‘CIMPLY’ DIFF “CULT” 2 CURE

LANG’AGE HABITS: IMPACT

OF E-TXTIN

LOL

BTW

BRB

Morow / 2mrw

TTYL

TGIF

ROFL

People fiddling with mobile phones

everywhere,

Sending SMS -quickest, easiest and most

reasonable way to communicate,

Essence-Brevity and economy,

English is the language of texting,

All & sundry use English for text messaging,

Use ‘techniques’ & appear ‘message-savvy’ &

adopt ‘cults’,

Almost half the urban children in India

now have access to mobile telephones.

69 Million children under the age of 18

reside in the country’s urban areas and a

whooping 30 million have a mobile

handset.

Children (8-18) spend more time on

mobile rather than in watching TV.

Primary motive -relationship building,

sustenance, enrichment and social interaction.

Used as a source of information and

reminders,

Used to interact with automated systems as

well,

Many researchers have studied the language of

the text messages.

Three alternatives possible-

Positive, Negative & None

Some Linguists are of the opinion that the more

students write, the more they improve upon their

writing skills. Therefore, its increased use

rather enhances the literacy of users, especially

the youth instead of harming it (Crystal, 2008).

Descriptive, Analytical and Empirical in

nature,

Comparative Literature- Language and

Linguistics, Praxis and Gnosis,

Review of Literature-Surveys, Research

Projects and Reports, Published Papers

(Journals and Books )and Comments/

Views of Experts,

Text messaging is the practice whereby users of mobile and portable devices exchange brief written messages via cellular networks.

While the act of sending a text message is termed “texting”, the sender is called a “texter.”

It is used in place of voice calls in circumstances where it may be impossible or inexpedient (Dansieh).

technically & practically restricted, the limit is almost always 160 characters per message,

E-texting- common lexical

& stylistic characteristics,

Use of abbreviations,

Letter Number

Homophones-Gr8,

Non standard spelling-Luv,

Phonetic spellings,

Splitting of compounds,

Vowel/s omission,

Using conventional and

unconventional

abbreviations,

all caps or all lower case , exchanging longer words for

shorter ones , Use of acronyms , Employing Emoticons, Use of innovative spellings, Practice of reduction

techniques , Phonetic reductions, Syllabograms or rebus

writing (e.g. as with the English b4 for ‘before’),

Unambiguous abbreviations (e.g. u for ‘you’; r for ‘are’),

Vowel deletions ,

Lexical shortenings (e.g. Sun for

‘Sunday’),

Use of Capitalization,

Use of punctuation marks,

Blank spaces are often omitted,

Apostrophes and sentence-final

punctuation are omitted,

One-sentence text messages,

The omission of auxiliary verbs,

Omission of personal pronouns and function words,

The subject pronoun is deleted (syntactical reduction),

Openings and closings are frequently dropped,

Nouns being used as

verbs-messaged,

googled, texted,

Sentences without

verbs,

Parts of speech being

made redundant,

Single word sentences,

Violations in concord-

no subject verb-

agreement,

Code Switching,

Use of English with other

regional language/s- For

example: “Arre, na, not

now” and “Movie mast

songs bekar”,

Culture Related terms,

Appellations,

Honorifics,

Social Deixis,

Devnagari being written

in Roman Script,

There is a hybrid of

speech and writing styles

in terms of format,

grammar and style,

Hybridization of

languages,

Use of slangs, etc

Characterized by brevity,

Sentences are short &

choppy,

From a single word to a

single sentence, and at

times, few sentences,

Multiple clauses are rare,

Distinct, unique, novel,

unorthodox linguistic forms

employed,

Missing letters,

contractions (middle letters

are missing), in G-clippings

& others as in dropping the

final letter,

In the use of acronyms,

missing end letters,

letter/number homophones,

‘misspellings’ &

typographical variations,

non-conventional spellings,

& accent stylizations.

Use of consonant

clusters (as in THX) is

peculiar,

use of z as in girlz, the

k in skool,

as phonological

approximations such as

Americanized forms

like gonna, bin, & coz,

g-clippings like jumpin,

havin,

letter-number homophones-2d8,

Minimum uses of caps, Variations in punctuation, onomatopoeic, exclamatory

spellings (e.g. haha!, arrrgh!,

typographical-cum-linguistic devices for adding prosodic impact (e.g. fast, fast, run, run, ),

playful, chatty, and friendly tone ,

Humour & Chain Messaging,

Style is the image of

man.

Local stylistic norms,

colour & culture creeps

into the text messages,

capitalization (SEE,

WAIT, COME, etc),

multiple punctuation

(what???!!!),

Lexical items such as

ello (‘hello’), goin

(‘going’), and bin

(‘been’) –phonological

approximation,

Overuse of punctuation,

The loss of typographic

contrastivity, italics,

bold, underlined, etc is

noteworthy.

Mukta Nain- “…It is essential that students are persuaded not to use such language even while interacting informally.”

Bose- “It surely is creeping up as a problem.” Nain- “We have been trying to tell them that

using such abbreviated words is actually destroying language.”

Sunanado Sanyal (Academician): “…The onus is on teachers and parents. Schools must deal with the ‘textese’ problem strictly; otherwise the problem will get compounded with time.”

A Harried Mother: “It is hard to decipher the

words my son uses. He & his friends have

almost a language of their own, and it is also

reflected in his answer sheets.”

Bipul Bhadra (Sociologist): “It is best that

children are kept away from cell phones until

they first learn the basic grammar and begin to

use English or some other language with

felicity. It may sound impractical, but unless

there is prohibition on SMSing and Internet

chatting, the problem can not be cured.”

Impact-Positive –Crystal

Negative-Siraj and Ullah, Rosen et al

Negative Impact

negative influence on standard writing,

spelling & grammar,

Neography has emerged as an alternative

orthography ,

Educators, academicians, linguists, thinkers and parents—

Texting is harming students’ writing skills and grammar,

Spellings of the students- atrocious,

Use of abbreviations-negative effect,

Lack of proper punctuation, shoddy grammar-adverse effect on reading and writing habits,

A definite language change and stylistic diffusion is noticed in their writing.

Affects their vocabulary,

Affects their English usage in class work,

assignment work and examinations, formal &

informal situations,

It takes its toll on their lexis and structure and

results in non-conformity with grammatical rules

Language usage is habit based.

Youth lingo and cult,

Huge no. of messages-deep rooted habits,

AT THE COST OF STANDARD LANGUAGE

Positive Effect-??? Hence Rejected

Negative Effect-Hypothesis validated

and true

None- It is not a separate language/lingo.

It has adverse impact and hence rejected.

SMS Lingo enhances the literacy of

users-proved wrong and hence rejected.

Crystal, D. (2008). Txtng: The Gr8 Db8. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Hård af Segerstad, Ylva, Language Use in Swedish Mobile Text

Messaging. In Mobile Communications:

Re-negotiation of the social sphere, Rich Ling and Per E. Pedersen (eds.),

Ed. 2005, 313 - 334. London:

Springer.18

Shortis, Tim, Gr8 txtpectations: The creativity of text spelling. English

Drama Media, 2007a,

Shortis, Tim, Postmodernism and its insinuations on media and society.

Journal of

Development Communication 18 (1-10): 2007 b,

Siraj, Syed Abdul and Farish Ullah , Postmodernism and its insinuations

on media and society. Journal of Development

Communication 18 (2): 1-10. 2007,

Crispin Thurlow and Michele Poff, Handbook of the Pragmatics of CMC,

Text Messaging , Berlin & New York: Mouton de

Gruyter, 2011,

http://faculty.washington.edu/thurlow/papers/thurlow&poff(2010).pdf

Solomon Ali Dansieh, International Journal of English Linguistics, SMS

Texting and Its Potential Impacts on Students'

Written Communication Skills, Vol. 1, No. 2; September 2011,

www.ccsenet.org/ijel,

Internet linguistics, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_linguistics#cite_note-

No_LOL_Matter:_Cyber_lingo_shows_up_in_academia-10

Text messaging, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_messaging#Effect_on_language

John Myhra, Negative Effects Of Texting In The Classroom,

http://56wrtg1150.wikidot.com/negative-effects-of-texting-inthe-

classroom

Texting and Instant Messaging,

http://www.guide2digitallearning.com/teaching_learning/texting_and_instant_mess

aging

http://www.FitTheModel.com.

http://www.FitTheModel.com

Text Messaging and its Effects on Teens' Grammar,

http://www.bamaed.ua.edu/edtechcases/Case%20Numbers/text%20messaging%20

and%20grammar_Case%20

11.pdf

Russell, L. (2010). The effects text messaging on English grammar. [Online]

Available:

http://www.ehow.com/list_5828172_effects-text-messaging-english-rammar.html

(April 20, 2010).

The Journal for ESL Teachers and Learners.VOL. I, 2012,59,

Text Messaging Abbreviations & Shortcuts, http://www.illumasolutions.com/omg-

plz-lol-idk-idc-btw-brb-jk.htm

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://savedelete.com/wp-content/

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://therebelreport.org/wp-content/,

Textese’ creeps into answer scripts, http://gulfnews.com/news/world/india/textese-creeps-into-answer-scripts-1.1140615Txt lingo creeps in2 ans scrpts, teachers worried, http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-in-school/txt-lingo-creeps-in2-ans-scrpts-teachers-worried/article4384006.ece

Textese’ creeps into answer scripts,

http://gulfnews.com/news/world/india/textese-

creeps-into-answer-scripts-1.1140615

Txt lingo creeps in2 ans scrpts, teachers

worried, http://www.thehindu.com/todays-

paper/tp-in-school/txt-lingo-creeps-in2-ans-

scrpts-teachers-worried/article4384006.ece