Reflections on Summer Reading: Is Language Devolving?

In the 21^st century, the world is more connected than it has ever been. A veritable global community has surfaced within the last fifty years that has interwoven people and their culture. Certainly, violence, famine, disease, and other afflictions to the human race still propagate as they always have. However, the average human has never been so in touch with the globe as he is today. The internet, television, and other media have created a stream through which awareness, interaction, and shared experience may flow. Of course, such opportunities have not come without their price.

            Modern society, or rather modern Western society, is a complicated and varied structure to break apart. I plan on answering this question only in relation to Western society, as this is the only society I have enough experience and knowledge to comment on. Yet because of my experience, I know how opposite, conflicting, and disjointed sectors of my society can be. Resources such as wealth are concentrated with specific groups, political confrontation frequently breeds stagnation and disharmony, and education is rapidly tearing at the seams as growing populations try to cope with the demands of the new age. Throughout all of this, screens of varied quality, size, and resolution offer information and distraction of all types. The United States today does not possess the same intellectual and cultural air that it did in the 18^th and 19^th centuries.

            With so many people and such an emphasis on visual and auditory sensation, a definite loss has occurred in regards to the status of the English language. What Neil Postman termed the “Age of Typography” has long since passed, and it has been replaced, not so much by the “Age of Television”, but by the “Age of Screens”. As stated, society today is gorged upon phones, computers, and television. As a result, access to the decontextualized information which Postman feared so greatly has skyrocketed, and the quality of material available to individuals has lost out to quantity. Everything has become shortened, flashing into our lives in the “Now… This” format of news which Postman feared so much. No longer do individuals think about the information they export or import, and a complete lack of extrapolation, development, and clarity has demonstrated this fact.  If Orwell found flaws in the writing of his own 20^th century England, he would be appalled by the confused and easy writing of today. All one must do is examine social media such as Twitter or Facebook to see just how greatly language has lost its substance. Big-name news outlets like Fox or CNN are equally guilty of decline, as well as many other producers of news whereby mistakes of language, factually erroneous reporting, and opinionated reporting abound.  Politics, well… politics is its own beast altogether.

            Thus the beauty of international connections and the marvel of sharing events, discoveries, and creations across continents has not been without repercussions. Yet it is not just our society’s media which have led it to a bloated and dada-like cacophony of culture. The English language has not devolved solely thanks to the television or texting (though both, admittedly, can reinforce it). A general carelessness and loss of true intellectual responsibility has aided the fall of language use. Hayakawa’s book on the more objective, technical aspects of language points out many errors and misuses that are prevalent in society. Two-valued or intentional orientations exist in abundance across the United States (and other cultures, but let us focus here). Prejudice against all manner of thought- and belief-systems is without end. Judgments and affective connotations are utilized to sway unaware thinkers to irrational conclusions. Simply examine any advertising or political campaign to glimpse how respect and care have been lost from language. The current education system does not aid greatly in this regard, as more time is spent teaching grammatical aspects of English and in memorizing words than in how and why the English language should be used (Orwell might agree). Standardized tests and uninteresting essays have smothered the science and art of language.

            All of society is not doomed to some hedonistic, ignorance-ridden collapse (not as of yet, anyway). The fact that we, as group, have come together to study, learn, and approach the problems of modern language and media demonstrates some hope. Academics and fear-mongers alike have a habit of lumping incredibly intricate issues into great, flat issues. The answer to the question of devolving language is not merely “Yes because x, y, and z”. Exceptions and lurking revelations abound when society is examined, warts and all. Still, I must concede the gathering wave that is the crumbling English language. But just as Orwell believed in a minority group causing rippling shifts in the fabric of language, so too must we.