Language and technology: A comparison between Josh McWhorter's and David Crystal's theories

In the technological world, there has been a recent spurt in the growth of texting. This post is going to be a small comparison of Josh McWhorter's and David Crystal's texting theories. According to the Mobile Data Association's report, around 45 million messages have been sent over the past year. This in turn has led to a new form of language, called by Crystalk in his article as 'textspeak'. Many argue that the evolution of this language has had a negative impact on the youth of today, Crystal and McWhorter suggesting otherwise.

 

Both their theories have the same views, but different hypothesis. Both say that the evolution of language is a natural and intriguing thing. McWhorter's says that language has changed it's shape over the decades to accommodate different ideas as well as different people. Crystal in his article states how the word limit on microblogging sites and need to get across information faster has affected textspeak. McWhorter's theory supports the evolution of textspeak by comparing to language in the past, but isn't that specific when it comes to textspeak's evolution, whereas Crystal's theory says how language has evolved with modern technology.

In his speech speech, McWhorter states how textspeak is like a fingered language. He says that just like speaking, people tend to text faster. They want to get across more information in smaller periods of time. But Crystal states that the graphology of texts is completely different. His theory more so says that abbreviations have come widely into use since the advent of textspeak. He believe that this has happened due to peoples desire to use less keystrokes and other similar reasons. McWhorter's theory compares textspeak more so to speech, whereas Crystal thinks that abbreviations are textspeak's structural uniqueness.

But in the end, both of them think that the evolution of textspeak is not to be worried about. It is just the evolution of another dialect, although not consciously. It just reflects the younger generation intelligence.  McWhorter believes that texting is more of an balancing act. Even though this dialect is slowly creeping into school essays, Crystal believes that textspeak will not have an impact. He believes that when the restrictions are dropped, there would be no need to write in abbreviations. Hence, both of them think that textspeak is simply a new form of language that has evolved to suit technological needs and will not have a significant impact on language.