txt msgs r running language
*ruining
^lol, jk!! :)
In many casual discussions of language and the internet,
it’s not uncommon to hear about how such “textspeak ruins language”—how
technology has made everybody lazy with their speech and writing. Major media
outlets such as the LA Times, the BBC and The Daily Mail have all bemoaned the
ways in which people communicate through technology.
Of course, language does change when it’s used to text or
write messages on the internet. It’s even become the focus of the field of
linguistics known as Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC). Although it
specifies computers in its name, CMC refers to the study of interaction
facilitated by technology like computers, mobile phones and tablets.
And contrary to the idea that these innovations are
corrupting language, they actually demonstrate a creative repurposing of
symbols and marks to a new age of technology. These evolutions of language are
swift, clever and context-specific, illustrating the flexibility of the
language to communicate nonverbal meaning in a nuanced, efficient manner.
Change doesn’t mean decay
It turns out that people have been complaining about
language being “ruined” for as long as they’ve been writing and speaking.
In an Apr. 2013 TED Talk, US linguist John McWhorter shared
stories of people complaining about language change throughout the ages. For
example, in 63 AD a Roman scholar groused that students of Latin were writing
in an “artificial language” – a language that would become French!
More telling, perhaps, is a quote from Charles Eliot, the President
of Harvard University in 1871:
Bad spelling,
incorrectness, as well as inelegance of expression in writing, ignorance of the
simplest rules of punctuation… are far from rare among young men otherwise well
prepared for college studies.
Young Theodore
Roosevelt—a student at Harvard in the 1870s—was possibly among those young men
being described. As historian Kathleen Dalton observed in her biography of
Roosevelt, the future president would eventually support the revision of
American English spelling rules, many of which we still use today, like
changing -re endings to -er in words like center and changing -our to -or in
words like color.
The emoticon: more than a face
Today, people are able to communicate rapidly through a
range of mediums—and perhaps no linguistic development better indicates changes
in the ways we communicate than the ubiquitous emoticon.
The emoticon :) —a colon followed by a parenthesis— is a
visual representation of a smiley face turned sideways. Although an emoticon may
look like a smile, a frown or any number of facial expressions, it doesn’t
represent a face, as many internet users assume. It’s actually intended to
convey a feeling (“I’m happy,” or “just joking”).
This meaning is evident even in the first emoticon, credited
to Scott Fahlman at Carnegie Mellon University. In a 1982 e-mail, Fahlman
suggested :-) as a “joke marker” to indicate wisecracks or sarcasm in text
communication. In this legendary e-mail, he also used the first instance of the
frown emoticon :-(.
Words that represent these feelings are what linguists call
discourse particles, or little pieces of language that convey information about
the tone of the statement. Folklorist Lee-Ellen Marvin called them the
“paralanguage of the internet, the winks which signal the playfulness of a
statement over the seriousness it might denote.”
In a study of instant messaging, scholar Shao-Kang
Lodescribes emoticons as “quasi-nonverbal cues”—something that looks like a
word, but performs the functions of a nonverbal cue, like a hand gesture or
nod.
In fact, the variations in how you construct this emoticon
can imply something about your identity, just like whether you use a soda, pop
or Coke can suggest what part of the United States you come from. For example,
as linguist and data scientist Tyler Schnoebelen pointed out in a 2012 study,
people who put a “nose” in their emoticons tend to be older than non-nose
emoticon users.
Though emoticons have been the subject of numerous studies,
individual symbols—which serve a different purpose than emoticons—can add
meaning to a message or express meaning all on their own.
Fluid conversation and clarified meaning
Have you ever seen someone fix a typo in a message with an asterik?
(*asterisk)
The asterisk signals a repair of an error in language.
Conversational repair, or the act of correcting ourselves or others in spoken
language, has been discussed for decades by conversation analysts in spoken
language. Saying “sorry, I meant to say” or “er, I mean” can be awkward and
interrupt the dynamics of a spoken conversation.
This conversational move has made its way into online
written language, where that awkwardness is reduced to a single symbol. Instead
of saying “oops, I mispelled ‘asterisk’ in my previous sentence,” people can
avoid a conversational detour by simply typing an asterisk before the word:
*asterisk.
That’s not the only use of the asterisk. A pair of them
around a word or phrase can indicate emphasis. This style has gradually given
way to words in all caps and repeated letters to show intensity and emphasis,
as linguist Deborah Tannen and communication scholar Erika Darics have noted.
Tannen provides an example of a text message that uses multiple styles to convey
an intensely apologetic, sincere tone:
JACKIE I AM SO SO
SO SORRY! I thought you were behind us in the cab and then I saw you
weren’t!!!!! I feel soooooooo bad! Catch another cab and ill pay for it for
youuuuu
Meanwhile, punctuation marks like hyphens and periods
suggest a change in voice and tempo. One example is the ubiquitous ellipses.
Traditionally, this mark has been used in text to denote deleted text. Now, it
can also indicate a tone of voice that’s trailing off or hesitating, such as
the following example from a conversation in the popular online role playing
game World of Warcraft:
So… since we live
in the same city, do you wanna like… meet up sometime…?
This use of the ellipses adds that extra meaning to the text
and it can also do the work of denoting someone else’s turn in the
conversation.
It’s even been incorporated into user interfaces. In instant
messaging and chat programs like Skype, an ellipsis is used to show that the
other party is typing.
A single symbol conveys a complex message
A single symbol can also be an entire message on its own. In
her contribution to the book Discourse 2.0: Language and New Media, Susan
Herring describes how a single question mark can be an entire message that
indicates that the user is “confused or does not know what to say.”
In other words, a question mark does the job of asking for
clarification in a single keystroke. Similarly, a single exclamation point as a
message can illustrate surprise and excitement. You can repeat either of these
symbols as a superlative to show a greater level of surprise. Consider this
exchange in which B uses nothing but symbols to express reactions to A’s
statements:
A: So I have some
good news.
B: ?
A: I got a raise
today
B: !
A: And it came
with a promotion
B: !!!
These two aren’t the only punctuation that can stand on
their own as a message. In my 2012 study of World of Warcraft players, I found
that in this community, and others, the carat (^) can stand alone as an entire
message that indicates agreement with another person. Meanwhile, an
arrow-shaped symbol (<–) signaled volunteering for a task, like raising a
hand in the classroom.
Here’s a hypothetical
interaction:
A: I am so ready
for vacation.
B: ^
A: Who wants to go
to Florida with me?
B: <–
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