New Literacies and language learning

21 thoughts on “Interactions between Traditional and Digital Genres”

1. 1. If I were a language learner who wanted to improve my language proficiency, I would prefer to search for knowledge online because, personally speaking, I am not interested in reading printed books or journals at all, which will erode my motivation to learn the language. So I would tend to online platforms like TED talks for that I am interested in different topics that TED talks contain. Moreover, TED talks are often carried by a native speaker. So TED talks are not only beneficial for knowledge acquiring but also for listening and speaking.
   2. Digital genres enable us more possibilities to learn knowledge. And it enriches our communication types. For example, I would like to interact on social media; you can respond to others without time and space limits. Moreover, you can use different genres, even emojis, to communicate with others.

2. 1. In such a digital age, I wil choose both approachs to get knowledge. Through print textbook or magazine, I can get the knowledge, which is examined by authoritative institutions. And through the internet, I can also obtain both formal and informal ones. However, if I have to choose one, I would say the latter is preferred, because it such more accessible if I have digital tool available and it cover a greater range of knowledge.
   2. Digital genres provides us more opportunities to gain knowledge in a more interesting way. For example, I would like to search information through social media, where the digital genres are much diverse and interesting, ranging from images to videos. I can also exchange my views with anyone who is interested in the topic that I talk about.

3. As digital media gradually infiltrates people’s daily life, I believe that most young people, at least me, are more inclined to get information through the internet including the web, news sites, and apps. Compared with the traditional way, as mentioned in the article, digital media gives me a multimodal way to get the news including video, audio, figures, etc. which is more accessible, timesaving, and convenient for browsing.
   But what cannot be overlooked is that I might also define this as a ‘more casual’ way of accessing information. I sometimes have that thought: How much information, knowledge, and culture would be retained if all formal communication between scholars was only under the label of ‘fast and convenient’? People might have to choose different ways according to diverse situations.

   • Thanks for your sharing! As you can see from the Twitter we embedded, some scholars use social media to ask questions and share ideas with other researchers, which can be classified as informal communication. As for formal communication, I guess if scholars want to discuss their studies more, they would still choose traditional genres (such as emails) to ensure accuracy and reliability.

     But just like you commented, which genres they decide to use is up to them according to their needs 😉

4. Traditional genres, such as books, academic journals, and newspapers, have been used for centuries as sources of information and inspiration for writing. These genres offer a sense of authority and credibility that can be valuable in academic writing.

   On the other hand, digital genres, such as social media, blogs, and online news sources, provide a more immediate and dynamic source of information. They can offer a more diverse range of perspectives and voices, and can be more accessible and interactive than traditional genres.

   When it comes to writing essays, it’s important to consider both traditional and digital genres as potential sources of information and inspiration. Traditional genres can provide a strong foundation of knowledge and research, while digital genres can offer new and diverse perspectives.

   Ultimately, the choice of which genres to use will depend on the specific requirements and goals of the writing task. It’s important to critically evaluate all sources of information, whether traditional or digital, to ensure their relevance, accuracy, and reliability.

   • Totally agree with what you say. Traditional genres and digital genres have their own pros and cons. Making good use of them can significantly facilitate our communication. Therefore, it’s important for us to learn how to evaluate these genres and choose suitable ones according to the context.

5. Living in the digital age, I feel lucky that I can use internet engines to search for all kinds of academic resources that I need for my study. Compared with digital genres, traditional genres are more formal, which contain private data that is not shared in public or on the internet. However, I still believe that digital genres will definitely facilitate the development of academic communication and research study. For instance, hyperlinks and citation links can directly extend the knowledge that we are working on.

   • Indeed. Just as your sharing and what has been mentioned in the post, digital genres contribute to the communications in academia more flexibly. But how about the influence of flexibility of digital genres? Scholars will follow specific rules and patterns of writing through traditional genres, which makes their studies more formal and authoritative. Do you think the flexibility of the digital genres will affect the science communications more positively or negatively?

   • Thanks for your reply~~~I would say it has more positive impacts because digital genres may seem more flexible but if the field is related to Academic, it can also form its own rules which meets the requirement for academic. Just like many scholars publish their journals and research studies in digital journals, the requirement is also strict.

6. As for me, digital media provides a really good way to learn scientific knowledge, since traditional scientific genres are relatively hard to understand by purely reading words in print, while new digital genres such as videos visualize, show, and elaborate the paper contents vividly. In this way, it’s more clear and easier to absorb the ideas.

   • Yes. Digital genres provide us with approaches to learn. Compared to print material that may only friendly to visual learners, the multimodal resources that involved make texts become more friendly to audio learners, kinaesthetic learners and other kinds of learners.

7. I believe the tendency to turn to traditional genres to search for literature when writing essays stems from the stereotype that traditional genres are more authentic. We’d like to perform professionally in writing; thus, we prefer traditional genres. Will it be weird if I in-text cite some digital genres, such as YouTube, ted, or Quora?

   • That’s an interesting question! As you can see in the post, we use an example from Twitter to illustrate how digital genres help broadcast the science communications. Most of the time, we intend to cite digital genres as examples instead of the theoretical framework. I think that one of the possible reasons is the informality of the use of language in digital genres.

8. There is no doubt that the widespread dissemination of digital genres will bring change to many fields, not only the scientific community. On Sina Weibo, a Chinese social media platform, I often see some scientific and historical knowledge being explained by some professionals, and some doctors have registered personal accounts to promote health knowledge to the public. These contents tend to be multimodal and more simpler in register and word choice, making them easier for the general public to understand. As mentioned in this blog, the digital genre somehow makes the latest academic research accessible to a wider audience and facilitates the dissemination and popularization of knowledge. So, I think using digital genres is helpful. But when I turn my attention back to the classroom and to academic writing, I hesitate. As a language learner, the digital genre requires skills beyond my writing skills, which raises the difficulty of completing a composing task. As a teacher, it will become a challenge to accurately assess students’ digital composing because I have to deal with various modalities and test students’ different abilities. The orthodoxy of the digital genre has also not yet been affirmed. Overall, I think the digital genre has a bright future, but it is also overwhelmed by the reality that the traditional genre is still the authority. I am looking forward to the future direction of these two genres, is it a symbiosis? Or will one be replaced by the other?

   • Thanks for your sharing, Mia. The rising digital genres enable everyone to gain scientific knowledge. Those official accounts like Doctor Dingxiang, which share health knowledge to the mass, stop people blindly resorting to so-called health knowledge from anonymous sources. However, some accounts might be commercial and people do not have a chance to know that, this is really concerning. In my opinion, of course, there’s quite obviously a lot of synergy between the two genres. But in language teaching, teachers not only need to assess students in multimodal tasks, but also lead them to deal with the information correctly and effectively, as well as other things to consider. I totally agree with you.

9. The rapid development of Internet technology, which resulted in the rise of a new kind of communication known as computer-mediated or Internet-communication, paved the way for the emergence of digital genres. Nowadays, digital genres are becoming more popular than traditional ones because of their convenience.

10. With digital genres, audience can reach wider range of resources at a lower cost and more conveniently. But traditional genres still play an important role in academy which now serve as a complement for digital genres. Using both of them can greatly improve our efficiency. For digital genres, the online translating functions can help us to read resources from all over the world.

11. As an English-major student, I always feel that academic science is too abstruse and complicated so I hardly read academic essays even though some topics are really interesting. However, I am willing to watch a scientific documentary or TED because the content are comprehensible and useful. I hope there are more digital genres for the general public!

    • I couldn’t agree more! I’d like research to incorporate multiple modalities and media to share results, data, or knowledge, rather than just pieces of paper. Data visualizations make me more easily to get the idea.

12. I have to say that I’m a big fan of digital genres and I just cannot image my life without them. Becky once mentioned that when she was in a PhD student, she had to look for the printed papers for her study, which totally freaked me out. I mean search things on the internet, draw on digital tools, acquire knowledge through digital genres couldn’t be better and more convenient. Well, of course, the value of the traditional genres should not be neglected, like exercise books. Both have pros and cons. The thing is how can we use them effectively whether is for our daily life or for professional issues, whether use one of them or a combination.

    Here is a story happened yesterday I want to share. I got a phone fraud, but I was not fooled. I found the similar experience of other users on Red, a social media of mainland, after I felt something was wrong, so I just hanged up. Thanks for such posts sharing this experience. They just prevent many people from being tricked. Well, that is the magic of digital genres, I think.

13. The rapid development of the digital age has facilitated my studies and my life . Because I can use the internet to find important academic information and I can also use social media to know about different worlds and perspectives. I believe that traditional genres are more formal and privacy conscious, while digital genres provide a platform to share information with each other to a certain extent.

Comments are closed.