{"id":27,"date":"2022-11-06T14:31:48","date_gmt":"2022-11-06T19:31:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/internetlinguistics2022\/?p=27"},"modified":"2022-11-25T15:28:01","modified_gmt":"2022-11-25T20:28:01","slug":"week-5-textspeak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/internetlinguistics2022\/week-5-textspeak\/","title":{"rendered":"Week 5: ‘Textspeak’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now we can get into the idea of textspeak\/textisms. What words and spellings are people using when they are texting or messaging? Do these hold true across different populations? And do these usages have any impact on users\u2019 abilities to use more formal registers of a language?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Features of \u2018Textspeak\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

On a general level, it seems like the same categories of (English) textisms appear in samples both from native speakers and from non-native speakers. Abbreviations and omitted words tend to be common (Fenianos 68, Haas 386). Non standard spellings may be used to indicate informality, to cut down on keystrokes, or to <\/span>\u201csuggest pronunciation or, more precisely, to draw attention to associations between\u2026ways of pronouncing words and certain regional and cultural dialects\u201d (Haas 386). This latter function would include spelling differences like \u2018partay\u2019 for \u2018party\u2019 and \u2018goin\u2019 for \u2018going\u2019. <\/span>Meanwhile, acronyms (\u2018lol\u2019, \u2018omg\u2019) and alphabetisms (\u2018c\u2019 for \u2018see\u2019, and similar examples) seem to be used less frequently by non-native speakers. This may be because extracting the meaning of these forms requires another step of coding\/decoding which non-native speakers may find to be more labor-intensive (Fenianos 70-71).<\/span><\/p>\n

Message content tended to include vague references – although this is more likely a reflection of the informal register, rather than a reflection of the message format itself (68). Pronouns were frequent, and determiners were used when discussing time (specifically future plans), shared experiences, or when referring to the conversation itself (67-68).\u00a0 Users also made frequent use of \u201cresponse tokens\u201d, which are messages which are not communicating new information but are simply acknowledging and displaying interest in what a user has said (68-69). My guess these response tokens occur frequently because we lack the simultaneous feedback we usually receive in face-to-face conversations (check out Week 2 for more discussion of simultaneous feedback).<\/span><\/p>\n

Some features added to a message, rather than abbreviating words. Users used emoticons <\/span>\u201cmeant to mimic the human face and capture what is communicated\u2026in face-to-face communication\u201d (Haas 396) – in other words, to convey expression and tone. In a similar vein, sound words (like \u2018haha\u2019 to indicate laughter) showed up in multiple samples (Tagliamonte 15). Phatic words or phrases, like \u2018lol\u2019 or \u2018wow\u2019, also appeared frequently, and usually acted more to show participant engagement or to move the conversation along than to communicate actual information (15-16, Haas 392, 395). In Tagliamonte\u2019s sample, for instance, \u2018lol\u2019 occurred more often at transitions in the conversation, in a final position, or by itself than at the beginning or middle of a message (16).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Some things were generally left out of messages. Determiners referring to a location tended to be rare, since conversation participants do not have a shared experience of space and location (Fenianos 67). Sign-offs or goodbyes were less frequent than greetings (69). This may be because conversations can take place over an extended period of time, making it difficult to partition where one conversation ends and another begins. Greetings, on the other hand, could be used to draw a user\u2019s attention back to the ongoing conversation in a polite way (\u201cGood morning! Are we still planning to meet up later?\u201d).<\/span><\/p>\n

In terms of structure, the sampled messages tended to be limited in the number of clauses included per message. In the sample of non-native speakers, most utterances tended to include a single clause; there were no utterances which contained more than three clauses (67). When there were multiple clauses, they tended to be connected via a comma or simply forgo an explicit connector, like \u2018and\u2019, altogether.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Why Nonstandard Features?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Why are we seeing some of these nonstandard features? Fenianos says <\/span>\u201cThe participants have seemingly resorted to this writing style because it is easy, fast, and time-saving\u201d (70). Haas disagrees with this assessment, saying that \u201cbrevity and speed are not of primary importance for these writers\u201d, because if this were the case we would not be seeing \u201ctensions between abbreviated and elaborated forms\u201d (389). These elaborated or additive forms made up 67% of the features of her corpus of instant messages (389). Haas points out that these additive features \u201cinscribe\u2026 oral features of language use into the written conversation\u201d (390).\u00a0 So Haas argues that users are adding features to their messages in order to evoke some elements of oral speech that would otherwise be unmarked. But these users are not marking every element of oral speech or their exact pronunciation (394). So the goal of these users is not to transcribe their own speech, but to use these nonstandard features strategically in order to convey the meaning they wish to convey.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But it does seem like brevity does play some sort of role when it comes to choosing how to convey a message. Take the use of \u2018so\u2019 and \u2018going to\u2019; in both cases, these phrases are becoming more frequent in spoken language in the Toronto region, where Tagliamonte\u2019s study was based. In the SMS portion of her data she did find that \u2018so\u2019 was being used at roughly the same rate as it was in face-to-face conversations (20). On the other hand we have \u2018going to\u2019, which has been displacing \u2018will\u2019 in the Toronto region (23). But in the SMS data, \u2018will\u2019 and its contracted forms were much more frequently used than \u2018going to\u2019 (24). If texting language is solely influenced by a texters\u2019 spoken speech, then \u2018going to\u2019 should be overtaking \u2018will\u2019 in the data sample. Because we see this is not the case, we might guess that \u2018will\u2019 has remained in common usage because it is much briefer than \u2018going to\u2019 and that \u2018so\u2019 is appearing more frequently because it is shorter than other intensifiers such as \u2018very\u2019.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In short, it seems that neither brevity nor spoken language are the sole drivers of what word choice and features people are using when they communicate through means like texting or instant messaging.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Impact on Formal Writing Skills<\/strong><\/p>\n

The formal language skills of young adults, at least according to Tagliamonte\u2019s 2016 study<\/span>, do not appear to be negatively influenced by their texting habits (27). This study was unique in that it collected formal writing samples from each of the 45 college-aged participants (7). Their writing samples had intact standard grammar, and did not have nonstandard word forms (13). It is possible that there might be more confusion of registers among younger students, but this study seems to indicate that young adults who text or message in nonstandard English are not doing so due to lack of education or knowledge about standard English.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Remaining Questions<\/strong><\/p>\n

One thing that does need to be considered is all of the studies cited drew from populations of teenagers or young adults. Studies looking at a different or wider age bracket could give us some insight as to whether these features tend to be retained by users as they age, and whether there is any divide between the habits of older and younger texters. Ensuring that these samples also come from populations who are diverse in other ways (race, class, etc) would help to provide an even better picture of how common these forms are across different groups.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Citations<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fenianos, Christelle Frangieh. “Internet Language: An Investigation into the Features of Textisms in an ESL\/EFL Context.” <\/span>Journal of Arts and Humanities,<\/span><\/i> vol. 9, no. 2, 2020, pp. 63-74. https:\/\/theartsjournal.org\/index.php\/site\/article\/view\/1848\/835. Accessed 6 Nov 2022.<\/span><\/p>\n

Haas, Christina, et al. \u201cYoung People\u2019s Everyday Literacies: The Language Features of Instant Messaging.\u201d <\/span>Research in the Teaching of English<\/span><\/i>, vol. 45, no. 4, 2011, pp. 378\u2013404. <\/span>JSTOR<\/span><\/i>, http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/23050580. Accessed 6 Nov 2022.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tagliamonte, Sali A. \u201cSo Sick or so Cool? The Language of Youth on the Internet.\u201d <\/span>Language in Society<\/span><\/i>, vol. 45, no. 1, 2016, pp. 1\u201332. <\/span>JSTOR<\/span><\/i>, http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/43904632. Accessed 6 Nov 2022.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now we can get into the idea of textspeak\/textisms. What words and spellings are people using when they are texting or messaging? Do these hold true across different populations? And do these usages have any impact on users\u2019 abilities to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1807,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[26,20,8],"class_list":["post-27","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weekly-post","tag-english","tag-im","tag-texting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/internetlinguistics2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/internetlinguistics2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/internetlinguistics2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/internetlinguistics2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1807"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/internetlinguistics2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/internetlinguistics2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/internetlinguistics2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27\/revisions\/28"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/internetlinguistics2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/internetlinguistics2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/internetlinguistics2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}