All & sundry use English for text messaging. They use ‘techniques’ & appear ‘message-savvy’ & adopt ‘cults’. Their primary motive is relationship building, sustenance, enrichment and social interaction. Many researchers have studied the language of the text messages. They have opined that textese English can have a positive or negative or no effect whatsoever on the English of the students. This presentation is an attempt to show how textese English has had a negative impact/adverse effect on students in India.

1. ‘CIMPLY’ DIFF “CULT” 2 CURE
LANG’AGE HABITS: IMPACT
OF E-TXTIN

2.  LOL
 BTW
 BRB
 Morow / 2mrw
 TTYL
 TGIF
 ROFL

3.  People fiddling with mobile phones
everywhere,
 Sending SMS -quickest, easiest and most
reasonable way to communicate,
 Essence-Brevity and economy,
 English is the language of texting,
 All & sundry use English for text messaging,
 Use ‘techniques’ & appear ‘message-savvy’ &
adopt ‘cults’,

4.  Almost half the urban children in India
now have access to mobile telephones.
 69 Million children under the age of 18
reside in the country’s urban areas and a
whooping 30 million have a mobile
handset.
 Children (8-18) spend more time on
mobile rather than in watching TV.

5.  Primary motive -relationship building,
sustenance, enrichment and social interaction.
 Used as a source of information and
reminders,
 Used to interact with automated systems as
well,

6.  Many researchers have studied the language of
the text messages.
 Three alternatives possible-
Positive, Negative & None
 Some Linguists are of the opinion that the more
students write, the more they improve upon their
writing skills. Therefore, its increased use
rather enhances the literacy of users, especially
the youth instead of harming it (Crystal, 2008).

7.  Descriptive, Analytical and Empirical in
nature,
 Comparative Literature- Language and
Linguistics, Praxis and Gnosis,
 Review of Literature-Surveys, Research
Projects and Reports, Published Papers
(Journals and Books )and Comments/
Views of Experts,

8.  Text messaging is the practice whereby users of
mobile and portable devices exchange brief
written messages via cellular networks.
 While the act of sending a text message is
termed “texting”, the sender is called a “texter.”
 It is used in place of voice calls in circumstances
where it may be impossible or inexpedient
(Dansieh).
 technically & practically restricted, the limit is
almost always 160 characters per message,

10.  E-texting- common lexical
& stylistic characteristics,
 Use of abbreviations,
 Letter Number
Homophones-Gr8,
 Non standard spelling-Luv,
 Phonetic spellings,
 Splitting of compounds,
 Vowel/s omission,
 Using conventional and
unconventional
abbreviations,
 all caps or all lower case ,
 exchanging longer words for
shorter ones ,
 Use of acronyms ,
 Employing Emoticons,
 Use of innovative spellings,
 Practice of reduction
techniques ,
 Phonetic reductions,
 Syllabograms or rebus
writing (e.g. as with the
English b4 for ‘before’),
 Unambiguous abbreviations
(e.g. u for ‘you’; r for ‘are’),
 Vowel deletions ,

11.  Lexical shortenings (e.g. Sun for
‘Sunday’),
 Use of Capitalization,
 Use of punctuation marks,
 Blank spaces are often omitted,
 Apostrophes and sentence-final
punctuation are omitted,

12.  One-sentence text
messages,
 The omission of auxiliary
verbs,
 Omission of personal
pronouns and function
words,
 The subject pronoun is
deleted (syntactical
reduction),
 Openings and closings
are frequently dropped,
 Nouns being used as
verbs-messaged,
googled, texted,
 Sentences without
verbs,
 Parts of speech being
made redundant,
 Single word sentences,
 Violations in concord-
no subject verb-
agreement,

13.  Code Switching,
 Use of English with other
regional language/s- For
example: “Arre, na, not
now” and “Movie mast
songs bekar”,
 Culture Related terms,
 Appellations,
 Honorifics,
 Social Deixis,
 Devnagari being written
in Roman Script,
 There is a hybrid of
speech and writing styles
in terms of format,
grammar and style,
 Hybridization of
languages,
 Use of slangs, etc

14.  Characterized by brevity,
 Sentences are short &
choppy,
 From a single word to a
single sentence, and at
times, few sentences,
 Multiple clauses are rare,
 Distinct, unique, novel,
unorthodox linguistic forms
employed,
 Missing letters,
contractions (middle letters
are missing), in G-clippings
& others as in dropping the
final letter,
 In the use of acronyms,
missing end letters,
letter/number homophones,
‘misspellings’ &
typographical variations,
non-conventional spellings,
& accent stylizations.

15.  Use of consonant
clusters (as in THX) is
peculiar,
 use of z as in girlz, the
k in skool,
 as phonological
approximations such as
Americanized forms
like gonna, bin, & coz,
 g-clippings like jumpin,
havin,
 letter-number homophones-
2d8,
 Minimum uses of caps,
 Variations in punctuation,
 onomatopoeic, exclamatory
spellings (e.g. haha!,
arrrgh!,
 typographical-cum-
linguistic devices for
adding prosodic impact
(e.g. fast, fast, run, run, ),
 playful, chatty, and friendly
tone ,
 Humour & Chain
Messaging,

16.  Style is the image of
man.
 Local stylistic norms,
colour & culture creeps
into the text messages,
 capitalization (SEE,
WAIT, COME, etc),
 multiple punctuation
(what???!!!),
 Lexical items such as
ello (‘hello’), goin
(‘going’), and bin
(‘been’) –phonological
approximation,
 Overuse of punctuation,
 The loss of typographic
contrastivity, italics,
bold, underlined, etc is
noteworthy.

17.  Mukta Nain- “…It is essential that students are
persuaded not to use such language even while
interacting informally.”
 Bose- “It surely is creeping up as a problem.”
 Nain- “We have been trying to tell them that
using such abbreviated words is actually
destroying language.”
 Sunanado Sanyal (Academician): “…The onus is
on teachers and parents. Schools must deal with
the ‘textese’ problem strictly; otherwise the
problem will get compounded with time.”

18.  A Harried Mother: “It is hard to decipher the
words my son uses. He & his friends have
almost a language of their own, and it is also
reflected in his answer sheets.”
 Bipul Bhadra (Sociologist): “It is best that
children are kept away from cell phones until
they first learn the basic grammar and begin to
use English or some other language with
felicity. It may sound impractical, but unless
there is prohibition on SMSing and Internet
chatting, the problem can not be cured.”

19.  Impact-Positive –Crystal
 Negative-Siraj and Ullah, Rosen et al
 Negative Impact
 negative influence on standard writing,
spelling & grammar,
 Neography has emerged as an alternative
orthography ,

21.  Educators,
academicians, linguists,
thinkers and parents—
 Texting is harming
students’ writing skills
and grammar,
 Spellings of the
students- atrocious,
 Use of abbreviations-
negative effect,
 Lack of proper
punctuation, shoddy
grammar-adverse effect
on reading and writing
habits,
 A definite language
change and stylistic
diffusion is noticed in
their writing.
 Affects their
vocabulary,

22.  Affects their English usage in class work,
assignment work and examinations, formal &
informal situations,
 It takes its toll on their lexis and structure and
results in non-conformity with grammatical rules
 Language usage is habit based.
 Youth lingo and cult,
 Huge no. of messages-deep rooted habits,
 AT THE COST OF STANDARD LANGUAGE

23.  Positive Effect-??? Hence Rejected
 Negative Effect-Hypothesis validated
and true
 None- It is not a separate language/lingo.
It has adverse impact and hence rejected.
 SMS Lingo enhances the literacy of
users-proved wrong and hence rejected.

25.  Crystal, D. (2008). Txtng: The Gr8 Db8. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
 Hård af Segerstad, Ylva, Language Use in Swedish Mobile Text
Messaging. In Mobile Communications:
 Re-negotiation of the social sphere, Rich Ling and Per E. Pedersen (eds.),
Ed. 2005, 313 - 334. London:
 Springer.18
 Shortis, Tim, Gr8 txtpectations: The creativity of text spelling. English
Drama Media, 2007a,
 Shortis, Tim, Postmodernism and its insinuations on media and society.
Journal of
 Development Communication 18 (1-10): 2007 b,
 Siraj, Syed Abdul and Farish Ullah , Postmodernism and its insinuations
on media and society. Journal of Development
 Communication 18 (2): 1-10. 2007,

26.  Crispin Thurlow and Michele Poff, Handbook of the Pragmatics of CMC,
Text Messaging , Berlin & New York: Mouton de
 Gruyter, 2011,
http://faculty.washington.edu/thurlow/papers/thurlow&poff(2010).pdf
 Solomon Ali Dansieh, International Journal of English Linguistics, SMS
Texting and Its Potential Impacts on Students'
 Written Communication Skills, Vol. 1, No. 2; September 2011,
www.ccsenet.org/ijel,
 Internet linguistics, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia,
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_linguistics#cite_note-
 No_LOL_Matter:_Cyber_lingo_shows_up_in_academia-10
 Text messaging, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_messaging#Effect_on_language
 John Myhra, Negative Effects Of Texting In The Classroom,
http://56wrtg1150.wikidot.com/negative-effects-of-texting-inthe-
 classroom

27.  Texting and Instant Messaging,
 http://www.guide2digitallearning.com/teaching_learning/texting_and_instant_mess
aging
 http://www.FitTheModel.com.
 http://www.FitTheModel.com
 Text Messaging and its Effects on Teens' Grammar,
 http://www.bamaed.ua.edu/edtechcases/Case%20Numbers/text%20messaging%20
and%20grammar_Case%20
 11.pdf
 Russell, L. (2010). The effects text messaging on English grammar. [Online]
Available:
 http://www.ehow.com/list_5828172_effects-text-messaging-english-rammar.html
(April 20, 2010).
 The Journal for ESL Teachers and Learners.VOL. I, 2012,59,
 Text Messaging Abbreviations & Shortcuts, http://www.illumasolutions.com/omg-
plz-lol-idk-idc-btw-brb-jk.htm
 http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://savedelete.com/wp-content/
 http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://therebelreport.org/wp-content/,
Textese’ creeps into answer scripts, http://gulfnews.com/news/world/india/textese-creeps-into-answer-scripts-1.1140615
Txt lingo creeps in2 ans scrpts, teachers worried, http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-in-school/txt-lingo-creeps-in2-ans-scrpts-teachers-worried/article4

28.  Textese’ creeps into answer scripts,
http://gulfnews.com/news/world/india/textese-
creeps-into-answer-scripts-1.1140615
 Txt lingo creeps in2 ans scrpts, teachers
worried, http://www.thehindu.com/todays-
paper/tp-in-school/txt-lingo-creeps-in2-ans-
scrpts-teachers-worried/article4384006.ece