Developing intercultural communicative skills

Technology factor
The ever-changing technology is creating difficulty for the English language users to keep track on new vocabulary and expressions. In fact, language itself changes slowly but the internet has speeded up the process of those changes even more quickly. For example, some entirely new words like the verb “to google' , “facebooking”, and many other words that are not yet in the Oxford English Dictionary, have come into popular use. However, not all these new words and slangs being used right now will survive forever. Over a decade ago, the term 'floppy disk' was considered a brand new lexical development, but now it is rarely used or featured in today's conversations as it has been replaced with 'memory stick’.
Often times, people online show how brilliant they are by manipulating the language of the internet which causes computer slangs to develop even faster than one can ever imagine. The text messaging language is something new the abbreviation such as LOL, BFF, IMHO, and OMG (that's laugh out loud, best friends forever, in my humble opinion and oh my God) have recently added in the Oxford Dictionary, legitimizing the terms used by millions in texts, emails and instant messages.
Overall, English today is one of the fastest changing languages in the world because both old and new users of the language are actively shaping it as English has become a language of education and in an increasing number of countries. Today, English belongs to any country which uses it and the more people use English, the greater it would have impact on the language change.
Change can be a very good thing because it helps people in business to trade goods and services, travel and communicate with other nations more effectively. If the language we speak did not change, there would be an even greater language barer than there already is.
Another reason why languages need to change is for people to communicate with others who have a different culture, understanding and pronunciation of our language. If there were no change, humans would be so lost in this world of different languages and different beliefs.

Handout 2