SMS language

"txt" redirects here. For other uses, see TXT.

Comic intended to illustrate the French version of "Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers". The child's speech reads: "But it's true! What are you, a Nazi?" (written in SMS language). The writing reads (misspelled) Hitler was evil!

SMS language or textese (also known as txt-speak, txtese, chatspeak, txt, txtspk, txtk, txto, texting language, txt lingo, SMSish, txtslang,or txt talk) is a term for the abbreviations and slang most commonly used due to the necessary brevity of mobile phone text messaging, in particular the widespread SMS (short message service) communication protocol. SMS language is also common on the Internet, including in email and instant messaging. It can be likened to a rebus, using pictures and single letters or numbers to represent whole words (e.g. "i <3 u" which uses the pictogram of a heart for love, and the letter u replaces you).

For words that have no common abbreviation, users most commonly remove the vowels from a word, and the reader is required to interpret a string of consonants by re-adding the vowels (e.g. dictionary becomes dctnry and keyboard becomes kybrd). The reader must interpret the abbreviated words depending on the context in which it is used, as there are many examples of words or phrases that use the same abbreviations (e.g., lol could mean laugh out loud or lots of love, and cryn could mean crayon or cryin(g)). So if someone says ttyl, lol they probably mean talk to you later, lots of love not talk to you later, laugh out loud, and if someone says omg, lol they probably mean oh my god, laugh out loud not oh my god, lots of love. "onw" means "oh no way!" nothing else. Context is key when interpreting textese, and it is precisely this shortfall that critics cite as a reason not to use it (although the English language in general, like most other languages, has many words that have different meanings in different contexts). SMS language does not always obey or follow standard grammar, and additionally the words used are not usually found in standard dictionaries or recognized by language academies.

The advent of predictive text input and smartphones featuring full QWERTY keyboards may contribute to a reduction in the use of SMS language, although this has not yet been noted.

The objective of SMS language is to use the least number of characters needed to convey a comprehensible message, also as many telecommunication companies have an SMS character limit, another benefit of SMS language is to reduce the character count of a message, hence, punctuation, grammar, and capitalization are largely ignored. Besides letters of the English alphabet, more complicated symbols in the orthography of languages like Chinese or Japanese can also be used. However, a 16-bit Unicode encoding has to be used, reducing the size of the message from about 160( in English) to 70. Besides text, other kinds of data, such as ringtones and animations can also be embedded in messages using advanced sms systems. While it is technically possible to send longer messages, using a system called ‘concatenated SMS’, which breaks a long message down and send them as two messages one after another, thi feature may not be supported in all devices.

The dialect has a few hieroglyphs (codes comprehensible to initiates) and a range of face symbols. According to a study, though it is faster to write it takes more time to read than normal English. According to research done by Dr. Nanagh Kemp of University of Tasmania, the evolution of ‘textese’ is inherently coupled to a strong grasp of grammar and phonetics.

History

SMS language is similar to that used by those sending telegraphs that charged by the word; people wanting to save money began shortening their messages to pay a smaller amount. Mostly common is Tomoz instead of Tomorrow which was sent in one of the first SMS.

SMS language is a nascent dialect of English that subverts letters and numbers to produce ultra-concise words and sentiments. The invention of mobile phone messages may be considered as its source, although elliptical styles of writing date back to at least the days of telegraphese, and telegraph operators were reported as using abbreviations similar to those used in modern text to chat amongst themselves between sending official messages dating back 120 years. There are no standard rules for writing SMS languages, and a lot of words can also be shortened, such as "text" being shortened into "txt". Words can also be combined with numbers to make them shorter, such as "later" which changes into "l8r", using the numeral "8" for its phonetic pronunciation. Textese seeks to use the fewest number of letters, and so helps in dealing with the space constraints of text messaging, as well as permitting the sender to type less and to communicate more quickly than one could manage without such shortcuts.

It is similar to Internet slang and Telex speak, and has evolved from the shorthand use in Internet chat rooms to accommodate the small number of characters allowed (early SMS permitted only 160 characters and some carriers charge messages by the number of characters sent), and as a convenient language for the small keyboards on mobile phones.

Features

Main features in SMS language include the use of abbreviations, slang, syntactic reductions, asterisk emoting, emoticons, ommision of parts of speech, especially subject pronoun, preposition, articles, copula, auxiliary or modal verbs and contractions. Emoticons, punctuation marks and capitalisation are used to emphasise emotion, such that the traditional use of punctuation and capitalisation is no longer observed, and can differ from individual to individual and across culture.For example,overpunctuation can occur: "Hello!!!!". In the case of capitalization in SMS langauge, there are three levels of use: SMS messages with (1) no capitalization, (2) capitalization of only first letter of the first word o a sentence and (3) “multiple” capitalization where the writer capitalizes names, proper nouns, and at the beginning of secondary sentences or as appropriate. Most SMS messages have no capitalization, while those that have only the first letter of the word at the start of the sentence capitalised may be due to the default setting for mobile phones.

Emoticons can change the meaning of a text message just as body language and facial expressions can change or add to the meaning of communication in spoken discourse. The difference between emoticons and actual facial expressions is that the real tone of the SMS sender cannot be discerned by merely the emoticon. A smiling face at the end of the message can be meant to be sarcastic or ironical, thus reader has to decide what the tone is by looking at the whole message.

Texters may also use different phonetic spellings in order to create different types of verbal effects in their messages such as ‘hehe’ for laughter, or perhaps ‘muaha’ to express a frightening laughter. As there is no fixed rule in the types of features that should appear in SMS language, these features are only general features of the language and are by no means absolute. Using of SMS language serves as a kind of group identity marker since there is variation across different groups in use of SMS language. Even though SMS language is in written text form, it closely resembles normal speech in that it is structurally simple, fragmented, concrete, and meaning is largely dependent on context. The feature of 'reactive tokens' that is ubiquitous in Internet Relay Chat (IRC), is also commonly found in SMS language. Reactive tokens are phrases or words like ‘yeah I know’, which acknowledges that one is following what the other is saying. In SMS language, however, the difference is that many parts of spoken speech are eliminated through abbreviation

Differences between male and female use of SMS language

According to Norwegian researcher Richard Ling, there are differences in the SMS language of females and males.

• Messages composed by women were longer: the mean number of words per message for women was 6.95, whereas for men it was 5.54.
• Women wrote messages that were grammatically more complex: The percentage of all messages sent by men and women separately that contained only a single sentence is only 60 per cent for women and nearly 75 per cent for men. The contrast was especially siginificant in the 16-to-19-year age-group in which only 48 per cent of the messages sent by girls were simple; whereas for boys, the figure rose to 85 per cent.
• Women used abbreviations and emoticons significantly more than men
• Women were more likely to retain the traditional conventions of writing, using standard punctuation, capitalization, and spelling: for example, 8.5 per cent of women correctly used capital letters as found in the standard language, compared with only 4.9 per cent of men.
• Women used more salutations and farewells.
• Women used texts to express a wider range of content,including far more messages with emotional and practical(e.g. arrangin a meeting) content.

The lexical, morphological and syntactic choices between males and females SMS userssuggested to Ling that women are more ‘adroit’ and more ‘literary’ texters.

Criticism

The proliferation of SMS language has been criticized for causing the deterioration of the English language proficiency and its rich history. Opponents of SMS language feel that use of SMS lanuage undermines the properties of the English language that have lasted throughout its long history. Furthermore, words within the SMS language that are very similar to their English-language counterparts can be confused by young users as the actual English spelling and can therefore increase the prevalence of spelling mistakes.

Welsh journalist and television reporter John Humphrys has criticized SMS language as "wrecking our language". The author cites ambiguous examples such as "lol", which may mean "laughing out loud", "lots of love", or "little old lady" depending on the context in which it is used. Humphrys describes emoticons and textese as "irritating" and essentially lazy behavior, and surmises that "sloppy" habits gained while using textese will result in students' growing ignorance of proper grammar and punctuation.

There are others who feel that the claims of SMS language being detrimental on English language proficiency are overrated. A study of the written work of 100 students by Freudenberg found that though students and teachers reported the use of SMS language in academic work, the actual amount of use of SMS language found in the written work was not very significant. Most notably,some features of SMS language such as the use of emoticons was not observed in any of the written work by the students. Of all the errors found, quite a substantial amount cannot be attributed to use of SMS language. These included errors that did not help to shorten, but instead, lengthened the word,and have appeared even before the advent of SMS language. There are also views that SMS language has little or no effect on grammar. Proponents of this view argue that SMS language should be considered as another variety of language, and since learning a new language does not affect students’ ability to use English grammar, it cannot be said that SMS language can affect their grammar. They also point out that even though different generatons have differing slang words, English grammar has not been changed. Following this line of thought, with proper instruction, students will be able to distinguish between slang, SMS language and correct English and use them in their appropriate contexts.

David Crystal has countered the claims that SMS language, with its profuse use of abbreviations and slang, has a deleterious effect on language with numerous scholarly studies. The findings are summarized in his book Txtng: the Gr8 Db8. Crystal claims that:

• In a typical text message, less than 10 per cent of the words are abbreviated
• Abbreviating has been in use for a long time, and thus is not a novel phenomenon only found in SMS language. Furthermore, some words such as 'sonar' and 'laser' that are accepted as standard words in the dictionary are actually acronyms.
• Both children and adults use SMS language,so if adults do not display the errors seen in children's written work, they cannot be attributed to SMS language alone.
• Students do not habitually use abbreviations in their written work and examinations
• A prerequisite to using SMS language is the knowledge of spelling.

Despite scholarly research to the contrary, the popular notion that text messaging is damaging to the linguistic development of young people and to the English language itself persists.

Frequency of use

In one American study, researchers found that less than 20% of messages used SMS language. Looking at his own texting history, the study's author, linguist David Crystal, noted just 10% of his messages used SMS language.

Use in school exams

There have been some reports in the media of children using SMS language for essays in school. For example:

• 16 August 2002: “Examiner's warning over exams culture”. BBC.
• 4 March 2003: “Is txt mightier than the word?”. BBC.
• November 2006: The New Zealand Qualifications Authority discourages the use of text abbreviations after suggesting that they may be used in certain subjects provided they clearly show the required understanding. NZQA Press statement [1]

Use in advertisements

SMS language is also affecting the language of advertising in recent years. In advertising, short sentences are preferred to long messages as they tend to be more attention-catching,cost and space saving. The longer the message in the advertisement, the less impression it will have leave.The visual impact of SMS language also lends a feeling of novelty that helps to make the advertisment more memorable. Dr Peter J D’Adamo and Catherine Whitney's advertisement of their book includes the use of SMS language by the use of the phrase:EAT RIGHT 4 YOUR TYPE.

Companies focusing on the teen market have the tendency to make use of SMS language in their advertising to capture the attention of their target audience. Since teenagers tend to be the ones using SMS language, they tend to be able to relate to advertisments that use SMS language. Unilever's advertisement for a new line of deodorant for teenage girls uses the phrase "OMG! Moments." David Lang, president of the group responsible for creating the advertisment said, "We wanted to show the teens that we understand them and know how they communicate with their friends,".

Other companies like PepsiCo's Frito-Lay, McDonald's and many others have also attempted to pursue the teenage market by using SMS language abbreviations in their commercials. An Internet video advertisement for McDonald's in Korea ends with: "r u ready?".

Vocabulary

Single letters can replace words

• be becomes b
• see or sea becomes c
• okay becomes k or kk
• are becomes r
• you becomes u
• why becomes y
• oh becomes o
• yeah becomes yh

Single digits can replace words

• won or one becomes 1
• to or too becomes 2
• for becomes 4
• ate becomes 8

A single letter or digit can replace a syllable or phoneme

• to or too becomes 2, so:
  • tomorrow becomes 2mro or 2moro
  • today becomes 2day
• for or fore becomes 4, so:
  • before becomes b4
  • forget becomes 4get
• ate becomes 8, so:
  • great becomes gr8
  • late becomes l8
  • mate becomes m8
  • wait becomes w8
  • hate becomes h8
  • date becomes d8
  • later becomes l8r or l8a
  • crate becomes cr8
  • skate becomes sk8
  • skater becomes sk8r
• and becomes &
• thank you becomes 10q, thnq, ty

Combinations of the above can shorten a single or multiple words

• your and you're become ur
• wonderful becomes 1drfl
• someone becomes sum1
• no one becomes no1
• any one become any1 or ne1
• see you becomes cu or cya
• for you becomes 4u
• easy becomes ez or "esy"
• enjoy becomes njoy
• adieu becomes +u

Punctuation

While vowels and punctuation of words in SMS language are generally omitted, David Crystal observes that apostrophes occur unusually frequently. He cites an American study of 544 messages, where occurence of apostrophes in SMS language is approximately 35 percent. This is unexpected seeing that it takes 4 to 6 key strokes to input a apostrophe in a text message. Interestngy, the use of apostrophes cannot be totally attributed to users attempting to disambiguate words that might otherwise be misunderstood without it.

There are not that many cases in English where leaving out the apostrophe causes misunderstanding of the message. For example, "we’re" without the apostrophe could be misread as were. Even so, these are mostly understood correctly despite being ambiguous, as readers can rely on other cues such as part of sentence and context where the word appears to decide what the word should be. For many other words like "Im" and "Shes",there is no ambiguity. Since it is not imperative that users use apostrophes to ensure that their message is understood accurately, this phenonenon may in part be atttributed to texters wanting to maintain clarity so that the message can be more easily understood in a shorter amount of time.

Syntax

Syntactic variations in SMS language can be seen in the following ways: omission of pronouns and auxiliary verbs, omission of objects, omission of articles, omission of to infinitive and contractions.

Omissions

Omission of pronouns and auxiliary verbs can be seen in SMS language. For example, " I am not coming back for dinner." becomes "Not coming back for dinner." In some cases, there tend to be omission of definite and indefinite articles. For example, " Is the car repaired?" becomes "Is car repaired?"

Contractions

A contraction is a shortened form of a word or groups of words. Spoken English also employs contractions For example, words like "Hwz" for "how is" and "wassup" for "what is up" is used in SMS language to shorten the sentences.

See also

• Cupertino effect
• Cyberculture
• English language spelling reform
• Internet slang
• Jejemon
• Newspeak
• Sexting
• Tironian notes, scribal abbreviations and ligatures: Roman and medieval abbreviations used to save space on manuscripts and epigraphs

References

• Rai, Himanshu (30 October 2005). "Thumbs Up!". New Straits Times. http://findarticles.com/p/news-articles/new-straits-times/mi_8016/is_20051030/thumbs/ai_n44310325/?tag=content;col1. Retrieved 25 March 2011. 

Further reading

• Crystal, David; McLachlan, Edward (2008). Txtng: the Gr8 Db8. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-957133-8. 

External links

• txtk.net's National Texting Registry
• SMS Abbreviations