Monday, May 4, 2015
Mediating Language in Texting
Since texting is the most popular means of communication in this generation, it is important to know how to mediate language behind the screen of your phone or computer. When conversing with someone via text message, it is next to impossible to know exactly what tone the other person has. Without the knowledge of mediation of language, you could unknowingly offend someone that you did not intend to offend. This is why mediating your language and making sure the other person understands your tone is important. This is also why word choice is so important. The same word could be said in excitement by one party and taken as annoyance by the other. I never realized how much I actually mediated the language I use every day. Up until recently, I had never thought about how effective mediating my language through texting could be. When having a dispute with someone, respectfully acknowledging their opinion and then giving your own works a lot better than just telling the other person they are wrong. Almost always when disputing with someone via text message, I think about how I would feel if I was the one receiving the message. This usually results in me deleting what I originally wanted to say and rewriting it to sound more respectful. Which is usually how it goes when trying to mediate your language in your papers too. By doing this I am also considering my audience (the person receiving the messages), which is an important part of mediating language. I find myself doing this more often than I would like to admit.
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You made some really good points. Countless times when I am debating with someone via text message, they misinterpret my tone and think I am angry. When in reality I am just trying to explain my point! That is why texting people about problems can be so counter productive…people misinterpret everything!! Thats why Ive grown to use emojis so much. They are really useful because you can a little bit of body language to go along with your text, that way they understand your tone more. Who knew emojis could be so useful!
ReplyDeleteYou have a good essay here. I do text people but I usually call people if the message is important to avoid misinterpret. Word choice is important any form of speech because bad word choice can send mix message to people or can people look like idiot.
ReplyDeleteI really like this post because you have some valid points about tone and mediating language in texting. I find it difficult to express my emotions over a text message. The person receiving your text cant hear the tone in your voice or see the expression on your face. It makes it difficult because you want to be honest and say what your thinking but you know in the back of your mind they might take it the wrong way since they don't know how you're actually feeling.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very important part of mediating language over different forms of communication. However, another thing to consider is how exactly would you be able to mediate language over text? Many times, people write very informally so can be seen as strange when writing properly like you would be for a writing assignment. I think this is something that will change over the next few years as technology continues to advance.
ReplyDeleteMediating language is very important in every kind of writing. It is so hard to replicate the tone that you use when speaking in writing. You can do things like use all caps, or boldface, but it's just not the same. Mediating language allows us to avoid situations where we offend the people that we are writing to.
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