If u cn rd ths thn wats th prblm??!

Whether you are a technophobe or a technophile you will be aware of 'text-speak' – the lexical and grammatical choices that are made in text messaging.  And doubtless even if it falls outside of your personal interest you will be aware of the debate surrounding it. Some believe that texting and more specifically text-speak is breaking down language and destroying the grammar of young people, making it near impossible for them to function in society without it. Others are of the opinion that it is in fact helping to progress language by developing it into something new. Can it truly be as bad as the critics make it out to be?

The phenomenon of texting truly began in 1998 when it became possible to send messages between networks. Due to the cumbersome keys that we all remember from earlier phone models a number of abbreviations came into existence to speed up and shorten the texts sent.

This is seen as a major point against text-speak – that the alternate graphology is affecting people's ability to spell correctly. But if this is the case then English itself should already be irreparable, as the popular initialism IOU has been in documented use from the early 1600's.  Latin inscriptions from the Roman era have been shown to contain abbreviations, and it is hard to dispute the accomplishments that they made, and that some of their lexis is embedded within our own language today, despite not writing words and phrases out in full.

Although David Crystal has referenced the fact that the majority of text messages are now without abbreviations the stereotype still lives on. It is found to be a cause of great concern for many teachers who feel that the act of compressing speech into texts is causing problems with their student's ability to write in grammatically and punctually correct sentences. But is texting actually having a detrimental effect on the grammar and critical writing of young people?

Dr Beverly Plester believes that while messaging is not helping children to achieve, the use of text-speak is in fact improving the verbal understanding and spelling skills of today's young people. Research she has done shows strong positive links between text-speak and having success in English language. This is because the abbreviations are created and used too fast to follow. If they are not used in the correct context, or the abbreviation contains a misspelling then people will find their peers unable to understand them. Putting the thought into their communication has helped to give students a more personally relevant understanding of grammar.

All of this shows that while we may need to continue to update the dictionary of abbreviations (the first being published in 1942) in the near future it looks as though the arguments in favour of text-speak can be refuted. Abbreviations have found their place in modern society, and despite my hatred of YOLO and confusion over some intitalisms I think the absence of text-speak would be felt. More research will doubtless be done into the benefits and harm but in the meantime I'm sure you can research all the terms you don't recognise, lest you get left behind by the new phase to modern English.

 IYKWIM.

By Aimee Mathers