essay the use of english language in new technological inventions

• DOI: 10.29252/IJREE.3.2.115
• Corpus ID: 64763802

The Use of Technology in English Language Learning: A Literature Review

• Published in International Journal of… 1 June 2018
• Education, Computer Science

397 Citations

Exploring the potentials of technology integration for teaching language skills: a literature review.

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Using KAHOOT for interactive English Learning: A review of Current Literature

Technology-enhanced language learning: a meta-analysis study on english language teaching tools, learning styles and the role of technology in second language learning, the use of wattpad in english language teaching and learning: is it helpful, a systematic review on integrating mall in english language teaching, exploring online technology resources for english speaking skills: a case study of students’ experiences, the use of digital technology in foreign language learning, the use of technology to promote learner autonomy in teaching english, the use of chatbots in the english language teaching to promote modern language learning: a literature review, 53 references, a review of the literature on the integration of technology into the learning and teaching of english language skills, recent developments in technology and language learning: a literature review and meta-analysis, how does technology affect language learning process at an early age, "use of technology in english language teaching and learning": an analysis., the effectiveness of using technology in english language classrooms in government primary schools in bangladesh., use of technology in classroom for professional development, teachers’ use of technology and constructivism, technology in language education: benefits and barriers, technology integration for meaningful learning-the constructivist view, role of iranian efl teachers about using "pronunciation power software" in the instruction of english pronunciation., related papers.

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English As A Language of Science and Technology

English is the universal form of communication in science. Although many countries still publish journals in their native tongue, English is currently the best way to share one’s research findings with scientists in other parts of the world. But how did this come about?

Historical Progression of English as A Language of Science

Thus, French declined after WWI as German became more dominant, and after WWII English replaced German. As the U.S. became a global leader in technology and research, English remained the primary form of communication among scientists. During the 1920’s, the need for a universal language was proposed, and a new language, Esperanto, was created for this purpose. But it was somewhat impractical and never caught on. Instead English became a universal language of science, technology and business.

Benefits vs Disadvantages

There are of course many benefits to having a universal language. The most obvious advantage is that results can be more widely accessed, and scientific exchange between countries is significantly enhanced. However, we must also consider the drawbacks. Primarily English as a language of science and technology puts non-native English speakers at a clear disadvantage compared with native speakers when it comes to writing and promoting interest in their research. It also makes it more challenging to evaluate a scientific study based purely on the findings. Lack of clarity can take away from even the most interesting study. Imagine if Einstein’s Theory of Relativity , for example, was available only in a poorly translated version for non-German speakers!

English Translation Points

The best assurance is to allow a skilled provider of translation services to do the job. It is natural that in each country there are institutions that write and publish in their native language, but what is strange is that scientists would risk having their work misunderstood or undervalued due to a poor English translation of their findings.

Conclusions

The use of a universal language to communicate in science is unavoidable. Although English has gained its status without going through a true democratic process, having a universal form of communication does allow for a wider scope and better understanding which ultimately leads to scientific progress. English as a language of science and technology will continue while the U.S. dominates research in those fields, but as we know from past experience, this situation could very well change again.

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Five ways the internet era has changed British English – new research

Senior Lecturer in corpus linguistics, Lancaster University

Disclosure statement

Vaclav Brezina ( [email protected] ) is a Senior Lecturer at Lancaster University. The research presented in this article has been supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (grant number EP/P001559/1, ES/K002155/1 and ES/R008906/1)..

Lancaster University provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation UK.

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The dramatic changes in technology over the past 20 or so years, from the internet to the smartphone and digital assistants like Alexa, have made communication more accessible than ever before. We have created an online world where we post, share, comment, express views and seek information as well as relationships. These changes have also transformed the language we use.

Our new study based on the British National Corpus 2014 (BNC2014) – a 100 million-word sample of current language – shows us just how language has changed in the internet era. This data was contrasted with the original British National Corpus 1994 (BNC1994) – a comparable data set which samples British English from the early 1990s.

The study employed a methodology called corpus linguistics, which analyses large amounts of language using specialised software. The method allows researchers to search and compare word frequencies across different texts and genres, revealing the patterns and trends in language over time. The software used in this study was developed at Lancaster University and is freely available for download together with the data.

Here are some of the most striking changes:

1. We’ve become more informal

Our study revealed that overall, British English has become much more informal. This is true not only in blog posts and social media, where informality would be expected, but across the whole spectrum of genres, from fiction to newspapers, political speeches and academic writing.

Take the example below, from a recent academic paper -– a genre that has traditionally been perceived as formal. What is new about the language of this text is the high frequency of informal features like contractions ( isn’t ) and second and first person pronouns. This is something that would be fairly unusual before the internet revolution.

For at least on a popular Christian conception, when you believe something truly on the basis of faith this isn’t because of anything you’re naturally competent to do… I argue in this article that there’s no deep tension between faith-based knowledge and virtue epistemology.

2. We use ‘Mr and Mrs’ less often

Compared to 20 years ago, we are now more likely to address people using their first names than by more formal forms of address. The frequency of use of Mr and Mrs has decreased by 30% and 56%, respectively. The decrease in the use of Mrs has been partly counterbalanced by the increase in the use of Ms , but the overall decrease in the use of all the formal forms of address combined is 33%.

3. ‘Elanguage’

The internet has transformed not only how we use language, but also the words themselves. The following terms, acronyms and spellings are part of a register known as “elanguage”: Alexa, app, awesome, blog, congrats, email, fab, Facebook, fitbit, Im, Instagram, iPad, iPhone, Ive, Lol, omg, tbh, tweet, Twitter and website.

Each word in this list has a story behind it. Take, for example, the word app , which is somewhat symbolic for the technological revolution. Although the first uses of this term are from the early 1990s, there are only a handful of examples of this word being used in the 100 million words of the BNC1994. One example, from a computer magazine:

To run your average Windows app you’ll need 4Mb of RAM, a 100Mb hard disk.

In the early 1990s, the term used to refer to an app was software with 9,356 examples in the BNC1994. Nowadays, software is used much less frequently with a 49% decrease in use. On the other hand, app has considerably increased its frequency of use in elanguage (167 per million words) as well as in general British English (41 per million words).

4. Farewell to modals

The use of modal verbs such as must, may and shall has reached new lows. Must is now used just over 350 times per million words, a 42% decrease over the last 20 years. May marked a similar decrease (41%) as must, while shall changed even more dramatically, a 61% decrease.

These changes are associated with the overall shift of British English towards informality. The following sentences, both from BNC1994, now sound slightly old-fashioned and formal:

Of course, we shall not be staying here long. May I take my jacket off, please?

The decrease in the frequencies of modals started in English at the beginning of the 20th century, when must and may appeared well over 1,000 times per million words. Shall has always been the verb with the lowest frequency (400 per million words at the beginning of the 20th century and 64 per million words in present-day English). The graph below shows a clear trajectory of decrease of the core modals in English. If the trend continues at the same rate, these modals will be practically out of use by 2050. Note, however, that language change rarely follows a straightforward linear pattern of decrease.

5. Punctuation

Language change is also demonstrated in subtle linguistic features like punctuation marks. These indicate how long our sentences are, and what message and tone these carry: statements, questions or exclamations. The table below shows five most popular punctuation marks in English writing and how their frequency per million words has changed from the early 1990s to the present.

Most common punctuation marks are used more frequently now than they were in the early 1990s. This is particularly noticeable in the case of question marks (64% increase) and exclamation marks (103% increase). This might be a sign of language becoming more interactive and carrying a more emotional load. There is a small (5%) decrease in the use of semicolons, which are typically used in a more formal style of writing.

The corpus study offers a unique insight into the changes to lexical and grammatical features of British English over the years – only a few examples of which were given in this article. These reflect changes in technology as well as society. While language is always changing, the unprecedented access to a variety of forms of language on the internet, where one doesn’t need to be a fiction writer or a journalist to reach thousands or millions of readers, has accelerated informalisation of language.

• Linguistics
• Corpus linguistics
• Language change
• Internet language

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The impact of technology on the words we use

Nick beaumont.

11 Feb 2021

It’s a funny old business, being a technology copywriter .

At first, these words appear to be opposites: a world of quills, pretentious beard stroking and earthy Chesterfields slammed up against silicone chips and flashing mainframes. But delve a little deeper, and you’ll find the two worlds complement each other in weird and fascinating ways.

Now, I’m aware that not all of you see technology’s impact on language as wholly positive. Indeed, many polyglot purists view technology as downright corrosive, vehemently wagging their tongues at the emojis and ‘textspeak’ they feel have invaded their mother tongue.

‘Cya’ ‘Wuu2 ‘: )’

Such ways of speaking, they feel, are lazy, uncouth, even vulgar.

But I ask you, dear reader, to suspend your disdain for just a few moments. Because in this short article, I hope to convince you that technology is evolving language in a wholly healthy and natural way, and the changes we see are part of a linguistic tradition that started at the very beginning of written communication.

Language through the ages

If there is one thing I’d like to leave you with, it’s this: technology has always shaped language use.

Let’s not forget that writing is itself a technology. When our ancestors first started engraving cave walls, they’d invented something spectacular: a method of taking fleeting, ephemeral sounds that disappeared in the air, and communicating them in a way that would endure literally thousands of years.

From there, history has repeatedly shown the implement or surface of a given communication tool has a huge impact on language – particularly writing: take the stiff, straight lines of cuneiform script chiselled into stone tablets, or flowing Chinese characters painted with a brush. Both technologies changed the very look and feel of their respective languages.

Years passed. Empires rose and fell. Brushes and chisels evolved into quills, and a new mongrel language called English became the latest to adopt an obscure, 3000-year-old set of ancient Phoenician characters to express itself: the alphabet.

The arrival of the printing press (1440) went beyond quills, bringing with it graphical contrasts such as bold and italic, the art form of typography, and of course upper and lower cases; so named after the physical cases the letters were stored in – capitals in the ‘upper’ part of the case, small letters in the ‘lower’ part.

(Incidentally, it brought with it new forms of punctuation, some of which we sadly no long use: the interrobang (‽) for example, which today we present rather blandly as ‘!?’; and a colon followed by a hyphen (:-), nicknamed the ‘dog’s bollocks’, which would pleasingly go on to give us one of our favourite British phrases.)

Printing technology also give us a whole set of new conventions for spelling, spacing, line-breaking, and hyphenating. Doubtless, tongues were set a-wagging at just how much traditional language had been ripped up. But the purists were defeated by the sheer pragmatism the technology afforded.

The 19 th century brought its own innovations: the telegraph, the typewriter, the Word Document yours truly is using this very moment. And while I’ve been concentrating on written English, the ability to transmit voice over distances brought a slew of spoken conventions: the exchange of greetings over a phone line, the enthusiastic patter of a radio sports commentary, the formal clarity of a TV news announcer.

Queen’s English rose to prominence as ‘standard English’, with dialect forms dismissed as lazy, uncouth and even vulgar (remind you of anything?)

In the space of a few paragraphs we’ve travelled 5500 years. And as I hope you can see, the theme remains the same throughout the whole of human history: new mediums bring with them new written conventions, new graphical features, new rules, new expressions, new ways of talking. For all the weight we give them, words are specs of flotsam undulating on the great sea of human progress; churned, channelled and shaped by the society and technology around it.

And as we broke into the 21 st century, that undulating sea was about to become a whirlpool.

Enter the internet

Hopefully, with the above chronology, you can see how English has never been fixed. It’s always morphed and changed with the times. And from that perspective, the internet is simply the next step in a completely natural evolution.

It’s beyond the scope of this article to distil all the features of digital communication. After all, the internet is home to an ever-increasing set of sub-mediums , ranging from email to Snapchat to chatbots. There are however prominent features that we associate with ‘netspeak’.

Many of these are so obvious, we barely think about them. The various neologisms we coin for example, by creating a compound of two words. Things like software, podcast, email and cybercrime.  These examples also neatly demonstrate the popular prefixes and affixes that are used. Things like -ware, cyber- and e-.

Capitalisation has also gone through a radical shift. Most informal online communication throws out steadfast rules set out by the 14 th century printing presses. Looking at my phone now, I can see these beauties (incidentally, not written by me).

‘where are you?’ ‘im going to asda. ‘i dunno. you?

Capitalisation for proper nouns, the start of sentences, and the singular first person pronoun are simply not needed. Yet capitalisation does have a use. BiCaps for example, which you will be instantly familiar with if you look at eBay, iPhone, AskJeeves, or any other words that have a capital beyond the first letter.

We also now use capitals in a more emotive way. ‘WHERE ARE YOU???!’ an angry mother may WhatsApp their teen son/daughter if they stay out too late. Notice too the overuse of questions marks (perhaps a sly interrobang(‽) would have been more efficient?).

You would never see a sentence like this in ‘standard’ writing. And perhaps that’s just the point: informal digital communication isn’t ‘standard’. In many ways, texting, emailing and instant messaging has more in common with spoken English than written. It has a rawness and immediacy that simply doesn’t come when, for example, one is slogging through the third draft of this blog.

And it’s not just capitals. The old rules of writing, set down hundreds of years before we had computers, are simply too inflexible for the digital world. In order to convey the immediacy and personality of a conversation in written form, rules need to be broken.

‘I *really* hate him’ ‘arghhh wtf’ ‘Shut. Up.’ ‘Hey bae wuu2?’

And I haven’t even got into the divisive world of emojis (which incidentally has an interesting etymology of its own: rather than deriving from the English word ‘emotion’, it comes from the Japanese words ‘e’ (picture) + ‘moji’ (character), and dates back as far as 1999! But the effect of globalisation on English is a topic for another blog.)

Basic emojis (or emoticons) follow exactly the same principle as the above: they’re a way of bending and distorting a language’s standard set of graphological features in order to express new ideas and convey new emotion. The standard fare have been around since the days of texting:

But a quick search of the internet will find you some amazing creations . Nowadays phones will include sets of pictorial emojis that act as script and can be inserted into written communications, but the function is still the same as those traditional emoticons: it’s a way of embellishing, evolving, and equipping written language to convey things that letters alone simply cannot.

I could go on. But the point I want to leave you with is that the language we see online is in no way a degeneration of what has come before. Written communication has evolved from something used to count grains of wheat through to ancient legal documents, recording stories, sharing the news, and now a digital supplement to speech. In each case, humans had to bend, change and create in order for language to express what was needed.

And in fact, there has never been a ‘standard’ English. Shakespeare himself spelt his name multiple different ways – sometimes even on the same document! Of course, we do need some form of standardisation (I’m as annoyed as the next copywriter at businesses who can’t spell right.) But unlike France, who actively fights anglicized loanwords like ‘software’, ‘Walkman’ and ‘email’ in favour of original French words, we don’t have an academy that tries to police what comes and goes out of our language.

English has a proud tradition of being a democratic language – one where influences come and go not because they are officially ordained from above, but because they are in common use. The OED does not tell you what is or isn’t allowed: it simply provides a snapshot of the common parlance at that particular time.

So, with all that in mind, I say embrace the chaos. Slather your texts in emojis. Split infinites in your tweets. Use capitals in your work emails until everyone hates you. And most of all, use words to do what they have always been designed to do – to express yourself.

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• 4 Ways the Internet Has Changed the English Language

While these dire predictions had some, slim basis in fact (you’ve probably heard someone say “lol” aloud in place of actually laughing), for the most part they’ve failed to come true. Looking at the big picture, global literacy rates continue to rise. It’s tricky to see whether literacy rates might correlate with internet use; internet use is usually higher in wealthier countries, and wealthier countries usually have higher literacy rates. Yes, you’ll encounter many more error-ridden articles online than you’d be likely to in print media. But on the other hand, you encounter many more articles online full stop, from a vastly more diverse range of people who in many cases, had they lived a hundred years ago, would never have learned to write at all, let alone being able to write, publish and have their thoughts read by hundreds or thousands – misplaced commas and all. Yet the internet has wrought significant changes on our use of the English language – most of them neither good nor bad, merely different, as every major new technology also has its impact. In this article, we look at some of the key ways that the internet has changed the way we speak and write, both online and offline.

1. We’ve added thousands of words of new vocabulary

Looking at early internet vocabulary provides a fascinating insight into how quickly new words can be picked up and then abandoned. Many of these terms that sprung up and then disappeared less than ten years later have simply become outdated.

For instance, there’s the weird telegraphese of internet and text acronyms and abbreviations. Do you recognise or understand any of these: 4COL, AYSOS, GHM, N2MJCHBU, RAEBNC, SWIS or WACI? It’s the kind of thing that you might be pushed to write if each text costs you 30p to send, or you don’t want to take up too much space on a tiny mobile phone screen. But now you would just write it out: for crying out loud; are you stupid or something?; god help me; not too much just chilling how about you?; read and enjoyed but no comment; see what I’m saying; what a cool idea. Faced with a list of incomprehensible abbreviations like the one above, it’s easy to see why some people feared that human literacy was doomed and we were returning to a world of inarticulate pictograms. But as the technology improved and abbreviations began to impede communication rather than facilitate it, we abandoned the acronyms. TYL. (Thank you Lord – or text you later, depending on context). The forward march of technology has pushed out other terms as well. We don’t talk about being “stuck in blue bar land”; Internet Explorer and its blue loading bar has been consigned to the dustbin of failed browser history. Similarly, being a “bandwidth hog” is no longer the problem it once was. The diversification of the internet killed off a few more words: feel the disdain of the nerd in terms like “meatspace” and “dead tree edition”, that couldn’t endure once the internet was just as likely to be used by someone’s grandma as any l33t h4xx0rz (that’s “elite hackers”, for anyone who doesn’t speak early-90s nerd slang).

Where old internet slang has fallen out of favour, new slang has appeared. If you’re reading this in 2016, you probably know most of the terms on this list: YOLO (the internet abbreviation is not completely dead!), rickrolling, basic, throwing shade, I can’t even, bae, fleek, hashtag, salty, catfish, selfie. But if it’s 2030 and this article is still online, you might want to google the concept of “rickrolling” and feel amazed at the kind of things your parents found amusing. It’s important to remember that a lot of internet vocabulary belongs to the category of slang or jargon; it serves a particular purpose within an in-group, like professional slang . Hand-wringing articles appear when people from outside that in-group try to understand it, but that was never the purpose for which that vocabulary developed.

2. We’re getting to grips with dialects we otherwise wouldn’t have encountered

We’ve written before about how much the English language is changing , and one of the key drivers of that change is the number of people who speak English as a second, third or even fourth language. English has about 400 million native speakers, but vastly more non-native speakers – perhaps as many as two billion, depending on how loosely you want to define being an English speaker. It’s a harder question than you might realise: how fluent does someone have to be to count as an English speaker? Do they need to be able to string together a few sentences, or hold a decent conversation? Do dialects and creoles count? What if they are speaking something that is essentially English, but that very few native English speakers can understand? These questions ultimately extend beyond language, and start to raise political questions as well; the use of language by one speaker might be considered as an error, while another speaker might be considered to be using a dialect. The internet means that English speakers of whichever background are encountering more varieties of English than they might ever have before. Take someone in Liverpool, who a hundred years ago might have heard Liverpudlian dialects and standard English, and nothing else. But online, that person today might encounter varieties of English from all across the world. Taking a look through Buzzfeed, for instance, might throw up some articles from Buzzfeed India in which you’ll encounter words like “funner”; incorrect in standard English, but fine in Indian English.

Another dialect that you might encounter online is African-American Vernacular English (usually shortened to AAVE). A lot of the internet buzzwords of 2016 derive directly from AAVE. Here’s a short list: lit (e.g. “the party is lit” – it’s great), bae (boyfriend/girlfriend etc.), woke (aware of political realities), on fleek (flawlessly styled), shade (specifically “throwing shade” – delivering a put-down, usually to someone who deserves it), squad (your friends), realness (as the word implies, being authentic), slay (to succeed in something really difficult) and basic (enjoying unsophisticated things). Some of these words have entered if not standard English, then the slang of standard English speakers, through other forms of popular culture; for instance, Beyoncé’s ‘Formation’ is in considerable part responsible for non-AAVE speakers using “slay”. But many of these words have appeared through their usage on the internet by AAVE speakers, where they have been borrowed by people who may otherwise have had no experience of AAVE. In particular, people who are effectively bilingual in AAVE and standard English might borrow AAVE vocabulary if it seems to fit their meaning better when speaking standard English. Standard English has always been inclined to borrow from other languages and dialects, and their use on the internet makes the whole process quicker and easier.

3. We’re creating brand-new dialects for online communities

For people who are not routinely on Tumblr, having a quick browse of it can be profoundly confusing. Of all online communities, Tumblr is possibly the one that has gone furthest towards having its own dialect that is incomprehensible to outsiders. There are even online guides into “how to speak Tumblr”. Here’s a Tumblr paragraph: I CANT EVEN what is this life ruiner. having ALL THE FEELS akdfhakdghoghsgds what is air Or in other words, the writer is extremely excited by someone. What’s fascinating about this is that none of the phrases above are borrowed from other dialects, except perhaps the keyboard smash – akdfhakdghoghsgds – but that can denote anger elsewhere, while on Tumblr it usually means wild, flailing excitement. Some of the terms might have come from pre-Tumblr online communities (especially LiveJournal) but what you can effectively see is the migration of a single online tribe, from a variety of forums to LiveJournal to Tumblr, taking their language with them and adapting it along the way.

Tumblr’s dialect is among the most distinctive, but it’s not the only online dialect. There’s the snippy, to-the-point use of language on Twitter, where users have honed the art of getting to the point in 140 characters. Reddit also has its own vocabulary, though there much of it is borrowed from previous forums, and it shows: the use of abbreviations still thrives on Reddit despite being gone from most of the rest of the internet, as its users tell each other TL;DR (too long; didn’t read), TIL (today I learned), FTFY (fixed that for you) and all the other forum-specific terms of cross-posting, upvoting, downvoting and so on and so forth. Of course, not all of these users stick solely to one community. While there are differences of demographics (for instance, Tumblr is female-dominated, while more men use Reddit), there is considerable overlap between members of different communities, and that means that there are a good few people out there who are effectively bilingual in different online dialects: switching effortlessly from Tumblrese to Reddit-speak as required. This means that the people on Tumblr who write as if they don’t entirely understand how the shift key works and the people who Reddit who think it’s still 1996 can presumably also switch into standard English without borrowing anything from their online usage of language unless it feels appropriate. In other words, standard English ends up not damaged, but where need be, enhanced.

4. We’re learning new grammar rather than losing our ability to speak English

How do cats and dogs speak? If you ask a toddler, you’ll probably get a conventional answer along the lines of “cats go miaow, dogs go woof” or something similar. If, however, you ask an internet user, you’ll naturally know that cats (or at least lolcatz) are “in ur article and speakz lyk dis”. And you’ll know that dogs (or at least doge), as we’ve discussed before , speak “much words, very English, so article. Wow.” The thing about writing these so that they sound ‘correct’ within the rules of the meme is that it takes a reasonably advanced knowledge of English spelling and grammar. Both are deliberately incorrect along different lines, and you can’t be deliberately incorrect unless you already know what the correct formulation is.

Lolcatz use old-school internet abbreviations and misspellings such as “ur” for “your”, replace “s” with “z” and confuse the third-person singular with the first-person singular (so “I has” not the correct “I have). Doge, on the other hand, take adjectives and adverbs and get them the wrong way around. “Much” is a measure of uncountable quantity (“too much milk”) that in writing doge is used as a measure of countable quantities (“much words”, which should correctly be “many words”). What’s fascinating about this is that the difference between countable and uncountable nouns is a famously tricky aspect of the English language. Very few supermarket checkouts, for instance, are labelled correctly as “five items or fewer” (because the items are clearly countable, and fewer refers to countable quantities) but instead as “five items or less” (which is as incorrect as saying “much items”; it’s using an uncountable term for a countable quantity). In other words, in order to construct a doge meme, you have to understand English at a higher level than many native speakers have achieved, even if you don’t realise that’s what you’re doing.

When people are bilingual – especially when they speak the standard variation of a language and then a dialect, creole or a language that is seen as inferior – there have long been concerns that the second language or dialect needs to be suppressed, or they’ll never learn the first one properly. Much the same instinct can be seen with the concerns about what the internet is doing to the English language; what if a generation grow up able only to speak lolcat, and not to read Shakespeare?! But a couple of decades of widespread internet access have demonstrated that internet dialects operate much like any other dialect: speakers learn to switch confidently and accurately between the two, borrowing words from one to the other as seems appropriate, to the lexical enhancement of both. The internet has changed the English language considerably; long may it continue.

Image credits: surfing the net ; old mobile phone ; comedy eyebrows ; children at birthday party ; spirit level ; cat in tree ; shiba inu ; coding

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How technology changes the English language

The aim of this article is to highlight changes in English that took place because of technologies. Examples of words are given where it is shown how the words changed their meanings as a result of technological development. Reference is also made to the problem of naming technological novelties, coining new words, and the words that were coined in the recent years. In conclusion, any living language changes over the time, which is quite inevitable in the highly developed technological era.

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KnE Social Sciences

Yana Volkova

Having become a Lingua Franca, English is undergoing constant changes in its phonetic, lexical and grammatical systems. Nowadays, rapid technological development, a growing number of information sources, and many other substantial transformations contribute to the language evolution. In addition, complex interaction between different social and cultural groups has a significant impact on the language as well. These changes may affect phonetic, lexical, semantic and syntactic aspects of the language. The purpose of this paper is to reveal and analyze the semantic changes that have taken place in the English language due to the development of “net-English”. Several lexical units, ‘twit’ (or ‘tweet’), ‘surf’, ‘google’, ‘share’, ‘like’ among them, were taken as examples. Generally, this type of language change can be explained by the emergence of new concepts in different spheres. But it is connected not only with physical changes such as new technological achievements or development of...

Nouf Al-otaibi

Asma Neelam

The main characteristic of any occidental language is the change brought into it with the passage of time. Language dies when it ceases to change. In this article, the main changes brought into English language since the time of its emergence are highlighted with reference to morphology, phonology, syntax and semantics

Made Hery Santosa

Technology has been developing rapidly and influencing many fields, including language teaching. In the area of English as a foreign language (EFL), technology has been strongly evolving and taking important roles. An emphasis on content, pedagogy, and technology supports is undeniably important for the success of the teaching and learning process. Successful integration of technology is believed to assist students and teachers more effectively in the instructional process. However, it is also important to note that besides providing benefits to learning, technology must be utilized wisely for it also presents challenges in the learning process.

Rusudan Makhachashvili

International Journal of Scientific Research in Science and Technology IJSRST

Modern " Global Village " needs a " Global Language " as a single lingua franca for globalized trade and business requirements. More than 350 million people around the world speak English as a first language and about 430 million, as a second language. Thus, English is considered as a global language. In this research paper, the alterations in English language due to technological advancement especially in information and communication technology starting from printing press to high speed internet age has been chronologically discussed and reviewed. The invention of printing press led to greater availability of books and news paper. Radio contributed to the spread of English language during wartime and invention of Television was a major factor in the increased use of English as a second language in the 1950 " s. Internet and social media has brought significant changes in usage of English language. With the invention of AI work of translation and interpretation can be done easily.

Pooran Chandra

The English language, from its inception as Old English to its present form in the postmodern age, has experienced an extraordinary evolution, making it one of the most widely spoken languages worldwide. It provides a comprehensive overview of English throughout various epochs, highlighting its significant influences and transformations throughout these epochs. From its Germanic roots and the Latin and French infusions during the Middle Ages, through the standardization of the Early Modern era, to the technological and socio-cultural shifts of the Late Modern and Postmodern eras, English has demonstrated remarkable adaptability. A number of internal and external factors have contributed to the trajectory of English, as highlighted in this study. This paper aims to demonstrate the dynamic nature of English, emphasizing its resilience, malleability, and its ability to reflect the ever-evolving human experience by charting these developments.

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The impact of technology on the English language

Technology is a huge part of all our lives today and I bet you couldn’t imagine your life without your mobile phone! Apart from changing the way we communicate with friends and family and giving us lots of new ways to work, technology has also changed the English language too. Let’s look at some of these changes:

‘Google’, ‘tweet’ and ‘direct message’ are just some of the new verbs that have entered the English language due to the internet. I’m sure you have talked about googling a word or product and tweeted or direct messaged a friend on social media platforms. Over 700 new words were added to the Oxford English Dictionary in June 2021, and you can bet some of those were technology related!

Text acronyms and short forms

As I’m sure is the same in your first language, when sending messages on WhatsApp or via text native speakers like to shorten words or use acronyms (letters in the place of words). This trend started many years ago as it was expensive to send longer messages, nowadays it still continues because it is much faster. Let’s look at a few examples:

BC – because

IDK – I don’t know

NP – no problem

TBH – to be honest

For more examples, check out this website:  https://www.grammarly.com/blog/texting-abbreviations/

Emojis have become so popular in the last few years that some text conversations happen only in emojis! They have also started to be used at work, especially with the chat function in Microsoft Teams and in informal emails between colleagues. Knowing your audience is important though, don’t send any emojis to your new boss or someone you haven’t met before!

Now it’s your turn, can you guess three English expressions/idioms using the emoji clues below?

• ☔????????????????
• ????????????????

Don’t forget to look out any new technology related words as the English language continue to evolve! What do you think might be the next words to enter the dictionary?

• It’s raining cats and dogs = It’s raining a lot!
• Don’t cry over spilt milk = don’t be upset about something that has already happened and you can’t change
• Like a duck to water = something comes naturally

10 Aug 2021

More From Forbes

How new technologies are changing language learning, for better and worse.

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AI, AR and VR are increasingly hot topics in the language learning space — with new tools and technologies being touted as silver bullets that will fundamentally change the way we learn.

Numerous on-demand apps and free tools have made language learning accessible to everyone: Duolingo is a prime example, busuu’s Alexa bot  is making it easy to practice hands-free while performing other household activities, and Google’s new wireless headphones   offer real-time translation from Google Translate. And  Mondly VR is leading the charge in the VR space with its foreign-language teaching app, which places people into situations where they’d need to use the language, like a cab ride or checking into a hotel.

There's no doubt that technologies like this will have a massive impact on the way we learn, the way we live and the way we work. Some believe they’ll even eradicate the need to learn it at all — like Joshua Cooper Ramo, author of  The Seventh Sense , who makes a case that more data means less need for human intervention. With advancements like real-time translations already showing up in early adaptations, the claim would render language learning nearly obsolete.

The counter viewpoint is that with massive acceleration in technology, there’s still a place for human-centric skills. Having studied seven languages myself, including French — which I learned by fully immersing myself while teaching English in Lyon — I personally see the human and cultural elements of language as irreplaceable, and being an EdTech entrepreneur for the past 10 years has only strengthened this viewpoint.

In his book   Head in the Cloud , William Poundstone  talks about the importance of “knowing” things, despite our increasingly easy access to mass amounts of data and information. He argues that during a time in history where we have more information than ever, we’re actually narrowing our potential knowledge base and are more ill-informed than ever. I would argue that h is findings support the need for a level of “knowing” in language learning that can’t be replaced by machines or self-study tools, no matter how immersive or realistic. I also believe that cultural subtleties, connotations and idiomatic usage simply can’t be fully conveyed without real human interaction.

After all, language is fundamentally not based on the memorization of vocabulary items or grammar systems, but rather on “pragmatics” — a fancy term for confidence, cultural knowledge and situational awareness — as well as the comprehension of the rich, authentic social context, and the corresponding ability to produce the spoken language for personally meaningful social and business interactions. This is a misunderstanding that is really at the root of many of the language learning products out there on the market.

As Michael Haugh, P rofessor of Linguistics and Head of School of Languages and Cultures at The University of Queensland, recently   put it : “We can’t outsource deep cross-linguistic and cross-cultural knowledge to apps, and the need to learn languages hasn’t changed."

Given this, the real challenge isn’t how great tech can teach people languages, but rather how can great tech supplement, extend and scale the human interaction that is at the core of language learning?

The driving motivation behind learning a language is even intrinsically “human,” and more often than not, emotionally driven — whether it's for career advancement, for travel or to be able to communicate with friends or family. And language isn’t simply about words and phrases, grammar and pronunciation. Language is deeply rooted in culture, and vice versa.

Compared to app-based learning that is largely based on memory games, VR appears to understand the importance of engaging the higher cognitive levels of the brain needed in language learning — like application, context and evaluation.   You can even ask the bots within the VR app a fairly large list of questions, making the interaction more realistic.

As such, VR seems to be a viable tech-focused solution for the argument that immersion-based learning provides the best outcomes, as it provides access to a simulated environment for those who don’t have the privilege of travel. But, in its current iteration, the practicality is limited. You’re not likely to wear a VR headset while on your daily commute, for example.

I recently had the chance to speak to Antoine Sakho, head of product at busuu, on this topic.

“The best way to learn a language still remains going to that country and being fully immersed. We want to provide the second best way," Sakho told me.  “VR won’t make you fluent, but it can add a nice immersive, story-driven touch to language learning to make it more fun and give you some basic knowledge.”

An important consideration that we explored during our conversation is the issue that this type of technology for language learning is primarily aimed at and built for learners at beginner levels. Learning a language is a long journey that requires different support structures along the way.

A blended learning model, driven by customized content created by expert speakers and supplemented by tech, is one way forward. That's why we use a mixed model; other companies like  2U , Middlebury Interactive  and goFluent  also offer a mixture of face-to-face and online learning in order to create a more custom and effective learning experience.

Apps like Duolingo, VR games and integrations like the busuu Alexa bot are incredibly valuable tools to enhance the language learning process, making the self-study experience richer and more impactful. But they don’t, and shouldn’t, entirely replace the experience of learning with a real-life human.

The next 10 years of advancements in the industry are going to be defined by getting the balance right. Many big players will continue to try sexy tech-only solutions. But I believe real learning outcomes will be driven by players that succeed in finding the balance between technology and a human-centric approach.

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• Technology Essay

Essay on Technology

The word "technology" and its uses have immensely changed since the 20th century, and with time, it has continued to evolve ever since. We are living in a world driven by technology. The advancement of technology has played an important role in the development of human civilization, along with cultural changes. Technology provides innovative ways of doing work through various smart and innovative means. 

Electronic appliances, gadgets, faster modes of communication, and transport have added to the comfort factor in our lives. It has helped in improving the productivity of individuals and different business enterprises. Technology has brought a revolution in many operational fields. It has undoubtedly made a very important contribution to the progress that mankind has made over the years.

The Advancement of Technology:

Technology has reduced the effort and time and increased the efficiency of the production requirements in every field. It has made our lives easy, comfortable, healthy, and enjoyable. It has brought a revolution in transport and communication. The advancement of technology, along with science, has helped us to become self-reliant in all spheres of life. With the innovation of a particular technology, it becomes part of society and integral to human lives after a point in time.

Technology is Our Part of Life:

Technology has changed our day-to-day lives. Technology has brought the world closer and better connected. Those days have passed when only the rich could afford such luxuries. Because of the rise of globalisation and liberalisation, all luxuries are now within the reach of the average person. Today, an average middle-class family can afford a mobile phone, a television, a washing machine, a refrigerator, a computer, the Internet, etc. At the touch of a switch, a man can witness any event that is happening in far-off places.  

Benefits of Technology in All Fields: 

We cannot escape technology; it has improved the quality of life and brought about revolutions in various fields of modern-day society, be it communication, transportation, education, healthcare, and many more. Let us learn about it.

Technology in Communication:

With the advent of technology in communication, which includes telephones, fax machines, cellular phones, the Internet, multimedia, and email, communication has become much faster and easier. It has transformed and influenced relationships in many ways. We no longer need to rely on sending physical letters and waiting for several days for a response. Technology has made communication so simple that you can connect with anyone from anywhere by calling them via mobile phone or messaging them using different messaging apps that are easy to download.

Innovation in communication technology has had an immense influence on social life. Human socialising has become easier by using social networking sites, dating, and even matrimonial services available on mobile applications and websites.

Today, the Internet is used for shopping, paying utility bills, credit card bills, admission fees, e-commerce, and online banking. In the world of marketing, many companies are marketing and selling their products and creating brands over the internet. 

In the field of travel, cities, towns, states, and countries are using the web to post detailed tourist and event information. Travellers across the globe can easily find information on tourism, sightseeing, places to stay, weather, maps, timings for events, transportation schedules, and buy tickets to various tourist spots and destinations.

Technology in the Office or Workplace:

Technology has increased efficiency and flexibility in the workspace. Technology has made it easy to work remotely, which has increased the productivity of the employees. External and internal communication has become faster through emails and apps. Automation has saved time, and there is also a reduction in redundancy in tasks. Robots are now being used to manufacture products that consistently deliver the same product without defect until the robot itself fails. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning technology are innovations that are being deployed across industries to reap benefits.

Technology has wiped out the manual way of storing files. Now files are stored in the cloud, which can be accessed at any time and from anywhere. With technology, companies can make quick decisions, act faster towards solutions, and remain adaptable. Technology has optimised the usage of resources and connected businesses worldwide. For example, if the customer is based in America, he can have the services delivered from India. They can communicate with each other in an instant. Every company uses business technology like virtual meeting tools, corporate social networks, tablets, and smart customer relationship management applications that accelerate the fast movement of data and information.

Technology in Education:

Technology is making the education industry improve over time. With technology, students and parents have a variety of learning tools at their fingertips. Teachers can coordinate with classrooms across the world and share their ideas and resources online. Students can get immediate access to an abundance of good information on the Internet. Teachers and students can access plenty of resources available on the web and utilise them for their project work, research, etc. Online learning has changed our perception of education. 

The COVID-19 pandemic brought a paradigm shift using technology where school-going kids continued their studies from home and schools facilitated imparting education by their teachers online from home. Students have learned and used 21st-century skills and tools, like virtual classrooms, AR (Augmented Reality), robots, etc. All these have increased communication and collaboration significantly. 

Technology in Banking:

Technology and banking are now inseparable. Technology has boosted digital transformation in how the banking industry works and has vastly improved banking services for their customers across the globe.

Technology has made banking operations very sophisticated and has reduced errors to almost nil, which were somewhat prevalent with manual human activities. Banks are adopting Artificial Intelligence (AI) to increase their efficiency and profits. With the emergence of Internet banking, self-service tools have replaced the traditional methods of banking. 

You can now access your money, handle transactions like paying bills, money transfers, and online purchases from merchants, and monitor your bank statements anytime and from anywhere in the world. Technology has made banking more secure and safe. You do not need to carry cash in your pocket or wallet; the payments can be made digitally using e-wallets. Mobile banking, banking apps, and cybersecurity are changing the face of the banking industry.

Manufacturing and Production Industry Automation:

At present, manufacturing industries are using all the latest technologies, ranging from big data analytics to artificial intelligence. Big data, ARVR (Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality), and IoT (Internet of Things) are the biggest manufacturing industry players. Automation has increased the level of productivity in various fields. It has reduced labour costs, increased efficiency, and reduced the cost of production.

For example, 3D printing is used to design and develop prototypes in the automobile industry. Repetitive work is being done easily with the help of robots without any waste of time. This has also reduced the cost of the products. 

Technology in the Healthcare Industry:

Technological advancements in the healthcare industry have not only improved our personal quality of life and longevity; they have also improved the lives of many medical professionals and students who are training to become medical experts. It has allowed much faster access to the medical records of each patient. 

The Internet has drastically transformed patients' and doctors’ relationships. Everyone can stay up to date on the latest medical discoveries, share treatment information, and offer one another support when dealing with medical issues. Modern technology has allowed us to contact doctors from the comfort of our homes. There are many sites and apps through which we can contact doctors and get medical help. 

Breakthrough innovations in surgery, artificial organs, brain implants, and networked sensors are examples of transformative developments in the healthcare industry. Hospitals use different tools and applications to perform their administrative tasks, using digital marketing to promote their services.

Technology in Agriculture:

Today, farmers work very differently than they would have decades ago. Data analytics and robotics have built a productive food system. Digital innovations are being used for plant breeding and harvesting equipment. Software and mobile devices are helping farmers harvest better. With various data and information available to farmers, they can make better-informed decisions, for example, tracking the amount of carbon stored in soil and helping with climate change.

Disadvantages of Technology:

People have become dependent on various gadgets and machines, resulting in a lack of physical activity and tempting people to lead an increasingly sedentary lifestyle. Even though technology has increased the productivity of individuals, organisations, and the nation, it has not increased the efficiency of machines. Machines cannot plan and think beyond the instructions that are fed into their system. Technology alone is not enough for progress and prosperity. Management is required, and management is a human act. Technology is largely dependent on human intervention. 

Computers and smartphones have led to an increase in social isolation. Young children are spending more time surfing the internet, playing games, and ignoring their real lives. Usage of technology is also resulting in job losses and distracting students from learning. Technology has been a reason for the production of weapons of destruction.

Dependency on technology is also increasing privacy concerns and cyber crimes, giving way to hackers.

FAQs on Technology Essay

1. What is technology?

Technology refers to innovative ways of doing work through various smart means. The advancement of technology has played an important role in the development of human civilization. It has helped in improving the productivity of individuals and businesses.

2. How has technology changed the face of banking?

Technology has made banking operations very sophisticated. With the emergence of Internet banking, self-service tools have replaced the traditional methods of banking. You can now access your money, handle transactions, and monitor your bank statements anytime and from anywhere in the world. Technology has made banking more secure and safe.

3. How has technology brought a revolution in the medical field?

Patients and doctors keep each other up to date on the most recent medical discoveries, share treatment information, and offer each other support when dealing with medical issues. It has allowed much faster access to the medical records of each patient. Modern technology has allowed us to contact doctors from the comfort of our homes. There are many websites and mobile apps through which we can contact doctors and get medical help.

4. Are we dependent on technology?

Yes, today, we are becoming increasingly dependent on technology. Computers, smartphones, and modern technology have helped humanity achieve success and progress. However, in hindsight, people need to continuously build a healthy lifestyle, sorting out personal problems that arise due to technological advancements in different aspects of human life.

Suggestions or feedback?

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MIT study explains why laws are written in an incomprehensible style

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Legal documents are notoriously difficult to understand, even for lawyers. This raises the question: Why are these documents written in a style that makes them so impenetrable?

MIT cognitive scientists believe they have uncovered the answer to that question. Just as “magic spells” use special rhymes and archaic terms to signal their power, the convoluted language of legalese acts to convey a sense of authority, they conclude.

In a study appearing this week in the journal of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , the researchers found that even non-lawyers use this type of language when asked to write laws.

“People seem to understand that there’s an implicit rule that this is how laws should sound, and they write them that way,” says Edward Gibson, an MIT professor of brain and cognitive sciences and the senior author of the study.

Eric Martinez PhD ’24 is the lead author of the study. Francis Mollica, a lecturer at the University of Melbourne, is also an author of the paper .

Casting a legal spell

Gibson’s research group has been studying the unique characteristics of legalese since 2020, when Martinez came to MIT after earning a law degree from Harvard Law School. In a 2022 study , Gibson, Martinez, and Mollica analyzed legal contracts totaling about 3.5 million words, comparing them with other types of writing, including movie scripts, newspaper articles, and academic papers.

That analysis revealed that legal documents frequently have long definitions inserted in the middle of sentences — a feature known as “center-embedding.” Linguists have previously found that this kind of structure can make text much more difficult to understand.

“Legalese somehow has developed this tendency to put structures inside other structures, in a way which is not typical of human languages,” Gibson says.

In a follow-up study published in 2023, the researchers found that legalese also makes documents more difficult for lawyers to understand. Lawyers tended to prefer plain English versions of documents, and they rated those versions to be just as enforceable as traditional legal documents.

“Lawyers also find legalese to be unwieldy and complicated,” Gibson says. “Lawyers don’t like it, laypeople don’t like it, so the point of this current paper was to try and figure out why they write documents this way.”

The researchers had a couple of hypotheses for why legalese is so prevalent. One was the “copy and edit hypothesis,” which suggests that legal documents begin with a simple premise, and then additional information and definitions are inserted into already existing sentences, creating complex center-embedded clauses.

“We thought it was plausible that what happens is you start with an initial draft that’s simple, and then later you think of all these other conditions that you want to include. And the idea is that once you’ve started, it’s much easier to center-embed that into the existing provision,” says Martinez, who is now a fellow and instructor at the University of Chicago Law School.

However, the findings ended up pointing toward a different hypothesis, the so-called “magic spell hypothesis.” Just as magic spells are written with a distinctive style that sets them apart from everyday language, the convoluted style of legal language appears to signal a special kind of authority, the researchers say.

“In English culture, if you want to write something that’s a magic spell, people know that the way to do that is you put a lot of old-fashioned rhymes in there. We think maybe center-embedding is signaling legalese in the same way,” Gibson says.

In this study, the researchers asked about 200 non-lawyers (native speakers of English living in the United States, who were recruited through a crowdsourcing site called Prolific), to write two types of texts. In the first task, people were told to write laws prohibiting crimes such as drunk driving, burglary, arson, and drug trafficking. In the second task, they were asked to write stories about those crimes.

To test the copy and edit hypothesis, half of the participants were asked to add additional information after they wrote their initial law or story. The researchers found that all of the subjects wrote laws with center-embedded clauses, regardless of whether they wrote the law all at once or were told to write a draft and then add to it later. And, when they wrote stories related to those laws, they wrote in much plainer English, regardless of whether they had to add information later.

“When writing laws, they did a lot of center-embedding regardless of whether or not they had to edit it or write it from scratch. And in that narrative text, they did not use center-embedding in either case,” Martinez says.

In another set of experiments, about 80 participants were asked to write laws, as well as descriptions that would explain those laws to visitors from another country. In these experiments, participants again used center-embedding for their laws, but not for the descriptions of those laws.

The origins of legalese

Gibson’s lab is now investigating the origins of center-embedding in legal documents. Early American laws were based on British law, so the researchers plan to analyze British laws to see if they feature the same kind of grammatical construction. And going back much farther, they plan to analyze whether center-embedding is found in the Hammurabi Code, the earliest known set of laws, which dates to around 1750 BC.

“There may be just a stylistic way of writing from back then, and if it was seen as successful, people would use that style in other languages,” Gibson says. “I would guess that it’s an accidental property of how the laws were written the first time, but we don’t know that yet.”

The researchers hope that their work, which has identified specific aspects of legal language that make it more difficult to understand, will motivate lawmakers to try to make laws more comprehensible. Efforts to write legal documents in plainer language date to at least the 1970s, when President Richard Nixon declared that federal regulations should be written in “layman’s terms.” However, legal language has changed very little since that time.

“We have learned only very recently what it is that makes legal language so complicated, and therefore I am optimistic about being able to change it,” Gibson says. 

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Researchers at MIT have found that the use of legalese in writing “to assert authority over those less versed in such language,” reports Noor Al-Sibai for Futurism . “By studying this cryptic take on the English language, the researchers are hoping to make legal documents much easier to read in the future,” explains Al-Sibai.

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