I don’t have very many high school age friends, nor do I know very many high school age humans. I have however, from time to time, stumbled upon a myspace page of an under ager. Let me tell you, it is a very scary sight. I have seen some of the most atrocious spelling and cyber-slang you could imagine. Not only are these kids using chatspeak for almost every single word, the words they don’t abbreviate are all used incorrectly.
So, after reading a couple of articles regarding chatspeak, I would have to say that I believe it is, in fact, ruining the children’s ability to learn English. I know that it’s not a popular opinion to have, but I feel like chatspeak is very similar to Ebonics. If enough people start speaking and writing incorrectly, it suddenly becomes correct. I am not a fan.
The opinion held by Greg Monfils, that children know the difference and they can switch gears from internet slang to formal writing, seems ridiculous to me. He seems to believe that students use chatspeak in papers as a form of rebellion. I’m sorry, but what student who knows the correct academic form of a word, is going to use an incorrect Internet word and risk getting a worse grade, just to get a rise out of the teacher? Give me a break.
I agree with you completely. I like your comment about students who use chatspeak aren't even using it correctly, which further proves the point! Students do not have a grasp on proper grammar and have become very lazy in their writing. I have friends who will send text messages sometimes and at first glance it looks like they just pushed a bunch of random buttons and sent the text.
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