Language Out of This World

                                             Image: Chat lingo (Labnium, 2016)

When people associate words with Facebook, it turns into a whole different world. The language used on Facebook could form a whole new dictionary. Arguably, the defining feature of Facebook is the language used by users. Just by looking at a post or comment, people can identify that is comes from this virtual network. Language used in a certain space or place reflect what that place is about. For example, language used at home is very different to the language used to communicate with your boss.

Tuan states in his article on ‘Language and the Making of Place’, “A principal reason for the neglect of speech is that geographers and landscape historians tend to see place almost exclusively as the result of the material transformation of nature” (Tuan, 1991). He uses the farmers as an example as they must communicate with others, and themselves in order to complete their work. This can relate back to the way we use Facebook, as a way of communication with other people, being family, friends, and anyone in general. 

Kuttainen mentions in the week 5 lecture a paragraph from Edward Sapir and Benjamen Whorf, a segment of their hypothesis reads, “No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality”. Throughout the hypothesis, they are dividing up the world by languages (Kuttainen, 2016). This relates back the ‘Facebook language’ as it is a new and modern form of communication. A news article by ‘TNW’ supports this statement labelling the advances in technology Facebook had made to cater for this change. An iconic line I took my attention, which stated, “Facebook makes users feel more at home” (The Next Web, 2016).

 Reference:

Kuttainen, V. (2016). BA1002: Our space: Networks, narratives and the making of place, lecture 5: Story lines. [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from http://learnjcu.edu.au

Labnium. (2016). Chat lingo [Image]. Retrieved from http://labnium.org/social-networking-facebook-short-codes-full-common-slang-words/

 The Next Web. (2016). This week in patents: Facebook becomes multilingual. Retrieved from http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/08/22/week-patents-facebook-becomes-multiingual/#gref

Tuan, Y. (1991). Language and the Making of Place: A Narrative-Descriptive Approach.Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 81(4), 684-696. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/2563430