After analyzing data and text transcripts, it has become evident that the majority of teenage texters use phonetic spelling on a day to day basis to represent themselves and their personality within a virtual environment. Teens feel as though using simple or standard English words is ‘dull’ and ‘boring’, so by adapting words to fit their own liking and individuality, they are creatively embodying themselves within a multi-modal conversation. The following is an extract from a discussion between 2 teenage boys, “yo dood, how ya doin?”
It is quite evident that person A uses ‘phonetic spelling’ quite frequently. Although some may argue that this is considered grammatically wrong, when asked why he conversed like that, person A replied with: “I feel like if I don’t change words I use to fit the way I speak, I appear characterless. By including the way I speak into the way I write, my online presence becomes much more realistic and inventive.”
The average SMS user incorporates their own idiolect and/or sociolect within their texts subconsciously without even realizing it. By including certain phrases or words that represent your culture, identity or social group, you are automatically presenting yourself in a way which magnifies your likings, interests and many more aspects of you personal life, therefore making the texting experience creatively and originally suited for you. For instance, the typical gamer would use terms like energy bar, bloom lighting and clipping error within their text messages, compared to a group of adult teachers who would most likely use terms like GCSE, examinations and constructive criticism.
Many bilingual people tend to merge numeral languages within one conversation. Here is an extract from a discussion between 2 Lebanese/American heritaged ladies “hi habibi! How r u? I missed you kteer!”As you can see, the texter within the example has combined two languages within one sentence to add a personal or creative touch to her online presence. Without this, her heritage and culture wouldn’t be as evident as it appears to be within this text message.
Although, the reflection of identity and culture is obviously a key component to making texts the creative matter they are today, there are many visual aspects of creativity and originality commonly used by text messagers. Texting could be considered creative as it is visual and expressive. Texting is a combination of language and art.
Emoticons are a representation of emotions, thoughts and opinions created through a combination of symbols, letters and/or numbers. After collecting samples of data, over 60% of mobile users agreed to using emoticons to either add a personal flair to their messages or provide the person on the other end of the phone with some creativity and originality. With infinite amounts of symbols available to texters, it’s up to them and their imagination to design the perfect emoticon suited to what they’re saying or describing. According to a 17 year old student, “Emoticons act as facial expressions within the virtual world. It takes time and thought to come up with the right smiley to fit the context. The creation of emoticons is considered art to many including myself.” This text acts as evidence to this point “hey hun <3, omg! That joke u said earlier. HILARIOUS!! :D :-*
It is most definitely obvious that the texter is carefully selecting specific emoticons to portray his friendly or flirtatious emotions throughout the text. As mentioned earlier, texting acts as a form of aesthetic beauty.
Not only do emoticons provide the SMS world with visual beauty, but also accommodates to portraying emotions within text messages. Another example of a universally used emotion representative is: xoxo. Obviously hugs and kisses cannot be transmitted through phones and cellular devices; however multi-modal communicators have found an imaginative way to do so through the use of letters. Xoxo acts as a great text concluder or romantic element, therefore providing texters with the opportunity to portray their emotions through digital communications.
Punctuation and capitalization are great factors to consider when analyzing and evaluating emotions being addressed through text messages. For instance, here is a conversation between a daughter and her mother:
A: why can’t I go to the party?????
B: BECAUSE I SAID SO!!!!!
A: you NEVER listen to me!
B: I am not discussing this with you.
There are many features to analyze when looking at the transcript above. Firstly, it is quite apparent that the mother and daughter are angry with each other. We can see this just by looking at the capitalization and emphasis on certain words, or even whole sentences. For example, the word ‘never’ is capitalized, therefore portraying the daughter’s angriness and frustration with her mother. The use of the full stop at the end of the text message creates to impression that the conversation is over and there is nothing more to say. Moreover, the mother and daughter both include numerous pieces of punctuation which emphasis on the emotions that they are feeling (angriness, frustration, annoyance etc.) The reason that the use of punctuation and capitalization is considered creative is because it takes some deviceful thinking to come up with ways to get your emotion across within a text.
For the large part, texting is a creative and innovative form of language, although it does exclude some age groups in the process. To many people over the age of 35, texting acts as a barrier for the elderly and a gateway for the young. After collecting and sampling data from a wide spread of ages, I have come to grips with the different attitudes individuals feel, about the creativity of texting, in correlation to their age.
Despite the ideas mentioned earlier about how texting is widely accredited as a creative form of language use, it has become apparent that the majority of people over the age of 35 believe that texting is not creative, but ‘cliché’, ‘slobbish’ and even ‘uninspired’. Rather than giving SMS users the opportunity to expand their creativity, the elderly believe it is in fact limiting creativity. After asking a 42 year old male on his opinion, he replied with “Texting is absurd and grotesque! How is anybody supposed to understand any of the acronyms, initialisms, contractions or logograms kids and teens are making up?! The younger generation is making messages blurrier and blurrier every day. This new text language is causing many misunderstandings to occur.” It is evident in this quote that some individuals over the age of 30 believe that text language is causing messages to be unclear and possibly blocked. Although they may think slang, acronyms, initialisms etc. are clouding up our language, according to a British study, only 6% of words in texts are in non-standard English.
Texting is the Shakespeare of the 21st century. New technology advancing means that the multi-modal world is gradually becoming smaller, in the sense that textis (the text language) is transforming into a widely recognized dialect, therefore making it a “Universal Language.” Words and sentences are constantly being innovated and transformed to fit the context of today’s generation/society. The use of texting has gone up by 150% since 2000 and with this staggering rise, so has creativity. Today’s generation has been given the opportunity to do what Shakespeare did years ago. Redesign the ‘default’ language that has been handed to us. The form of texting will always have its descriptivists as well as its prescriptivists, however creativity is fundamental to the evolution of language, and so is consequently inevitable.
