Gen Y Lingo Gets Into Oxford's Latest Dictionary

Ali Imran Mohd Noordin KUALA LUMPUR, April 7 (Bernama) -- Social media users will know what Twitter is, but just how many know the existence of the many other twitter-related terms other than ‘tweet’ and ‘retweet’? Have anyone heard words like twitterati, tweetable, tweetheart, twitterverse? And how about other newer jargons like ‘catfish’, ‘wishy-washy’, ‘troll’, ‘spyware’, and ‘bioenergy’? While these words may be part of the Gen Y's lingo, others may have yet to hear them and what more they are not officially documented. Oxford University Press (OUP) understands the growing impact of the digital age on the English language through the creation of new words and their usage. Therefore, the new ninth edition of Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (OALD) has added 900 new words in its print and online edition. OALD was launched in Malaysia in March 2015. The dictionary offers references to four essential areas required in learning and teaching lessons - speaking, writing, vocabulary building and teachers’ resources. CONNECTING TEACHERS TO STUDENTS Associate Professor Dr Cynthia Yolanda Ross of MARA University of Technology's (UiTM) Academy of Language hailed Oxford Press’ latest effort in keeping up with the new words. “As teachers use these new words with their students, it will get them connected easily,” she said adding that this would also go to show the teachers too were up-to-date in their language. Cynthia shared her over 30 years experience in teaching the language where vocabulary was a key factor to be addressed by any teacher. Teaching a language involves both input and output. Both are equally important. The process of providing input to a learner is being done through the reading and listening processes. The success of this effort can be seen from the output by the students through their ability to speak and write. Using dictionary in class makes the learning process more interesting. The iSpeak and iWrite application offered by OALD will augur well for the tech savy generation as smartphones and tablets are very much part of their lifestyles. “The difference between native speakers and those who are learning the language as second language is the rich words the native speakers have. In this era of globalisation, having rich vocabulary gets one to deliver the message precisely." IMPACTFUL CHOICE OF WORDS Sam Hagag, Country Manager for Manpower Group, a global recruitment company, who was at the OALD launching ceremony as panelist shared his views on why it is important to have a rich and updated vocabulary. “It is important that the old people keep up with the young people’s lingo. Each day there’ll be something new coming up, we need to remain relevant with the changing times,” he replied when asked on the emergence of new words and terms related to the social media and its implications on the society. Touching on the importance of English in business organisations, Sam emphasised that conveying a point in shortest possible time is a crucial skill that one has to acquire. Rapid pace of daily routines has turned many companies’ business proposal presentation sessions to short and compact pitching sessions instead of typical formal presentations with numerous slides. Hagag added today’s business environment, involves communications between more parties than ever before. It could occur in the form of multi-nationality, multi-racial, and other forms of diversity and the one language that connects them all is English. VOCUBULARY IS THE KEY Alison Waters, Publishing Manager for English Language Teaching Dictionaries and Reference Grammar at OUP, pointed out that her team conducted a global research involving 14,000 teachers to understand the users’ requirement. “According to the research, 28 percent of teachers and 23 percent of students consider speaking as the most challenging skill to master when learning English,” she said. For that, this version of OALD features a new application called ‘iSpeaker’. This application is available online and on DVD-ROM that comes together with the dictionary. Alison noted that learners could now listen, record their pronunciations and compare them with the right pronunciation so that they themselves could access their level of achievement. The dictionary also helps learners to recognise 3,000 important words to know in English using its ‘Oxford 3000’ feature. Learners can identify these words marked with ‘key’ symbol throughout the dictionary A to Z reference. Teaching the language now is also easier using lesson plans, videos and notes provided in the dictionary. Even parents may use this plans for further learning sessions at home. -- BERNAMA