Literacy in the Facebook Era - Waray Dictionary and Language ...

Fullmer 7
But there is another side to the debate. Others feel that the types of reading and writing we
do online are actually posing new cognitive challenges that force our brains to become better at
reading comprehension. Cognitively speaking, a person’s ability to produce standard spelling is a
different skillet than the ability to comprehend a text or compose a passage. Spelling is pure
memorization; comprehension is an interpretive skill and requires facility at phonemic awareness,
phonics, vocabulary, and fluency (Bernardo, p.7).
One researcher who sees internet English positively is David Crystal (2008) who argues that
“texting improves people’s literacy as it provides more opportunity to engage with the language
through reading and writing.” In other words, given that this style of writing is much more varied, it
requires the reader to have broader and more diverse reading comprehension abilities.
Crystal’s research also tries to correct some of the notions we have about the nature of
internet English. He asserts the following:
• Abbreviations are not a new thing: they have always been part of written and spoken
language.
• On average, only 10 percent of words are abbreviated in text messages.
• Texting does not cause bad spelling because people need to know how to spell
before they can text.
I would add that texting is not a “dumbed down” version of English. Emoticons and other textual
devices carry a complex array of linguistic nuances and connotations, and abbreviations require
texters to be inventive and creative. As a texter myself, I am well aware of the meaning an extra
exclamation point or :) will carry.
These observations serve to make us as teachers recalibrate ourselves to the discourse
students are using outside of the classroom: as distasteful as the ideas is to educators, linguists will
remind us that internet English is not inferior to standard English, but simply another dialect with its
own complexities. (That said, I acknowledge that students need to learn standard English to be
globally competitive).
In short, we have to correct our belief that students’ English skills are worsening. Roger
Thompson reports a study conducted in 1993 which aimed to gauge Filipinos’ fluency with the
English language. There was a clear correlation between age and literacy: the older the respondent,
the lower the ability to use English. Of those in the 17-24 age group, 77 percent read English, 68
percent write English, 82 percent understand spoken English, 63 percent speak English, and 54
percent think in English. The result, he writes, “contradicts the current perception that the golden