Text Messaging Is Destroying Our Language Essay Example

problems, it does not create them. If students use their text messaging literacy in the wrong settings, it is because their other scholarly literacy’s have not been attended to well enough. It is not, however because text messaging has damaged their literary abilities or prevented the formation of these abilities. Uthus claims “the English language as we know it is out the window”, without mentioning the fact that the English language people knew a hundred years ago is “out the window” nowadays. All languages, including English, have evolved over the years.

The English of today isn’t the English of two hundred or four hundred years ago, and one thousand years ago, English didn’t exist. The idea that texting is ruining English comes from some studies which suggest that people who send text messages (implying heavy abbreviation) tend to have more grammar and spelling errors as a result. But language is dynamic and misspellings sometimes accounts for new words! To say that this "ruins" our language is absurd. The point of a language is to be easy to understand, standardized, and easy to learn.

The English language also incorporates many words from other languages in to its everyday vocabulary, such as, ‘Rendezvous’ and ‘Deja vu’ from French. The English language has also been “Americanized” in recent years, putting ‘Zs’ where there used to be ‘Ss’, and omitting vowels such as the ‘U’ from ‘colour’. The feeling of immediateness to reply to an instant message may hold the key to the lack of use for whole words. Typing is also much slower and more error prone than speaking is. Although many texters enjoy breaking linguistic rules, they also know

they need to be understood.

There is no point in paying to send a message if it breaks so many rules that it ceases to be intelligible. When messages are longer, and contain more information, the amount of standard orthography increases. Many texters alter just the grammatical words (such as "you" and "be"). As older and more conservative language users have begun to text, an even more standardised style has appeared. Some texters refuse to depart at all from traditional orthography. And conventional spelling and punctuation is the norm when institutions send out information messages, as in this university text to students: "Weather Alert!

No classes today due to snow storm", or in the texts which radio listeners are invited to send in to programmes. These institutional messages now form the majority of texts in cyberspace - and several organisations forbid the use of abbreviations, knowing that many readers will not understand them. Similarly, the use of initial letters for whole words is not at all new. People have been initialising common phrases for ages. IOU is known from 1618. There is no difference, apart from the medium of communication, between a modern kid's "lol" ("laughing out loud") and an earlier generation's "Swalk" ("sealed with a loving kiss").

Research has made it clear that the early media hysteria about the novelty (and thus the dangers) of text messaging was misplaced. In one American study, less than 20% of the text messages looked at showed abbreviated forms of any kind - about three per message. And in a Norwegian study, the proportion was even lower, with just 6% using abbreviations. In my opinion there is no disaster pending. We

will not see a new generation of adults growing up unable to write in proper English. The language as a whole will not decline. In texting what we are seeing, in a small way, is, simply, language in evolution.