An Evaluation and Critique of Lily Huang’s Argument in “The Death of English (LOL)”
Kiah Martin-Genus
Centennial College
COMM170-106
Professor Sarah Duffy
April 4th, 2008
How many text-messages do you think you’ve sent this week? How many times do you think you've written the common abbreviation LOL (laugh out loud)? I know that I’ve probably sent well over 50 messages and have used LOL countless times. It seems that I find myself communicating more over text then over the phone. Although texting and the language that we use with it, “textese”, has become so commonplace in our society, many teachers fear and loathe its use (Huang, 2015). Judith Gillespie, who is a member of the Scottish Parent Teacher Council goes so far to state, “there must be rigorous efforts from all quarters of the education system to stamp out the use of texting as a form of written language so far as English study is concerned” (Craig, 2003). There seems to be growing concern that text messaging is leading to a general decline in literacy skills (Drouin and Davis, 2009). Lily Huang writes in her essay “The Death of English (LOL)” that the opposite is true. Huang uses …show more content…
This idea shows up again in another British study by Wood et al. where they state, “It is possible that text messaging provides young children with an important increase in exposure to text, and also improves their motivation to engage with written communication without the constraints of school expectations” (Wood et al., 2009). In essence, text messaging and textese gives children a chance to explore writing and reading without feeling self conscious and being judged and thus improves their literacy
Kiah Martin-Genus
Centennial College
COMM170-106
Professor Sarah Duffy
April 4th, 2008
How many text-messages do you think you’ve sent this week? How many times do you think you've written the common abbreviation LOL (laugh out loud)? I know that I’ve probably sent well over 50 messages and have used LOL countless times. It seems that I find myself communicating more over text then over the phone. Although texting and the language that we use with it, “textese”, has become so commonplace in our society, many teachers fear and loathe its use (Huang, 2015). Judith Gillespie, who is a member of the Scottish Parent Teacher Council goes so far to state, “there must be rigorous efforts from all quarters of the education system to stamp out the use of texting as a form of written language so far as English study is concerned” (Craig, 2003). There seems to be growing concern that text messaging is leading to a general decline in literacy skills (Drouin and Davis, 2009). Lily Huang writes in her essay “The Death of English (LOL)” that the opposite is true. Huang uses …show more content…
This idea shows up again in another British study by Wood et al. where they state, “It is possible that text messaging provides young children with an important increase in exposure to text, and also improves their motivation to engage with written communication without the constraints of school expectations” (Wood et al., 2009). In essence, text messaging and textese gives children a chance to explore writing and reading without feeling self conscious and being judged and thus improves their literacy