Teens sign up for phone plans with unlimitedtext messages and 200 talk minutes, yet can't carry on an ordinary dinner conversation. Beyond Texting is the first book for teens to explain how to be plugged in without neglecting the necessity and power of physical, human interaction. Sure, MySpace and Facebook are wonderful ways to communicate with friends or stay in touch with a far off relative. Yet success in the online world does not transfer to success in the art of conversation. Even the most outgoing teen may find a job interview, first date, or meeting with a teacher to be challenging because of lack of skills.
Fry's Planet WordStephen Fry explores linguistic achievements and how our skills for the spoken word have developed in a new five-part series for BBC.
In Planet Word, Stephen dissects language in all its guises with his inimitable mixture of learning, love of lexicon and humour. He analyses how we use and abuse language and asks whether we are near to beginning to understand the complexities of its DNA.
From the time when man first mastered speech to the cyber world of modern times with its html codes and texting, Planet Word takes viewers on a journey across the globe to discover just how far humans have come when it comes to the written and spoken word.
Text messaging has spread like wildfire, especially among young people, who appear to spend most of their time texting, and are unwilling to write much else. Indeed the phenomena is so widespread that many parents, teachers, and media pundits have been outspoken in their criticism of it. Does texting spell the end of western civilization? In this humorous, level-headed and insightful book, David Crystal argues that the panic over texting is misplaced. Crystal, a world renowned linguist and prolific author on the uses and abuses of English, here looks at every aspect of the phenomenon of text-messaging and considers its effects on literacy, language, and society. He explains how texting began, how it works, who uses it, and how much it is used, and he shows how to interpret the mixture of pictograms, logograms, abbreviations, symbols, and wordplay typically used in texting. He looks at its manifestations in different languages, and explores the ways similar devices have been used in different eras. He finds that the texting system of conveying sounds and concepts goes back a long way--to the very origins of writing. And far from hindering children's literacy, texting turns out to help it. Illustrated with original art by Ed MacLachlan, the popular cartoonist whose work has appeared in Punch, Private Eye, New Statesman, and many other publications, Txting: The Gr8 Db8 is entertaining and instructive--reassuring for worried parents and teachers, illuminating for teenagers, and fascinating for everyone interested in what's currently happening to language and communication.
