Editing Text messaging (section)

=== Effect on language ===
{{Main|SMS language}}
[[File:SillyModernSociety.jpg|thumb|This sticker seen in Paris satirizes the popularity of communication in SMS shorthand. In French: "Is that you? / It's me! / Do you love me? / Shut up!".]]
The small [[telephone keypad|phone keypad]] and the rapidity of typical text message exchanges have caused a number of spelling abbreviations: as in the phrase "txt msg", "u" (an abbreviation for "you"), "HMU"("hit me up"; i.e., call me), or use of [[camel case]], such as in "ThisIsVeryLame". To avoid the even more limited message lengths allowed when using [[Cyrillic script|Cyrillic]] or [[Greek alphabet|Greek]] letters, speakers of languages written in those alphabets often use the [[Latin alphabet]] for their own [[language]]. In certain languages utilizing [[diacritic]] marks, such as Polish, SMS technology created an entire new variant of written language: characters normally written with diacritic marks (e.g., ''[[ą]]'', ''[[ę]]'', ''[[ś]]'', ''[[ż]]'' in Polish) are now being written without them (as ''a'', ''e'', ''s'', ''z'') to enable using cell phones without Polish [[Writing system|script]] or to save space in [[Unicode]] messages. Historically, this language developed out of shorthand used in [[bulletin board system]]s and later in Internet [[chat room]]s, where users would abbreviate some words to allow a response to be typed more quickly, though the amount of time saved was often inconsequential. However, this became much more pronounced in SMS, where mobile phone users either have a numeric keyboard (with older cellphones) or a small [[QWERTY]] keyboard (for 2010s-era smartphones), so more effort is required to type each character, and there is sometimes a limit on the number of characters that may be sent. In [[Standard Chinese|Mandarin Chinese]], numbers that sound similar to words are used in place of those words. For example, the numbers 520 in Chinese (''wǔ èr líng'') sound like the words for "I love you" (''wǒ ài nǐ''). The sequence 748 (''qī sì bā'') sounds like the curse "go to hell" (''qù sǐ ba'').

[[Predictive text]] software, which attempts to guess words ([[Tegic]]'s [[T9 (predictive text)|T9]] as well as [[iTap]]) or [[Letter (alphabet)|letters]] (Eatoni's [[LetterWise]]) reduces the labour of time-consuming input. This makes abbreviations not only less necessary but slower to type than regular words that are in the software's [[dictionary]]. However, it makes the messages longer, often requiring the text message to be sent in multiple parts and, therefore, costing more to send. The use of text messaging has changed the way that people talk and write essays, some<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.newhorizons.org/strategies/literacy/oconnor.htm|url-status=unfit|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100613085439/http://www.newhorizons.org/strategies/literacy/oconnor.htm|archive-date=13 June 2010|title=Instant Messaging: Friend or Foe of Student Writing? |publisher=Newhorizons.org |access-date=29 March 2012}}</ref> believing it to be harmful. Children today are receiving cell phones at an age as young as eight years old; more than 35 per cent of children in second and third grade have their own mobile phones. Because of this, the texting language is integrated into the way that students think from an earlier age than ever before.<ref>{{cite news|last=Boswell|first=Sean|title=Lost in Translation: Texting Killing Human Communication Skills|url=http://www.depauliaonline.com/opinions/lost-in-translation-texting-killing-human-communication-skills-1.2841429#.VhyeC3pVhBc#.UIBjbG_A-Xd|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140311111419/http://www.depauliaonline.com/opinions/lost-in-translation-texting-killing-human-communication-skills-1.2841429#.VhyeC3pVhBc#.UIBjbG_A-Xd|archive-date=11 March 2014|url-status=dead|newspaper=[[The DePaulia]]|access-date=18 October 2012}}</ref> In November 2006, New Zealand Qualifications Authority approved the move that allowed students of secondary schools to use mobile phone text language in the end-of-the-year-exam papers.<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.usatoday.com/news/offbeat/2006-11-13-text-speak_x.htm | work=USA Today | title=Officials: Students can use 'text speak' on tests | date=13 November 2006 | access-date=25 May 2010}}</ref> Highly publicized reports, beginning in 2002, of the use of text language in school assignments, caused some to become concerned that the quality of written communication is on the decline,<ref name="autogenerated1" /> and other reports claim that teachers and professors are beginning to have a hard time controlling the problem.<ref name="autogenerated1" /> However, the notion that text language is widespread or harmful is refuted by research from linguistic experts.<ref>{{cite news|author=Crace, John |url=https://www.theguardian.com/education/2008/sep/16/academicexperts.languages |date=16 September 2008|title=Gr8 db8r takes on linguistic Luddites: Language guru David Crystal tells John Crace that txt spk is responsible for neither bad spelling nor moral decay |work=The Guardian |location=UK |access-date=29 March 2012}}</ref>

An article in ''[[The New Yorker]]'' explores how text messaging has [[Anglicisation|anglicized]] some of the world's languages. The use of [[diacritic]] marks is dropped in languages such as French, as well as symbols in [[Ethiopian Semitic languages|Ethiopian languages]]. In his book, ''[[Txtng: the Gr8 Db8]]'' (which translates as "Texting: the Great Debate"), [[David Crystal]] states that texters in all eleven languages use "lol" ("laughing out loud"), "u", "brb" ("be right back"), and "gr8" ("great"), all English-based shorthands. The use of pictograms and logograms in texts are present in every language. They shorten words by using symbols to represent the word or symbols whose name sounds like a syllable of the word such as in 2day or b4. This is commonly used in other languages as well. Crystal gives some examples in several languages such as Italian ''sei'', "six", is used for ''sei'', "you are". Example: dv6 = ''dove sei'' ("where are you") and French k7 = ''cassette'' ("cassette tape"). There is also the use of numeral sequences, substituting for several syllables of a word and creating whole phrases using numerals. For example, in French, a12c4 can be said as ''à un de ces quatres'', "see you around" (literally: "to one of these four ''[days]''"). An example of using symbols in texting and borrowing from English is the use of ''@''. Whenever it is used in texting, its intended use is with the English pronunciation. Crystal gives the example of the Welsh use of ''@'' in ''@F'', pronounced ataf, meaning "to me". In character-based languages such as Chinese and Japanese, numbers are assigned syllables based on the shortened form of the pronunciation of the number, sometimes the English pronunciation of the number. In this way, numbers alone can be used to communicate whole passages, such as in Chinese, "8807701314520" ({{lang|zh-Latn-pinyin|bào bao nǐ qīng qing nǐ yīshēng yìshì wǒ ài nǐ}}) can be literally translated as "Hug hug you, kiss you, whole life, whole life I love you." English influences worldwide texting in variation, but still in combination with the individual properties of languages.<ref>{{cite book |last=Crystal |first=David |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pKBnEGwmtZoC&pg=PA131 |title=Txtng: the gr8 db8 |location=New York |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=2008 |pages=131–137 |isbn=978-0-19-162340-0}}</ref>

American [[popular culture]] is also recognized in shorthand. For example, [[Homer Simpson]] translates into: ~(_8^(|).<ref>''The New Yorker'' "Thumbspeak" Menand, Louis. 20 October 2008.</ref> Crystal also suggests that texting has led to more creativity in the English language, giving people opportunities to create their own slang, [[emoticon]]s, abbreviations, acronyms, etc. The feeling of individualism and freedom makes texting more popular and a more efficient way to communicate.<ref>Crystal, David: the gr8 db8. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Print.</ref> Crystal has also been quoted in saying that "In a logical world, text messaging should not have survived." But text messaging didn't just come out of nowhere. It originally began as a messaging system that would send out emergency information. But it gained immediate popularity with the public. What followed is the SMS we see today, which is a very quick and efficient way of sharing information from person to person. Work by [[Richard Ling]] has shown that texting has a gendered dimension and it plays into the development of teen identity.<ref>{{cite journal|title="Girls Text Really Weird": Gender, Texting and Identity Among Teens | doi=10.1080/17482798.2014.931290 | volume=8|issue=4 |journal=Journal of Children and Media|pages=423–439|date=2 October 2014 |last1=Ling |first1=Rich |last2=Baron |first2=Naomi S. |last3=Lenhart |first3=Amanda |last4=Campbell |first4=Scott W. | s2cid=143302111 }}</ref> In addition we text to a very small number of other persons. For most people, half of their texts go to 3 – 5 other people.<ref>{{cite journal|title=The socio-demographics of texting|journal=New Media & Society|volume=14|issue=2|pages=281–298|doi=10.1177/1461444811412711|year=2012|last1=Ling|first1=Rich|last2=Bertel|first2=Troels Fibæk|last3=Sundsøy|first3=Pål Roe|s2cid=41608163}}</ref>

Research by Rosen ''[[et al.]]'' (2009)<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1177/0093650210362465 |author=Rosen, L.D., Chang, J., Erwin, L., Carrier, L.M., & Cheever, N.A.|title=The Relationship Between "Textisms" and Formal and Informal Writing Among Young Adults|year=2010|journal=Communication Research|volume=37|issue=3|pages=420–440 |s2cid=46309911}}</ref> found that those young adults who used more language-based textisms (shortcuts such as LOL, 2nite, etc.) in daily writing produced worse formal writing than those young adults who used fewer linguistic textisms in daily writing. However, the exact opposite was true for informal writing. This suggests that perhaps the act of using textisms to shorten communication words leads young adults to produce more informal writing, which may then help them to be better "informal" writers. Due to text messaging, teens are writing more, and some teachers see that this comfort with language can be harnessed to make better writers. This new form of communication may be encouraging students to put their thoughts and feelings into words and this may be able to be used as a bridge, to get them more interested in formal writing.{{According to whom|date=November 2015}}

Joan H. Lee in her thesis, ''What does txting do 2 language: The influences of exposure to messaging and print media on acceptability constraints'' (2011),<ref>{{cite thesis|url=http://gradworks.umi.com/MR/75/MR75222.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120220031841/http://gradworks.umi.com/MR/75/MR75222.html|archive-date=20 February 2012|url-status=dead|title=What does txting do 2 language: The influences of exposure to messaging and print media on acceptability constraints|last=Lee|first=Joan Hwechong|author-link=Joan H. Lee|degree=MA|publisher=[[University of Calgary]]|date=2011|access-date=9 March 2012}}</ref> she associates exposure to text messaging with more rigid acceptability constraints. The thesis suggests that more exposure to the colloquial, [[Generation text|Generation Text]] language of text messaging contributes to being less accepting of words. In contrast, Lee found that students with more exposure to traditional print media (such as books and magazines) were more accepting of both real and fictitious words. The thesis, which garnered international media attention, also presents a [[literature review]] of [[Academic publishing|academic literature]] on the effects of text messaging on language. Texting has also been shown to have had no effect or some positive effects on [[literacy]]. According to Plester, Wood and Joshi and their research done on the study of 88 British 10–12-year-old children and their knowledge of text messages, "textisms are essentially forms of phonetic abbreviation" that show that "to produce and read such abbreviations arguably requires a level of phonological awareness (and orthographic awareness) in the child concerned".<ref>{{Cite journal | doi = 10.1348/026151008X320507| pmid = 19972666| title = Exploring the relationship between children's knowledge of text message abbreviations and school literacy outcomes| journal = British Journal of Developmental Psychology| volume = 27| issue = Pt 1| pages = 145–61| year = 2009| last1 = Plester | first1 = B. | last2 = Wood | first2 = C. | last3 = Joshi | first3 = P. }}</ref>