John McWhorter: Txtng is killing language. JK!!!

574,649 views ・ 2013-04-22

TED


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

00:00
Translator: Joseph Geni Reviewer: Morton Bast
0
0
7000
00:12
We always hear that texting is a scourge.
1
12743
2862
00:15
The idea is that texting spells the decline and fall
2
15605
4840
00:20
of any kind of serious literacy, or at least writing ability,
3
20445
3500
00:23
among young people in the United States
4
23945
2643
00:26
and now the whole world today.
5
26588
2301
00:28
The fact of the matter is that it just isn't true,
6
28889
3504
00:32
and it's easy to think that it is true,
7
32393
2503
00:34
but in order to see it in another way,
8
34896
1899
00:36
in order to see that actually texting is a miraculous thing,
9
36795
3669
00:40
not just energetic, but a miraculous thing,
10
40464
2565
00:43
a kind of emergent complexity
11
43029
1747
00:44
that we're seeing happening right now,
12
44776
2461
00:47
we have to pull the camera back for a bit
13
47237
2306
00:49
and look at what language really is,
14
49543
3418
00:52
in which case, one thing that we see
15
52961
2073
00:55
is that texting is not writing at all.
16
55034
4624
00:59
What do I mean by that?
17
59658
1822
01:01
Basically, if we think about language,
18
61480
2556
01:04
language has existed for perhaps 150,000 years,
19
64036
3801
01:07
at least 80,000 years,
20
67837
2137
01:09
and what it arose as is speech. People talked.
21
69974
4151
01:14
That's what we're probably genetically specified for.
22
74125
3024
01:17
That's how we use language most.
23
77149
2191
01:19
Writing is something that came along much later,
24
79340
3482
01:22
and as we saw in the last talk,
25
82822
2056
01:24
there's a little bit of controversy as to exactly when that happened,
26
84878
2668
01:27
but according to traditional estimates,
27
87546
2316
01:29
if humanity had existed for 24 hours,
28
89862
3522
01:33
then writing only came along at about 11:07 p.m.
29
93384
5191
01:38
That's how much of a latterly thing writing is.
30
98575
3645
01:42
So first there's speech, and then writing comes along
31
102220
3388
01:45
as a kind of artifice.
32
105608
1762
01:47
Now don't get me wrong, writing has certain advantages.
33
107370
4006
01:51
When you write, because it's a conscious process,
34
111376
2583
01:53
because you can look backwards,
35
113959
2138
01:56
you can do things with language that are much less likely
36
116097
2830
01:58
if you're just talking.
37
118927
2464
02:01
For example, imagine a passage from Edward Gibbon's
38
121391
3901
02:05
"The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire:"
39
125292
3806
02:09
"The whole engagement lasted above twelve hours,
40
129098
3251
02:12
till the graduate retreat of the Persians was changed
41
132349
2302
02:14
into a disorderly flight, of which the shameful example
42
134651
2773
02:17
was given by the principal leaders and the Surenas himself."
43
137424
2587
02:20
That's beautiful, but let's face it, nobody talks that way.
44
140011
4319
02:24
Or at least, they shouldn't if they're interested
45
144330
4236
02:28
in reproducing. That --
46
148566
2514
02:31
(Laughter)
47
151080
2719
02:33
is not the way any human being speaks casually.
48
153799
2978
02:36
Casual speech is something quite different.
49
156777
2585
02:39
Linguists have actually shown
50
159362
1856
02:41
that when we're speaking casually in an unmonitored way,
51
161218
2711
02:43
we tend to speak in word packets of maybe
52
163929
2678
02:46
seven to 10 words.
53
166607
1810
02:48
You'll notice this if you ever have occasion to record
54
168417
2679
02:51
yourself or a group of people talking.
55
171096
2993
02:54
That's what speech is like.
56
174089
1455
02:55
Speech is much looser. It's much more telegraphic.
57
175544
4305
02:59
It's much less reflective -- very different from writing.
58
179849
3690
03:03
So we naturally tend to think, because we see language
59
183539
2936
03:06
written so often, that that's what language is,
60
186475
2442
03:08
but actually what language is, is speech. They are two things.
61
188917
3968
03:12
Now of course, as history has gone by,
62
192885
3254
03:16
it's been natural for there to be a certain amount of bleed
63
196139
2791
03:18
between speech and writing.
64
198930
3014
03:21
So, for example, in a distant era now,
65
201944
4823
03:26
it was common when one gave a speech
66
206767
2502
03:29
to basically talk like writing.
67
209269
3117
03:32
So I mean the kind of speech that you see someone giving
68
212386
2350
03:34
in an old movie where they clear their throat, and they go,
69
214736
2533
03:37
"Ahem, ladies and gentlemen," and then they speak
70
217269
2533
03:39
in a certain way which has nothing to do with casual speech.
71
219802
3271
03:43
It's formal. It uses long sentences like this Gibbon one.
72
223073
3859
03:46
It's basically talking like you write, and so, for example,
73
226932
3962
03:50
we're thinking so much these days about Lincoln
74
230894
1995
03:52
because of the movie.
75
232889
2211
03:55
The Gettysburg Address was not the main meal of that event.
76
235100
3083
03:58
For two hours before that, Edward Everett spoke
77
238183
3915
04:02
on a topic that, frankly, cannot engage us today
78
242098
3240
04:05
and barely did then.
79
245338
1497
04:06
The point of it was to listen to him
80
246835
2381
04:09
speaking like writing.
81
249216
1556
04:10
Ordinary people stood and listened to that for two hours.
82
250772
2348
04:13
It was perfectly natural.
83
253120
1433
04:14
That's what people did then, speaking like writing.
84
254553
2491
04:17
Well, if you can speak like writing,
85
257044
2466
04:19
then logically it follows that you might want to also
86
259510
3798
04:23
sometimes write like you speak.
87
263308
2866
04:26
The problem was just that in the material,
88
266174
2050
04:28
mechanical sense, that was harder back in the day
89
268224
3455
04:31
for the simple reason that materials don't lend themselves to it.
90
271679
3307
04:34
It's almost impossible to do that with your hand
91
274986
2020
04:37
except in shorthand, and then communication is limited.
92
277006
3435
04:40
On a manual typewriter it was very difficult,
93
280441
2516
04:42
and even when we had electric typewriters,
94
282957
2287
04:45
or then computer keyboards, the fact is
95
285244
2159
04:47
that even if you can type easily enough to keep up
96
287403
2299
04:49
with the pace of speech, more or less, you have to have
97
289702
2793
04:52
somebody who can receive your message quickly.
98
292495
2345
04:54
Once you have things in your pocket that can receive that message,
99
294840
3211
04:58
then you have the conditions that allow
100
298051
2604
05:00
that we can write like we speak.
101
300655
3511
05:04
And that's where texting comes in.
102
304166
3218
05:07
And so, texting is very loose in its structure.
103
307384
3769
05:11
No one thinks about capital letters or punctuation when one texts,
104
311153
4297
05:15
but then again, do you think about those things when you talk?
105
315450
2358
05:17
No, and so therefore why would you when you were texting?
106
317808
3673
05:21
What texting is, despite the fact that it involves
107
321481
3129
05:24
the brute mechanics of something that we call writing,
108
324610
2826
05:27
is fingered speech. That's what texting is.
109
327436
3298
05:30
Now we can write the way we talk.
110
330734
3465
05:34
And it's a very interesting thing, but nevertheless
111
334199
2779
05:36
easy to think that still it represents some sort of decline.
112
336978
4856
05:41
We see this general bagginess of the structure,
113
341834
3284
05:45
the lack of concern with rules and the way that we're used to
114
345118
3349
05:48
learning on the blackboard, and so we think
115
348467
2272
05:50
that something has gone wrong.
116
350739
3239
05:53
It's a very natural sense.
117
353978
2963
05:56
But the fact of the matter is that what is going on
118
356941
4034
06:00
is a kind of emergent complexity.
119
360975
3571
06:04
That's what we're seeing in this fingered speech.
120
364546
2756
06:07
And in order to understand it, what we want to see
121
367302
2986
06:10
is the way, in this new kind of language,
122
370288
4745
06:15
there is new structure coming up.
123
375033
3576
06:18
And so, for example, there is in texting a convention,
124
378609
5723
06:24
which is LOL.
125
384332
2922
06:27
Now LOL, we generally think of
126
387254
2744
06:29
as meaning "laughing out loud."
127
389998
2464
06:32
And of course, theoretically, it does,
128
392462
2293
06:34
and if you look at older texts, then people used it
129
394755
2429
06:37
to actually indicate laughing out loud.
130
397184
2520
06:39
But if you text now, or if you are someone who
131
399704
4243
06:43
is aware of the substrate of texting the way it's become,
132
403947
3297
06:47
you'll notice that LOL
133
407244
1690
06:48
does not mean laughing out loud anymore.
134
408934
2070
06:51
It's evolved into something that is much subtler.
135
411004
3790
06:54
This is an actual text that was done
136
414794
3447
06:58
by a non-male person of about 20 years old
137
418241
3932
07:02
not too long ago.
138
422173
1495
07:03
"I love the font you're using, btw."
139
423668
2952
07:06
Julie: "lol thanks gmail is being slow right now"
140
426620
3762
07:10
Now if you think about it, that's not funny.
141
430382
1742
07:12
No one's laughing. (Laughter)
142
432124
2900
07:15
And yet, there it is, so you assume
143
435024
1970
07:16
there's been some kind of hiccup.
144
436994
1357
07:18
Then Susan says "lol, I know,"
145
438351
1834
07:20
again more guffawing than we're used to
146
440185
2297
07:22
when you're talking about these inconveniences.
147
442482
3230
07:25
So Julie says, "I just sent you an email."
148
445712
2744
07:28
Susan: "lol, I see it."
149
448456
1551
07:30
Very funny people, if that's what LOL means.
150
450007
3618
07:33
This Julie says, "So what's up?"
151
453625
2128
07:35
Susan: "lol, I have to write a 10 page paper."
152
455753
2642
07:38
She's not amused. Let's think about it.
153
458395
2314
07:40
LOL is being used in a very particular way.
154
460709
2681
07:43
It's a marker of empathy. It's a marker of accommodation.
155
463390
3691
07:47
We linguists call things like that pragmatic particles.
156
467081
3249
07:50
Any spoken language that's used by real people has them.
157
470330
3839
07:54
If you happen to speak Japanese, think about
158
474169
1776
07:55
that little word "ne" that you use at the end of a lot of sentences.
159
475945
3358
07:59
If you listen to the way black youth today speak,
160
479303
2345
08:01
think about the use of the word "yo."
161
481648
1786
08:03
Whole dissertations could be written about it,
162
483434
1946
08:05
and probably are being written about it.
163
485380
2274
08:07
A pragmatic particle, that's what LOL has gradually become.
164
487654
3794
08:11
It's a way of using the language between actual people.
165
491448
4049
08:15
Another example is "slash."
166
495497
3239
08:18
Now, we can use slash in the way that we're used to,
167
498736
2768
08:21
along the lines of, "We're going to have
168
501504
1640
08:23
a party-slash-networking session."
169
503144
3482
08:26
That's kind of like what we're at.
170
506626
2094
08:28
Slash is used in a very different way
171
508720
3539
08:32
in texting among young people today.
172
512259
2958
08:35
It's used to change the scene.
173
515217
1853
08:37
So for example, this Sally person says,
174
517070
2949
08:40
"So I need to find people to chill with"
175
520019
1805
08:41
and Jake says, "Haha" --
176
521824
1519
08:43
you could write a dissertation about "Haha" too, but we don't have time for that —
177
523343
2888
08:46
"Haha so you're going by yourself? Why?"
178
526231
2489
08:48
Sally: "For this summer program at NYU."
179
528720
2610
08:51
Jake: "Haha. Slash I'm watching this video with suns players
180
531330
2894
08:54
trying to shoot with one eye."
181
534224
1797
08:56
The slash is interesting.
182
536021
1275
08:57
I don't really even know what Jake is talking about after that,
183
537296
3156
09:00
but you notice that he's changing the topic.
184
540452
4741
09:05
Now that seems kind of mundane,
185
545193
1818
09:07
but think about how in real life,
186
547011
1442
09:08
if we're having a conversation and we want to change the topic,
187
548453
2658
09:11
there are ways of doing it gracefully.
188
551111
1612
09:12
You don't just zip right into it.
189
552723
1719
09:14
You'll pat your thighs and look wistfully off into the distance,
190
554442
4195
09:18
or you'll say something like, "Hmm, makes you think --"
191
558637
4110
09:22
when it really didn't, but what you're really --
192
562747
2360
09:25
(Laughter) —
193
565107
2235
09:27
what you're really trying to do is change the topic.
194
567342
2708
09:30
You can't do that while you're texting,
195
570050
1927
09:31
and so ways are developing of doing it within this medium.
196
571977
3731
09:35
All spoken languages have what a linguist calls
197
575708
2252
09:37
a new information marker -- or two, or three.
198
577960
3393
09:41
Texting has developed one from this slash.
199
581353
4294
09:45
So we have a whole battery of new constructions
200
585647
2985
09:48
that are developing, and yet it's easy to think,
201
588632
2587
09:51
well, something is still wrong.
202
591219
2447
09:53
There's a lack of structure of some sort.
203
593666
3775
09:57
It's not as sophisticated
204
597441
1906
09:59
as the language of The Wall Street Journal.
205
599347
2206
10:01
Well, the fact of the matter is,
206
601553
1774
10:03
look at this person in 1956,
207
603327
2451
10:05
and this is when texting doesn't exist,
208
605778
2282
10:08
"I Love Lucy" is still on the air.
209
608060
1835
10:09
"Many do not know the alphabet or multiplication table,
210
609895
3763
10:13
cannot write grammatically -- "
211
613658
1337
10:14
We've heard that sort of thing before,
212
614995
2209
10:17
not just in 1956. 1917, Connecticut schoolteacher.
213
617204
3991
10:21
1917. This is the time when we all assume
214
621195
2701
10:23
that everything somehow in terms of writing was perfect
215
623896
3251
10:27
because the people on "Downton Abbey" are articulate,
216
627147
2418
10:29
or something like that.
217
629565
1211
10:30
So, "From every college in the country goes up the cry,
218
630776
2944
10:33
'Our freshmen can't spell, can't punctuate.'"
219
633720
2633
10:36
And so on. You can go even further back than this.
220
636353
2408
10:38
It's the President of Harvard. It's 1871.
221
638761
3184
10:41
There's no electricity. People have three names.
222
641945
2542
10:44
"Bad spelling,
223
644487
2425
10:46
incorrectness as well as inelegance of expression in writing."
224
646912
3268
10:50
And he's talking about people who are otherwise
225
650180
2149
10:52
well prepared for college studies.
226
652329
1891
10:54
You can go even further back.
227
654220
1846
10:56
1841, some long-lost superintendent of schools is upset
228
656066
3853
10:59
because of what he has for a long time "noted with regret
229
659919
3177
11:03
the almost entire neglect of the original" blah blah blah blah blah.
230
663096
3509
11:06
Or you can go all the way back to 63 A.D. -- (Laughter) --
231
666605
5288
11:11
and there's this poor man who doesn't like the way
232
671893
2381
11:14
people are speaking Latin.
233
674274
1221
11:15
As it happens, he was writing about what had become French.
234
675495
3156
11:18
And so, there are always — (Laughter) (Applause) —
235
678651
6402
11:25
there are always people worrying about these things
236
685053
2171
11:27
and the planet somehow seems to keep spinning.
237
687224
3273
11:30
And so, the way I'm thinking of texting these days is
238
690497
4647
11:35
that what we're seeing is a whole new way of writing
239
695144
3580
11:38
that young people are developing,
240
698724
1626
11:40
which they're using alongside their ordinary writing skills,
241
700350
3760
11:44
and that means that they're able to do two things.
242
704110
3167
11:47
Increasing evidence is that being bilingual
243
707277
2897
11:50
is cognitively beneficial.
244
710174
2233
11:52
That's also true of being bidialectal.
245
712407
2155
11:54
That's certainly true of being bidialectal in terms of your writing.
246
714562
3090
11:57
And so texting actually is evidence of a balancing act
247
717652
4918
12:02
that young people are using today, not consciously, of course,
248
722570
3302
12:05
but it's an expansion of their linguistic repertoire.
249
725872
3687
12:09
It's very simple.
250
729559
1229
12:10
If somebody from 1973 looked at
251
730788
3710
12:14
what was on a dormitory message board in 1993,
252
734498
4106
12:18
the slang would have changed a little bit
253
738604
1833
12:20
since the era of "Love Story,"
254
740437
1818
12:22
but they would understand what was on that message board.
255
742255
3313
12:25
Take that person from 1993 -- not that long ago,
256
745568
2724
12:28
this is "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" -- those people.
257
748292
3258
12:31
Take those people and they read
258
751550
2369
12:33
a very typical text written by a 20-year-old today.
259
753919
2900
12:36
Often they would have no idea what half of it meant
260
756819
2891
12:39
because a whole new language has developed
261
759710
3928
12:43
among our young people doing something as mundane
262
763638
2294
12:45
as what it looks like to us when they're batting around
263
765932
2271
12:48
on their little devices.
264
768203
1675
12:49
So in closing, if I could go into the future,
265
769878
3661
12:53
if I could go into 2033,
266
773539
4375
12:57
the first thing I would ask is whether David Simon
267
777914
2913
13:00
had done a sequel to "The Wire." I would want to know.
268
780827
3893
13:04
And — I really would ask that —
269
784720
2983
13:07
and then I'd want to know actually what was going on on "Downton Abbey."
270
787703
3090
13:10
That'd be the second thing.
271
790793
1509
13:12
And then the third thing would be,
272
792302
2536
13:14
please show me a sheaf of texts
273
794838
3191
13:18
written by 16-year-old girls,
274
798029
1957
13:19
because I would want to know where this language
275
799986
2454
13:22
had developed since our times,
276
802440
1955
13:24
and ideally I would then send them back to you and me now
277
804395
3633
13:28
so we could examine this linguistic miracle
278
808028
2520
13:30
happening right under our noses.
279
810548
2350
13:32
Thank you very much.
280
812898
1516
13:34
(Applause)
281
814414
5168
13:39
Thank you. (Applause)
282
819582
3607
About this website

This site will introduce you to YouTube videos that are useful for learning English. You will see English lessons taught by top-notch teachers from around the world. Double-click on the English subtitles displayed on each video page to play the video from there. The subtitles scroll in sync with the video playback. If you have any comments or requests, please contact us using this contact form.

https://forms.gle/WvT1wiN1qDtmnspy7