Sempre es critica la missatgeria instantània. Es diu que aquesta escriptura és la decadència de l'alfabetització o, com a mínim, de l'escriptura entre els joves dels Estats Units i ja també de tot el món. El cas és que això no és pas cert. I és fàcil pensar que és veritat, però per veure-ho d'una altra manera, per veure que en realitat és com un miracle i no només un fet actiu, una mena de complexitat emergent que es desenvolupa ara i aquí, hem de mirar una mica enrere i veure què és realment la llengua. I el que veurem serà que escriure missatges no té res a veure amb escriure. Què vull dir amb això?
We always hear that texting is a scourge. The idea is that texting spells the decline and fall of any kind of serious literacy, or at least writing ability, among young people in the United States and now the whole world today. The fact of the matter is that it just isn't true, and it's easy to think that it is true, but in order to see it in another way, in order to see that actually texting is a miraculous thing, not just energetic, but a miraculous thing, a kind of emergent complexity that we're seeing happening right now, we have to pull the camera back for a bit and look at what language really is, in which case, one thing that we see is that texting is not writing at all. What do I mean by that?
Bàsicament, si pensem en la llengua, la llengua ha existit durant potser 150.000 anys. Com a mínim, 80.000 anys. I va néixer com un fenòmen oral. La gent parlava. I probablement això és per al que estem preparats genèticament. Així és com usem la llengua principalment. L'escriptura va venir molt més tard i, com hem vist en la última xerrada, hi ha discussions sobre quan va passar això exactament. Segons els càlculs tradicionals, si la humanitat hagués existit durant 24 hores, l'escriptura s'hauria creat a les 23:07 h. Així de tard va arribar l'escriptura. Per tant, primer hi ha l'oral i més tard ve l'escrit com una cosa artificial.
Basically, if we think about language, language has existed for perhaps 150,000 years, at least 80,000 years, and what it arose as is speech. People talked. That's what we're probably genetically specified for. That's how we use language most. Writing is something that came along much later, and as we saw in the last talk, there's a little bit of controversy as to exactly when that happened, but according to traditional estimates, if humanity had existed for 24 hours, then writing only came along at about 11:07 p.m. That's how much of a latterly thing writing is. So first there's speech, and then writing comes along as a kind of artifice.
No em malinterpreteu, escriure té certs avantatges. Quan escrius, com que és un procés conscient, com que pots revisar el que has fet, pots produir coses que probablement no faràs si estàs parlant. Per exemple, aquesta cita d'Edward Gibbon en el seu llibre del declivi i la caiguda de l'Imperi Romà:
Now don't get me wrong, writing has certain advantages. When you write, because it's a conscious process, because you can look backwards, you can do things with language that are much less likely if you're just talking. For example, imagine a passage from Edward Gibbon's "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire:"
"L'enfrontament va durar més de dotze hores, fins que la retirada gradual dels perses va esdevenir una fugida desordenada, iniciada amb l'indigne exemple dels líders principals i del mateix surena."
"The whole engagement lasted above twelve hours, till the graduate retreat of the Persians was changed into a disorderly flight, of which the shameful example was given by the principal leaders and the Surenas himself."
Sona preciós, però ningú no parla així. Com a mínim, no ho haurien de fer si es volen reproduir. Així... [Rialles] ...no és com parlen els humans espontàniament.
That's beautiful, but let's face it, nobody talks that way. Or at least, they shouldn't if they're interested in reproducing. That -- (Laughter) is not the way any human being speaks casually.
El discurs espontani és bastant diferent. Els lingüistes han demostrat que quan parlem espontàniament solem dividir el discurs en grups d'entre 7 i 10 paraules. Ho podeu comprovar si us graveu parlant en un grup de gent. La llengua oral és així. És més flexible. Molt més telegràfica. Molt menys reflexiva. Molt diferent de l'escrita. I és normal que pensem (perquè sovint veiem la llengua escrita) que la llengua és això. Però en realitat la llengua és oral. Són coses diferents.
Casual speech is something quite different. Linguists have actually shown that when we're speaking casually in an unmonitored way, we tend to speak in word packets of maybe seven to 10 words. You'll notice this if you ever have occasion to record yourself or a group of people talking. That's what speech is like. Speech is much looser. It's much more telegraphic. It's much less reflective -- very different from writing. So we naturally tend to think, because we see language written so often, that that's what language is, but actually what language is, is speech. They are two things.
Evidentment, amb el pas del temps és natural que hi hagi interferències entre el parlar i l'escriure. Per exemple, fa molt de temps era normal que els discursos es fessin igual que com s'escriu. Em refereixo als discursos que veus en pel·lícules antigues quan s'aclareixen la gola, "Ehem, senyores i senyors", i llavors parlen d'una manera que no té res d'espontani. És formal. Utilitza frases llargues com la de Gibbon. Parlen tal com s'escriu i, per exemple, últimament es parla molt de Lincoln arran de la pel·lícula. El discurs de Gettysburg no era l'acte principal. Les dues hores d'abans, Edward Everett va parlar d'un tema que, francament, avui no interessa i llavors tampoc gaire. La gràcia era escoltar-lo parlant com s'escriu. La gent normal el va escoltar durant dues hores. Era del tot natural. Això és el que feien llavors, parlar com s'escriu.
Now of course, as history has gone by, it's been natural for there to be a certain amount of bleed between speech and writing. So, for example, in a distant era now, it was common when one gave a speech to basically talk like writing. So I mean the kind of speech that you see someone giving in an old movie where they clear their throat, and they go, "Ahem, ladies and gentlemen," and then they speak in a certain way which has nothing to do with casual speech. It's formal. It uses long sentences like this Gibbon one. It's basically talking like you write, and so, for example, we're thinking so much these days about Lincoln because of the movie. The Gettysburg Address was not the main meal of that event. For two hours before that, Edward Everett spoke on a topic that, frankly, cannot engage us today and barely did then. The point of it was to listen to him speaking like writing. Ordinary people stood and listened to that for two hours. It was perfectly natural. That's what people did then, speaking like writing.
Però si es pot parlar com s'escriu, lògicament, també podries voler algun cop escriure com parles. El problema era que materialment i mecànica era més difícil en el passat per la simple raó que no tenien els mitjans adequats. És quasi impossible fer-ho a mà, excepte amb la taquigrafia, però també està limitada. En una màquina d'escriure era molt difícil, fins i tot quan van sortir les electròniques i els ordinadors. El fet és que encara que teclegis suficientment de pressa a la velocitat de la parla, necessites algú que pugui rebre el missatge de pressa.
Well, if you can speak like writing, then logically it follows that you might want to also sometimes write like you speak. The problem was just that in the material, mechanical sense, that was harder back in the day for the simple reason that materials don't lend themselves to it. It's almost impossible to do that with your hand except in shorthand, and then communication is limited. On a manual typewriter it was very difficult, and even when we had electric typewriters, or then computer keyboards, the fact is that even if you can type easily enough to keep up with the pace of speech, more or less, you have to have somebody who can receive your message quickly.
Un cop tens un objecte a la butxaca que rep el missatge, ja tens les condicions que ens permeten escriure com parlem. I aquí és on entren els missatges instantanis. Els missatges són molt flexibles en l'estructura. Ningú no pensa en les majúscules ni en la puntuació. Però, hi penseu quan parleu? No. Llavors, per què ho heu de fer en un missatge?
Once you have things in your pocket that can receive that message, then you have the conditions that allow that we can write like we speak. And that's where texting comes in. And so, texting is very loose in its structure. No one thinks about capital letters or punctuation when one texts, but then again, do you think about those things when you talk? No, and so therefore why would you when you were texting?
La missatgeria instantània, tot i que inclogui la mecànica d'allò que s'anomena escriptura, és un discurs dactilar. Això és el que és. Ara podem escriure com parlem. I és molt interessant, però encara és fàcil veure-ho com un tipus de decadència. Veiem aquesta flexibilitat d'estructura, la indiferència respecte d'aquelles normes que vam aprendre, i per això pensem que alguna cosa va malament. És una impressió molt natural.
What texting is, despite the fact that it involves the brute mechanics of something that we call writing, is fingered speech. That's what texting is. Now we can write the way we talk. And it's a very interesting thing, but nevertheless easy to think that still it represents some sort of decline. We see this general bagginess of the structure, the lack of concern with rules and the way that we're used to learning on the blackboard, and so we think that something has gone wrong. It's a very natural sense.
Però en realitat, el que passa és la creació d'un sistema nou i complex. Això és el que veiem en el discurs dactilar. I per entendre'l, hem de trobar en aquest nou tipus de llenguatge les noves estructures que es formen.
But the fact of the matter is that what is going on is a kind of emergent complexity. That's what we're seeing in this fingered speech. And in order to understand it, what we want to see is the way, in this new kind of language, there is new structure coming up.
Per exemple, en missatgeria hi ha una convenció que és LOL. Generalment diem que LOL significa 'rialla ben sonora'. I teòricament és així. Si mireu missatges antics, la gent l'utilitzava en aquest sentit. Però si escrius missatges ara o si entens les bases del sistema que s'ha desenvolupat, t'adonaràs que LOL ja no és riure ben fort. Ha evolucionat cap a una cosa més subtil.
And so, for example, there is in texting a convention, which is LOL. Now LOL, we generally think of as meaning "laughing out loud." And of course, theoretically, it does, and if you look at older texts, then people used it to actually indicate laughing out loud. But if you text now, or if you are someone who is aware of the substrate of texting the way it's become, you'll notice that LOL does not mean laughing out loud anymore. It's evolved into something that is much subtler.
Això és una conversa real entre noies d'uns 20 anys de no fa gaire.
This is an actual text that was done by a non-male person of about 20 years old not too long ago.
"M'encanta la font que fas servir."
"I love the font you're using, btw."
Julie: "lol gràcies gmail va una mica lent"
Julie: "lol thanks gmail is being slow right now"
Si hi penseu, no té cap gràcia. Ningú no riu. [rialles] Però aquí el teniu i suposeu que pot haver estat involuntari.
Now if you think about it, that's not funny. No one's laughing. (Laughter) And yet, there it is, so you assume there's been some kind of hiccup.
Llavors la Susan diu "lol, ho se.", més riallera del que solem estar quan parlem d'aquest tipus de problemes.
Then Susan says "lol, I know," again more guffawing than we're used to when you're talking about these inconveniences.
I la Julie diu, "T'acabo d'enviar un mail."
So Julie says, "I just sent you an email."
Susan: "lol, ja ho veig."
Susan: "lol, I see it."
S'ho passen molt bé si LOL vol dir això.
Very funny people, if that's what LOL means.
I la Julie diu: "Com va?"
This Julie says, "So what's up?"
Susan: "lol, he d'escriure un treball de 10 pàgines".
Susan: "lol, I have to write a 10 page paper."
No és divertit. Penseu-hi. LOL s'està utilitzant d'una manera molt particular. És un senyal d'empatia, un senyal d'acceptació. Els lingüistes ho anomenem <i>partícula pragmàtica</i>. Qualsevol llengua parlada per gent real en té. Si algú parla japonès, penseu en aquell <i>ne</i> que dieu al final de moltes frases. Si heu sentit el jovent negre d'avui, penseu com fan servir aquell <i>yo</i>. Se'n podrien escriure llargues dissertacions i segurament ja s'està fent. Una partícula pragmàtica. El LOL s'ha convertit en això. És com la gent real fa servir el llenguatge.
She's not amused. Let's think about it. LOL is being used in a very particular way. It's a marker of empathy. It's a marker of accommodation. We linguists call things like that pragmatic particles. Any spoken language that's used by real people has them. If you happen to speak Japanese, think about that little word "ne" that you use at the end of a lot of sentences. If you listen to the way black youth today speak, think about the use of the word "yo." Whole dissertations could be written about it, and probably are being written about it. A pragmatic particle, that's what LOL has gradually become. It's a way of using the language between actual people.
Un altre exemple és la "barra" [/]. La podem utilitzar de la manera que ja sabem, com ara: "Celebrarem una festa-barra-trobada de contactes." Però això és el que ens trobem, La barra s'utilitza d'una manera molt diferent en els missatges dels joves d'avui. Es fa servir per canviar de tema.
Another example is "slash." Now, we can use slash in the way that we're used to, along the lines of, "We're going to have a party-slash-networking session." That's kind of like what we're at. Slash is used in a very different way in texting among young people today. It's used to change the scene.
Per exemple, aquí la Sally diu: "He de trobar gent amb qui anar" i el Jake diu, "Haha" (també podríem estudiar el "Haha", però no tenim temps) "Haha així que hi vas sola? Per què?"
So for example, this Sally person says, "So I need to find people to chill with" and Jake says, "Haha" -- you could write a dissertation about "Haha" too, but we don't have time for that — "Haha so you're going by yourself? Why?"
Sally: "És un programa de la Universitat de Nova York."
Sally: "For this summer program at NYU."
Jake: "Haha. Barra estic veient un video de jugadors de bàsquet que tiren amb un ull tancat"
Jake: "Haha. Slash I'm watching this video with suns players trying to shoot with one eye."
La barra és interessant. No sé què diu el Jake després d'això, però es veu que ha canviat de tema. Això no sembla gaire especial, però si penseu en la vida real, quan volem canviar de tema enmig d'una conversa, hi ha maneres de fer-ho amb gràcia. No us limiteu a fer-ho de cop. Us tocareu la cuixa i mirareu místicament cap a l'horitzó o direu alguna cosa com "Hmm, això em recorda..." quan realment no ho fa, però tu vols... [rialles] tu en realitat vols canviar de tema. Això no es pot fer pels missatges i per això es creen altres maneres en aquest mitjà. Totes les llengües orals tenen un nou sistema per identificar la nova informació, o dos o tres. Els missatges instantanis han creat la barra.
The slash is interesting. I don't really even know what Jake is talking about after that, but you notice that he's changing the topic. Now that seems kind of mundane, but think about how in real life, if we're having a conversation and we want to change the topic, there are ways of doing it gracefully. You don't just zip right into it. You'll pat your thighs and look wistfully off into the distance, or you'll say something like, "Hmm, makes you think --" when it really didn't, but what you're really -- (Laughter) — what you're really trying to do is change the topic. You can't do that while you're texting, and so ways are developing of doing it within this medium. All spoken languages have what a linguist calls a new information marker -- or two, or three. Texting has developed one from this slash.
Així que tenim un munt de noves construccions que s'estan creant i encara és fàcil pensar que alguna cosa va malament. Hi ha una falta d'estructura d'algun tipus. No és tan sofisticat com el llenguatge del <i>The Wall Street Journal</i>. Bé, però de fet, mireu què deien el 1956, quan la missatgeria encara no existia. i el Rin Tin Tin sortia a la tele.
So we have a whole battery of new constructions that are developing, and yet it's easy to think, well, something is still wrong. There's a lack of structure of some sort. It's not as sophisticated as the language of The Wall Street Journal. Well, the fact of the matter is, look at this person in 1956, and this is when texting doesn't exist, "I Love Lucy" is still on the air.
"Molts no saben l'alfabet o les taules de multiplicar, i fan textos agramaticals".
"Many do not know the alphabet or multiplication table, cannot write grammatically -- "
No és el primer cop que ho sentim. I abans del 1956. El 1917 una mestra... El 1917. Un temps en què creiem que l'escriptura era perfecta perquè els personatges de <i>Downton Abbey</i> són súper eloqüents.
We've heard that sort of thing before, not just in 1956. 1917, Connecticut schoolteacher. 1917. This is the time when we all assume that everything somehow in terms of writing was perfect because the people on "Downton Abbey" are articulate, or something like that.
Diu: "A totes les universitats es queixen dient «Els alumnes no saben d'ortografia ni de puntuació.»"
So, "From every college in the country goes up the cry, 'Our freshmen can't spell, can't punctuate.'"
I tota la resta. I més endarrere. El president de Harvard. El 1871. No hi ha electricitat. La gent té tres noms.
And so on. You can go even further back than this. It's the President of Harvard. It's 1871. There's no electricity. People have three names.
"Mala ortografia, incorrecció, així com poca elegància en l'expressió escrita."
"Bad spelling, incorrectness as well as inelegance of expression in writing."
I parla de gent que estaven ben preparats per a la universitat.
And he's talking about people who are otherwise well prepared for college studies.
O encara més endarrere. 1841, un inspector d'escoles està molest perquè "Fa temps que, tristament, he notat que s'ha abandonat quasi del tot" bla, bla, bla.
You can go even further back. 1841, some long-lost superintendent of schools is upset because of what he has for a long time "noted with regret the almost entire neglect of the original" blah blah blah blah blah.
O podem anar encara fins al 63 dC [rialles] i a aquest home no li agrada com la gent parla el llatí. I es referia al que seria el francès. I així, sempre hi ha [rialles i aplaudiments] sempre hi ha gent preocupada per això, però el planeta segueix girant.
Or you can go all the way back to 63 A.D. -- (Laughter) -- and there's this poor man who doesn't like the way people are speaking Latin. As it happens, he was writing about what had become French. And so, there are always — (Laughter) (Applause) — there are always people worrying about these things and the planet somehow seems to keep spinning.
Per això, quan penso en els missatges, crec que estem davant d'una nova forma d'escriptura que els joves estan creant, que fan servir paral·lelament a l'escriptura normal, el que vol dir que són capaços de fer totes dues coses. Hi ha proves a favor, com que ser bilingüe és bo per a l'aprenentatge. També es pot aplicar a parlar dos dialectes. I això són dos dialectes de l'escriptura. I escriure així és la prova d'aquest equilibri que mantenen els joves, inconscientment, és clar. Però és una ampliació del seu repertori lingüístic. És molt simple. Si algú del 1973 mirés un taulell d'anuncis universitari del 1993, l'argot hauria canviat una mica des del temps de <i>Love Story</i>, però encara ho podria entendre tot. Agafa algú del 1993; no fa gaire (això és com <i>Retorn al futur</i>). Feu que aquesta persona llegeixi un missatge actual escrit per algú de 20 anys. Segurament no n'entendrien res perquè s'ha desenvolupat un nou llenguatge a les mans dels joves amb una cosa tan simple com és teclejar com si res en els seus aparells.
And so, the way I'm thinking of texting these days is that what we're seeing is a whole new way of writing that young people are developing, which they're using alongside their ordinary writing skills, and that means that they're able to do two things. Increasing evidence is that being bilingual is cognitively beneficial. That's also true of being bidialectal. That's certainly true of being bidialectal in terms of your writing. And so texting actually is evidence of a balancing act that young people are using today, not consciously, of course, but it's an expansion of their linguistic repertoire. It's very simple. If somebody from 1973 looked at what was on a dormitory message board in 1993, the slang would have changed a little bit since the era of "Love Story," but they would understand what was on that message board. Take that person from 1993 -- not that long ago, this is "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" -- those people. Take those people and they read a very typical text written by a 20-year-old today. Often they would have no idea what half of it meant because a whole new language has developed among our young people doing something as mundane as what it looks like to us when they're batting around on their little devices.
En resum, si pogués anar al futur, si pogués anar al 2033, Primer preguntaria si en David Simon ha continuat <i>The Wire</i>. Ho voldria saber. I... de debò que ho faria. I llavors voldria saber què passa a <i>Downton Abbey</i>. Que seria la segona cosa. I llavors, la tercera cosa seria "Si us plau, mostreu-me alguns missatges escrits per nenes de 16 anys" perquè m'agradaria saber fins a on ha arribat aquest llenguatge des d'avui. I l'ideal seria poder-los enviar al present per poder estudiar aquest miracle lingüístic que tenim davant dels nassos. Moltes gràcies.
So in closing, if I could go into the future, if I could go into 2033, the first thing I would ask is whether David Simon had done a sequel to "The Wire." I would want to know. And — I really would ask that — and then I'd want to know actually what was going on on "Downton Abbey." That'd be the second thing. And then the third thing would be, please show me a sheaf of texts written by 16-year-old girls, because I would want to know where this language had developed since our times, and ideally I would then send them back to you and me now so we could examine this linguistic miracle happening right under our noses. Thank you very much.
[aplaudiments] [aplaudiments]
(Applause) Thank you. (Applause)