I must admit, my original thoughts on text language has softened a bit. I feared that it may be ruining our language. For me it may be a generational thing. I did not grow up texting. I'm not sure what would have been the look on my face if I were told one day I'd be using an actual 'mobile' phone (one that was not connected to the wall) that had the ability to send 'notes' to other people's 'mobile' phones. Skip forward a few years to the time I graduated from high school and entered college between 1995-2000 was much different compared to what I see now. In 1998, you might have seen a few students walking around with cellular phones attached to their ears but they were not text messaging. Of course, this came down to the simple fact that - it was too expensive. Heck, using your minutes just to talk was too expensive. A lot has changed in a very small amount of time. Today people of all ages can be seen in public texting. Cellular companies have adjusted their billing to make both talking and texting much more affordable. I think it was this quick paced change to abbreviate the English language that probably scared me the most. While I was having babies, the next generation changed the rules.
In the article OMG! Texting and IM-ing by the Washington Post, Margaret Shapiro took the stance that we should see it as a new language "with its own set of rules for spelling and writing". This I had not thought of before. Does text messaging have it's own set of rules for spelling? Well... the only thing to do now is a bit of research to see how many people feel there is a certain etiquette to text messaging. A Google search on text messaging didn't take long. In fact, Emily Post, the etiquette guru herself stated, "Keep your message brief. No one wants to have an entire conversation with you by texting when you could just call him or her instead." Sounds reasonable. Keep it brief. Of course, the best way to keep it brief would be to have a set of guidelines or rules as to what the abbreviations for common phrases would become. So, then I Googled "are texting abbreviations universal" and I found many websites that are more than happy to educate an individual on the different text lingo. The problem being is that there are so many with good connotations as well as bad, I'm not sure how one person could memorize them all. Texting Shorthand states, "these shorthand ways of getting your point across are surprisingly universal." That's reassuring. While I'm not exactly sure all abbreviations are universal. I can see an attempt to make them universal.
The universality is only one side of text messaging. This You Tube video provides me with the most evidence that text messaging is becoming a new language.
If the next generation is texting as much as 3000 to 11,263 messages a month, then the fact it's becoming a 'New Language' is something to take serious. The next generation is our future and their leading the way. If they are indeed creating a new abbreviated language or dialect then we all need to follow in their footsteps to keep ourselves updated.
What is disheartening in this same video is an English teacher who states that he is seeing text language on English papers such as the number '2' for the words 'to', 'too', and 'two'. Obviously, these are three different words with very different meanings. This I have a problem with simply because it is impossible to successfully communicate if words are not used properly. I don't know the frequency this is happening. The article OMG! Texting and IM-ing states that,
"Young people can compartmentalize their language," Varnhagen said. "They have language that they use on the playground and then school language. They know how to speak in classrooms without sounding like goofballs."
So obviously Margaret Shaprio's evidence is different than the English teacher's evidence from Oakpark High School.
However, what I will conclude is that text language is still fairly new. I think in the end, it's probably not worth getting too exited about. It is something worth learning to keep ourselves literate with today's society and updated with the growing technology. Change sometimes provokes obstinance, especially fast paced change. But as time passes, I believe we, as a high functioning society, will learn when to use it and when not to use it. Besides it may become a 'hot flash in the pan' and gone before we blink. Like I said in the beginning, as a child I could not have imagined sending 'notes' over a 'mobile' phone. How is the next technological advances going to change our language? Will text messaging become out-dated and just a 'fad' of our past?
2 comments:
dats Y? I uz a tx transl8R. In my experience teachers will make it sound like students are using text message abbreviations all the time in formal writing. When I ask them to show me an example they are hard pressed to find one. It might happen a few times but they make it sound like it happens more frequently then it really does.
And you are right. The only evidence the English teacher supported was one term and he did not state whether it was in the final writing or the rough draft. It could have simply been shorthand.
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