Digital Immigrants & “accents”
Written on July 19, 2006 – 11:58 am | by Ed Warkentin
Marc Prensky writes about Digital Immigrants, Digital Natives.
This idea has sparked many, many conversations about reaching our students. In our FPU class, it has come up, as we have been reading Richardson’s book.
Here is a comment I left on one blog from a classmember about this topic. She had asked, “In fact, I am evidently speaking with an accent right now because I have not grown up with this medium. Like any second language learner, I cannot sense this accent, but others who are fluent can. Can anyone “hear” this accent? I am not sure I know what an accent in written form looks like, especially when the base language is the same.”
When we “digital immigrants” speak with an accent, it is not so much the pronunciation or words we choose, but more our behavior, or which medium of conversation and commerce we choose. For example, when we write a check instead of using a check card or an online account with an online store, that’s an accent. When we send & receive paper memos instead of sending & receiving emails, that’s an accent. Actually, emailing is getting so it is perceived as an accent any more: instant messaging and blogging are more “where it’s at” with the next generation, I would suppose.
Those who share the same accent don’t perceive that accent, whether we’re talkilng about the digital native/digital immigrant thing, or whether we’re talking about spoken human language.
Generally, those that would hear/perceive your accent would be those that are progressively younger and more tech-savvy than you.
