Exclamation marks

[luka]

Can't wait to see you!!

I had a similar shift the last couple years, it might not be aging but cultural, the norms shifting, the style spreading, its absence coming off colder and callous

It's definitely linked to the ubiquity of emojis. This sense that we can't rely on language to transmit all the information we need.

 

[luka]

Which is itself linked to very very low standards of literacy generally

 

[luka]

It's like our emojis. My response can only fall into one of six categories, cool! Love! Contemptuous mocking laughter! Shock! Sad! Angry!

 

[IdleRich]

The more I think about this, the more insane it seems that someone with a public platform with a major newspaper chooses to dedicate an article to exclamation marks in work emails. There's millions, if not billions, in public money currently being looted and this is where their attention goes?

Obviously a hot topic though cos it's being discussed here, I'd say that I'm surprised how much the Grunter has its finger on the pulse.

 

[IdleRich]

It's like our emojis. My response can only fall into one of six categories, cool! Love! Contemptuous mocking laughter! Shock! Sad! Angry!

Penis.

 

[jenks]

I teach about this stuff at A level - it's a mixture of what Norman Fairclough calls 'conversationalisation' - a process by which written discourse is drifting towards spoken forms - partly as social media takes effect but also as we don't want to appear too stuffy and so adopt informal modes and Sharon Goodman calls 'informalisation' - it's why Blue Peter presenters don't speak RP anymore. I'm partial to a social media exclamation mark but only allow my students two per year. (and yes, i expect people don't like -isation suffixes - again a product of modern language change.)

 

[luka]

I don't think of it in terms of apeing spoken forms it seems more to do with the propensity for online miscommunication and developing ways to prevent it. So the development of a hybrid means of communication evolved specifically for communicating online.

 

[luka]

Everyone on dissensus is very aware of how misunderstandings can flare into violent conflagrations online in a way which doesn't happen with any other form of social interaction.

 

[jenks]

I don't think of it in terms of apeing spoken forms it seems more to do with the propensity for online miscommunication and developing ways to prevent it. So the development of a hybrid means of communication evolved specifically for communicating online.

Yeah there is that too - there's a line by Halliday "writing does not contain all the meaning potential of speech.' Exclamation marks are one of addressing that - along with emojis, memes, gif and using a mixed registers.

 

[jenks]

Everyone on dissensus is very aware of how misunderstandings can flare into violent conflagrations online in a way which doesn't happen with any other form of social interaction.

except possibly drunken conversations

 

[pattycakes_]

I don't think of it in terms of apeing spoken forms it seems more to do with the propensity for online miscommunication and developing ways to prevent it. So the development of a hybrid means of communication evolved specifically for communicating online.

it's a show of enthusiasm. probably a lot to do with people feeling the need to appear happy and positive. the effect social media and the net in gen has had on us. we've become so fake. youtube reaction videos. the harlequin. schizophrenic flesh.

 

[sus]

Which is itself linked to very very low standards of literacy generally

What if textual language was never quite up to the task of realtime interaction, because it never had to be?

 

[luka]

What if textual language was never quite up to the task of realtime interaction, because it never had to be?

Good point

 

[sus]

Everyone on dissensus is very aware of how misunderstandings can flare into violent conflagrations online in a way which doesn't happen with any other form of social interaction.

Like this fact almost seems to reflect inadequacy of text more than anything. How compressed it is informationally. No faces, no intonations, no gestures

 

[sus]

Maybe this is the best thing that could happen to our language—not exclamation points per se, but exploring ways of inserting all that additional info

 

[luka]

I think there's more information embedded in text than most people assume.

 

[sus]

That's probably true

 

[WashYourHands]

Like letters.

 

[IdleRich]

I think there's more information embedded in text than most people assume.

Yes but it's not necessarily the information the writer intended to convey, nor is it the same as if that text had been spoken out loud. So you could argue that adding things to text is to increase the precision of the information rather than an overall increase in the information in the text.

 

[luka]

You could do that, fair enough, and then you could have an argument about whether those tools really perform those functions.