The readings this week were quite interesting. Although I do not have experience dealing with non-English language personal on the internet however, I do have daily contact communicating with non-English speakers but interpreters come in handy.
In the Linguistic Diversity Reading the point about the National Censuses caught my attention. So many people that are fluent in different languages all use the internet. From interacting with people daily that are natives of different language I have noticed that many of them prefer to read documents in English instead of their native language. It was amazing that Gerrand used web presence to measure because all languages are not available on all computers and most people would use English for different reasons such as to ensure that the receive would understand, to try to become more fluent etc. So the researcher should have taken into consideration the reason for the web presence because it may have had an effect on the data.
Another interesting topic was in chapter 3 the flaming. “Walther et al.(1994) defined flaming as messages that include wearing, insults, name calling, negative affect, and typographic energy,” (Baym, 57). I have noticed that people result to name calling, insults etc. in order to obtain attention. I actually never heard of flaming before now. I believe people try to be nicer or just try to ignore flaming in order to try to make the person stop.
Other topics that caught my attention were the use of social cues, emoticons and linguistic language. Emotions are not easily express online and can be misunderstood. For example, typing in all capital letter could be taken as yelling. I was very amazed with Baym story of how people perceived CEO Jerry Yang’s memo. It is so common now to use LOL, haha and other language but I have never heard ROTFL. How would the global research study results been different if each native language used different social cues and linguistic language to express themselves?
I agree that emotions can be difficult to express online, and that it’s easy to be misunderstood. There have been many times at work when I’ve needed to get a point across via email, but I didn’t want the message to seem mean-spirited. I was unsure of the best way to compose the message. I didn’t want to add an emoticon, such as a smiley face, because I felt that it may come across as sarcastic. I also shy away from all caps or excessive punctuation to avoid an angry tone.
It’s interesting that you are the second person in this class to say they haven’t heard of the ROTFL acronym. I thought that was universal CMC lingo, but it appears that may not be the case. Some new acronyms I’ve heard in the last year or so: SMH (Shaking my Head) (YOLO – You only live once)
I really do not use CMC lingo so I’m not familiar of the two you use either. I really don’t want to learn the lingo because I feel I have so much info in my mind now that I don’t have time to learn that too especially since I really do not use it. I am sure it does cut down on the time of typing the words but some people just get carried away with it.
I agree emotions are not easily expressed online, and I had similar problems with work trying to send an email or text. wondering if it was correct to add a smiley face so the message did not sound mean. Also, I have a tendency to press the caps lock and type away when I am talking to friends online or texting, and I forget that some people take it as yelling. I do not look at as yelling, I guess because after I typed a whole conversation in caps you do not pay attention to that detail. And yeees! all these acronyms are getting hard to keep up with. I do know what ROTFL, SMH, and YOLO mean, but sometimes on facebook I see people posting things like TBH (to be honest). I have to resort to my little sister to see what they are talking about, and I am not that old, I am only 23.
I know right, I have to ask my niece what all the lingo mean and I think that is bad. It really make me questions if I should be more involved and interact more with the technology devices only to stay on top of my children.
Don’t forget that all the high tech. are created in the US, which is the most powerful country in the world. Therefore, English should be the dominant language in all the world. Recently,with the globalization, we started to add other languages in CMC,us the transelators, and study some ethical tips to become familier with the foreign countries culture for better business communication. As you said, people who has a second language also prefer to speak and write in English for many reasons. I have a foreign language, but I don’t prefer to write everything in English to become fluent in English, but because I live the US, I study in English, my kids speak only English, and everything around me in English, but when I use the Facebook to communicate with my family members who live oversease I speak and write my native language so they won’t think that I forgot about my culture, or I’m showing off and trying to make them feel lower than me, besides it the only time I can speak my mother language which I respect and love.
It’s good that you still use your native language because although I have studies Spanish for many years I am not able to speak it. I can write and read it but can’t speak it fluent. It like the old saying “use it or loose it.” I do not have anyone to interact with so I guess I lost it.
It seems as if CMC is actually helping you maintain your native language, at least written, as you don’t mention how much phone or video is a part of how you keep in touch. While there have been discussions on how CMC is threatening other languages, it’s nice that it seems to be giving you the opportunity to maintain your skill. I wonder if other people here in the States are in the same position where English is not their first language.
All of your points were well made. The one I like the most is in regards to the use of the term “flamer.” I had never heard of that reference before as mady by Bayem in this chapter. However, I do know and have a few facebook “friends” that can live up to such a titile. I quote the word friends because a lot of the people are more of aquaintences.
Then brings the topic of why do you have that person or those people as “friends” online. Let’s face it if you went to highschool with someone or know a significant other of the requestor facebook had driven us to be more “accepting” of people to create a larger communication network weather the individual brings good or bad, we all have numerous “friends” online that really don’t hold the value of friendship.
I kind of got carried away on that but it is what came to mind when you pointed out the lableing of flamers and how you may have came into contact with them already on line and did not realize that is what the person is projecting.
Thank you for the post.
I agree with your concept of “friends” and “aquaintences” because many people have conversation with others online, text etc only because they are responding to them. Many people have followers on twitter and friends on Facebook that keep in contact daily however, they do not know that much about them so they are not friends. Also the definition of “friends” differs between people so it’s hard to determine if someone is or isn’t a friend.
Although I am not involved in social media at all I have seen numerous post where people are flamers. During completing an assignment in a communication class with blogs I have had first hand experience with flamers.