Texting has revolutionized the very concept of a conversation. Over a short period of time, it has become a dominant form of communication especially amongst the younger generations. However, for me, I know that a technological trend is permanent when my mother attempts to get in on the craze. It is definitely not just a passing fad. Instead, texting has had a deep impact on our society in general.
A unique culture has developed from the texting world that has its own distinct vernacular-textese. There are words/abbreviations that are appropriate in text conversations that just aren’t used in normal speech. Grammar rules are completely different than normal English; spelling patterns normally are too. Yet somehow, meaning is still decipherable through all these differences. Textese could almost be categorized as a foreign language. If the definition of a foreign language is that there can be jokes made that are only understandable in this languages subtext, than texting would classify under these standards. The website Texts from Last Night is dedicated to hilarious text messages. Yet, these are only funny sentences and phrases within the context of the texting medium. Even if it hasn’t quite earned that status of a foreign language, it definitely still has a large culture of followers. In the article “Hugely popular text messaging spawns language change” the scope of the mania of text messaging is revealed: “This week, the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association will announce that Canadians sent 35.3 billion texts in 2009, up 70 per cent over the previous year. Per day, the current rate is an astonishing 122 million.” That is a lot of text messages – and that is just Canada alone. The CTIA did a study on American texting habits and found that 1.5 trillion text messages were sent or received. Because texting has penetrated so deep into American culture, it obviously brings about some change. And most noticeably, texting has had a deep impact on linguistic transformation.
Texting lingo normally consists of abbreviations. This is because they are just much easier to type and so they save time. JK, LOL, NBD, GR8 are all examples of the textese. There are actually on-line dictionaries completely devoted to texting acronyms, terms and even smiley faces that are used in SMS conversation. Most of these websites are aimed at the older generations – those that did not grow up in this text obsessed culture. Just like learning any other foreign language, it is harder for adults to grasp textese. Many different terms have also arisen from the text-crazed culture. The texting article mentioned the various “ext” words: sexting, chexting, drexting, hexting, objexting, wexting. Some of these terms are used more frequently than other - even the New York Times uses the word sexting because of Tiger Woods' scandal. Text vernacular has a much more informal register than normal spoken English. Most grammatical rules have gone out the window because of convenience. Convenience is the driving factor behind many of the linguistic changes in textese. Only time will tell which textese words will survive for generations to come.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/technology/Hugely+popular+text+messaging+spawns+language+change/2930387/story.html
http://www.netlingo.com/acronyms.php
textsfromlastnight.com
http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/ctia-survey-1-5-trillion-text-messages-sent-in-2009-20100324/
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