User:Carolinemalouse/sandbox
Textese
[change | change source]Textese is a kind of language sometimes used when people send text messages (word messages) from their cell phones. Textese mostly makes words into shorter forms that are faster to type. These shorter forms are called textisms.
There are three reasons why people started to use textese.
- Pressing buttons on a cell phone to send a text message is physically difficult, so users want to press as few buttons as possible.
- Text messages had a limit of 160 characters, so users want to write with as few characters as possible.
- It was thought to be faster than writing in regular English.
Examples of how words are made into shorter forms using textisms
[change | change source]Initialisms
[change | change source]See also: Initialisms
Sometimes the first letter of each word in a group of words can be put together to create a new word that represents the meaning of the group of words. (e.g., lol = laughing out loud; rn = right now) [1] [2]
Not using certain letters
[change | change source]Leaving vowels (the letters a, e, i, o, and u) and consonants (all letter other than a, e, i, o, and u) out of words can make a new word that means the same thing. (e.g., abt = about; tmw = tomorrow; tonight = tonite) [1][3][2]
Not using certain words
[change | change source]Leaving out less important words that help other words go together can be used to make messages shorter. (e.g., please walk the dog today = please walk dog today; she is in her car = in car) [1][3][2]
Using single letters, numbers, and symbols to mean the same thing as words or parts of words
[change | change source]E.g., i <3 u = I love you; be cool = b cool; tonight = 2night; I got one for you = I got 1 4 u
Use of capital letters or no use of capital letters
[change | change source]See also: Modern Alphabet
On most cell phones, it takes more time to type a capital letter than it takes to type a lowercase letter. Users sometimes choose to leave out capital letters to save time. A text message can use capital letters in the same places as regular English, only in the first letter of the text message, or not at all. Using capital letters in all the same places as regular English is not common in textese. If the first letter is a capital letter, that is most often because the phone changes the first letter to a capital form.
Emoticons
[change | change source]See also: Emoticons
Groups of characters that look like faces can be used to show feelings or moods in text messages. Some faces are used just for fun. (e.g., :) = happy, smiling face; :( = sad, frowning face; :D = open-mouth face to show laughing.) [4][1]
Punctuation
[change | change source]See also: Punctuation
Punctuation are certain characters that help words go together and make meanings. Punctuation includes . , ? ! @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) (periods, commas, question marks, exclamation points, at signs, dollar signs, percent signs, carets, ampersands, asterisks, parentheses) and other characters. Textese mostly does not use punctuation that is needed in regular English. (e.g. we bought apples, oranges, and pears = we bought apples oranges pears; I can’t come = I cant come; are you leaving? = are you leaving)
Possible problems of textese
[change | change source]Some people think textese may damage the literacy (reading and writing skills) of those who use it. Studies have been done to see if this is true.
See also: Literacy
Kemp & Bushnell, 2011
[change | change source]They found that people who were faster and better at reading and writing regular English and textese messages had better spelling and reading skills. They found that people who used more textese did not have different spelling and reading skills from people who used less textese. This shows that textese may not affect literacy. [5]
Drouin, 2011
[change | change source]They found that people who used more text messaging had better spelling and reading skills. They also found that people who used textese on websites such as Facebook and MySpace and in emails to teachers had worse reading scores. This shows that people who don’t know when it is okay to use textese may have worse reading and writing skills to begin with, not because of textese. This shows that textese may not affect literacy. [1]
Powell and Dixon, 2012
[change | change source]They found that people were better at spelling after reading a list of textisms. People had better spelling after reading a list of correctly spelled regular English words. People had worse spelling after reading a list of misspellings. This shows that textese may not affect literacy. [3]
De Jonge and Kemp, 2012
[change | change source]They found that people who send more text messages, use more textisms than regular English words, and use more types of textisms had worse reading and spelling skills. This shows that textese may affect literacy. [4]
Cingel and Sundarnew, 2012
[change | change source]They found that people who texted more had worse writing skills in general, but the use of some types of textisms did not lead to worse writing skills. This shows that textese may or may not affect literacy. [2]
References
[change | change source]- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 DROUIN, MICHELLE A. 2011. College students’ text messaging, use of textese and literacy skills. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning 27. 67–75.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 CINGEL, DREW P., AND S. SHYAM SUNDARNEW. 2012. Texting, techspeak, and tweens: The relationship between text messaging and English grammar skills. Media & Society 14. 1304 –1320.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 POWELL, DAISY, AND MAUREEN DIXON. 2011. Does SMS text messaging help or harm adults’ knowledge of standard spelling? Journal of Computer Assisted Learning 27. 58–66.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 DE JONGE, SARAH AND NENAGH KEMP. 2012. Text-message abbreviations and language skills in high school and university students. Journal of Research in Reading 35. 49-68.
- ↑ KEMP, NENAGH, and CATHERINE BUSHNELL. 2011. Children’s text messaging: Abbreviations, input methods and links with literacy. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning 27. 18–27.