Putting your business on the Information Highway

I just read Dr. Will Hamlin’s essay appearing in the most recent edition of Washington State Magazine entitled, “Language, Money and Loss.” It’s a beautifully written essay that takes up a number of issues surrounding language use. Though the goal of the essay is not necessarily in line with the reading for this week, Dr. Hamlin’s musings on social networking language is seemingly pertinent. After discussing how his father learned to suppress/abandon his own linguistic drawl and voice patterns as a way to help him “succeed” in mainstream culture, Dr. Hamlin asks if the kind of pressure his father experienced to adapt his language and accent still exists today. He writes:


“Perhaps this wouldn’t happen nowadays. Perhaps American society has moved beyond such trivial pressures. But I doubt it. I think, rather, that the manipulation of language habits has taken on more insidious forms. Consider, for instance, the linguistic norms of social networking sites. Here’s a random “tweet” I found on the internet: “OMG thats hystrical cn u believe he sd that!!! ;-).” Granted, there’s a certain density of expression here, but I wouldn’t say that the comment tells us much about the tweeter’s unique individuality. If anything, it does just the opposite. There’s great safety in merging one’s identity within collective forms of expression—and greater ease of interpretation for those encountering such discourse. But the loss is also tremendous.”

http://wsm.wsu.edu/s/index.php?id=767


Certainly, the tweet that Hamlin found on the internet is written in a text short hand script, and seems to not resemble any specific cultural or individual language markers, making the speaker appear almost anonymous and the text completely acontextual. However, the very fact that the writer has adroitly used the text short hand, not to mention emoticon’s and symbols, does speak to their ability, comfort and knowledge within that linguistic pattern, and thus does actually point to whom the individual might be. Admittedly though, that information does appear vague and not concrete. Further, what Hamlin does not speak to (for obvious rhetorical reasons—as his essay is largely about a different topic) is the rhetorical strategy of the tweet’s content, the fact that the tweet is rather intimate and expresses the feelings of the individual in a very open manner. It is obvious that though the world may have access to this tweet, what it actually says is very personable and seems to be intended for a specific audience—one who would know what “hd” originally said. So though the tweet’s linguistic pattern and use of language might point towards authorial ambiguity, it contains a message of individuality.

This is rather interesting in thinking about Dr. Monroe’s chapter from this week’s reading. The idea that members of different cultures hold different views on sharing personal information, or “putting one’s business on main street” seems to take on a slightly different context in the age of on-line social networking. The way that the email correspondence was viewed by the largely white tutorial staff at UM and the African American tutees who were submitting papers in Monroe’s chapter, might be somewhat different today (but, might not). I just wonder, and I understand that technological access is still going to be a large contributor to how far the tendrils of social networking sites have spread, how the renegotiation of personal and private space that social networking sites have facilitated over the past ten years might have changed cultural understandings of information sharing. In many ways, the signifier of which Dr. Monroe said was required for African American students to share information could now largely come from the very existence of sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. Or, in putting that as a question, do the existence of these sites act as the signifier, prompter, coercer to individuals to open and share personal information to others, audiences that are intended (friends, family, etc) and audiences that are not intended (profile searchers, etc.)? Of course each of these sites dictate just what kind of information a user can post and how the user can post that information, and they do not demand that users in fact post information at all. But what they do is encourage the sharing of private information in public spheres. Your personal business no longer on Main Street, but on the super information highway.

For Dr. Hamlin the way of which that personal information is shared is shrouded in collective shorthand. However, I think if he randomly looked again for a tweet, he might in fact find one that shows more individual language markers. The language of these sites is not so homogeneous as Hamlin supposes. Different people do in fact use the short hand language differently. But beyond that, the collective nature of these sites and the rhetorics that come with them is also further complicated by the way individuals structure their bios, information and media samplings. The individualization process does in fact take shape inside the design confines of the of the site, but that does not mean that it does not take place at all. I agree with Dr. Hamlin that the pressure his father felt to change the way he spoke is now seen in the way that people speak on the social networking sites. Where I differ with Dr. Hamlin is the fact that those sites at least provide a space, albeit a dangerous one at times, for individualization and the use of mixed discourses. And I wonder how we might as instructors learn to use these sites, not merely as a form of communication, but as a form of discourse, one that allows for collective gathering and individual voicing. Though, as Dr. Monroe’s chapter says, we have to be cognizant of the ways that different people will share their information on these sites, I think we also need to be aware that these sites are potentially changing the way that people in fact share their information.