Pages

Saturday, June 13, 2015

Professor Hashtag @GuyMerchant



If anyone was in any doubt that written language is changing, or that children are active members of writing communities they need look no further than this story on the use of hashtags in their work. Asked by the BBC to comment on this phenomenon I was unremittingly positive, although as you'll see I refused to be drawn on predicting the shelf life of the hashtag! The origins of the symbol itself are interesting, and you can trace its history as a way of denoting a number through to its adoption by early programmers. Bringing the hash symbol to the practice of tagging (from meta tags) has been an interesting user-driven innovation. Hashtags weren't written into Twitter, they have just become a useful convention. Of course it makes your tweet, or your post on Instagram, searchable and also helps to define the audience, topic or conversation you are addressing. There are many other uses, too and I'm sure linguists have coded the various functions that hashtags perform. For me it's their adoption into language that is intriguing, and like @GuyMerchant the hashtag is primarily a written form. But new writing features do seem to enter spoken language, too. It's not uncommon to hear people saying 'lol'. And 'confused.com' has become quite popular. I've also recently witnessed a four year old asking 'go to the park hashtag orange slide?'. We live in interesting times!

6 comments:

  1. Because of posts like this I surf the internet and when I found you, the time I felt I was wasting, just turned my thoughts around and now I am thinking I invested my time in something really interesting.

    ReplyDelete
  2. http://service-conciergerie-french-riviera.fr/
    http://creation-site-internet-agence-web.fr/
    http://achat-vente-site-web-internet.fr/
    http://ouvrir-domiciliation-boite-postale.fr/
    http://grossiste-en-ligne-grossiste.fr
    http://acheter-like-acheter-des-fans.fr
    acheter-bombe-lacrymogene-pas-cher.fr

    ReplyDelete
  3. This is such a nice and helpful site for students. Take a look at helpful reviews on essay writing from different sites to get reliable analysis of academic websites.

    ReplyDelete
  4. This is an hilarious website. I am happy to be a part of this website. Keep showing your potential.

    ReplyDelete

  5. Make My Assignments|Assignment help make customized assignments. Our team of experts is ready to make your assignments 24x7. We provide 100% Plagiarism free work

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.