Anglų kalbos žodžių vartojimas aukštesniųjų klasių mokinių tinklaraščiuose

BENDRINĖ KALBA | 87 (2014) www.bendrinekalba.lt ISSN 2351-7204 AURELIJA TAMULIONIENĖ Institute of Lithuanian Language USE OF ENGLISH WORDS STUDENTS OF THE HIGHER CLASSES On the blogs KEY WORDS: blogs, student blogs, blog language, English language. INTRODUCTION Recently, more and more people have spoken and written about the impact of digital technologies on language and its changes. In Lithuanian linguistics there are publications on how online communication affects language, and there is a separate study of the language of various digital technologies (text messages, social networks, blogs, etc.). Until now, little attention has been paid to the study of student language, both in free and public usage. Šiame straipsnyje pateikta aukštesniųjų klasių mokinių tinklaraščių apžvalga, nagrinėjamas one aspect of blog language is how they use English words. The object of the study is thirty blogs (268 blog entries) written by 15-18-year-olds in 2012-2014. The aim of the article is to describe the blogs of older students, to examine the peculiarities of English words used in them and to find out the reasons for such use. The article consists of two parts. The first part provides a brief overview of upper-class vocabulary, discusses the reasons for their use, and nių lietuvių kalba rašomi tinklaraščiai, antrojoje nagrinėjami juose vartojami anglų kalbos gives specific examples. 1. WEBSITES FOR OUTER SCHOOL STUDENTS Pupils in higher classes are young people, also known as teenagers1. Marc Prensky calls this generation the “digital nation” (Prensky 2001). They were born and raised in the age of computers and the Internet. According to a study conducted in the United States, teenagers share their opinions online, comment, discuss, etc. more than any other social group. 1 Adolescence is the transition period from childhood to adulthood. The limits of this age range vary. The conditionality of age limits was described in detail by Regina Žukauskienė (2001). The author divides adolescence into early – between 12 and 14 years, 15 years – like a transitional period, and late – 16-18 years. The authors of the texts examined in this article are classified as adolescents, i.e. they can also be called teenagers. BENDRINĖ KALBA | 87 (2014) www.bendrinekalba.lt ISSN 2351-7204 AURELIJA TAMULIONIENĖ. Anglų kalbos žodžių vartojimas aukštesniųjų klasių mokinių tinklaraščiuose | 2 (Lenhart et al. 2010). Never before have young people had so many opportunities to express their opinions and experiences publicly and to be heard by such a large audience. Blogging helps maintain social relationships. It is a place to present the past, present and future, but it is also a great tyti ne tik savo požiūrį į gyvenimą, remiantis jau žinomais įvykiais ar istorijomis, siejant praopportunity to get feedback. This is particularly important for the formation of self-image and self-esteem of the young person (Gurak et al. 2008; Miura et al. 2007). Blogs have become very popular at one time because writing them allows you to easily and cheaply introduce yourself to a fairly large audience on the Internet. The content of blogs is freer than that of printed paper or other electronic publications (Herring et al. 2004a; Crystal 2006). The popularity of blogs was also determined by their characteristics: 1) ease of use; Users do not need to know programming languages in order to create their own blogs. 2) the ability to accumulate information and knowledge; 3) the opportunity to convey to others their experience, to receive feedback in the form of comments; reply to a comment or provide feedback on posts; 4) links to other blogs (Herring et al. 2004a; Huffaker 2004b). There are not many studies of blog language in Lithuanian linguistics. Rita Miliūnaitė (2008a; 2008b) is one of the few authors who have studied the language of blogs, Zinaida Manžuch (2010) has studied communication in thematic library blogs, Dovilė Karčiauskaitė (2010) has written about the use of the research of blog language in language lessons, Vilija Celiešienė (2012) has studied new words in computer science in the language of bloggers. Abroad, Susan C. Herring (2002, 2004a, 2004b, 2006a, 2006b, 2014, 2015)2, David A. Huffaker (2004a; 2004b; 2005) regularly publish articles in this field together with colleagues. A comprehensive study of teenagers and all social media was conducted in America, the detailed results are discussed in the article (Lenhart et al. 2010). There are no studies in Lithuania on the language of blogs of upper-class students. Material of the study The article examines thirty (26 girls and 4 boys) blogs written in Lithuanian language from January 2012 to May 2014. In total, the article examines 268 blog posts (234 girls and 34 boys), from which ten most recently written blog posts are selected for the study. Not all bloggers had as many entries, in which case all entries written in 2012-2014 were taken. The blogs texts were chosen as the object of the study not randomly. These are publicly published texts, which, unlike other genres of electronic discourse, can show more of the actual written usage. The language of blogs is more organized: “the graphic and linguistic expression is more reminiscent of the written journalistic style than the imitation of oral language; ideas are presented in a coherent and consistent way; the text is more structured, can be edited by the author; greater adaptation to language norms common to a larger number of recipients; there is more linguistic self-control.” (2008b). When selecting the texts, some consideration was given to their content: blogs containing copied information from the Internet, advertising goods, systematizing and describing some Internet material are not analyzed. When Google searched for “teenager blogs”, “student blogs”, it was searching for blogs of older students. 2 Only publications related to the subject of this article are listed here. BENDRINĖ KALBA | 87 (2014) www.bendrinekalba.lt ISSN 2351-7204 AURELIJA TAMULIONIENĖ. Anglų kalbos žodžių vartojimas aukštesniųjų klasių mokinių tinklaraščiuose | 3 All the blog posts have been compiled into a textbook. The total average word count of blog texts is 304 words3. The average number of words in girls’ posts is 286 words, in boys’ posts it is 428 words. Of course, the number of words in the boys’ blogs cannot be considered as statistically significant, since only 34 posts were examined, but even these data show that the texts created by the boys are not short, the topic is developed in detail. After compiling the textbook of blogs, the abundance of English words and sayings was noted. All these words were highlighted in the text, then grouped and described in this article. Characteristics of bloggers During the collection of the material, the personal information provided in the blogs was examined, i.e.: name, surname, age, date of birth, place of residence, other contact information (e-mail address, link to a social network, personal web page, etc.). This additional information is important for the analysis of blog texts. According to these characteristics, it is possible to select the research group, assess the anonymity of the authors. It is likely that the publicity of the authors may influence the language of the texts. It may be assumed that publicly identified bloggers should be more responsible in their choice of language, their texts should be more correct. Aliases are not considered real names, i.e. if the blogger has provided his/her nickname, e.g. : Mistress of Monroe, it was attributed to anonymous authors. The main characteristics of the investigated bloggers are presented in Table 1. TABLE 1. Characteristics Girls (26) Boys (4) Total (30) Name 7 (27 per cent) 1 (25 per cent) 8 (27 per cent) Name 8 (31%) 3 (75%) 11 (37%) Age 8 (31 per cent) 0 8 (27 per cent) Gimimo data 2 (8 proc.) 0 2 (7 proc.) Place of residence 6 (23 per cent) 2 (50 per cent) 8 (27 per cent) El. pašto adresas 7 (27 proc.) 3 (75 proc.0 10 (33 proc.) Links to other pages 11 (42 %) 1 (25 %) 12 (40 %) The individual texts of the blogs examined are written by one person, i.e. there are no collective blogs. 37% of authors indicated their full name, 27% of authors indicated only their name. When neither name nor surname was given, the gender was determined from the text (e.g.: I was glad to see my friend...). According to a study conducted by R. Miliūnaitė, the average number of words in blog posts is usually 100 words long, less often 200 words (Miliūnaitė 2008a: 36). According to a 2004 study of randomly selected blogs in the United States (203 blogs studied), the average word count of blog posts is 262 words (Herring et al. 2004a). BENDRINĖ KALBA | 87 (2014) www.bendrinekalba.lt ISSN 2351-7204 AURELIJA TAMULIONIENĖ. Use of English words in blogs by older students | 4 giau – 40% also provided links to venamąją vietą (miestą). Savo elektroninio pašto adresą skelbė 33 proc. autorių, kiek dautheir other social networks4. This shows that more than half of young bloggers (64%) are not anonymous. An even higher proportion (73%) provided their contact details, i.e. an e-mail address, a link to social networks or a personal website. This shows that the authors do not hide their authorship, are open to readers. When they finish writing, they invite readers to comment, write an email or discuss on social networks. Some examples: P.S. write what good movies here in the comments or on fb! Thank you:*5 And I would like to add more to that pile, so I am looking for correspondence friends, all those who want to become them write to me to the email (we will exchange addresses): photoshoots during holidays for 15lt (not from Klaipeda a little more expensive) write. Contacts at the top of the blog. Given that the authors decide about their anonymity, the provision of personal information only confirms that young bloggers Šiandien kol kas tiek, išseko mano raštingumas visai. Beje, kas Klaipėdoje, Palangoje, Neringoje norėtų are not afraid to take responsibility for their published texts. The language of blogs Each text is created by an individual person, reflects the linguistic abilities, thinking, etc. of a particular person. The language of publicly posted blogs is not edited. The Internet language occupies an intermediate position between spoken and written language, bringing to the public what we are not accustomed to hear publicly or see written (Ryklienė 2003: 2). Blogs are a unique opportunity to see the raw written language (Crystal 2006: 245), they show the real written usage (Miliūnaitė 2008a: 36). All texts of blogs of students of higher classes are written in Lithuanian letters (there are no texts written only in the “swing” way). This shows that young bloggers regulate their writing style when writing texts, do not depart from common language, feel responsible when writing texts in the public space. Sometimes in their texts they express an attitude to the norms of common language: I cannot sit quietly in my seat and, like the rest of the students in the classroom, ignore the fact that the teacher has just said that there are three hundred and sixty-eight days in a year, pronounced the word ‘analog’ with a right accent on the second letter ‘a’, and said ‘two thousand’ when talking about the date. As terrible as it may sound, these are just a few examples from the last days. No, I didn’t go to a pre-war village school where the teachers were three of the most educated people in the area, who had read three books and several local newspapers in their lifetime. These are constant mistakes of teachers who teach in the center gymnasium and have higher education. And how after such absurd mistakes you can be forced to look at them, as 4 in 2004 in America randomly selected blogs, according to the data, 36% of authors stated their name, the name and surname – 31% of authors. More than half (54%) of bloggers provided other information: age, place of residence, link to other social networks (Herring et al. 2004a). According to another study aimed at adolescents only, 70% of authors stated their name, 20% stated their full name, 67% stated their age and 39% stated their date of birth. ; residence – 59%, contact information – 61%, link to personal pages – 30% of authors (Huffaker et al. 2005). 5 The texts quoted here and below have not been edited in terms of graphic representation and language. BENDRINĖ KALBA | 87 (2014) www.bendrinekalba.lt ISSN 2351-7204 AURELIJA TAMULIONIENĖ. Use of English words in blogs of older students | 5 to authoritative people who deepen your knowledge and help you improve? Is it enough to work in a school to know the subject well and not pay attention to the fact that all other knowledge is at the level of elementary school students? Although the texts of the blogs are written in Lithuanian letters (there are only individual words written in “šveplai”), the language is not always correct, there are many spelling and punctuation errors. This article does not analyze the correctness of the language, which is the subject of other studies. The style of blogs is usually close to the journalistic style (Miliūnaitė 2008a: 37). According to the data of the Vytautas Magnus University Computer Linguistics Center’s automatic text functions detection program6, the language of the blogs of the examined older class students is close to the text of fictional literature. The article analyses only one aspect of blog language – the use of English words in Lithuanian texts. 2. ENGLISH WORDS AND THEIR USE When reading the blogs of older students, words from other languages were noted7. Bloggers tend to use a lot of English words (see also Ryklienė 2001: 47–52). Young people appreciate the use of English words and like to incorporate them into their language (Girčienė 2004), and electronic language highlights this feature of young people’s language (Vaicekauskienė 2007: 68). The influence of English on other languages has been studied by many scholars. According to sociolinguistic research, English in the youth language primarily performs a social function (Čekuolytė 2010). Presentation of English words in Lithuanian blogs Only English words from other languages were found in the blogs examined. Sociolinguistic studies only confirm once again that fashionable English words are one of the forms of socialization (see Talutytė 2003; Vaicekauskienė 1998, 2006, 2010). All English words discussed in the article can be divided according to their adaptation to the Lithuanian language system. The following groups are distinguished: 1) authentic spelling; 2) morphologically adapted8. 6 In the automatic text functions detection tool, a table of prototypicity for functions was compiled from all blog texts analyzed in the article. According to the analysis of text prototypicity, blog texts are close to fictional literature texts. For more information about this measure see http://donelaitis.vdu.lt/main.php?id=4&nr=8. 7 The number of boys’ blogs found is too small to investigate girls’ and boys’ language separately, so the article will investigate girls’ and boys’ language together. 8 In writing about the methods of incorporating new words into the text, Jurgita Girčienė distinguishes two main ways of incorporating into the text lexems that do not have a usage tradition: neologisms are distinguished graphically (by quotation marks or italics) or (and) have meta (linguistic) comments (Girčienė 2005: 79). BENDRINĖ KALBA | 87 (2014) www.bendrinekalba.lt ISSN 2351-7204 AURELIJA TAMULIONIENĖ. Use of English words in blogs of older students | 6 Authentic spelling of words in blogs mostly. Some of them are separated in italics or quotes (1.1), others are presented without any separation (1.2)9. (1.1) At first I thought it would be awkward, because I thought there would be a lot of people from Paul's company, with whom I wouldn't find a common language, but when we went and saw that this was a mini-meeting of classmates... First of all, I'm glad that I wrote the speech myself, secondly - it's good that I have the habit, often not typical of my peers, to read books, and thirdly - damn it, I succeeded! Preparing for school in fifteen minutes with a fixed leg, here I am. A few started flying. Food fight. Oh, well. If I was good at mathematics, chemistry or physics, I would have a great future. (1.2) Soup, in this case, is my life, that’s just in case, if there are misunderstandings. Recently I read these Visi darosi planus ką nuveiks per ateinančius metus, kartoja visų pamėgtą frazę „new year - new me“. words on my ‘facebook’ account. Soup, in this case, is my life, that’s just in case, if there are misunderstandings. There were various proposals - some suggested setting up a kebab restaurant, others - a city clock (with wifi, the possibility to top up the account and take blood tests... just kidding). But there are some things that I want to share with you. He is a man without verybių, who lives a simple, superficial life." And that is true. So, since you already want to read about love, no Kas mane neblogai pažįsta, tie mato, kad tokiu būdu aš slystu žemyn, kaip vienas žmogus pasakė „daraiproblem. But I will also say hello to those who have come here by accident. Hello! The teacher came, gave the books, in which the averages were already drawn. 8,8. Not bad. Morphologically adapted words are slightly less in blogs. This group consists of morphologically formalized orthographically unadapted words. Most of them are adapted by adding a Lithuanian ending after an apostrophe (2.1), less often – by adding a Lithuanian ending to an orthographically unadapted word (2.2); There are only a few instances where not only the ending, but also the prefix is added to the orthographically unadapted word (2.3). (2.1) The eyeliner tragedy happened, but I fixed it. I highlighted my eyes a little bit with an eye contour pencil and I stroked mascara over my lashes. O soundtrack’asapakau koks geras, net dabar rašant blogg’ą groja EllėsGoulding daina iš jo ;33 Šia protinga mintimi užbaigiu šiandieninį - keturiolikta post’ą. Podcasts are one of my most important sources of information at the moment. If you don’t know, podcasts are like radio shows, only they are broadcast online. 9 In the examples here and below, the words in other languages are highlighted by the author of the article, A.T. BENDRINĖ KALBA | 87 (2014) www.bendrinekalba.lt ISSN 2351-7204 AURELIJA TAMULIONIENĖ. Meanwhile, I was answering questions from the Millennium Kids app with Monika, Tautvydas and Kotryna, listening to a good remix of MileyCyrus - AdoreYou song and chiming. (2.2) To keep you from getting bored - who doesn't know this amazing cover? ? It's such a lazy day. I like the no-work, freedom, I like long chats in the evening, night and long sleep in the morning. When I was in third grade, it was fashionable to post on Facebook such posts as “drunk walked around the maxim...”, “unwisely bites his nails...” and to tag my Facebook friends to such sentences in a row. Facebook’s not full of posts like “first snow”, “with winter”, “finally snows”, “SNOWAAA!” and the like..:D P.P.S. Ok, someone just unfollowed..:D (2.3) Every tagged person has to write 11 facts about themselves. When somebody thinks about what will be in a good movie or series... Who wants can follow: @ananasas_:* The found examples show that most bloggers, when writing English words, translate them into Lithuanian, adapting them to the morphological system of the Lithuanian language. There are many reasons why bloggers insert English words into Lithuanian texts. There is a lot of research about the influence of English on society. Loreta Vaicekauskienė distinguishes the following reasons for borrowing foreign words: 1) designative (to name new realities or concepts); 2) semantic (to highlight differences in meaning, to extract nuances, when the content of the new and own concepts coincides only partially); 3) stylistic reasons (to animate the language, to cause certain associations or stylistic effects, to stylistically mark); 4) socio-psychological (to demonstrate knowledge of another culture and identification with it, to express an identity that rebels against prevailing social norms) (Vaicekauskienė, 2009). These reasons for borrowing foreign words are also 2007: 43). suitable for explaining the occasional use of English words in blog texts. However, it is difficult to group all these examples and assign them to one of these groups. It is obvious that when writing English words, young people aim to attract attention, show knowledge of the prestigious language, adapt to peers. Most of the blogs show that the authors do not put these words in their own way. Most often, English words are written in italics, in quotation marks, and only rarely in the same font as Lithuanian words. Responsibility is felt by readers, only in a foreign language attention is paid to a specific word or phrase. Some English words found in blogs have already become fashionable. They can be heard not only in the colloquial language of young people, but also in adults, even in the media. There has been written about so-called fashionable words, language fashion, before (Akelaitis 2002; Miliūnaitė 2005). Here are just a few examples from blogs: I just noticed that:D Actually, it's whatever. The rules don't say how many facts you have to write if you've been tagged more than twice, but as far as I've seen žmonės skaičių dvigubina, tad aš ir padarysiu copy-paste. BENDRINĖ KALBA | 87 (2014) www.bendrinekalba.lt ISSN 2351-7204 AURELIJA TAMULIONIENĖ. If it wasn't for the rubber shoe (I didn't think of a name) it would have been tobulenko, but... soRRy:* Anyway, I have to get up and start another useful day. We failed, changed the script, but it was fun. MY SATURDAY WAS THE BEST DAY EVER<3 When in winter you try not to slip, but the ice just trolls you... blog content often reveals the interests, attitudes, lifestyle and so on of young people. Young people spend a lot of time at the computer, they browse the Internet, play games, communicate, shop, etc. Some of the English words that appear in the texts are related to their everyday hobbies, e.g. : What did you do last midnight? I'm chatting. :D We ate at a pizzeria and walked around the shops, but lately I'm not interested in shopping, I'm not in the mood for it.. Playing alone is also not bad, but if you manage to get Donatas to jump on your bike... How much more? :D Oh, I just made the makeup virtual.. We drank coffee and chilli. Other English words are entire phrases that are taken directly from movies, games, computer programs, commercials, songs, etc., e.g. : The firefighters who were always determined to help were not called this time, the house did not burn, so I can safely say that the challenge was completed successfully ✔. And now I’m browsing tumblr, where I’m full of motivation to do sports and morally preparing for the four-hour workout. Visi darosi planus ką nuveiks per ateinančius metus, kartoja visų pamėgtą frazę „new year - new me“. I miss the hot days, swimming all day long, sleepless nights, all kinds of nonsense with my cousin... Kas mane neblogai pažįsta, tie mato, kad tokiu būdu aš slystu žemyn, kaip vienas žmogus pasakė „daraithis man without any qualities, who lives a simple, superficial life” And that is true. Yesss! We are the champions! :D Good evening ladies and gentlemen! How are you doing? Many of the English words used in blogs are computer terms. Apparently, most of the authors use English programs, so the words found in those programs are simply copied from the original. These are not merely matters of language. There is still a lack of Lithuanianized programs in Lithuania, so many choose English programs, which are more common. Lithuanian programs are not so common to the public, and the Lithuanian terms used in some computer terms are often sunku suprasti. Vartotojas renkasi jam paprastesnį ir priimtinesnį programos variantą. Anglišused not because of fashion or an attempt to adapt to the common language. BENDRINĖ KALBA | 87 (2014) www.bendrinekalba.lt ISSN 2351-7204 AURELIJA TAMULIONIENĖ. Use of English words in blogs of upper-class students | 9 ž. Many authors realize that they are using a non-Lithuanian word, apparently even know its Lithuanian equivalent. Most often, the use of such words is caused by automatic word transfer, i.e. the use of those words that are on the computer screen in front of the eyes. It is easier and faster for consumers. The blog language is particularly rich in English words related to blogging software, e.g. : I was really scared, I knew that I had done something ugly by agreeing with my friends, but Sandra could have avoided the conflict by simply ignoring the post. No back tags. Šia protinga mintimi užbaigiu šiandieninį - keturiolikta post’ą. You had two days to take part in the poll and choose the topic of this post. Even a simple, elementary sentence can no longer be put together, so I do a tag. Thank you for tagging me. I’m tagging the rest, and of course I suggest you read the tags of other bloggers I follow. There is no one now, but I can’t help but report what 9/10 people are talking about in the streets/bus stops/facebook posts/polyclinic lobby and half a dozen other places they visit in their daily routine. Using English words, bloggers try to adapt to the environment, look more modern, more fashionable. Some of these fashionable words have already become proverbs, whole quotes from movies, television, games, etc. A large number of other English words in blog texts have been directly introduced from computers – these are words that refer to the concepts of various computer programs. English words in blog topic titles When reading the blogs of older students, another peculiarity of the use of English words falls into the eye – English topic titles of the posts. Of the 268 records analyzed, 74 are named exclusively in English, i.e. the names are English, all of them are authentic spelling. Here are just a few examples: Just the same. Something. Anything. Nothing. Everything will be okay in the end Friendship Feeling very good. Who am I..? How does it feel? What goes around, comes backaround.