Language of Text Messages Flashcards
When was the mobile phone introduced and what came with it?
In 1985 - SMS and messaging.
What is SMS an example of?
Abbreviation.
What can SMS in the early days be compared to?
A telegraph.
Why were abbreviations and text speak encouraged in the early days?
As they were quicker and easier to compose.
What was the main motivation for SMS?
To convey a comprehensible message using the fewest characters possible.
What are the linguistic and stylistic properties of SMS?
Initialisms (acronyms and abbreviations composed of initials).
Reductions, shortenings and omissions of parts of speech.
Pragmatics and context in interpretation of ambiguous shortenings.
Reactive tokens.
Pictograms and logograms.
Paralinguistic and prosodic features.
Capitalisation.
Emoticons.
Variations in spelling.
Punctuation, or lack thereof.
Outline the key terms of text speak.
Vowel omission. Homophonic representation. Phonetic spelling. Initialisms. Acronyms. Variant spellings.
What are the main arguments that McWhorter puts forward in his talk?
Texting is not the downfall of language, however easy it is to believe that. Texting is a “miraculous” thing, but texting is not truly writing.
What does McWhorter state are the advantages of writing?
Can look backwards on your writing and adjust it - something you cannot do with texting.
Why is casual speech so different? (McwWhorter).
Speak in word patterns - more telegraphic and less reflective.
What Is the correlation between writing and speaking in the past?
They used to speak like they write (formal).
Why didn’t people write like they spoke in the past?
It was more difficult as shorthand was to quick and didn’t lend itself to speech
Why do some people believe that texting is destroying language?
As there is a lack of concern with rules.
What are pragmatic participles?
Used to change the scene/subject e.g. slash (/).
What is meant by the term ‘bidalectal’?
The ability to balance writing and speech aka texting.
