subsequent breakdowns of communication which frequently results in people walking away from interaction. As I remember it, that's what happened at Babel. However, the builders of Babel seemed to have a common purpose in mind. I don't think that speakers of traditional English and devotees of techno-language share common purposes all that often. I also suspect that techno-language speakers and traditional English speakers are divided along generational lines. Every generation has developed its own slang terminology...and every generation is entitled to do so, in my opinion...or should I say IMO? People should speak the way they want to speak...bearing in mind that others judge us by the way we speak. I'm impressed by people who speak more than one language. Consequently, the person who can speak techno-language AND traditional English seems to me to have a broader field of experience and information to draw from than does the person who ONLY uses one language.
2007-03-19 22:07:45 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Yeah, if the story of the Tower of Babel happened as it said it did. How would that even explain the different languages of the world? Wouldn't that have just confused the workers on of the tower and nobody else? Besides, the Tower of Babel was completed
2007-03-13 02:28:31 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋