Textese, or in other words text speak, has led to an ongoing debate on whether it is destroying the English language as we know it. Every turn we take on the streets teenagers are ‘tapping’ away on their phones. According to a study by The Neilson Company, an average teenager sends over 3000 texts a day. Texting has become a growing worldwide habit. Textese includes abbreviated words, a combination of letters and numbers, and completely new words that create ultra-concise and meaningful messages. There are two sides to the argument; is textese ‘vandalizing’ the English language or is beneficial to education? Text lingo has been seen as a new age of communication and an innovative way of manipulating language. In David Crystal’s “Txtng: the Gr8 Db8′′, he states that texting is not as deviant as portrayed and that people become better communicators than we think. With the world becoming focused on technological advancements and the younger generations becoming more tech savvy, there is this need to be faster communicators. When texting first started, people
had to be more creative in their language use
so that they could say what they want in the allotted number of letters. So began the dropping of vowels and combining of letters and numbers to create messages such as: “ Wot R U doin 2nite?” Nevertheless, the message still holds meaning and some can still decipher it and understand what is being said. English has been changing for as long as we know, Shakespeare himself has manipulated the language to suit his own needs so why are people becoming infuriated when teens simplify their language when texting? Teachers largely are the ones that have a problem with text lingo. It has
been noted that the majority of writing students do is via text messaging and naturally this seeps into their writing assignments for school. It is not entirely a conscious effort, but with the constant use of abbreviated words, students do not notice they use them in a formal piece of writing. There is no harm in using textese in texting and chatting situations, as it is a convenient way of getting the message across. However, we have to understand that there are places where it is inappropriate to use it, such as in formal situations.