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Textese

Textese is a kind of language sometimes used when people send text messages (word messages) from their cell phones. Textese mostly makes words into shorter forms that are faster to type. These shorter forms are called textisms.

There are three reasons why people started to use textese.

1. Pressing buttons on a cell phone to send a text message is physically difficult, so users want to press as few buttons as possible.
2. Text messages had a limit of 160 characters, so users want to write with as few characters as possible.
3. It was thought to be faster than writing in regular English.

the type of phone keypad first used for text messaging

Examples of how words are made into shorter forms using textisms

Initialisms

See also: Initialisms

Sometimes the first letter of each word in a group of words can be put together to create a new word that represents the meaning of the group of words. (e.g., lol = laughing out loud; rn = right now)

Not using certain letters

Leaving vowels (the letters a, e, i, o, and u) and consonants (all letter other than a, e, i, o, and u) out of words can make a new word that means the same thing. (e.g., abt = about; tmw = tomorrow; tonight = tonite)

Not using certain words

Leaving out less important words that help other words go together can be used to make messages shorter. (e.g., please walk the dog today = please walk dog today; she is in her car = in car)

Using single letters, numbers, and symbols to mean the same thing as words or parts of words

E.g., i <3 u = I love you; be cool = b cool; tonight = 2night; I got one for you = I got 1 4 u

Use of capital letters or no use of capital letters

See also: Modern Alphabet

On most cell phones, it takes more time to type a capital letter than it takes to type a lowercase letter. Users sometimes choose to leave out capital letters to save time. A text message can use capital letters in the same places as regular English, only in the first letter of the text message, or not at all. Using capital letters in all the same places as regular English is not common in textese. If the first letter is a capital letter, that is most often because the phone changes the first letter to a capital form.

Emoticons

See also: Emoticons

Groups of characters that look like faces can be used to show feelings or moods in text messages. Some faces are used just for fun. (e.g., :) = happy, smiling face; :( = sad, frowning face; :D = open-mouth face to show laughing.)

Punctuation

See also: Punctuation

Punctuation are certain characters that help words go together and make meanings. Punctuation includes . , ? ! @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) (periods, commas, question marks, exclamation points, at signs, dollar signs, percent signs, carets, ampersands, asterisks, parentheses) and other characters. Textese mostly does not use punctuation that is needed in regular English. (e.g. we bought apples, oranges, and pears = we bought apples oranges pears; I can’t come = I cant come; are you leaving? = are you leaving)

Possible problems of textese

Some people think textese may damage the literacy (reading and writing skills) of those who use it. Studies have been done to see if this is true.

See also: Literacy

Kemp & Bushnell, 2011

They found that people who were faster and better at reading and writing regular English and textese messages had better spelling and reading skills. They found that people who used more textese did not have different spelling and reading skills from people who used less textese. This shows that textese may not affect literacy.

Drouin, 2011

They found that people who used more text messaging had better spelling and reading skills. They also found that people who used textese on websites such as Facebook and MySpace and in emails to teachers had worse reading scores. This shows that people who don’t know when it is okay to use textese may have worse reading and writing skills to begin with, not because of textese. This shows that textese may not affect literacy.

Powell and Dixon, 2012

They found that people were better at spelling after reading a list of textisms. People had better spelling after reading a list of correctly spelled regular English words. People had worse spelling after reading a list of misspellings. This shows that textese may not affect literacy.

De Jonge and Kemp, 2012

They found that people who send more text messages, use more textisms than regular English words, and use more types of textisms had worse reading and spelling skills. This shows that textese may affect literacy.

Cingel and Sundarnew, 2012

They found that people who texted more had worse writing skills in general, but the use of some types of textisms did not lead to worse writing skills. This shows that textese may or may not affect literacy.