Having analysed a first text message, which is seemingly sent by one male to another female recipient, both of who are perhaps in the younger teenage years, inevitably indicates that a range of different concepts and ideas can be placed into a single text message in a short amount of space. Primarily, the text message begins with ‘hey babes’, which would immediately indicate the social relationship between these two individuals as being quite intimate and a long term bonding as this form of introduction shows affection and comfort immediately attracting the receiver to be warm welcomed. Furthermore, the colloquial terms both ‘hey’ and ‘babes’ indicates the sociolect of this sender as being quite low and unsophisticated such as a young teenager, showing that this type of informal texting can be used to break hurdles in order to present care and contentment which would otherwise be presented differently when faced face to face. The several uses of logograms and contractions used throughout the text message such as: ‘u’ meaning ‘you’, ‘b’ suggesting ‘be’ followed by the contractions of Saturday to ‘sat’ and should to ‘shud’ presents a impression of efficient texting which enables the sender to rapidly present ideas which would also indicate that the sender is urged to tell the recipient about the party showing excitement and the inability to remain patient as the writer is overwhelmed to pass on the news. Additionally, the use of capitalism, repeated punctuation and the repetition of the letter ‘o’ in ‘SOOOOO LONG!!!’ would suggest that it has actually been a very long time since they had last spoken as the repeated letter would indicate length and the repeated punctuation helps to exaggerate the extent of their break; whereas the capitals emphasis and states it in bold, which can therefore be clearly interpreted by the reader at first sight. This shows intellectuality as the writer is able to present the tone of voice without speaking and this would suggest to people such as David Crystal that in fact people who send text are actually wisely complex enough to represent such visualisations that the recipient can easily decode without them directly facing each other.
In another text message which insinuates a conversation between two adults who are more academically advanced shows that their texting actually complies with standard English grammar rules such as capital letters, the correct use of ‘a’ and ‘an’ but also more importantly it shows that hardly any abbreviations are used suggesting John Humphreys’ theory of texting obliterating our language is undeniably false. Similarly, the sender of this text message also conveys a friendly greeting by using the colloquial term ‘hey’ to confront the recipient presenting that in all ages of texting people tend to use informal terms as it helps to build an idea of intimacy and personal conversation between two individuals. Furthermore, this ‘hey’ is broken by a dash, which would grammatically be used for a different purpose however in the text message it allows the sender to move onto another point, showing that there is a change in tone and this would indicate adults can show intelligence whilst texting to allow the text message to seem more complexly pieced together to form a constructive message. The word ‘freaked’ showing Americanism would indicate the sociolect of this sender as being more adapted to foreign dialects and having the ability to present feelings openly to the recipient, which exhibits a strong relationship between both the sender and the receiver. Moreover, the sender of this text message uses logogram to conclude the text message by further convincing the recipient with love and tenderly warmth through the use of ‘xx’; however the use of only two ‘x’ letters shows maturity and provides a sense of age for the two participants in the conversation as if it had been a conversation between two teenagers several ‘x’ letters may have been used to convey the same meaning. This shows that texting can be used in mature way to present ideas more economically without having to use a great deal of time.
Having examined the way in which different age groups and people use text messages to express ideas, it is clear that both ages, young and adults, display that texting shows an abundance of intelligence and polished manner which enables people to show different types of tones and change in voice which cannot be simply conveyed by standard English. Furthermore, it stands rich that texting causes many young people to lose awareness of spelling and grammar which deprives them of being able to use standard English form when required, however as clearly indicated by a study carried out by David Crystal, less than 10% of all text messages present abbreviation of any kind and this would suggest the general stereotyping of some individuals is mistaken and surely, if spelling is used incorrectly or if words are shortened to form contractions it would inevitably suggest that the correct spelling must be known in the first place in order to be able to alter it to form a code of more efficient sentences. It has also been proven that even the Victorians in the late 19th century had used the term ‘u’ to imply ‘you’ suggesting our modern teenagers are only following the footsteps of our ancestors.
Text messaging has definitely made a tremendous impact on our society, both positively and negatively. Although, texting is a rapid solution, which enhances our lives through transporting messages efficiently it can also be an obstruction to our lively hood as through texting humans talk to each other less which could in future totally alter the way in which we communicate towards one another.
