Mio Debnam replies: A number of surveys and research projects have been run over the past couple of years asking this very question. The results that have emerged have been very interesting, but before we look at them, let’s just have a brief look at the perceived problem:
Do you think the standard of children’s literacy is declining because of texting or online social networking? It’s like they are using a different language!
Text messaging is now the world’s most popular form of communication (overtaking emails and even face-to-face conversation), with 5 trillion SMS messages sent worldwide in 2009. In addition to this, more than 65 million Twitter messages (or tweets) are sent daily, along with 4 billion messages on Facebook. Because users are limited to messages of only 140 characters in length for Twitter and 160 characters for a text message, a whole new way of writing has emerged – which involves foregoing punctuation and contracting words or using acronyms to save space. For example, common contractions include: ‘great’ becoming ‘g8’, ‘you’ becoming ‘u’, ‘the’ becoming ‘da’, ‘because’ becoming ‘cuz’, ‘talk to you later’ becoming ‘TTYL’ and ‘laugh out loud’ being written as ‘LOL’ (though some older users use ‘LOL’ to denote ‘Lots of Love’). These contractions are at the heart of the concern about declining literacy.
So, are these concerns justified? Well, if you did an informal survey, you’d probably find that the majority of people, including youngsters who use text-speak, would agree that it has affected the way people write. And every teacher has probably seen at least a few inappropriate examples of text-speak in work handed in. However, when research was conducted in a Midwestern university in the USA, it was found that the literacy rate, and the rate of inappropriate usage of text-speak/mistakes in spelling by students who used text-speak, was about the same as for non-texters. Of course, since text-speak has only become explosively popular over the past few years, those college students who grew up learning the basics first may not be the best sample – and the effects may be more profound on those who are at present learning standard English side by side with text-speak.
Still, the researchers argue that because contractions only occur for the most common words, and that longer, more complex words still have to be written out in full to ensure that the text recipient understands the message. They also argue that spelling, for the most part, and literacy should not be affected.
Other studies by researchers at Coventry University in the UK on middle grade students seem to suggest that far from decreasing literacy, becoming fluent in text-speak actually has positive effects, as, reading and writing, either via the traditional book/notepad route, or via new media and social networking, still equals exposure to the written word. They claim that children are in fact not only learning the old rules, they are learning new and sophisticated ways of playing with, and manipulating language – i.e. if anything, increasing their literacy.
This is a view that has been championed by well-known linguists such as David Crystal, who has written a book on the subject called, ‘The G8 Db8’. He argues that English has been evolving for centuries, and that coining new phrases and spellings is nothing new – and, indeed, when done by wordsmiths such as Shakespeare, these have been taken up enthusiastically and celebrated!
He also points out that contractions are old hat too – a dictionary of contractions, featuring such common text-speak terms such as ‘mth’ for ‘month’ was published nearly 69 years ago, and, words like ‘cos’ – the old-fashioned contraction for ‘because’ – are so established that they have even been included in the Oxford English Dictionary! Words such as ‘exam’ and ‘bus’ (a shortened form of ‘omnibus’), are so common, that they not only do not raise any flags, some people may not even be aware that they are contractions!
Bearing all this in mind, my personal view is not to worry too much. Children are pretty sophisticated. Most learn quickly that they should not speak to a person of authority in the same casual way that they speak to their buddies, and they should be able to learn to tailor the use of text-speak in the same way so that it is not used in inappropriate situations. No doubt, some will slip up from time to time, but spelling and punctuation mistakes are not a new phenomenon… and with the help of teachers and parents, it is something that can be rectified.
Instead, I would urge all adults who are not au fait with the new language, to keep up with the times, and learn it. Over the past few years, there have been hit ‘text-message novels’ which were read by tens of thousands of people in installments on their mobile phones (in both Japan and China), novels written 140 characters at a time on Twitter, as well as text message poetry competitions (which resulted in impressive poems – reminiscent in their brevity to Japanese haiku). I’m an editor, and as such, I’m quite a stickler for spelling, grammar and punctuation in books, newspapers and in formal writing… but I’m fascinated with how the language is evolving, and I for one am aiming to keep up…
U shud 2 cuz u dnt wt 2 gt lft bhnd! K?
One Comment
I really like your article, especially because you don’t blindly argues for or against text speak but gave resaonable claims. I rarely use text speak but I’m extremely interested to all the future changes it may bring to our Modern English =]