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?
Stalno čujemo kako je SMS-ovanje zlo. Razmišljanje koje stoji iza toga je da SMS-ovanje predstavlja slabljenje i pad svakog oblika ozbiljne pismenosti, ili u najmanju ruku sposobnosti pisanja, među mladima u Sjedinjenim Državama, a danas i u celom svetu. U stvari, to jednostavno nije tačno, a lako je pomisliti da jeste tačno, ali da bismo to videli na drugi način, da bismo videli da je SMS-ovanje u stvari čudesna stvar, ne samo snažna, nego i čudesna stvar, neka vrsta narastajuće složenosti koja vidimo da se dešava sada, treba da vratimo kameru malo unazad i da vidimo šta je jezik stvarno, u kom slučaju, jedna stvar koju vidimo je da SMS-ovanje uopšte nije pisanje. Šta mislim pod time?
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.
U osnovi, ako razmišljamo o jeziku, on postoji već možda 150.000 godina, najmanje 80.000 godina, i nastao je kao govor. Ljudi su razgovarali. To je verovatno ono za šta smo genetski predodređeni. To je ono kako koristimo jezik najčešće. Pisanje je nešto što je došlo mnogo kasnije, i kao što smo videli u prethodnom govoru, postoji malo neslaganje oko toga kada se to dogodilo, ali po tradicionalnim procenama, ako, na primer, čovečanstvo postoji 24 sata, onda se pisanje pojavilo otprilike oko 11:07 uveče. Toliko skora stvar je pisanje. Znači prvo imamo govor i onda dolazi pisanje kao neka vrsta pronalaska.
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:"
Sad da me ne shvatite pogrešno, pisanje ima određenih prednosti. Kad pišeš, zato što je to svestan proces, zato što možeš da pogledaš unazad, možeš da uradiš stvari sa jezikom koje ne možeš kada govoriš. Na primer, zamislite pasus iz knjige Edvarda Gibona "Slabljenje i pad Rimskog carstva":
"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."
"Ceo angažman je trajao preko dvanaest sati, dok se postepeno povlačenje Persijanaca nije pretvorilo u dezorganizovano bekstvo, za koje su sramni primer dale glavne vojskovođe i Surena lično."
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.
To je divno, ali budimo iskreni, niko ne priča tako. Ili barem, ne bi trebalo ako je zainteresovan za reprodukciju. To... (Smeh) ...nije način na koji ljudi govore svakodnevno.
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.
Svakodnevni govor je nešto sasvim drugo. Lingvisti su u stvari pokazali da kada govorimo svakodnevnim govorom bez nadgledanja, govorimo u paketima reči, od možda 7 do 10 reči Primetićete ovo, ako ste nekad imali priliku da snimite sebe ili grupu ljudi kako razgovara. Tako izgleda govor. Govor je mnogo opušteniji. Mnogo je "telegrafskiji". Mnogo je manje refleksivan. Vrlo različito od pisanja. Tako da prirodno imamo tendenciju da mislimo, zato što vidimo jezik napisan tako često, da je to ono što je jezik, ali u stvari ono što jezik jeste je - govor. Dve su stvari.
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.
Naravno, kako je istorija tekla, bilo je prirodno da bude određene količine trvenja između govora i pisanja. Tako, na primer, u ranijim epohama bilo je uobičajeno da, kada neko drži govor, uglavnom priča kao sto bi i pisao. Mislim na onu vrstu govora kad vidite nekoga kao u starom filmu, kad pročiste grlo, i krenu: (Nakašljavanje) "Dame i gospodo," i onda govore na način koji nema veze sa svakodnevnim govorom. On je formalan. Koristi duge rečenice kao one kod Gibona. U osnovi je to pričanje onako bi pisao, i tako, na primer, razmišljamo dosta ovih dana o Linkolnu zbog filma. Getisburški govor nije bio glavni događaj tu. Pre toga, Edvard Everet je dva sata govorio o temi koja, iskreno, ne može da nas zainteresuje danas i jedva da je mogla onda. Poenta je bila da ga slušamo kako govori u stilu pisanja. Obični ljudi su stajali i slušali to dva sata. Bilo je to savršeno prirodno. To je ono su ljudi radili onda, govorili kao što su i pisali.
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.
Ako možeš da govoriš kao što pišeš, onda logično sledi da možda želiš da ponekad pišeš onako kao što govoriš. Problem je bio samo što u materijalnom, mehaničkom smislu, to je bilo teže tada iz prostog razloga što materijali nisu bili odgovarajući za to. Bilo je skoro nemoguće uraditi to rukom osim stenografijom, ali onda je komunikacija ograničena Na mehaničkoj pisaćoj mašini je takođe vrlo teško, i čak kad su se pojavile električne pisaće mašine, ili kasnije kompjuterske tastature, činjenica je da čak i ako kucaš dovoljno lako da ideš u korak sa brzinom govora, manje-više, moraš da imaš nekoga ko može da primi tvoju poruku brzo.
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?
A jednom kad imaš stvar u svom džepu koja može da primi tu poruku onda imaš uslove koji dozvoljavaju da možemo da pišemo kao što govorimo. I to je trenutak kada nastupaju SMS poruke. I tako, SMS poruke su vrlo slobodne u svojoj strukturi. Niko ne misli o velikim slovima ili interpunkciji kad šalje SMS poruku, ali opet, da li misliš o ovim stvarima kad razgovaraš? Ne, i onda zašto bi i dok kucaš SMS?
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.
Slanje SMS-ova je, uprkos činjenici da to uključuje surovu mehaniku nečega što zovemo pisanje, je govor prstima. To je ono što SMS-ovanje jeste. Sada možemo da pišemo na način kako pričamo. I vrlo je interesantno, ali ipak lako pomisliti da to i dalje predstavlja neku vrstu opadanja. Vidimo tu opštu komotnu strukturu, nedostatak brige o pravilima i načina na koji smo ranije učili na tabli i tako mislimo da je nešto krenulo po zlu. To je vrlo prirodan osećaj.
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.
Ali u stvari ono što se dešava je neka vrsta kompleksnosti koja izrasta. To je ono što vidimo u ovom govoru prstima. I da bismo to razumeli, ono što želimo da vidimo je način, u ovoj novoj vrsti jezika, pojavljuje se nova struktura.
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.
I tako, na primer, postoji konvencija u kucanju SMS-ova, zvana LOL. LOL generalno znači "smejanje naglas" (Laughing Out Loud). I naravno to teoretski jeste, i ako pogledate starije tekstualne poruke, ljudi su je koristili da stvarno označe smejanje naglas. Ali ako kucate SMS danas ili ako ste neko ko je svestan supstrata SMS pisanja na način na koji je postao, primetićete da LOL više ne znači glasno smejanje. Evoluiralo je u nešto što je mnogo suptilnije.
This is an actual text that was done by a non-male person of about 20 years old not too long ago.
Ovo je SMS tekst koji je napisala ženska osoba od oko 20 godina starosti nedavno:
"I love the font you're using, btw."
"Sviđa mi se font koji koristiš, btw."
Julie: "lol thanks gmail is being slow right now"
Džuli: "lol hvala gmail se nešto usporio"
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.
Ako razmislite, to nije smešno. Niko se ne smeje. (Smeh) Ali ipak "lol" je tu, tako da pretpostavljate da postoji neka začkoljica.
Then Susan says "lol, I know," again more guffawing than we're used to when you're talking about these inconveniences.
Onda Suzan kaže: "lol, znam" opet sa većim grohotom nego što smo navikli kada pričamo o ovakvim nezgodama.
So Julie says, "I just sent you an email."
Onda Džuli kaže: "Upravo sam ti poslala mejl".
Susan: "lol, I see it."
Suzan: "lol, vidim ga".
Very funny people, if that's what LOL means.
Vrlo duhoviti ljudi, ako je to ono što LOL znači.
This Julie says, "So what's up?"
Džuli kaže: "Inače, šta ima?"
Susan: "lol, I have to write a 10 page paper."
Suzan: "lol, moram da napišem rad od 10 strana."
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.
Nije joj zabavno. Hajde da razmislimo o tome. LOL je upotrebljen na vrlo poseban način. On označava empatiju. On označava prilagođavanje. Mi lingvisti tako nešto nazivamo pragmatičnim partikulama. Ima ih svaki govorni jezik koji koriste stvarni ljudi. Ako slučajno govorite japanski, pomislite na onu malu reč "ne" koju koristite na kraju mnogih rečenica. Ako slušate način na koji crna omladina danas govori, pomislite na upotrebu reči "yo". Čitave disertacije se mogu napisati o tome, i verovatno se pišu. Pragmatična partikula, to je ono što je LOL postepeno postao. To je način korišćenja jezika između stvarnih ljudi.
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.
Još jedan primer je kosa crta. Sad, možemo da koristimo kosu crtu na način kako smo navikli, kao u primeru: "Napravićemo žurku / poslovno umrežavanje". To je otprilike ono na čemu radimo. Kosa crta se koristi na vrlo različite načine u SMS-ovanju među mladima danas. Koristi se za promenu scene.
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?"
Tako na primer, Seli kaže: "I tako treba da nađem društvo" i Džejk kaže: "Haha"... možemo da napišemo disertaciju o "Haha" takođe, ali nemamo vremena za to. "Haha znači ideš sama? Za šta?
Sally: "For this summer program at NYU."
Seli: "Za neki program na Univerzitetu Njujorka."
Jake: "Haha. Slash I'm watching this video with suns players trying to shoot with one eye."
Džejk: "Haha. (Kosa crta) ja gledam neki video sa igračima Sana koji pokušavaju da šutiraju s jednim okom."
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.
Kosa crta je intenteresantna. Ja u stvari i ne znam o čemu Džejk priča posle toga, ali primetićete da menja temu. To izgleda nekako uobičajeno, ali razmislite o tome kako u stvarnom životu, ako smo u konverzaciji i hoćemo da promenimo temu, ima načina da se to uradi elegantno. Ne skočite jednostavno odmah na to. Nego ćete se lupiti po butini i baciti čežnjiv pogled u daljinu, ili ćete reći nešto kao "Hm, da se prosto zapitaš..." što zaista ne činite, nego ono što u stvari... (Smeh) ...što u stvari pokušavate da uradite je da promenite temu. To ne možete da uradite dok kucate SMS, i tako se razvijaju načini da se to uradi pomoću ovog medijuma. Svi govorni jezici imaju ono što lingvista naziva jedan novi obeleživač informacije - ili dva, ili tri. SMS-ovanje je razvilo jedan od ove kose crte.
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.
Tako da imamo čitavu seriju novih konstrukcija koje se razvijaju i još uvek lako je pomisliti, pa, nešto i dalje nije u redu. Postoji neka vrsta nedostatka u strukturi. Nije tako sofisticiran kao jezik Vol strit žurnala.. Pa, u stvari, pogledajte ovu osobu iz 1956. godine ovo je vreme kad SMS-ovi nisu postojali, "I Love Lucy" se još prikazivala:
"Many do not know the alphabet or multiplication table, cannot write grammatically -- "
"Mnogi ne znaju abecedu ili tablicu množenja, ne znaju da pišu gramatički pravilno..."
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.
Čuli smo takve stvari i ranije, ne samo 1956. god. 1917, učitelj iz Konektikata. 1917! Ovo je doba kad svi pretpostavljamo da je sve u pisanju bilo nekako savršeno zato što su ljudi u seriji "Downtown Abbey" artikulisani ili otprilike tako nešto.
So, "From every college in the country goes up the cry, 'Our freshmen can't spell, can't punctuate.'"
Dakle: "Iz svakog koledža u zemlji slušamo jadikovke, 'Naši brucoši ne znaju da pišu, ne znaju interpunkciju.' "
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.
I tako dalje. Možete da idete i dalje unazad od ovoga. Ovo je predsednik Harvarda. 1871. godina. Nema struje. Ljudi imaju tri imena.
"Bad spelling, incorrectness as well as inelegance of expression in writing."
"Loše pisanje, netačnost kao i neelegantnost izražavanja u pisanju."
And he's talking about people who are otherwise well prepared for college studies.
A on govori o ljudima koji su inače dobro pripremljeni za koledž.
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.
Možete da idete i još dalje unazad. 1841. neki davno zaboravljeni nadzornik škola je uznemiren zbog nečega što se već dugo dešava i "sa žaljenjem primećuje skoro potpuno zanemarivanje originalnog..." bla bla bla bla bla.
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.
Ili možete da se vratite čak u 63. g. nove ere (Smeh) i imate jednog jadnika kome se ne sviđa kako ljudi govore latinski. Kako se ispostavlja, on piše o nečemu što je kasnije postalo francuski. I tako, uvek ima - (Smeh) (Aplauz) - uvek ima ljudi koji su zabrinuti oko ovih stvari, a planeta izgleda da se nekako i dalje vrti.
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.
I tako, ono kako ja mislim o SMS-ovanju danas je da je ono čemu prisustvujemo potpuno novi način pisanja koji mladi razvijaju, koji koriste pored njihovog uobičajenog pisanja, i to znači da su sposobni za dve stvari. U prilog tome je i činjenica je da biti dvojezičan je dobro za misaoni proces. To je isto slučaj i za dvodijalektičnost To je sigurno slučaj i za dvodijalektičnost u domenu vašeg pisanja. I tako je SMS-ovanje u stvari pokazatelj balansiranja koji mladi koriste danas, nesvesno, naravno, ali to je proširivanje njihovog jezičkog repertoara. Vrlo je jednostavno. Ako neko iz 1973. pogleda šta piše na oglasnoj tabli studentsog doma 1993., sleng se promenio vrlo malo od epohe "Ljubavne priče", ali bi razumeli ono što je na toj tabli. Uzmite osobu iz 1993. - ne toliko davno, ovo je epoha "Neverovatne avanture Bila i Teda" - ti ljudi. Uzmite ove ljude koji čitaju tipičan tekst koji je napisao heki dvadesetogodišnjak danas. Uglavnom oni ne bi imali pojma šta znači pola od toga zato što se čitav novi jezik razvio među mladim ljudima koji rade nešto uobičajeno kao što to izgleda nama kad kuckaju po njihovim malim uređajima.
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.
I tako za zaključak, kad bih mogao da odem u budućnost, kad bih mogao da odem u 2033.g. prva stvar koju bih pitao je da li je Dejvid Sajmon snimio nastavak "Žice". Želeo bih da znam. I - stvarno bih to pitao - i onda bih hteo da znam u stvari šta se dešavalo u "Downtown Abbey". To bi bila druga stvar. I onda treća stvar bi bila, molim vas pokažite mi kolekciju poruka koje su napisale šesnaestogodišnjakinje, zato što bih želeo da znam u kom pravcu se ovaj jezik razvio od našeg vremena, i u idealnom slučaju bih ih onda poslao nazad meni i vama danas tako da možemo da istražimo ovo lingvističko čudo koje se dešava ispred našeg nosa. Hvala vam puno.
(Applause) Thank you. (Applause)
(Aplauz) Hvala. (Aplauz)