Whenever I'm in India, I'm often struck by the 'extreme brevity' of some of the text messaging language or textese here. It may certainly be as extreme back in Australia among certain age groups, but I don't communicate via phone with any of these groups.
Here are just a few examples of messages I've received over the past few months. See if you can decipher what they mean.
1) M sori 2 say bt gues i wont b able 2 mak it on tuesday bcoz of d shftn... Will it b k if we mit on friday noon??
2) U cn kum 2 r plc bt d thng s we rnt stl proprly stld so it may b an inconvinc 4 u! If not u r most wlkum :-)
3) Its fyn... Do tk kr of ur health! So wn shl we mit? Ran ut of sms blnc!
[My apologies if I cause any embarrassment here. However, my point is not to embarrass, but to simply show examples of textese.]
You can see typical features of textese such as vowel deletion and the Rebus principle, whereby a letter or number that sounds like the word is used instead of the whole word. However, the reason I find this sort of texting 'extreme' is that most of the abbreviated forms are not in my textese vocabulary (which does include forms like 'cos', 'u', 'r'). In fact I wouldn't consider some of these to be conventionalised short forms of words.
I do acknowledge that there is a good economic reason underpinning this extreme brevity: fitting in as much information into a text message so you don't have to spend so much on phone credit. Consequently, more of the onus is transferred to the receiver to decipher the message, and not on the person texting to make the message more reader-friendly.
In the end, I did manageto understand the messages, but it took a lot more cognitive work on my part.
Here are just a few examples of messages I've received over the past few months. See if you can decipher what they mean.
1) M sori 2 say bt gues i wont b able 2 mak it on tuesday bcoz of d shftn... Will it b k if we mit on friday noon??
2) U cn kum 2 r plc bt d thng s we rnt stl proprly stld so it may b an inconvinc 4 u! If not u r most wlkum :-)
3) Its fyn... Do tk kr of ur health! So wn shl we mit? Ran ut of sms blnc!
[My apologies if I cause any embarrassment here. However, my point is not to embarrass, but to simply show examples of textese.]
I do acknowledge that there is a good economic reason underpinning this extreme brevity: fitting in as much information into a text message so you don't have to spend so much on phone credit. Consequently, more of the onus is transferred to the receiver to decipher the message, and not on the person texting to make the message more reader-friendly.
In the end, I did manageto understand the messages, but it took a lot more cognitive work on my part.
At this point, I can almost hear the usual complaints and laments about how things like text messaging and Twitter are causing the English language is going to the dogs. To this, I usually say, "Well, I can see that prescribed English spelling is suffering, but doesn't mean that the language itself is in a state of degeneration. Languages are constantly evolving and people often mistake change for degradation." There is however, some research out there about how texting can cause reading ability (and even grammar) to suffer.
TXT BAD 4 UR BRAIN? Text messaging can dent your reading abilities, say scientists. (Daily Mail, 17/02/2012)
Texting May Lead to Bad Grammar. (LiveScience, 26/07/2012)
I'm not about to critique these studies, as the findings seem to be all quite preliminary and there are other studies that suggest texting might help children's language development. Personally, I'm used to a certain amount of textese and I'm happy if the message is easy to understand. For me, communication is about a shared code, and if both parties are using the same code, then that's fine.
I do gripe occasionally when my students email me as if they're texting a friend, although I suppose that's to be expected as more people send emails from their phones. However, I think I gripe more about people who think that since I'm a linguist, I must be concerned about spelling, and worse, people who think 'good grammar' and 'good spelling' are the same thing!
TXT BAD 4 UR BRAIN? Text messaging can dent your reading abilities, say scientists. (Daily Mail, 17/02/2012)
Texting May Lead to Bad Grammar. (LiveScience, 26/07/2012)
I'm not about to critique these studies, as the findings seem to be all quite preliminary and there are other studies that suggest texting might help children's language development. Personally, I'm used to a certain amount of textese and I'm happy if the message is easy to understand. For me, communication is about a shared code, and if both parties are using the same code, then that's fine.
I do gripe occasionally when my students email me as if they're texting a friend, although I suppose that's to be expected as more people send emails from their phones. However, I think I gripe more about people who think that since I'm a linguist, I must be concerned about spelling, and worse, people who think 'good grammar' and 'good spelling' are the same thing!
