Video Fix: How Technology Influences Language?

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Video-Fix How Technology Influences Language feature

TermCoord's ClassicHave you ever noticed how much your language has changed throughout time? This happens not only because of age or environmental factors, but also because of a new element that is present in our daily life and whose influence we cannot avoid: technology.

In today’s Video Fix we bring to you a video that reflects on how technology affects our language and way of communicating. The author – Dave Cullen, who often creates Social Commentaries and produces Tech Videos – seems to know the answer to this question. In the video, he explains that the introduction of email in the 90s quickly sparkled the replacement of hand writing and led to the emergence of a number of abbreviations. This economy of language, which was needed to speed up the communication process, was also encouraged with the emergence and widespread use of text messages, which included the use emoticons or emojis, a popular, visual and concentrated way of adding meaning and content to our messages.

Furthermore, technology has shaped language in many ways over the last decades, e.g. influencing changes in the meanings of the words or increasing the creation and use of buzzwords and shortcuts. The video shows various examples of the evolution processes experienced by language under the influence of digital technologies. We encourage you to watch this video and share with us what is your opinion on the positive and negative changes that technologies have inevitably brought to our lives!

Sources

  • Cullen, Dave “How technology influences Language”, Computing Power. Available at: http://bit.ly/2rAs7Lr (Accessed: 06 June 2017)

Written by Yuliia Kusa– Study Visitor at the Terminology Coordination Unit, Master Student in Learning and Communication in Multilingual and Multicultural Contexts at the University of Luxembourg.