“Do I find chatspeak inelegant, even annoying to the point of aggravation? Sure, sometimes, but that makes it all the more attractive to teens who, by any means at their disposal, will codeswitch to create a private language that excludes members of my generation who will most likely find their code aesthetically wanting.”
Before I read this article I would have said, YES! Chatspeak is destroying our youth!! But, now I’m leaning towards no, because kids can codeswitch; they have been doing it forever! Sure, occasionally we might get papers with chatspeak, but if we address it and don’t allow it, students will stop. You might have heard that teens like to push boundaries; shocking, I know. They know better than to include it in school papers, but they need to see how far they can go. It’s life.
I’m wondering why Linda Howard is so sure that students won’t be able to switch gears when writing in an academic setting. I think chatspeak simply derived from not wanting to press a million buttons on your phone or computer. Students still have to go to school from ages 5-18; so why wouldn’t they be getting a “proper” education there? As teachers we can incorporate why chatspeak does not belong in academia; but it is okay to use outside of school or work life.
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