we can haz blog?

So, for my comp, I was trying to think of some kind of language process I use often, would be interesting to comp on, and would generate a research question. I've landed on the idea of sarcasm.

I, as I assume most others, am definitely not settled on a topic for my senior comp and am still a little nervous about even narrowing it down. All I have started to look at then, are topics that are of interest to me and my studying, topics that may lead into something that I someday want to continue to work with. With that being said, most of my research interests deal with the development and well-being of children. Some specific developmental disorders that deal with language development and of interest to me are specific language impairment (SLI), dyslexia, autism and mental retardation. SLI and dyslexia are impairments that have to do with reading and language but are accompanied by normal development in other areas. Autism and mental retardation syndromes are more complex and deal with abnormal abilities in other areas of development. According to Charvy Narain who was the editor of the Nature Neuroscience article on http://www.nature.com/neuro/index.html, these two different categories of developmental disorders can be looked at together in order to compare abnormal vs. normal childhood development of language.

As I was reading Chapter 6 in Baron's Always On, I recalled a headline I had seen on one of the blogs I visit multiple times a day. (Funny how these things run full circle..) According to this article, Wikipedia founder has suggested that all updates to the site would have to be approved by an editor before being allowed to be changed. The editors are balking at this idea, saying they have too much work, but founder Jimmy Wales seems determined to do something to change it.
This may have to change, or at least be taken into consideration for, the way we examine wikipedia as a blog type site.

Check out the full article here:
Wikipedia to moderate all updates

An average Internet user was exposed to about 950 banner ads in 2005. Most of these banner ads do not receive much attention, as is apparent from the .5% click-through rate. (Yaveroglu & Donthu, 2008)

I am a double major in Psychology and Art & Technology. For my comp, I am interested in focusing on some kind of visual advertising. While searching for studies to read for Exploring the Field I found this one, "Advertising Repetition and Placement Issues in On-Line Environments".

Although it does not deal directly with what I am planning to do, I don't know if singular studies actually will, and I was curious about it so I thought it was a good place to start. It also reminded me of something I spoke to Prof. Knupsky about briefly for comp ideas as far as volume... how effective something is depending on how often it is repeated.

Note: The girl was doing the worm when you moused over the ad. She looks a little weird in this screenshot.

In chapter 8, Baron brings up the idea of the "linguistic whatever", a generation that cares much less about the form of language. Many people argue against this informal attitude and believe that the Internet is the cause to this distruction of language. However, abbreviations and word changes have existed way before the time of new technological communication. These previous changes have not been attacked but are rather deemed as reflections of the current custom of that time. Now however, many people view this informality of language as a bad thing and believe that Internet language goes along with American society as a whole becoming increasingly more informal. My question though is, what makes informality a bad thing? If people are constantly monitoring presentation to others formally with dress, language, and politeness than are we really seeing a person as themselves or are they only playing a part? Maybe these more casual behaviors allow people to have more individuality and allow people to actually get to know people better for who they really are. Why does human language have to have laws, consitent patterns, or rules? If we as humans have constructed what is acceptable and proper, than can't we change the boundaries of this construction?

Maybe I am just one of those students that Baron introduces that say, "What's the big deal." I am, in fact a part of the "whatever" generation. But, although new language seems as if the one central improvement is speed and that American's are so focused on finishing quickly, can't we also think that these new abbreviations, presented by technological communication, actually broaden our world of words?

In Baron's 9th chapter, Gresham's Ghost, Baron finally finds a place to talk about the history of writing and print. A big part of me wonders if this chapter was misplaced in the book. It may, perhaps not in its entirety, but in some form, have served its purpose better at the beginning of the book. In any case, this was just something I observed, what really struck me was the section about the reading and writing test scores.

Chapter 8 of Always On really hit home for me. When Baron discussed how "lettan" and "lætan" both just became "let", I began to think about the words most commonly misspelled that I see. Besides words just being incorrect, I think that confusing the right word for a homonym is something that plagues writing, academic or otherwise.

Jumping back to things such as Facebook, I will admit that I definitely have bumper stickers related to the common mistakes.

I feel as though mistaking words is not simplifying things or advancing to a new age of language, it's just incorrect. They have different meanings, changing them all to the same spelling could lead to a lot of confusion, even though people do still get them wrong today. "Your the best." "Their going on vacation to" ARGHHHHH!!!!

In the article: HOW SARCASTIC ARE YOU?Individual Differences and Verbal Irony, the researchers bring up an interesting point: How can any one theory about sarcasm explain all the reasons if they don't take into account individual differences?

For my Exploring the Field entry, I figured I'd be practical and take a look at things that were related to my interests. When you think of a PSA that could be related to college life, alcohol is one that always comes up. I thought I'd look at responsible alcohol consumption and where research was developed, which types of studies have been done, and how the type of media (non-profit or commercial) affects it all.