"im gonna see u later. u shud cum tonite."

Okay, this sentence alarmed me!

As a tutor, I realize that recently perhaps due to the exposure to text languages, our students have been having difficulties with English words, especially with the spelling and usage of words when they are asked to do writing. It seems that it has become a serious problem because of the way we type on phones or on our casual chats when we started to use a lot of text languages.

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I mean, my English is not perfect, I still make (a lot of) spelling as well as grammatical errors and I am not asking for perfection from my students either. I am also not referring to accidental mistakes in typing or spelling, if we actually know the exact words to use but made an error. What I am concerned about is the prevalence of text languages have really confused them to think that the text languages can be used in official write-ups. Even with the auto-correct function of Microsoft Word and Grammarly, I see my students still ignoring the words that have the red lines underneath. I guess we are going through an "evolution", from the standard literacy way of writing to what some call "poor writing".

What Is Text Language?

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Text language is the casual way of writing, omitting the standard way of writing. It is also called "textese", a special type of register when we use our mobile phones to text or when we use any forms of digital communications such as even chatting online with a laptop. It is a more convenient way of writing, eliminating the importance of punctuation and correct spelling, inventing new abbreviations and often replacing expression of words with emojis. However, text language has become perhaps a threat to the Standard English language that has been established for thousands of years. It has caused an evident effect on the grammar as well as encouraged a lazy way of writing which has affected relationships. Because of convenience, sentences are shortened and the full expression of the message is not delivered, hence resulting in misunderstandings and even conflicts.

Here are some documentations and researches done on this matter:

“In other words, if you send your kid a lot of texts with word adaptations, then he or she will probably imitate it,” said S. Shyam Sundar, a Penn State communications professor who worked with Cingel. “These adaptations could affect their offline language skills that are important to language development and grammar skills, as well.”
In addition to a natural desire to imitate friends and family, the researchers speculated that some texting tweens made poor grammar choices in more formal writing because they had trouble switching between techspeak and the normal rules of grammar. Source

The Times Daily newspaper cites a recent report from Pew Internet and American Life Project, "Writing, Technology and Teens," which found that the cell phone text-based abbreviated communications teens use are showing up in more formal writing. Source

According to this article, nearly 16,000 thousand words have been stripped of their hyphens in recent dictionary versions: leap-frog has become leapfrog, make-over has become makeover, and post-modern has become postmodern, all because people are too lazy to reach for that one extra key. Source

Here are some confusions from students that I frequently encounter:

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• Cannot differentiate between some words with homonyms or homophones

Homonyms are words that have the same spelling, sound the same but have more than one meaning. Examples of homonyms are like:

bear
tear
leaves
long

On the other hand, homophones are words with the same sound but different spelling and different meanings. Examples of homophones would be:

night and knight
deer and dear
bored and board
hear and here

Because they sound the same, it is common that we may mistake one for another. They are the common errors found in essay-writing.

• Inappropriate Punctuation

There have been a great confusion in my students on punctuation ever since they got active in texting. I often see i instead of I. There is a boy whom I have to frequently correct on his capital letters at the beginning of a sentence, which I have lost my patience many times at it, sorry to say.

Usual problems are like the confusion between they're (the short for they are), their (possessive pronoun stating the belonging of things or people) and even the word there. They get confused with your and you're. You're is the short for you are when your is a possessive pronoun, indicating the belonging.

There is a difference between its and it's. It's is used when we are talking about an object or animal and this is a replacement pronoun for it, followed by the verb is. On the other hand, its is referring to the belonging and is a possessive pronoun for an object. Another error I commonly see is the usage of is in replacement of it's. I often see my student starts his sentence with is when it is a verb. It's is the short for it is which serves as a subject and a verb phrase, appropriate to be used to start a sentence.

The position of the apostrophe is very important and it can change a word instantly to a different word. IT'S NOT THE SAME!

• Phonetic replacements and acronyms

Phonetic replacements are like:

ur instead of your
tonite instead of tonight
thru instead of through
gonna instead of going to

One of the most famous acronyms is the lol, which stands for laughing out loud, followed by the others such as tmr instead of tomorrow. LOL has been so widely used that the millennial even have created a pronunciation for it and it has become a common expression even in speaking. The thing that astonished me one day was I found the word LOL in some essays of my students. Seeing ur in their essays have been very frustrating for me and even with the amount of explanations I have given, I still see them.

• Newly Invented Vocabularies

Words like amazeballs, YOLO, LMAO, ROFL, Omaigosh, so on and so forth are frequently used and some even successfully made their debut into the dictionaries such as the Oxford. They are so widely used that I think students and even we may think that these are official words. Thank God, I have not come across too much acronyms in my students' writing.

Should we do something about this issue? What can we do?

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I am not a language expert or a linguist but I figure we have to do something about it before the whole originality of English is lost. I am not totally against text language because it does brings convenience but I think we should learn to keep it for texting and avoid using it in formal writing. I am thinking if this goes on, my children's generation will be using the "lazier" language that promotes convenience and may not know the authenticity of our language.

Here are some ways I can think of and have been doing:

1. I have been re-encouraging my students to read books and practice their writing more. I guess it will take the un-learning and re-learning to return to the original proper way of writing with grammar and spelling intact. It may take a lot more effort now that text language has become quite a habit, even in me as a tutor or teacher. I have no decent or applicable measure to curb this issue yet but I think I will start by explaining the importance of the English language. Even for myself, practicing writing on Steemit and reading from the others deliberately have motivated me to write in Standard English, if not in great English.

2. I have seen the school making some efforts by providing them with passages about the effects of text languages in learning as part of my students' reading comprehensions. It gives me an opportunity to ask them what they think. It starts off a train of thought for them to think if it is relevant to learn Standard English.

3. I try to encourage writing in the topics of their interest. For instance, if I know my student has a favorite hobby during that time, I will ask him or her to write about it. If they are struggling through some problems, I too would encourage them to pen it down. It has not been easy to ask them to do writing especially most assignments are done by typing and online submission. I think the auto-correct perhaps have also weakened the command of the language.

4. I try my best to avoid text language even when I am texting them. I would correct them when I see them use it too, at least when they are texting me. I may sound stern but I am trying to make them make a conscious effect to "switch".

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I know we humans are really good at improvisation and innovations to ease life. I am not sure if we are already doing it at the expense of our rich literacy and heritage. As a person living in this era, we can be flowing along a subtle change without realizing it. There's a saying in Chinese that too much of a good thing may be a bad thing too. In my opinion, text language can be used, we just have to be aware and "switch" when we are writing for different purposes. However, this may not be a conscious awareness in the younger generation who are learning both the text and original language from scratch. Both may feel the same to them. There could be a day when the written language of our next generation becomes incomprehensible. I know the evolution of language happens since the days of old, which is how we arrive at the richness of the language. Are we going to go with the flow and let it be, letting the language to evolve by itself? This is the paradox of our age, the digital age.

What are your thoughts on this matter? If you have any other ideas on how to tackle this situation of text language affecting our command of English, do share with me your opinions. I think it is important that we are aware of this issue so we can preserve the English language. I wonder if you encounter the problem of text language in the other languages as well. Feel free to enlighten me!

List of References:

• https://www.livescience.com/21887-texting-bad-grammar.html

• https://www.medicaldaily.com/can-texting-ruin-childs-grammar-and-spelling-impact-learning-write-cell-phone-288950

• http://ideas.time.com/2013/04/25/is-texting-killing-the-english-language/

• http://www.pewinternet.org/2008/04/24/writing-technology-and-teens/

• https://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-jury/5-ways-texting-is-striker_b_657309.html

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