Verbal Communication

“Getting Plugged In”
Is “Textese” Hurting Our Verbal Communication?
Textese, also called text-message-ese and txt talk, among other things, has been
called a “new dialect” of English that mixes letters and numbers, abbreviates
words, and drops vowels and punctuation to create concise words and
statements. Although this “dialect” has primarily been relegated to the screens
of smartphones and other text-capable devices, it has slowly been creeping into
our spoken language.Lily Huang, “Technology: Textese May Be the Death of
English,”
Newsweek
, August 2011, 8. Some critics say textese is “destroying”
language by “pillaging punctuation” and “savaging our sentences.”John
Humphrys, “I h8 txt msgs: How Texting Is Wrecking Our Language,”
Daily Mail
,
September 24, 2007, accessed June 7, 2012,
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/
article-483511/I-h8-txt-msgs-How-texting-wrecking-
language.html?printingPage=true
. A relatively straightforward
tks
for “thanks”
or
u
for “you” has now given way to textese sentences like
IMHO U R GR8
. If you
translated that into “In my humble opinion, you are great,” then you are fluent
in textese. Although teachers and parents seem convinced that this type of
communicating will eventually turn our language into emoticons and
abbreviations, some scholars aren’t. David Crystal, a well-known language
expert, says that such changes to the English language aren’t new and that
texting can actually have positive effects. He points out that Shakespeare also
abbreviated many words, played with the rules of language, and made up
several thousand words, and he is not considered an abuser of language. He also
cites research that found, using experimental data, that children who texted
more scored higher on reading and vocabulary tests. Crystal points out that in
order to play with language, you must first have some understanding of the
rules of language.Lily Huang, “Technology: Textese May Be the Death of
English,”
Newsweek
, August 2011, 8.
1. What effects, if any, do you think textese has had on your non-
text-message communication?
2. Overall do you think textese and other forms of computer-
mediated communication have affected our communication? Try
to identify one potential positive and negative influence that
textese has had on our verbal communication.
Chapter 3 Verbal Communication
3.2 Functions of Language
145

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Verbal communication brings
people together and helps
maintain satisfying
relationships.
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