Words are vessels that carry shared symbolic meaning in a culture. Language is culture. Culture is language. It is no secret that languages evolve. And, at the same time, culture evolves. What is our responsibility as “grownups” to accept, train, or squash the proliferation of IM Speak?

For the past ten years, the United States – and perhaps the world, has been testing out the latest evolution of the English language: IM Speak. IM Speak is a form of written English. Basically it boils down to using acronyms for a set of commonly used phrases. It evolved in the first place because typing out an entire phrase on IM or SMS simply took too long – disturbing the rhythm of a normal conversation.

Makes sense to me. Grownups do this all the time. Specially grownups in “IT”. CMS, RDBMS, TCP/IP, CRM, FTP, ODBC, VPN, IP, URL, IM, TXT, DOC, MAC, VM, etc. Imagine if we had to use the long hand on these commonly known terms in every day conversation? We would never get anything done. So, communication shortcuts are benign as long as the contractions have shared meaning – otherwise, having to explain meaning defeats the purpose.

Teachers across the nation are up-in-arms about this phenomenon. Students are handing in papers riddled with IM Speak. Now, that’s a problem! Whoever said, “the medium is the message” knew what he was talking about. The reason why we find such an issue with kids turning in their term papers with IM Speak is because we have a certain expectation of the written word. Grownups know that written English, for the most part, is formal. Spoken English is casual. Well, the same is not true for kids today. Their written English can be more casual than their spoken English because the bulk of their interpersonal communication is mediated by the screen and the keyboard.

It is not hard to understand why relaxed language pours out from kids when they are in front of the computer – regardless of whether they are typing into a word processor or into a chat window. The mechanics of communication are still the same, and the patterns they have internalized are hard to avoid.

I think there are a couple of solutions to this problem.

1. Get Kids to write formal English on the computer before they earn their chat bones – this way, they understand from an early age that are there more than one form of written English.
2. Introduce IM Speak shortcuts into word processors – that way, contractions such as LOL can be automatically replaced by “laughing out loud”
3. Teachers, use Transl8it! – this will, at least help you keep up with them.
4. Embrace it. These kids will one day be adults and they will have the power to do whatever they want, including changing the rules of culture and language. Learn the language and adopt with it before you turn into a dinosaur.

K, C U L8R, TTYL. <333.

Labels: chat, communication, culture, IM, language