"Bilingual Chat Rooms are Changing the Way Language is

Feel free to post here :)

Moderator: EC

Post Reply

Have you ever used pidgin English in a computer-mediated forum?

Yes (please give an example).
1
33%
No, but I have seen some (please give an example).
0
No votes
No.
2
67%
 
Total votes: 3

ProfessorVerb
Rising Star
Rising Star
Posts: 159
Joined: Sat May 07, 2005 8:41 am
Status: Teacher of English
Location: U.S.

"Bilingual Chat Rooms are Changing the Way Language is

Post by ProfessorVerb »

"Bilingual Chat Rooms are Changing the Way Language is Used"

It would appear that forums such as this are actually changing the way language is being used, especially by young people, around the world. For example, in his article, “Second Language Socialization in a Bilingual Chat Room: Global and Local Considerations,” Wan Shun Lam (2004) discusses how new forms of social networking have emerged on the Internet; and how these forms encourage particular types of uses of English among ESL students. Interestingly, Lam found that young people are inventing their own pidgin* languages for use in online forums such as this one.

The author describes two young Chinese students, Yu Qing and Tsu Ying, who had turned to a bilingual Chinese/English chat room such as this one to develop their fluency in English.

Lam examined the language practices of this online community and how it provided an additional context of language socialization for these two girls. The author found that when the girls were at school, they had difficulty interacting with their English-speaking peers; however, on the Internet, they were able to use English to create social and ethnic identifications with other young people of Chinese origin in different parts of the world.

“It was in the chat room environment that they participated in the verbal culture of teenagers (in English) and socialized to a collective identity related to the kind of English that they were acquiring. In analyzing the exchanges in the bilingual chat room, I demonstrate and argue that a mixed-code variety of English that includes writing in romanized Cantonese was adopted and developed among the girls and their peers to construct their relationships as bilingual speakers of English and Cantonese. This language variety served to create a collective ethnic identity for these young people and specifically allowed the two girls in this study to assume a new identity through language. This new identity follows neither the social categories of English -speaking Americans nor those of Cantonese-speaking Chinese” (p. 44).

I wonder what things will be like 100 years from now? To see what things are like right now, please participate in my poll. Thanks!

________________________
*pidgin: language with a greatly reduced vocabulary and a simplified grammar, often based on a western European language. Pidgins usually arise as methods of communication between groups that have no language in common; the pidgins in some instances later become established first or second languages of one of the groups involved. Some examples of pidgin are Chinese Pidgin English, Haitian French Creole, and Melanesian Pidgin English

Article Title: Second Language Socialization in a Bilingual Chat Room: Global and Local Considerations. Contributors: Wan Shun Lam - author. Journal Title: Language, Learning & Technology. Volume: 8. Issue: 3. Publication Year: 2004. Page Number: 44.
User avatar
frengo
Rising Star
Rising Star
Posts: 151
Joined: Sat Jan 01, 2005 6:23 pm
Location: Milano, Italy

Post by frengo »

I found this post extremely interesting. Coming to these forums frequently, I have noticed that actually each member uses very often the same words and sentences, even if they are full of mistakes. I think that a forum like this, while useful in order to let us practice English, actually doesn't let us improve our knowledge, since there isn't any form of correction or notification for those that make mistakes when writing. In other words, improving our English is NOT one of the goals of the forum. EC has other areas of interest where we can study and find useful tools, but the forums themselves seem to be something not related with learning.
shokin
Top Contributor
Top Contributor
Posts: 985
Joined: Mon Jan 24, 2005 11:32 pm
Status: Learner of English
Location: Switzerland

Post by shokin »

I don't know about bilingual chat.

Does anyone a bilingual chat. I would try.

Very interesting article ! it will interest some of my friends.

Shokin
Nous sommes libres. Wir sind frei. We are free. Somos libres. Siamo liberi.
User avatar
RedRose

Post by RedRose »

frengo wrote:. In other words, improving our English is NOT one of the goals of the forum. EC has other areas of interest where we can study and find useful tools, but the forums themselves seem to be something not related with learning.
yeah! on this forum, it seems that FUN is more significant than learning itself.
Post Reply