My Letter to the Editor of "Twtr? It's Majorly Bad!"

To the editor of 'Twtr? Its Majorly Bad!:

          After reading the ideas expressed in this article against the influence of text type in the English language, I decided to write a letter expressing my opinion towards the article.

           I believe that the article has a bias perspective and negative attitude towards the use of Text type and the form of slang used by the younger generations with descriptions like text type "Erodes pupil's language skills". Although 81% of teenagers use the internet, more adults use the internet with an increasing amount of 87% in 2016. This means that adults are the victims whom are most likely going to have, in the authors opinion an "affect" on their language skills since their are more of them using the internet rather than teenagers.

          The article continues to argue that youngsters are "in danger of growing up with limited vocabularies" because of how much time they spend on social media sites however, 96% of students with internet access report using social networking technologies use these tools to discuss educational topics. As a student, the internet is one of the most important key to success as it plays a vital role in delivering and accessing a variety of reliable educational sources. This means that not all of us waste our time on the internet but rather educate our selves and take the advantage of accessing online educational sources. Compared to previous generations, I believe that the internet does not limit our vocabulary but rather expands our knowledge of a language that is evolving in a whole new way of writing. Having a balancing act between the "formal" way of English and  the "slang" text type way is in my opinion a linguistic miracle as recent studies proved that being "Bi-dialect" allows the individual to learn new words easily and are better listeners compared to a monolinguial.

           Furthermore the article mentions how teachers realise the students who tend to use text type like "ur" and "gr8" are often the ones who achieve the lowest SAT marks but in my opinion, the emergent complexity of a language gradually evolves a whole new way of writing. This allows students to embrace the difference between speech and writing therefore expanding their linguistic structure and way of dialect. 

           I understand that Text type and the use of slang has a lack of concern with rules but, this does not mean that a solution is teaching English the "traditional way" in order to maintain the proper English. So now the evolvement of a language is a crime? With all honesty, different dialects of English expands ones knowledge on the language. As the Irish play-write George Bernard Shaw once said: "Progress is impossible without change" therefore the the English language will not progress unless changes occur like the evolvement of Text type.

          Clearly the article shows a thorough understanding of the negative impact of text type on the “formal” English language with varied and reliable sources to back up arguments given. However I highly recommend that you offer insights of the positive impacts that text types has on the language because the article is too bias therefore, I truly urge that you deeply look into the topic. By doing so, you will be able to write in a receptive manner as you would accept other ideas easily and would not be one-sided.


Best Regards,

Hala Ariqat