Views of David Crystal

 

Hello friends,

Technology provides different opportunities to make learning more fun and enjoyable in terms of teaching same things in new ways. For instance, delivering teaching through gamification, taking students on virtual field trips and using other online learning resources. Technology has the ability to enhance relationships between teachers and students. 

Technology helps make teaching and learning more meaningful and fun. Students are also able to collaborate with their own classmates through technological applications. Technology leads to a good life as it is responsible for advancement in all sectors of the economy. It is because it provides us a means to achieve something faster and in an easier manner. Modern technology has led to the evolution of several devices such as the smartphone, computers, etc.

David Crystal 

linguist, writer, lecturer and Honorary Professor of Linguistics at the University of Wales, Bangor – dials in on whether “text speak” and the language of online communication is really undermining the English language.

Video 6: David Crystal: The Effect of New Technologies on Engish: 

Here, David Crystal points that how technology and changing paradigm of technology has helped in language learning, especially in English Language Learning. It gives several good examples from  Twitter  that ‘What we are doing’ instead with ‘What is happening’! 

In this video clip is it David, talking about how new technologies have an effect on English today. There are new varieties of English, such as newspapers, then the development of the telephone people thought that the telephone was going to the a disaster as they didn't think people were going to communicate face to face anymore. Broadcasting has introduced a new variety of language such as commentaries in sport, and news reading, weather, and chat shows. 

The Internet is also having a big influence on the language people use today. 

Social networking plays a huge part in today's language an example is Twitter, it first started in 2006 David talks about how the social networking site, showed a prompt for users to use saying 'what are you doing' its is very introvert, people using the site started using many first person pronouns, present tenses. Then in 2009 twitter then changed his prompt to 'what' happening?' there is a sudden change in pronouns, there is a third person pronoun being used. He suggests that it would take a long time before the different types of technologies would influence people's language. 

David believes that English language is still the same as it used to be, there are only new abbreviations that have come into peoples language such as 'lol' but this hasn't had a huge impact on peoples language. 

The average number of people that use abbreviations is only 10% not having a huge impact on peoples lexical choice,  and the other 90% of the language we use is standard English.

Video 7: David Crystal: The Biggest Challange for English Language Teachers in the times of Internet

What the learners are prepared to understand and use is a formal, rather academic language, and not an ordinary conversation, which is the language that changes permanently and very fast. This is the greatest challenge faced by teachers as they must ’keep pace with it and expose the learners to it’. 

According to Crystal,

“ the fast language change is the result of two reasons: 

the first reason is represented by the internet, which is fostering new varieties of language and experiences, thus exposing the learners to language varieties which are more frequently used or which the learners prefer.

These varieties are not controlled by any grammatical correctness filter and thus generate new word forms or uses which may not necessarily conform to accepted grammar rules.

In the video to The Biggest Challenge for English Language Teachers in the times of Internet, David Crystal explains how the shifting emphasis from technology to “people and purposes”,  contributes to making the Internet a linguistic revolution. The aim of Language and the Internet is “to find out about the role of language in the Internet and the effect of the Internet on language” It also reminds of his book ‘Language and Internet’ provides a general introduction and distinguishes save" different linguistic situations found on the Internet. Further look at linguistic features common to all seven situations, while chapters Four to Nine focus more precisely on the specific defining characteristics of each.

Video 8: David Crystal: Texting is 'Good' for English Language

Here, David explains the usefulness of Texting for English Language in very humorous way.  

Once upon a time, before the Great Abbrevatron came among us, everything that we knew about language was much clearer. There was spoken language, there was written language, and everyone knew which was which. Then along came the Internet, and everything that we thought we knew about the way the English language worked in speech or in writing had to be reinterpreted. All of the old certainties about usage, frequency, context and style had to be rethought with the emergence of electronic communication.

One big question that the Internet brought with it was, “is this an acceptable evolution of language or a bastardisation of it?”

Many people had a odd reaction and assumed the latter. Were they right? To really answer the question, we first need to consider how the language of online communication has evolved.

David Crystal says,

“Fact or Fiction is a hugely informative dossier of down-to-earth advice for English teachers everywhere, puncturing some of the most widely held myths about language and technology while offering realistic and practical guidance on the way forward in the classroom. It affirms the central role of the teacher, and offers reassurance, inspiration, and confidence to anyone unsure about how to cope with the rapid pace of technological change.”

Crystal believes that language acquisition is not just about producing sounds, but also about being able to perceive sounds and understand the meaning of utterances that people make. Overall Crystal's theory was that children learn in amorphous stages by trial and error to successfully learn the language.

Thank you.