To Explore Creativity in Spoken, Text and Web-based Language.

In this essay I am going to explore the creativity used in spoken, text and web-based language. I am going to explore the different tools of communication and what effect they have in convocation, also I am going to analyse how people use them in different ways due to their social group or age.

Spoken language is creative due to the uniqueness of the features used in the everyday convocation individual’s experience. A very creative tool in spoken language is paralinguistic features these involve body language or facial expressions. Sarcasm in spoken language involves paralinguistic features but also tone of voice, for example “naaaa” could be changed from just verbal filler to convey someone is wrong  in a sarcastic way to indicate the last statement from the individual he/she is talking to was an obvious one. They could convey this in different ways; they could use a paralinguistic feature which would involve for example a ‘roll of the eyes’ this statement “naaaa” and the paralinguistic feature would most defiantly indicate sarcasm is involved.

Texting is a very creative way to communicate; it is very creative due to the features it involves. One creative tool in texting is emoticons these are a replacement from a paralinguistic feature, they involve symbols included on the keys on any phone to make up a facial expression, an example of an emoticons would be ‘J’ this face is built up of : and ), these two symbols make up a smiley face. This is creative as people have found an alternative way to express emotions through an electronic device.  Sarcasm in texting can be hard to convey but there is a way of which people try to show a hint of sarcasm in a text, one way of doing this would be by including a repetition of a letter, for example “naaaa” the repetition of the letter a conveys a slight hint of sarcasm. As you can see this links to spoken language and you could suggest that this tool to convey sarcasm has deprived from spoken to text language.

Web-based language is creative in a similar way to text language as the convocation is through an electrical device.  The features in web-based language would be in same, but there is a difference in the way that web-based language involves much more non-formal statements, these statements would be transmitted through a social networking site (i.e. Facebook, Twitter etc.). An example of a non-formal statement posted online would be “I’m so bored” this would be non-formal as it is not directed to an individual but to a large group of people. This is creative as it links to spoken language and an individual saying “I’m so bored”, this also suggests that this non-formal language has also deprived from non-formal spoken language.

Sarcasm is one of the most complex but creative features in spoken, text and web-based language as it can involve more than just one feature to express this emotion. I think it is most easy to convey in spoken language as the person you want to convey the sarcasm to be present and with just a paralinguistic feature (i.e. a roll of the eyes) or the change of your tone you can express this feature without any difficulty but with text and web-based language it involves more thought. It requires more thought as it is not a ‘face to face’ convocation and the individual you as having this convocation with is not present so you would have to use a more advanced method or feature.

To express sarcasm in text or web-based language you have to imitate the spoken language, for example if I was to state in a convocation “That was funny” and included a paralinguistic feature with this, such as a fake laugh, this would indicate a lack of enthusiasm in the joke. As with text and web-based language you have to try your upmost to imitate these features, for example if I wanted to convey this same emotion with the statement I would have to go about it a different way, I would be forced to use the tools I have within the phone or computer to show this. An example of an alternative would be to use an abbreviation such as ‘HAHA’, putting these three letters as capitals, which have the same content of a laugh with the statement, would indicate sarcasm. It would be sarcastic as the prosodic replacement ‘HAHA would replace the fake laugh. “That was funny HAHA” would be the texting alternative of the spoken version.

My view on the creativity is very simple; I strongly believe that if you use these features in spoken, text and web-based language you have clearly been creative. In Spoken language I think that it is creative to a certain extent but not compared to text and wed-based language. I have this opinion because in spoken language certain features such as paralinguistic features they are sometimes automatic, as you do not always choose to convey a smile it can be a natural response. Differently with text and web-based language this emotions you convey are non-automatic meaning you have to choose to express the emotion you want. 

I also have come to a conclusion about how the three types of language have influenced each other. I believe that that text language has many features which has deprived directly from spoken language, an example of a spoken language feature that is now used frequently in texting would be the idea of conveying an emotion through a paralinguistic feature (i.e. a smile). In texting they have found a perfect alternative for this which is an emoticon,