1 year recap

What will English sound like in 100 years? 500 years? 1000 years?

 

If a speaker from today travelled into the future, would they understand the dialect being spoken?

It depends.

We are drawn to the negative.

Over the last few weeks I have been analyzing my own and others twitter feeds looking at positive and negative sentence structure.

The results are not what I expected.

My data found that more than 80% of the messages involve some form of negation (not, no).  Furthermore, that these messages were more likely to get responses. In this case approximately 65% of the messages containing a negation would get at least one response or be retweeted.

The remaining 20% of tweets did not contain negation but 32% carried a negative tone. This means the content of the tweet was bad news or a negative outlook.

It seems that people don’t respond or retweet happy news very often.

Why are we so structurally negative?

I think it’s the fact that when we are tweeting we want to relate to our ‘followers’.  The desired outcome of a ‘tweet’ isn’t just to get your message out there, but to know that others are listening and relating.

You put a message out there. Someone responds, or retweets it.  This is less likely to happen if your message is positive. Only 12% of the positively formed tweets got responses or retweets.

I have found similar information on status updates on facebook.  If a person writes ‘ I am not having a good day’ they are likely to get multiple comments from friends giving them sympathy or encouragement.

For example a friend wrote ‘I feel so sick’ and received 13 comments of advice and encouragement. Another friend wrote  ’so excited to be home again’ and did not receive a single comment.

This is similar to Cameron’s research on illness stories (2004). Since everyone has had an experience in their life of being ill, they can relate and contribute to the conversation.

We have all had negative experiences, so we can relate better.

But we’ve all had positive experiences too.  The point is when someone writes about a great thing that happened. You don’t trample on their happiness with your even better news.  If someone writes ‘ I found $20′,  You don’t reply  that you found $50.  You start your own thread.

The reasons for responding to a positive post can usually just be a laugh, or a congratulatory comment.

When a post is negative you can offer support, suggestions, sympathy, or share a similar experience.

The reality is that in the social networking environment, we connect over sharing our negative experiences.

Why do you have a relationship status on Facebook? So that when you break up you can announce it to all your friends.

Perhaps my data is skewed, and I only follow a group of depressed, negative people. But even my attempts to put out positive messages has not yeilded responses on twitter.

Do Grice’s Conversational Maxims apply to texting?

There are unwritten social norms that we follow when it comes to speech.

While no one explicitly teaches them to us, we abide by them as though they are rules.

In his essay, ‘Logic and Conversation’ (1975), Paul Grice depicts four maxims of conversation.

In essence he explains principles that are logical to follow when trying to get a message across. They are: quantity, quality, relation and manner.

The quantity maxim rules that speech contributions should be informative but should not exceed the required amount of information.

This means you say what they need to know, but you don’t have to tell them everything you know about that topic.

For example: If the topic is someone’s sick cat. You can talk about when your cat was sick, but you do not need to tell them every detail about your cat.

The quality maxim is based on truth. Do not lie or make statements you cannot back with evidence.

The relation Maxim is simple. Be relevant. If the topic is a sick cat, don’t start talking about your computer crashing.

The manner maxim encourages speakers to avoid ambiguity, be brief, and be orderly.

The speaker should be clear and get the message across in the shortest possible way.

The speaker should order their contribution in a way that is easiest for their audience to understand.

Are these maxims relevant to how we produce text messages?

The shorter the better (22 characters)

Text messages are the telegrams of our generation. (50)

The shorter the message, the better. (37)

Telegrams were short because the longer the message, the more expensive it was. (79)

Text messages are short due to character limits, cost and speed. (64)

If you go over 140 characters, including spaces, you have to send a second message. (83)

Since text messages cost money to be sent a received, it is important that you try to say as much as you can in just one message. (129)

So what do we sacrifice to get our entire thought across? (57)

How Apple did it right for AAC.

Recently I have been looking into what is new and available in terms of Augmentative and Alternative Communication.  AAC is how we get a message to someone else without using speech. This is what makes effective communication possible for people with severe speech and language problems.

It is important while selecting a device that you realize that each person has different needs for communication. Trying to find a discrete but effective device can be very difficult.

I was looking at a small pocket communicator: the Palmtop portable IMPACT (shown below).  It looks like a smartphone or a pocket PC, and has a touch screen and an external speaker included. You can tap on the picture and the keyword is said aloud.

Gus! (shown below) is a Pocket communicator made by Dell.  Gus! comes with or without a pocket PC capability and has the options of selecting pictures or text input that Gus! will read. Gus! comes with external speakers and runs on 2 AA batteries.

This had me wondering if our smartphones were equipped with any kind of AAC.  In March 2009, Apple released the app Proloquo2 for iphone and ipod touch.  This application (shown below) turns the iphone into a complete AAC device. It displays pictures that when tapped can be read aloud or you can type into the keyboard and the device will read aloud. This is an adaptive device which new vocabulary and pictures can be added and the ‘home’ menu can be changed. You pay almost $200 American for just the app. The external speakers are also sold separately. However, when it comes to AAC, $200 is pretty cheap.  Medicare won’t cover multipurpose devices when it comes to AAC so its $200 out of your own pocket.

There is Currently no AAC applications available for the Blackberry comparable to the Proloquo2 for Iphone and Ipod touch. Blackberry has an application that will read the encyclopedia aloud to you and another application that will read your emails to you.

Another great thing about Apple is while working on speech recognition technology they actually started to output text-speech technology.  In fact, every MacOS X version has had text-speech technology incorporated. With the new Leopard 10.5 a new natural sounding voice named ‘Alex’ and the opportunity to sing, whisper and yell have been added. Most AAC technology does not have a whisper or yell option, only volume options.  Singing in AAC is a brand new concept.

Software can be installed on your PC but too often it is second rate to the actual AAC devices currently on the market.

It seems if you want to  get a multipurpose device for AAC you should get a Mac.

How your mobile changes your SMS habits

I met a woman today who asked me where you learn to text message. She wanted to take  a class in it. I told her I don’t know that there’s a class but I could get her started if she wanted to.

The truth is, I text all the time. I thought I was an avid texter when I was using my little pink samsung flip, but when I switched to a qwerty keyboard, it all changed.

My new phone has the facebook application. So I can text facebook to change my status. I use twitter more, and I like to think that my grammar in my texts has improved.

The truth is that there are still errors, just of a different kind. While I was used to texting with one hand, I now text with two thumbs. At first I found qwerty to be slower, because I had to train my thumbs.  My new phone has a row of numbers across the top of the sliding keyboard. I often slip and numbers end up in the middle of words.

I have a button for emoticons but you have to scroll over to the second menu to select a smiley sticking out the tongue, so I don’t send that one as often anymore.  Now I send a wink, or a kiss because they are on the first menu.

My last mobile didn’t have an emoticon key, so a smile was and a frown was . Now with the key my phone automatically fills in <:)> for a smile, and <:(> for a frown.  If I was typing it myself, I would never put them in brackets.

I accidentally send blank text messages often, or double letters because the keys are so sensitive, these are errors that never occured on my t9 phone.

An interesting error happened when I first got my phone. It was on predictive text mode. While typing, the phone would have a menu of the word that usually follows the one I’m typing.

I would be trying to say ‘I’m going out’ and my screen would say I’m going to out’. This frustrated me, so I learned to turn that feature off.

The point is, we bond with our phones. We pick a certain phone because it suits our use, and we adapt our habits for that phone. I suppose that’s why some of us cling to a phone for six years, and reject change until it’s necessary.  It’s surprising that with all of us using different mobiles with a variety of keyboards and predictive text systems, we still are able to understand the messages sent in 140 characters or less.

How I survived the Internet Lent

Usually, lent happens in the spring. It’s the 40 days and 40 nights preceding Easter that Christians practice self-denial.

This year lent came in the fall and I was forced to give up internet. It wasn’t really self denial, because I tried very hard to get it back, it was more like a punishment.

My internet was out before I left for Vancouver on the 19th of September and Northwestel finally was able to fix it on the 19th of October. That’s a month! But if you read my previous blog,  Update: ready to switch internet providers, you’ll see that I was having a lot of problems even before that.

Surviving without the internet was hard. I was lucky that I have mobile browser on my cellphone or I may not have received the important email that my flight had changed. I couldn’t communicate with my sister, because we do most of it online. The internet isn’t a luxury in my life. It’s a necessity.

So when the field technician from Northwestel came  to fix my internet and hook up my cable. He told me that the reason I’ve had no internet is because they disconnected me to connect the upstairs neighbours. He put in a separate connection and labeled it to ensure me it wouldn’t happen again.

How can I trust that nwtel won’t make the same mistake over and over again? (This is already the third time)

The worst part is I was supposed to have an internet upgrade but when I tested my service, it’s the exact same speed as it was before.

Why am I still with Nwtel? I have no idea.