Language is abstract yet the most prominent technology in our lives, it guides us and rules us. In the world today we can be as organized and civilized due to our intensive language. I would go as far as to say that you would not be able to function in this world without language of any sort. While I have been throwing the word around, language as it is defined the the Webster's Dictionary is, ”the words, their pronunciation, and the methods of combining them used and understood by a community; a systematic means of communicating ideas or feelings by the use of conventionalized signs, sounds, gestures, or marks having understood meanings.” (“Dictionary by Merriam-Webster”) Simply put, language is the communication between two beings. Since its conception, language has changed to fit the needs of those who use it. It began as oral when people lived in a sonic world however writing was developed and overtime, reading and writing became essential to understanding the world around us. Again with the development of technology language shifted to digital and we use images and pictograms to communicate. While this is not yet a total and whole shift in language, I feel it could lead to such a place of mandatory understanding in future generations.
Almost every person who uses modern technology is somewhat versed in the internet and because of this we are introduced to new trends, fads, and modes of communication and connection. Due to the massive and constant change of communication online the question is raised; is our influence of language shaping the technology we use to interact with new media? Or is this new media created and causing us to change the way we communicate with language? I feel like the answer lies within the context of information we process in our everyday lives. According to Marshall McLuhan this technology is shaping us. “The medium, or process, of our time—electric technology—is reshaping and restructuring patterns of social interdependence and every aspect of our personal life. It is forcing us to reconsider and reevaluate practically every thought, every action, and every institution formerly taken for granted.”(McLuhan, 8) The amount of exposure we receive on any given day is beyond comprehension and the fact that our heads don’t explode from such information is unbelievable. This begs the question then, what is the interplay between language and new media? How do they affect one another in the modern day?
Language in the modern day is to be viewed as a technology. In this sense, we can discuss language as we would computer programming to figure out why dis-connection happens, why all of a sudden something that was previously working in our communication stops suddenly. “From an evolutionary perspective discussing languages without any reference to their physical components would be like talking about computers without any reference to their hardware or trying to make sense of how the mind works”(Thurlow) As people continue to program and develop language it is sure to change. The media we create through language allows people to grow and change and we grow as a culture. Interplay , is defined as the way in which two or more things have an effect on each other. Using this definition of the word It will be used to show that there is a very strong interplay directly between language and new media.
As stated language is the communication between each and every person in every day of our lives, just over 7000 languages are spoken in the world every day.(“How Many Languages Are There in the World?”) Spoken language exists in our world as the most common and first learned form of communication. Being the oldest form of language this would in a sense be considered the most basic form of language, a default of sorts. We developed text based off our language, applying letters to sounds and building words from these sounds and letters. Language is a technology of communication and like most technology it is always changing. Some languages die in the world as is proof of latin, however if not dying many languages change with time. The interplay of technology into new media has changed the english language both spoken and written. Back in 2011, LOL was added to the oxford english dictionary and later, the webster merriam dictionary. The term came about when texting was introduced. People could send messages over newer type media and when people who had such hand-held communication, they were restricted by character count and so people become innovative and created shorthand phrases such as LOL, OMG, FYI, and many more.
New media can be a scary subject for some as nobody enjoys change. Humans have depended on technology both digital and physical for many many years. Back in prehistoric times, we needed the technology of spears to catch prey whereas now we need technology of transportation to go throughout our days to work and so forth. This said, there is a great number of different types of new media and I myself will focus on social media platforms. This said, it would be a shame to not mention thoughts from older generations.
Lev Manovich focused on film in the day, as well as the early onset of the internet as a form of new media. Back then, the web was viewed as a major potential for creating art of many kinds. “Art has always been bound up with technology, and artist have always been among the first to adopt new technologies in an effort to see what they can do,” (Manovich, 5) As popularity in this new technology grew, people were drawn to it and to interact with it people were required to develop a language to communicate with it and evolve it. To do so, people soon developed coding, and developed something similar to oral speech in digital form, chatrooms. This live time communication became a staple of the new media world. “Web site, or uses telepresence to observe or act in a remote location, or communicates in real time with other users using internet chat…” (Manovich)
After the internet became a regularly traversed space platforms were developed to allow the interaction for the more common computer user, such as myspace and facebook. It would be safe to say that such websites are what allowed the internet to explode in such the manner that it did. Due to such widespread popularity of such media I feel it is important to mention that a new sort of language is emerging. Among the younger generation there is a form of media called Memes. These are typically short videos of pictures intended to be comical, however they have become their own sort of language. Pictured below is a meme of former president Barack Obama, originally created by tumblr user Mindfulwrath and has since become so popular that users may post it without accompanying text and it can be linked to the phrase, “then perish.” Such an image can stand for a phrase such as, “I don’t care” or is used as a display of negligence. This new media has grown to the point where there have been whole exchanges through memes alone with no text yet each user understands the conversation completely. Being that the definition of language is communication between two beings, I would say that such examples are a use of the new media that is creating an entirely new media for younger generations.
New media can be found the our pockets and hands as well in the form of a cell phone. With the rise of smartphones, humans have been given the ability to carry a little supercomputer in their pocket. A smartphone phenomenon in the modern day takes place in the form of emojis. An emoji is essentially a pictogram that has been fully processed into written and technologically produced texts and writing. They are from all around the world and carry meaning and emotion, allowing people to communicate without words, only pictorial texts.It is estimated that some 5 billion emoji are sent a day in facebook messenger alone, and over 900 million messages are only typed in emoji.(“World Emoji Day Statistics.”)
The interplay between language and new media is a talking point that is helping define language, how humans have been able to innovate it, and how it is changing. The language is being streamlined by technology and humans are adapting well to these changes. This change from fully fledged messages and communication was predicted by Sven Birkerts back in 1951, “The complexity and distinctiveness of spoken and written expression, which are deeply bound to traditions of print literacy, will gradually be replaced by a more telegraphic sort of "plain-speak."(Birkerts, 652).” Such language will continue to change with time, many people would believe this to be language erosion. This is the belief that as we become more acclimated with technology the interplay we experience with its changing media will deconstruct our language and erode it to its most basic forms, taking the embodiment of simple abbreviations, pictures, and so forth. There are many clear signs of this happening in the modern day as is evidenced by the growing number of widely known abbreviations as well as emojis, and the ability to equip most phones with a keyboard exclusively made of up of gifs and moving images so that the use for words is no longer necessary in a conversation. Many people believe this will lead to the loss human interaction however I feel that this is instead the adaptation of how interaction will happen in the presence of new media.
In conclusion it would be fair to say that the streamlining of current english language is a result of the interplay of language and new media. With each new affordance comes with a loss as is the regular change of life. As you get older, you gain knowledge as your body loses strength, you lose money to do things you enjoy, we create new media and because of this we move away from old media, we resign older ways of language in exchange for newer methods of communication. Interplay is what we can use to review the changes that new media has made to language as well as the birth of new media that has come from existing language. From here we can see a repeated cycle where language styles are repeating itself and changing in recurring patterns. Speech and communication is evolving with every day and as every piece of new media is developed so is the language of our lives.