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Children vs. Adults. Who is the fast learner?

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Children vs. Adults. Who is the fast learner?

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In terms of speed of acquisition, some people might have this idea where children would be the fast learner compared to adults. Fortunately,  there are successful second language learners who started SLA after puberty and have been able to achieve native proficiency. According to Hu (2016),  older learners will make use of their first language learning strategies to learn the grammar and achieve good performance than young learners.  He added a point that children are better than adults only in some areas of SLA (e.g. at acquiring accent and basic interpersonal communication skills. To sum up, adults are great in learning and acquiring second language depending on the environment they are in.

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The Age Factor in Second Language Learning

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Effects of social media on the English Language

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Effects of social media on the English Language

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Generational gap

The younger generations remarkably contributed to the development of the internet language but once it was adopted into daily life the consequences were significant such as miscommunication. Miscommunication is a phenomenon that can be widely encountered among the internet community especially among the older and younger generations or “Gen Y”. According to Subramaniam and Abdul Razak (2013) the use of abbreviations, acronyms, lexical reduction, short forms are commonly detected in the younger communities' style of writing on social media for instance, “b4” (before), “u” (you), “gr8” (great), “shud” (should) and more are familiar only among those specific group of people. Next, capitalization is also a popular encounter on social media for example “NEVER” “YES” “DON’T” are some connotations that are classified in accordance to different tones exclaiming warning, excitement, embarrassment and many more. Hence, the older generation on the other hand eventually struggle to digest the messages that are being conveyed due to the evolution of English language.

Metaphorical Extension

Next, metaphorical extension is also one of the negative effects of social media usage on the English language. Due to the usage of social media, a few words along with their meaning have been gone through the metaphorical extension process. As eloquently stated by Dalzell and Victor (2017), they claim that, with synonyms increasing every day, the English language has become far more volatile. The insinuation is that internet slangs, that seem to have been received as English words, are used everywhere in verbal communication. For example, ‘feed’ refers to the internet profiles where the users of a particular social media like Instagram or Facebook share their photos. Another example is ‘troll’ that describes the actions of attention-seeking internet users who normally use petty arguments or offensive posts on social media about other people.

Vocabulary

The usage of social media has invented many new words for instance Selfie, Unfriend, Fleek, YOLO, DM and LOL that are being used in daily conversation which can also eventually lead to misunderstanding in terms of conveying the information. Although it made communication more convenient by shortening or creating the abbreviation, it also contained a lot of misspelling and incorrect grammar. Therefore, miscommunication tends to happen especially when these newly formed words are used in the wrong context. As stated by (Zappavigna, 2012), English seems to be simpler when people use the informal language but the ability to communicate deep thoughts might be deteriorated.

The use of social media affects the English language as it will lead people to use improper use of informal language especially on those who are in the academic field. The new existence of vocabulary, abbreviations and internet slangs misled them to use incorrect spelling and speaking in a formal situation. For example, the short form of ‘I don’t know’ becomes ‘Idk or dunno’, ‘to be determined’ becomes ‘tbd’ and ‘keep in view’ becomes ‘kiv’. These such examples show that as the world became developed, social media users started to apply them in their daily conversation whether it is in written or spoken forms. Mistakes on spellings and speaking shows that people are adapting too much until it becomes a habit in writing a formal condition. According to Information Resources Management Association (2016), improper language skills in most conversations are full of abbreviations, misspelled words and internet slangs.

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Why We (Adults) Struggle Learning Languages 

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Why We (Adults) Struggle Learning Languages 

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Why We Struggle Learning Languages | Gabriel Wyner | TEDxNewBedford

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Good communication includes delivering a message to inform, persuade or influence the audience. Humour can be included in speeches to build a connection with the audience while making the speeches more fun and engaging.

Humour helps Improving Communication Skills
Humour can be categorized as an unprofessional act but in certain situation like an informal occasion, humour help to ease the tension of the room. English humour can enhance the student’s capability in learning new words and comprehend it with their cultural context (Yiyu & Throssell, 2010). With that said, humour plays an important role by helping the students improve their communication skills and understand the language better. The culture could also relate to understanding the context of the word they learn better.
Yiyu, Z, & Throssell, P. (2010). Humor and its Role in Language Teaching in China. International Journal of Learning, 17(2), 321–328.

Humour for Effective Communication
Humor is a powerful tool that helps communicators such as leader and speaker to make their audiences listen to them when they speak (Brandy, 2014). By putting some humor in a communication, it creates a positive connections between the speaker and listener. However, a communicator's job is not only to make the audiences pay attention to them when they speak but also to persuade the audiences to listen to information given or change a behavior.
Reece, B. (2014). Putting the Ha! In Aha!: Humor as a Tool for Effective Communication. Master of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) Capstone Projects. 58

In conclusion, humour is helpful to use in communications, even in international communication. It creates a fun and calm environment to converse with each other. This helps student in improving their communication skills. Humour is also used by leaders and speakers to attract the attention of their audiences. It is not wrong to use humour when talking to someone, in fact, it creates a positive connections with each other.

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We agree that humour can be inserted in international communication if it can bypass three main linguistic problems. That being said, language barrier being the main problem. It restricts communication at its finest by cancelling out mutual understanding between the speaker and the listener. This is because the range of language and vocabulary allocated for each languages are different.

Secondly, Cultural restrictions. Humour can be humorous if the said joke is culturally accepted. We're afraid that using the "Cia cia cia" joke upon people of certain cultures that protect the infiltration of emotions towards the other gender may not be considered a joke and at one point, a threat. Other than that, Malay's sarcasm within their "politely" face saving sarcasmic humour could also be seen as a negative impulsion towards the audience.

Thirdly, society's norms. We (Malaysians) cannot or may not relate to a joke that tickle the funny bones of people in other cultures. Which applies as well for those (Non-Malaysian) who may not be able to understand a humour of Malaysians.

Once humour passes those barriers, it can create a short cut towards having a better relationship with people of other cultures in international communication. People often break the ice in conferences or networking settings by cracking up a joke or two, this way, both parties ease up and are more open to communicate with one another.

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Additional reference to our statement

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Kimie OSHIMA

Part of the Multilingual Education book series (MULT, volume 24)

Abstract

Humor is important in its ability to help people to "think outside the box." It aids in the conceptualization of ideas that are outside of the framework of accepted norms. In this sense, it is a similar skill to having intercultural understanding and communication. It can also assist in the understanding and deconstructing of social and cultural expectations. It can function as a social lubricant, as well as be an antidote to inter-ethnic tensions, as seen in the successful use of ethnic jokes in a multi-ethnic society like Hawaii. It has also been shown that the type of environment created in the classroom by humor can motivate students, and by doing so contribute to building better teacher-student relationships. Humor promotes mental flexibility, which can help people to first understand, then adopt, new aspects of culture and communication, which can then be further developed through education.

Keywords

Witness Intercultural Communication Ethnic Jokes Rakugo Ethnic Humor

These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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References

1. Aiba, A. (2009). Owarai no rekishi (History of Japanese comedy). In The Japan society for laughter and humor studies (Ed.), Warai no seiki (Century of laughter), (pp.168-186). Osaka: Sogen-sha.

2. Wu, E. (2015, Jan. 15). Hawaii as racial paradise? Bid for Obama Library invokes a complex past. Code switch: Frontiers of race, culture, and ethnicity. http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2015/01/15/377197729/hawaii-as-racial-paradise-bid-for-obama-library-invokes-a-complex-past (Accessed on 27 July 2017)

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Functions of Humor in Intercultural Communication and Educational Environments

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Kimie OSHIMA Part of the Multilingual Education book series (MULT, volume 24) Humor is important in its ability to help people to "think outside the box." It aids in the conceptualization of ideas that are outside of the framework of accepted norms. In this sense, it is a similar skill to having intercultural understanding and communication.