I think web speak/netspeak is definitely having somewhat of an influence on our culture. One example that comes to mind is LOLCats which everyone knows as the funny cat pictures with captions. ‘Lol’ started out as an abbreviation for “laugh out loud” which indicates laughter in a text message or IM. Now, it has become part of our culture. There is also a popular rap song called “Lol :)”. Lol seems to be popping up everywhere in our culture. I have heard younger teenagers talking amongst themselves and they well say lol and omg. I think part of this is that teenagers and even adults text/email/IM so much that the abbreviations start to come out in normal conversation. I do think the web speak is more “talking” than writing because when you are texting someone a lot of people don’t consider it as writing. If my mom asks me if I have talked to my dad, even if I have just had a conversation through texting with him, I will say yes that I have talked to my dad. My friends and I also have our own abbreviations. For example, if we are talking about McDonald’s, in a text message we will use the abbreviation ‘mcds’. There are also a lot of other abbreviations we use to refer to different situations and sometimes our abbreviations do pop up when we are having conversations face to face.
5 thoughts on “Blog 4”
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I agree that people have adopted these abreiviations in face to face conversation. My husband came into the house the other night and said he was online and that “MEN” should not use LOL.. I just laughed, again a point we looked at last chapter with gender influences. I wonder how many men find these abbreviations more feminine?
Thank you for the post.
You make a good point about how text messaging is perceived as “talking.” I think this is why people get upset about the influence of netspeak, because we now have informal spoken conversations AND informal written conversations, in the form of texts and IM.
That’s so interesting about how if we text someone, we’ll say that we just talked with them! Now that I think about it, I do that too. I do think it’s so funny how people use texting language in real life. I say it for fun sometimes, but I know several people who literally use that as part of conversation, like they can’t find an actual way to communicate how they feel.
I can remember times when I’ve said LOL and SMH in a face to face conversation. I agree that sometimes we mix the two because we find text to be an extension of talking with someone. We do not see it as a branch of writing.
In my opinion the LOL’s are a great way to end a conversation (hehe). I will admit that I am an LOL user and it comes in handy for conversation enders and to get a point across in conversations. I have never said LOL in a face to face conversation and I think its weird if I do. My text language is definitely different from my verbal language.