Table of Contents
The Season of Mobile Phones and Short Messages
Short messaging language
Two opposing views
In summary,
Parents and educators have been working hard to develop literacy skills in their children. Text messaging is not welcomed by parents and educators. They worry about the impact texting has on children’s and adults’ literacy skills. Mampa Mphahlele (left) and Kwena Mashamaite (right) concluded, for example, that there are significant differences between the text messaging language and the traditional standards in reading, spelling, and writing. As a result, the instant message format negatively affects the literacy of students. Clare Wood et al. found empirically that the presence in classwork of words like “shud”, instead of the more formal word should, does not necessarily mean students are weaker at language. The paper claims that many parents, educators and the media have a negative attitude towards texting language, despite the fact that many empirical studies show a positive impact on the literacy skills of adults and children who are the most frequent users of text messaging.
Season of short messages and mobile phonesAs they say, “necessity breeds invention”. In 1992, a British engineer named Neil Papworth sent the first ever text message to his Vodafone director, “Merry Christmas”. Papworth claimed this service is the biggest accomplishment in the communication Revolution, allowing customers to communicate anywhere, anytime. Text messaging became more popular 15 years after the introduction of smartphones. In the United States there are, for example, 277,000,000 “texters”. This does not include children younger than 12 years. PEW Research and Statista both reported that in 2013, the 18-29 age group was most active in texting and receiving messages. In fact, 97 percent said they were using mobile messaging. This means that people can send and receive text messages from their bed in just a few seconds. Text messaging has become very popular in recent years, particularly amongst young people and children. In addition to statistics, there are many sounds and scenes that illustrate how important instant messaging is in people’s lives. There are many sounds around us that reveal how people use instant messaging in their daily lives.
The language for short messagingShort messaging has simplified communication both at the surface and on a deeper level. Numerous studies were conducted to understand the language used by text message users to improve communication. Naomi S Baron argues that language used in texting is rich with linguistic characteristics. “A variety of distinctive linguistic rules which characterize the use of language by many Internet users have begun to creep into written and spoken language.” Crispin Thurlow studied the language in short messages and found that it was full of linguistic forms. Thurlow’s list of textisms includes the following examples: “shortenings, contractions, and missing end letters. The most common textism forms are: “shortenings (i.e. G-clippings or other clippings that drop the final letter, acronyms and initialisms. The final letter is dropped, acronyms are used, as well as initialisms. The people are also free to write their messages without any restrictions, such as punctuation or pronoun omission. They can even ignore certain grammatical rules, such the subject-verb rule. The changes split people into two groups.
Two contrasting viewpointsOur language is a reflection of many things, including our beliefs, emotions and thoughts. For instance, “It was Genghis Khan who, eight hundred-years ago, did the same to his neighbors by destroying their language. It is being destroyed: they are pillaging punctuation, savaging sentences and raping vocabulary. “They must be stopped.” John Humphrys penned these lines in the Daily Mail Newspaper. He expressed his concern for the negative effects of short-messaging, including the use of emoticons, and the abbreviations. Teachers and parents were concerned by the growing popularity of texting, even though it was not limited to texting. Mphahlele Mashamaite talked about the wide use of text messaging language, including TV advertisements like “we love u 2”, a book titled “the individual diet solution for living longer, staying healthy and achieving a perfect weight, Eat Right 4 Your Type”, and documents like “REMINDER – SPEECH AND POSTER ELIMINATIONS – WHEN? 15 OCT 2003 TIME? 9:15-11:00 WHERE? LF119 CU THERE! Humphrys argued, among others, against the potentially dangerous effects of instant messages on the English language and literacy of young people. Mphahlele Mashamaite argued that SMS language can cause problems in texters’ writing skills, making them unable of formal English. The students are unable to distinguish the appropriate context or situation for using the SMS language. This claim comes from the literature of theoretical language proficiency. The basic language skills can’t be taught effectively or efficiently by using SMS. Chantal N Dijk and others conducted a research study on texting in Holland. They were teachers from Department of Linguistic and Special Education of various universities in Amsterdam and Holland. According to the study, the majority of proficient text users are able to easily switch from formal to informal written language. This is the same as bilingual children. In fact, studies have shown that monolingual and bilingual children are better at executive functions. This study found that children who are bilingual have better grammar skills and metalinguistic understanding.
Plester and al. In a previous empirical research, Plester et al. In other terms, texism is used by users to type the words they pronounce. This indicates that a user has a high level of literacy. Thurlow, Plester and other researchers have called this “accent-stylization”, a way to type messages. Most participants used this way to type messages. It reflects how English letters are pronounced correctly. Plester, et.al. found that the spelling results were similar. The results of the study indicated a strong positive relationship between spelling abilities and the use symbols. The children must learn the meanings of these symbols, so they may indicate their ability to learn orthographic representations in new ways without corrupting previously learned forms. Text messaging can improve children’s literacy, as opposed the the depression and frustration caused by a wrong popular perception from the media or some teachers. Thurlow argues that the general public’s perception of text messages is an exaggerated response, much like Humphry, who blamed young people for the negative effect emoticons have on literacy. Thurlow argues that SMS is perceived as a danger or lesion, which undermines children’s English Language skills and academic performance. As well, Dijk et al. Dijk and colleagues criticized stereotypical attitudes and negative images towards short-messaging services, which ignore empirical results and are based upon assumptions.
In 2009, Plester et al. In 2009, Plester et al. There were 88 students aged 13-14 years from different schools. The children said they used their phones the most to text and talk, in this order: texting 38.8%, talking 30.6%, playing games most (15.3%), taking pictures most (10.6%) and 4.7% citing ‘others’. The children were asked by the researchers to use their mobile phones to text five responses to certain scenarios. This gave them an opportunity to get spontaneous text messages. Thus, Plester et al. The participants used various types of textism “like shortening like sis and brother”. The results showed students scoring highly on literacy measures, such as reading, spelling, phonological knowledge, and vocabulary.
ConclusionOverall, the technology has brought about a lot of changes in our world. This social debate is sparked by the fact that some people accept these changes and others reject them. Also, the debate about the impact of SMS on young children’s literacy skills. The paper claims that there’s a discrepancy between the findings from several studies using practical methods and what people think of texting. That leads to increased concerns and worries. Plester and colleagues concluded in their study that there was no evidence that texting abbreviations were affecting children’s literacy. Many longitudinal studies are best done gradually due to the ongoing changes.
