听力文本

If somebody from 1973 looked at what was on a dormitory message board in 1993,
如果一个1973年的人看着1993年一个学生宿舍信息栏，
the slang would have changed a little bit since the era of Love Story,
俚语等习惯用语会跟爱情故事时代有些不同，
but they would understand what was on that message board.
但是他们会看明白那个信息栏上的内容。

Take that person from 1993-not that long ago,
我们让1993年的那个人－这可不算太久远，
this is Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure-those people.
那还是比尔和泰德历险记时代，
Take those people and they read a very typical text written by a 20-year-old today.
我们让这些人读现在20岁年轻人写的一段短信。
Often they would have no idea what half of it meant because a whole new language has developed among our young people doing something as mundane as what it looks like to us when they're batting around on their little devices.
他们应该通常连一半的内容都猜不出来，因为我们的年轻人已经发展出了一种新的语言，它是通过在孩子们的小设备上的看似平常的敲敲打打中演变出来的。
So in closing, if I could go into the future,
总结一下，如果我可以穿越到未来，
if I could go into 2033,
如果我去到2033年，
the first thing I would ask is whether David Simon had done a sequel to The Wire. I would want to know.
我会问的第一个问题就是大卫?西蒙拍没拍火线的续集。
And I really would ask that and then I'd want to know actually what was going on on Downton Abbey.
我真的会问这个的，我还会想知道唐顿庄园到底发生了什么。
That'd be the second thing.
这是第二个问题。
And then the third thing would be,
第三个问题就是，
please show me a sheaf of texts written by 16-year-old girls,
请给我一叠16岁姑娘们写的短信，
because I would want to know where this language had developed since our times,
因为我想知道这个语言已经发展成什么样子了，
and ideally I would then send them back to you and me now so we could examine this linguistic miracle happening right under our noses.
更好的就是我可以把这些短信发给现在的大家和我，我们就可以研究研究这个当下正在发生着的语言奇迹。
Thank you very much.
非常感谢。
Thank you.
谢谢大家。

演讲介绍

短信的出现意味着良好书写技能的丧失吗？约翰麦克沃特提出短信在语言学上和文化上的影响都比表面看上去的更大，而且可喜的是这些都是好消息。