Katherine L. Albiani middle school (KAMS), founded in 2005, is a public school in Elk Grove, California.
History
As part of an expansion in the Elk Grove Unified School district, KAMS was one of 4 schools added in 2005. KAMS is named for Katherine "Kay" L. Albiani, a long-time member of the Board of Education who is also a member of the Los Rios Community College District, and was appointed to the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges by Governor Schwarzenegger in 2004. In 2005, she also served as President of the California Community College Trustees.
Policies
KAMS does not have a have a uniform policy, although it does have a dress code.
Ratings
KAMS has been rated 8 on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being the best) in the California 2006 California Academic Performance Index (API) school ratings, and has been ranked at the top 20% of middle schools in California, at 223 out of 1095. The highest ranking characteristics were that 98% of KAMS' teachers have full credentials, and that there are 30 core academic courses taught. KAMS apparently does well even though its annual budget is lower than many schools in its class; the current expense of education per average daily attendance (ADA) is $6,736, compared to $7,127 statewide.
History
As part of an expansion in the Elk Grove Unified School district, KAMS was one of 4 schools added in 2005. KAMS is named for Katherine "Kay" L. Albiani, a long-time member of the Board of Education who is also a member of the Los Rios Community College District, and was appointed to the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges by Governor Schwarzenegger in 2004. In 2005, she also served as President of the California Community College Trustees.
Policies
KAMS does not have a have a uniform policy, although it does have a dress code.
Ratings
KAMS has been rated 8 on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being the best) in the California 2006 California Academic Performance Index (API) school ratings, and has been ranked at the top 20% of middle schools in California, at 223 out of 1095. The highest ranking characteristics were that 98% of KAMS' teachers have full credentials, and that there are 30 core academic courses taught. KAMS apparently does well even though its annual budget is lower than many schools in its class; the current expense of education per average daily attendance (ADA) is $6,736, compared to $7,127 statewide.
The ESPN BottomLine is the main on-screen graphic that constantly and immediately updates the scores of various North American sporting events.
The general BottomLine is used to update sports scores and news. There are also specific customized versions that are used on some programs, particularly those on ESPN.
History
The Bottom Line began as "BottomLine2" on ESPN2 on March 1, 1996. At first, it updated only game scores and aired between 7 p.m. and 3 a.m. Eastern time Monday through Friday and noon through 3 a.m. on weekends. By 1999, the hours were extended to 24 hours a day and news items were added.
On September 7, 2001 (coincidentally, the 22nd anniversary of ESPN's launch), ESPNEWS began an expanded three-line version with tabs showing the current and upcoming categories, as well as the progress within each category. In 2003, ESPN and ESPN2 added modified versions of what was shown on ESPNEWS.
Usage
*On ESPN, the programs with the general version of the Bottom Line are SportsCenter, 1st and 10, Jim Rome is Burning, and Outside the Lines. Specific versions air on such programs as Baseball Tonight, NBA Fastbreak, College GameDay, College GameNight, and College Football Live, as well as during college football and basketball telecasts. These custom versions show only results from the specific sports as well as expanded information. This is in addition to updates that ESPN displays at 18 and 58 minutes past the hour during all other programming.
*On ESPN2, the general version airs 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with changes from day to day uploaded at about noon Eastern time.
*ESPN Classic, like ESPN2, has the general version. However, the ticker does not appear when ESPN Classic airs a sports-themed movie under the title Reel Classics. These showings occur on Sunday nights and usually repeats on Monday afternoons. Some showings do have a version called "Reel Classics Extra," with a line of information that can be compared to the Bottom Line.
*The ESPNU version, which also airs constantly, includes mainly college sports scores and news.
*ESPN Deportes has a version called "ESPN Al Instante," with score and news updates of the sports most relevant to Hispanic sports fans.
*ESPN on ABC, the broadcast arm of the network, also has a version, with the look of the bottom right-hand corner dependent on the feed. On the standard definition feed, the corner is solid red with no logo; a large network "circle logo" appears right above it. On the ABC HD feed, the ABC HD insignia is placed in that corner. This ticker also promotes upcoming primetime programs on ABC.
*ESPNEWS uses a different format of the BottomLine, instead of having the games in horizontal format (road team on left and the home team on the right), ESPNEWS uses a vertical format (road teams on top and the home teams on bottom). This format allows more information to be shown in less time, but takes up more space than the other versions.
Additional notes
*During the Monday Night Football season, and before certain other major sports events, ESPN will air a countdown clock to the airtime for that event.
*If a game runs over into the scheduled SportsCenter time slot, the SportsCenter BottomLine will be displayed even before the program does, except during National Football League games or NASCAR races.
*Occasionally, the stream will be interrupted by a promotional announcement, an update on programming that has been pre-empted by the continuation of a live sporting event, or by breaking news.
*The ESPNEWS and ESPNU bottom lines do not leave the screen during commercial breaks; however, viewers will not see them when their cable or satellite providers go to local ads. The tickers are also continuous during Mike and Mike in the Morning and ESPN First Take.
*If ESPN has signed a financial deal with a title sponsor of an event or the presenting sponsor of a telecast, that sponsor's name will appear on the ticker in connection to the results. For example, "Pacific Life Holiday Bowl", "Australian Open presented by Franklin Templeton Investments", or "Phillips 66 Big 12
*Other restrictions may also come into play. For example, in March 2007, results of the 2007 NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Tournament was presented as "2007 NCAA Women's Championship presented on ESPN by Orbitz." However, the results of the 2007 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament were presented only as "2007 Men's Championship," without the organization's initials. The men's tournament is shown entirely on CBS, except for the opening round game on ESPN. This changed for the "Sweet 16" round on March 24, with the NCAA letters removed from the ticker without explanation when leading to the women's scores. The Orbitz mention remained. However, the NCAA letters returned, again, for the Final Four weekend. Similarly, the names of NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series and Busch Series races are no longer shown on the ticker, unless the title sponsor pays an additional fee to the network (such as Allstate, which is the title sponsor for the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard), or unless it is a major event like the Daytona 500. This is part of the new contract signed between NASCAR and ESPN which returned live Cup races to ESPN and ABC and gave ESPN2 and ABC rights to televise all Busch Series races. (Craftsman Truck Series races, which are shown on SPEED Channel and Fox, are still named on the BottomLine.)
*For the 2007 Major League Baseball season, ESPN began to alternate among three different formats to present information. The first only shows game scores, the second expands to include highlighted individual performances (as relevant for players of fantasy baseball), and the third expands even more to show the winning and losing pitchers as well. NBA and NHL results are now shown in a similar format, with scores only on one pass followed by individual statistics on the next.
*During the 2006 and 2007 MLB seasons, the order of baseball games shown on the ticker changed, mainly to reflect Barry Bonds' pursuit of baseball's home run record. Prior to the 2006 season, the regular order consisted of American League games appearing before National League games, but from most of the 2006 season through August 7, 2007 (when Bonds hit his 756th career home run, breaking Henry Aaron's record), NL games appeared before AL games, and games involving the San Francisco Giants, the team whom Bonds played for, appeared before all others. On August 8, 2007, the reverse order of games (NL before AL) reverted back to the regular order (AL before NL).
**Similarly, on November 4, 2007, the score of the game between the New England Patriots and the Indianapolis Colts (the Patriots won 24-20) was displayed before all others, despite this being a late-afternoon kickoff, thus disrupting the normal order. This was because the game was the latest meeting ever of two undefeated teams in the National Football League.
*From November 28 to December 4, 2007, the BottomLine hosted an unofficial telethon to raise money for the Jimmy V Foundation. Every few minutes, all the incarnations of the ticker on all networks carried this message: "Join ESPN and the Jimmy V Foundation in the fight against cancer." This was followed by a toll-free telephone number and website that accepted donations for the charity, which was founded in 1993 in the name of the late college basketball head coach and ESPN/ABC color analyst Jim Valvano.
*On December 13, 2007, a single breaking news event, the Mitchell Report (on the use of performance-enhancing drugs in Major League Baseball) was a BottomLine category. The "MITCHELL" heading detailed the names of current and former players accused of using the drugs, selected developments found in the report, and George Mitchell's recommendations. It was the first news story to get its own category.
*Also in December 2007, the Patriots, who had not lost a game at that point, received their own section, "PATRIOTS," in anticipation of a possible undefeated regular season. Only once has it happened so far in NFL history: the 1972 Miami Dolphins. The section shows the team's record and updated information.
The general BottomLine is used to update sports scores and news. There are also specific customized versions that are used on some programs, particularly those on ESPN.
History
The Bottom Line began as "BottomLine2" on ESPN2 on March 1, 1996. At first, it updated only game scores and aired between 7 p.m. and 3 a.m. Eastern time Monday through Friday and noon through 3 a.m. on weekends. By 1999, the hours were extended to 24 hours a day and news items were added.
On September 7, 2001 (coincidentally, the 22nd anniversary of ESPN's launch), ESPNEWS began an expanded three-line version with tabs showing the current and upcoming categories, as well as the progress within each category. In 2003, ESPN and ESPN2 added modified versions of what was shown on ESPNEWS.
Usage
*On ESPN, the programs with the general version of the Bottom Line are SportsCenter, 1st and 10, Jim Rome is Burning, and Outside the Lines. Specific versions air on such programs as Baseball Tonight, NBA Fastbreak, College GameDay, College GameNight, and College Football Live, as well as during college football and basketball telecasts. These custom versions show only results from the specific sports as well as expanded information. This is in addition to updates that ESPN displays at 18 and 58 minutes past the hour during all other programming.
*On ESPN2, the general version airs 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with changes from day to day uploaded at about noon Eastern time.
*ESPN Classic, like ESPN2, has the general version. However, the ticker does not appear when ESPN Classic airs a sports-themed movie under the title Reel Classics. These showings occur on Sunday nights and usually repeats on Monday afternoons. Some showings do have a version called "Reel Classics Extra," with a line of information that can be compared to the Bottom Line.
*The ESPNU version, which also airs constantly, includes mainly college sports scores and news.
*ESPN Deportes has a version called "ESPN Al Instante," with score and news updates of the sports most relevant to Hispanic sports fans.
*ESPN on ABC, the broadcast arm of the network, also has a version, with the look of the bottom right-hand corner dependent on the feed. On the standard definition feed, the corner is solid red with no logo; a large network "circle logo" appears right above it. On the ABC HD feed, the ABC HD insignia is placed in that corner. This ticker also promotes upcoming primetime programs on ABC.
*ESPNEWS uses a different format of the BottomLine, instead of having the games in horizontal format (road team on left and the home team on the right), ESPNEWS uses a vertical format (road teams on top and the home teams on bottom). This format allows more information to be shown in less time, but takes up more space than the other versions.
Additional notes
*During the Monday Night Football season, and before certain other major sports events, ESPN will air a countdown clock to the airtime for that event.
*If a game runs over into the scheduled SportsCenter time slot, the SportsCenter BottomLine will be displayed even before the program does, except during National Football League games or NASCAR races.
*Occasionally, the stream will be interrupted by a promotional announcement, an update on programming that has been pre-empted by the continuation of a live sporting event, or by breaking news.
*The ESPNEWS and ESPNU bottom lines do not leave the screen during commercial breaks; however, viewers will not see them when their cable or satellite providers go to local ads. The tickers are also continuous during Mike and Mike in the Morning and ESPN First Take.
*If ESPN has signed a financial deal with a title sponsor of an event or the presenting sponsor of a telecast, that sponsor's name will appear on the ticker in connection to the results. For example, "Pacific Life Holiday Bowl", "Australian Open presented by Franklin Templeton Investments", or "Phillips 66 Big 12
*Other restrictions may also come into play. For example, in March 2007, results of the 2007 NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Tournament was presented as "2007 NCAA Women's Championship presented on ESPN by Orbitz." However, the results of the 2007 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament were presented only as "2007 Men's Championship," without the organization's initials. The men's tournament is shown entirely on CBS, except for the opening round game on ESPN. This changed for the "Sweet 16" round on March 24, with the NCAA letters removed from the ticker without explanation when leading to the women's scores. The Orbitz mention remained. However, the NCAA letters returned, again, for the Final Four weekend. Similarly, the names of NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series and Busch Series races are no longer shown on the ticker, unless the title sponsor pays an additional fee to the network (such as Allstate, which is the title sponsor for the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard), or unless it is a major event like the Daytona 500. This is part of the new contract signed between NASCAR and ESPN which returned live Cup races to ESPN and ABC and gave ESPN2 and ABC rights to televise all Busch Series races. (Craftsman Truck Series races, which are shown on SPEED Channel and Fox, are still named on the BottomLine.)
*For the 2007 Major League Baseball season, ESPN began to alternate among three different formats to present information. The first only shows game scores, the second expands to include highlighted individual performances (as relevant for players of fantasy baseball), and the third expands even more to show the winning and losing pitchers as well. NBA and NHL results are now shown in a similar format, with scores only on one pass followed by individual statistics on the next.
*During the 2006 and 2007 MLB seasons, the order of baseball games shown on the ticker changed, mainly to reflect Barry Bonds' pursuit of baseball's home run record. Prior to the 2006 season, the regular order consisted of American League games appearing before National League games, but from most of the 2006 season through August 7, 2007 (when Bonds hit his 756th career home run, breaking Henry Aaron's record), NL games appeared before AL games, and games involving the San Francisco Giants, the team whom Bonds played for, appeared before all others. On August 8, 2007, the reverse order of games (NL before AL) reverted back to the regular order (AL before NL).
**Similarly, on November 4, 2007, the score of the game between the New England Patriots and the Indianapolis Colts (the Patriots won 24-20) was displayed before all others, despite this being a late-afternoon kickoff, thus disrupting the normal order. This was because the game was the latest meeting ever of two undefeated teams in the National Football League.
*From November 28 to December 4, 2007, the BottomLine hosted an unofficial telethon to raise money for the Jimmy V Foundation. Every few minutes, all the incarnations of the ticker on all networks carried this message: "Join ESPN and the Jimmy V Foundation in the fight against cancer." This was followed by a toll-free telephone number and website that accepted donations for the charity, which was founded in 1993 in the name of the late college basketball head coach and ESPN/ABC color analyst Jim Valvano.
*On December 13, 2007, a single breaking news event, the Mitchell Report (on the use of performance-enhancing drugs in Major League Baseball) was a BottomLine category. The "MITCHELL" heading detailed the names of current and former players accused of using the drugs, selected developments found in the report, and George Mitchell's recommendations. It was the first news story to get its own category.
*Also in December 2007, the Patriots, who had not lost a game at that point, received their own section, "PATRIOTS," in anticipation of a possible undefeated regular season. Only once has it happened so far in NFL history: the 1972 Miami Dolphins. The section shows the team's record and updated information.
Gorilla Pictures is Independant film Company that produces a number of films. Most of their films come out in film festivals they have started Computer animated films starting with The Legend of Sasquatch.
Films
*Juarez: Stages of fear
*Blizhniy boy: The Ultimate Fight
*Lost Warrior
*The Last Sentinal
*Red Sun Rising
*Sworn to Justice
*Soft Target a.k.a. Crooked
*X-Treme Fighter a.k.a. Sci-Fighter
*The Legend of Sasquatch
Films
*Juarez: Stages of fear
*Blizhniy boy: The Ultimate Fight
*Lost Warrior
*The Last Sentinal
*Red Sun Rising
*Sworn to Justice
*Soft Target a.k.a. Crooked
*X-Treme Fighter a.k.a. Sci-Fighter
*The Legend of Sasquatch
:This article is about the effect of the internet on language, put together by four classmates at James Madison University for a project in their 'technology and writing' class. The ideas expressed here are culminated from a list of many readings which can be found below.
As long as humans have existed and communicated with each other, they have strived to enhance the methods of doing so. The inventions of the printing press, the telegraph, and the telephone each demonstrate a landmark improvement in long-distance, instantaneous communication. On January 1, 1983, however, the National Science Foundation created the first TCP/IP connection, joining together universities across the United States. Many consider this date to be birth of the Internet, forever changing the way people communicate across the globe. Throughout its more than twenty years of existence, the internet has seen and orchestrated many differences in the way people communicate, including the language they use, the style with which they write, the way they learn new languages, and the format in which they write. In particular, the new media of e-mail, instant messenger programs, and blogging, have greatly affected the way messages are presented and read, introducing new, looser confines of formality, a generally-accepted flexibility in spelling and grammar, and the notion of writing and reading in a nonlinear context. Also, with programs such as Rosetta Stone, Word 2 Word, and Babelfish, a myriad of websites on foreign language help, and instant “translate” buttons with which many internet browsers are equipped, the difficulty of communicating with someone who speaks a foreign language is overcome in many different ways. Naturally, each of these notions brings with it both pros and cons, and many of these will be touched on below.
Specific media
The internet has introduced many ways to communicate online, which have greatly affected the languages and styles we use to communicate. Among these media are e-mail, instant messaging, and blogging.
E-mail
E-mail allows the transmission of messages so efficiently that the nickname of "snail mail" was given to the traditional postal system, now mainly used for parcels. For the purpose of communicating with friends and family informal notes and letters have been all but replaced by e-mail. The efficient transfer of e-mails has also created the expectation of equally efficient replies. To further increase efficiency, e-mail messages tend to be terse and informal compared to postal letters.
Instant messaging
Originally launched for Macintosh computers in 1989 and expanded to DOS and personal computers by 1993, America Online offered customers online games for an hourly fee, as well as chat rooms of different sizes and subjects where members could enter and type to other members, holding a conversation by means of reading and writing instead of hearing and speaking. Both the video game format and the chat rooms would remain, but they soon gave way in popularity to AOL’s Instant Messaging (AIM) field. Here, members could add other members as friends and put them on a buddy list, and then talk with them one-on-one in real time. Since then, the company and program has dropped its full name and simply goes by the acronym, AOL, but its popularity has also peaked. Instead, a separate program of its AIM software has become popular.
Being able to type to friends at real time has vastly changed the language of every country in which AIM exists. In order to quickly produce a message to be read, typing had to improve, shortcuts had to be found, and rules had to be lifted. It is the abbreviations, internet slang, and loosened grammar rules that have affected languages so greatly. Perhaps the most popular and widely-known internet slang is that which is used to indicate laughter, lol, or “laughing out loud.” This is, however, just one of hundreds of abbreviations in common usage online today. If one is unaware of their meaning, many online conversations would appear to be in a foreign language. The loosened rules of spelling and grammar have also greatly influenced language. Being more focused on the content and subject and having to respond as quickly as possible to friends online has allowed for very common misspellings of words to become acceptable if the message still pulls through. Also, an entire new alphabet, known as leet, or 1337, has been created. Short for “elite,” this alphabet rewrites words using numbers and symbols that resemble the shapes of the letters in the English alphabet. Although this alphabet is more prevalent in online video games, it is making its way into AIM and other online instant message devices as well.
Blogging
In the mid 1990s, various people started writing their journals and diaries online, publishing them not only for personal use, but placing them in the public domain. This small and simple notion, known as blogging (blog being short for “web log”), has grown to become one of the Internet’s most popular and powerful forms of communication. Blogging is now a main attraction of the internet, and is used for journals, political polls, news reports, photo albums, travelogues, and a general respository of information and opinions. Keeping a blog affects language similarly to how keeping a journal affects language: it invokes practice. As opposed to instant messaging, blogging has no time restraints, therefore the common slang found in instant messaging is not as prevalent in blogs. Instead, people practice their writing and reading skills using a language that is more grammatically correct. Another important aspect to consider, however, is the legal ramifications of putting explicit descriptions of one’s life into the public domain. As the popularity of blogging has increased, so have cases of libel. For instance, employees have been fired for discussing their employers in blogs.
Netiquette and second languages
One of the major issues surrounding current internet technology is the lack of paralinguistic tools available to online users. This becomes particularly apparent when studying the online communication of users that are using English despite the fact that it is not their native language. In one of the first studies done of non-native speakers communicating in their second language, Hartford and Bardvi-Harglig compared the email communications of native and non native speakers in various graduate programs. They discovered that in non-native speaker’s emails there was an overall lack of socio-culturally accepted guidelines. This is most likely due to the fact that online communication requires more than simply language proficiency. It requires users to have an intimate sense of not only how language is used but also to have a sense of the culturally accepted standards of that language that many native speakers are still not aware of.
The fact that not all native speakers have been apprised of the etiquette required on the web can bee seen in the numerous web pages and texts devoted to the subject. So called Netiquette is the umbrella term used to describe the rules and policies to follow while online. For example, typing in all capital letters represents shouting, and most users believe it should be avoided for long passages. While some rules appear to be obvious there are others that are far more intricate, such as the fact that while netiquette does not discourage flaming (heated online messages) it does discourage flame wars (repeated, back and forth flaming). In addition, although the web appears to be developing its own set of rules, many traditional rules of etiquette are also being upheld concurrently.
It is obvious that these newly-presented rules would present challenges to a non-native speaker. Whereas most native speakers are at least moderately aware of social norms and etiquette, it is much more difficult for non-native speakers to pick up on these idiosyncratic rules. This can be seen in many of the studies done on non-native speakers’ e-mail communication. Generally speaking, non-native speakers were far more likely to use want statements over query preparatory (terms in a study by Blum-Kulka, House, & Kasper, 1989). It’s that simple, and it makes learning other languages almost unnecessary in a limited capacity. The point must then be considered: is this a great tool for those who are looking for a quick translation for understanding purposes, or a way for students to skirt the requirement to actually comprehend foreign language and their corresponding words and phrases in their native tongue? This is a very accessible, easy-to-use free tool that many sites offer, which means it takes nothing for a person to search the web instead of actually studying another language and beginning to understand it. In this way, technology has changed the speed and accessibility of translations and made it nearly unnecessary for an individual to study and understand the nuances of other languages.
Obviously, online tools geared towards making it simpler to learn"Word 2 Word"/> and translate"Babel Fish"/> other languages offers benefits and problems to the study of language. Their speed and accessibility make it simple for someone who is finding him- or herself in a time constraint of sorts and needs to rapidly understand a foreign tongue. However, it seems to take the comprehension and research portions of other cultures’ languages out of the equation. While the reality of these tools is that they are not going to go away, it is important to note that the use of them can sometimes stunt the growth of someone trying to truly understand another written or spoken word.
As long as humans have existed and communicated with each other, they have strived to enhance the methods of doing so. The inventions of the printing press, the telegraph, and the telephone each demonstrate a landmark improvement in long-distance, instantaneous communication. On January 1, 1983, however, the National Science Foundation created the first TCP/IP connection, joining together universities across the United States. Many consider this date to be birth of the Internet, forever changing the way people communicate across the globe. Throughout its more than twenty years of existence, the internet has seen and orchestrated many differences in the way people communicate, including the language they use, the style with which they write, the way they learn new languages, and the format in which they write. In particular, the new media of e-mail, instant messenger programs, and blogging, have greatly affected the way messages are presented and read, introducing new, looser confines of formality, a generally-accepted flexibility in spelling and grammar, and the notion of writing and reading in a nonlinear context. Also, with programs such as Rosetta Stone, Word 2 Word, and Babelfish, a myriad of websites on foreign language help, and instant “translate” buttons with which many internet browsers are equipped, the difficulty of communicating with someone who speaks a foreign language is overcome in many different ways. Naturally, each of these notions brings with it both pros and cons, and many of these will be touched on below.
Specific media
The internet has introduced many ways to communicate online, which have greatly affected the languages and styles we use to communicate. Among these media are e-mail, instant messaging, and blogging.
E-mail allows the transmission of messages so efficiently that the nickname of "snail mail" was given to the traditional postal system, now mainly used for parcels. For the purpose of communicating with friends and family informal notes and letters have been all but replaced by e-mail. The efficient transfer of e-mails has also created the expectation of equally efficient replies. To further increase efficiency, e-mail messages tend to be terse and informal compared to postal letters.
Instant messaging
Originally launched for Macintosh computers in 1989 and expanded to DOS and personal computers by 1993, America Online offered customers online games for an hourly fee, as well as chat rooms of different sizes and subjects where members could enter and type to other members, holding a conversation by means of reading and writing instead of hearing and speaking. Both the video game format and the chat rooms would remain, but they soon gave way in popularity to AOL’s Instant Messaging (AIM) field. Here, members could add other members as friends and put them on a buddy list, and then talk with them one-on-one in real time. Since then, the company and program has dropped its full name and simply goes by the acronym, AOL, but its popularity has also peaked. Instead, a separate program of its AIM software has become popular.
Being able to type to friends at real time has vastly changed the language of every country in which AIM exists. In order to quickly produce a message to be read, typing had to improve, shortcuts had to be found, and rules had to be lifted. It is the abbreviations, internet slang, and loosened grammar rules that have affected languages so greatly. Perhaps the most popular and widely-known internet slang is that which is used to indicate laughter, lol, or “laughing out loud.” This is, however, just one of hundreds of abbreviations in common usage online today. If one is unaware of their meaning, many online conversations would appear to be in a foreign language. The loosened rules of spelling and grammar have also greatly influenced language. Being more focused on the content and subject and having to respond as quickly as possible to friends online has allowed for very common misspellings of words to become acceptable if the message still pulls through. Also, an entire new alphabet, known as leet, or 1337, has been created. Short for “elite,” this alphabet rewrites words using numbers and symbols that resemble the shapes of the letters in the English alphabet. Although this alphabet is more prevalent in online video games, it is making its way into AIM and other online instant message devices as well.
Blogging
In the mid 1990s, various people started writing their journals and diaries online, publishing them not only for personal use, but placing them in the public domain. This small and simple notion, known as blogging (blog being short for “web log”), has grown to become one of the Internet’s most popular and powerful forms of communication. Blogging is now a main attraction of the internet, and is used for journals, political polls, news reports, photo albums, travelogues, and a general respository of information and opinions. Keeping a blog affects language similarly to how keeping a journal affects language: it invokes practice. As opposed to instant messaging, blogging has no time restraints, therefore the common slang found in instant messaging is not as prevalent in blogs. Instead, people practice their writing and reading skills using a language that is more grammatically correct. Another important aspect to consider, however, is the legal ramifications of putting explicit descriptions of one’s life into the public domain. As the popularity of blogging has increased, so have cases of libel. For instance, employees have been fired for discussing their employers in blogs.
Netiquette and second languages
One of the major issues surrounding current internet technology is the lack of paralinguistic tools available to online users. This becomes particularly apparent when studying the online communication of users that are using English despite the fact that it is not their native language. In one of the first studies done of non-native speakers communicating in their second language, Hartford and Bardvi-Harglig compared the email communications of native and non native speakers in various graduate programs. They discovered that in non-native speaker’s emails there was an overall lack of socio-culturally accepted guidelines. This is most likely due to the fact that online communication requires more than simply language proficiency. It requires users to have an intimate sense of not only how language is used but also to have a sense of the culturally accepted standards of that language that many native speakers are still not aware of.
The fact that not all native speakers have been apprised of the etiquette required on the web can bee seen in the numerous web pages and texts devoted to the subject. So called Netiquette is the umbrella term used to describe the rules and policies to follow while online. For example, typing in all capital letters represents shouting, and most users believe it should be avoided for long passages. While some rules appear to be obvious there are others that are far more intricate, such as the fact that while netiquette does not discourage flaming (heated online messages) it does discourage flame wars (repeated, back and forth flaming). In addition, although the web appears to be developing its own set of rules, many traditional rules of etiquette are also being upheld concurrently.
It is obvious that these newly-presented rules would present challenges to a non-native speaker. Whereas most native speakers are at least moderately aware of social norms and etiquette, it is much more difficult for non-native speakers to pick up on these idiosyncratic rules. This can be seen in many of the studies done on non-native speakers’ e-mail communication. Generally speaking, non-native speakers were far more likely to use want statements over query preparatory (terms in a study by Blum-Kulka, House, & Kasper, 1989). It’s that simple, and it makes learning other languages almost unnecessary in a limited capacity. The point must then be considered: is this a great tool for those who are looking for a quick translation for understanding purposes, or a way for students to skirt the requirement to actually comprehend foreign language and their corresponding words and phrases in their native tongue? This is a very accessible, easy-to-use free tool that many sites offer, which means it takes nothing for a person to search the web instead of actually studying another language and beginning to understand it. In this way, technology has changed the speed and accessibility of translations and made it nearly unnecessary for an individual to study and understand the nuances of other languages.
Obviously, online tools geared towards making it simpler to learn"Word 2 Word"/> and translate"Babel Fish"/> other languages offers benefits and problems to the study of language. Their speed and accessibility make it simple for someone who is finding him- or herself in a time constraint of sorts and needs to rapidly understand a foreign tongue. However, it seems to take the comprehension and research portions of other cultures’ languages out of the equation. While the reality of these tools is that they are not going to go away, it is important to note that the use of them can sometimes stunt the growth of someone trying to truly understand another written or spoken word.