"Textese" is Not Good and here's why...

[remnant_phoenix]

I've seen multiple threads decrying the use of "textese" or "txt spk" (retching noise), and I'm glad. On of the reasons I like the escapist is that the user base seems to have a level of respect for intelligence, and that kind of respect is a rare thing on the internet.

But then today I actually saw this thread (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.313258-Textese-seems-to-help-develop-english-skills-not-hinder) actually DEFENDING the use of text speak, quoting "scholarly" articles (that were not seemingly not peer-reviewed). These articles claim that the use of text speak shorthand, such as "plz," is actually helping people learn how to "manipulate phonetics," and, thus, text speak is not leading to a degeneration of language.

I'm not a researcher, nor am I a linguist or sociologist. But what I am is a teacher, and I'd like to offer up an anecdote:

(EDIT: Some people have criticized me for attempting to use a personal anecdote to "debunk" the articles. I'm attempting no such thing. I'm merely questioning the assertions of the articles and offering a personal opinion based on my personal experience. Please don't think that I'm trying to put my experience on the same level as those articles or any research articles. I'm just sharing my opinion based on my experience, nothing more.)

During my first year of teaching I taught secondary English. Of course, when you have class full of 16 and 17-year-old students, everyone is going to have a cell phone, and the majority of my students were fluent in "textese."

I, of course, had them write multiple essays and papers over the course of the year, and on more than one occasion, I saw the use of slang and shorthand WITHIN ACADEMIC WRITING. When I explained to the class why this was unacceptable, several students attempted to argue with me, asserting "Why does it matter HOW I write it or say it as long you as you understand that I mean?" They were actually trying to justify the use of slang/shorthand/textese in academic writing.

In my experience, "textese" does NOT train a person in the "manipulation of phonetics." What it does is condition a person to believe that everything can (and perhaps should) be communicated as simply as possible. It also conditions a person to believe that it doesn't matter HOW something is communicated; the implied message is all that matters.

This line of thinking, this mindset, is definitely degenerative. Maybe not to the terminal point that some people believe, but it certainly isn't helping people learn reading and writing skills, as some people attempt to claim.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

The simple fact is that textese is only used for simple words. It doesn't help the manipulation of phonetics because it only deals with words that a fucking 6 year old should be able to spell.

By all means, use textese while using a phone, it's quicker etc (I don't personally), but don't bring that shit into any other written medium.

 

[Adamd1990]

Pretty soon, we'll all be speaking and writing some form of Newspeak. Though hopefully not for the reasons of thought suppression Orwell suggests, but it'll eventually happen. We've already started with adding things like "lol" and "omg" into the dictionary.

1984, here we come...


Edit - Seems I must explain myself to avoid further confusion...

When I said we'll be speaking some form of Newspeak, I generally meant some sort of "new speak", not speaking Newspeak itself. Yes, I know the point of Newspeak was to basically cut down the dictionary until it is impossible to say anything that contradicted what the Party in 1984 wanted you to say, as there were no more words. Do note that I did originally say "though hopefully not for the reasons ... Orwell suggests"

Should I have merely said something dumb like "we is getting a new language, and it is all betterer :-D"?

Fuck it, I thought these forums were full of a good crowd, but if you're gonna critique my 50 word, quickly written, not thought about much comment, I might just hang my forum shoes up now. I've been looking for a reason to for a while now.

Slaters, everyone.

 

[DasDestroyer]

In before sarcastic, all-"textese" comment.
The only places where I can tolerate chatspeak are where there is some reason to use it, such as an actual lack of time(in-game chat), or texting, where extra letters cost money. Otherwise there is no reason whatsoever to use "textese".

 

[Blow_Pop]

and in my opinion it just makes people lazier with spelling. And gives me a headache trying to decipher it. But I agree with both of you it shouldnae be used outside of phones

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Its an evolution of the English Language that was birthed on the internet, and is seeping into real life through phones and soon papers. It sucks, it is grammatically horrifying, but it is coming, and the only way we can keep the english language intact is to avoid its influences and keep communicating the way we do already.

 

[-Dragmire-]

Spelling tests need to be brought to the higher grades...

Although, I'd like a reworking of English spelling to change some word's spelling.

Silent "gh" in words like thorough, light, bought etc. is just for historical accuracy rather than usefulness in today's English, in my opinion.

 

[Andronicus]

I write ALL of my phone texts, and Facebook messages, with proper punctuation, spelling and syntax. It gets a little annoying when I'm writing out a message and I need to somehow cut out 2-4 words to keep it under the limit, but I think that helps keep it interesting, and helps my develop my writing skills.

But yeah, textese is rubbish. I refuse to type out laugh-out-loud in abbreviated form on principle.

 

[Scrustle]

Totally agree. Over time as this form of writing has become more popular I see more and more people who seem to have no clue how to use vowels. It's rather annoying and makes people look like morons.

When I explained to the class why this was unacceptable, several students attempted to argue with me, asserting "Why does it matter HOW I write it or say it as long you as you understand that I mean?" They were actually trying to justify the use of slang/shorthand/textese in academic writing.

And that argument doesn't even make sense. The whole reason language has regular rules and such is so you can understand what someone is trying to say! I've seen so many arguments arise on the internet because someone said something that was taken the wrong way, or even totally unintelligible because they neglected the use of proper English.

 

[HerbertTheHamster]

Pretty soon, we'll all be speaking and writing some form of Newspeak. Though hopefully not for the reasons of thought suppression Orwell suggests, but it'll eventually happen. We've already started with adding things like "lol" and "omg" into the dictionary.

1984, here we come...

Newspeak removes unwanted words. This is the exact opposite.

What kind of goddamn retard would write plz or rofl in an essay, holy shit. It doesn't do any good, but you can't really stop it.

 

[Duol]

I love how the escapist community continually talks about 'evidence' etc. and bashes on a whole raft of things.

But...
if you agree with the prevailing opinion on the site, anything goes.

 

[thenumberthirteen]

Maybe I'm just being a bit of a dick, but I find it weird that the OP complains about the lack of citing peer reviewed evidence in one thread, and proceeds to argue the point with an anecdote.

Text speak has it's uses otherwise it wouldn't exist. Speed in response attempts to replicate real time conversation in a live text medium. How often (particularly in group IM chats) does the point you're writing become moot as the conversation has moved on while you type? There is also the factor that each group and generation love to come up with their own "language" to set them apart.

I speak, and write differently based on the situation. We all do. If you don't you'll have trouble living in the real world.

 

[remnant_phoenix]

Maybe I'm just being a bit of a dick, but I find it weird that the OP complains about the lack of citing peer reviewed evidence in one thread, and proceeds to argue the point with an anecdote.

Which is why I preceded the point by saying that I was not a researcher, sociologist, or linguist. While I was debunking the scholarly validity of the articles presented, I attempted to imply that I would not be approaching my argument from a scholarly perspective.

So even when I was employing proper grammar in attempt to communicate a complex opinion, there was something lost in translation. Imagine the communication breakdown if I wrote in text-speak.

And there are people who still insist that correct grammar isn't as important as literature nerds and grammar police claim?

 

[spammo]

Spelling tests need to be brought to the higher grades...

Although, I'd like a reworking of English spelling to change some word's spelling.

Silent "gh" in words like thorough, light, bought etc. is just for historical accuracy rather than usefulness in today's English, in my opinion.

So.. what is this optimum level of fidelity to the English language that you want?
Also usefulness is a hard to say depending on what your view on the purpose of language is. Is it for the preservation of a culture? Or to be understood by as many as possible? Or maybe even for some, to communicate things as simply as possible.

I mean I dislike textspeak in pretty much any context other than texts mainly because it looks sloppy in my opinion. But is that enough of a reason to ban it? I think a more important thing is to keep in mind the intended recipient of a message and write accordingly. So an academic paper could be read by essentially anyone, so should be written in "classic" English as it were (possibly not the best word to use, but none better come to mind). But for private letter, a group message or even a forum post on small enough forums as long as you're aware of what kind of people are reading your message, you can write however you wish to communicate your ideas in the "best" way possible.

 

[remnant_phoenix]

Maybe I'm just being a bit of a dick, but I find it weird that the OP complains about the lack of citing peer reviewed evidence in one thread, and proceeds to argue the point with an anecdote.

Which is why I preceded the point by saying that I was not a researcher, sociologist, or linguist. While I was debunking the scholarly validity of the articles presented, I attempted to imply that I would not be approaching my argument from a scholarly perspective.

So even when I was employing proper grammar in attempt to communicate a complex opinion, there was something lost in translation. Imagine the communication breakdown if I wrote in text-speak.

And there are people who still insist that correct grammar isn't as important as literature nerds and grammar police claim?

D#13 (yes that was completely intentional) never said he didn't see your justification for not citing any sources, just that it's funny you chose not too. Surely as an English teacher you should know that "In response to your point which you pulled out of your ass, I present my own point with a similar anal origin" is not a good way to debate. Doesn't take a genius to figure out fighting fire wit fire is a bad idea, same applies to fighting unfounded opinions with unfounded opinions.

I questioned the validity of the research that was presented.

I then stated that I was not in a position to argue from a scholarly perspective myself.

I then offered a personal anecdote related to the topic and drew a simple argument based on that personal experience. I understand that it's not well-founded argument since it is limited to my personal experience, but I had already established I wasn't attempting to create a well-founded scholarly argument, but rather, my own personal opinion on these matters.

Maybe I didn't communicate that point clearly enough, so I'll be as direct as I possibly can. When I said "I'm not a reasearcher, sociologist, or linguist," I was attempting to establish: "What I'm about to say is not founded in research; it is my personal opinion."

If you want to argue that my point is unfounded, bravo. You're regurgitating a point I attempted make in my original post and then expanded upon in my reply to thenumberthirteen. Am I not allowed to call out someone's research as unfounded and then follow up with my personal opinion on the subject, all the while maintaining that I'm not attempting to argue from a scholarly perspective? In formal debate this would not fly, but on a damned internet forum, why not?

Maybe try to get a good understanding of where someone is coming from, and/or lower your expectations, before you accuse that person of pulling things out of their ass.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

Snip

It's like what I said in another thread where I was explaining why we all have to keep harping on people that make posts with horrible spelling and grammar, I remember a few years ago when some grade school teachers wanted to incorporate something called "Whole English" into the system.

Basically, "Whole English" is an insane teaching strategy that basically says, if children spell something wrong, but what they have spelled sounds the same by the letters' sounds, then what the children spelled is correct because if it sounds like the word they were trying to spell, people will understand what they meant.

If that was in place when I was in first grade, I would be spelling "of" as "uv", because under "Whole English" I would have been counted as being correct with my misspelling.

The problems we face are the throngs of crazies that defend people that misspell and murder grammar. They say, "It isn't right to attack them for the errors, because they are in a public forum and in such forums informal writing is acceptable."

Those people are wrong, because misspelling words and trashing grammar is not informal writing, it is just wrong writing. Informal writing is writing where the writer uses over familiarized terms and colloquialisms.
Of course those people also say that, "well, maybe the person didn't have the time to write everything out properly or the person was just too lazy to care and just wanted to get the idea across, believing that we would still understand him or her."

A great professor of mine once told me, "If you want to convey a message about something important or important you, write and communicate it properly or don't write or communicate it at all. The reason is that if people see that you don't care about taking an extra few seconds to write properly, they will believe you don't care about what you are saying and in turn they will ignore and not care about what you are saying."

Those words are definitely true for me, because if I'm reading a story somebody wrote and put on the internet, or a post somebody made on this site and that person didn't take the time to correct spelling and grammatical errors, I won't take that person seriously and 99% of the time I will just stop reading what he or she wrote.

 

[remnant_phoenix]

Snip

It's like what I said in another thread where I was explaining why we all have to keep harping on people that make posts with horrible spelling and grammar, I remember a few years ago when some grade school teachers wanted to incorporate something called "Whole English" into the system.

Basically, "Whole English" is an insane teaching strategy that basically says, if children spell something wrong, but what they have spelled sounds the same by the letters' sounds, then what the children spelled is correct because if it sounds like the word they were trying to spell, people will understand what they meant.

If that was in place when I was in first grade, I would be spelling "of" as "uv", because under "Whole English" I would have been counted as being correct with my misspelling.

The problems we face are the throngs of crazies that defend people that misspell and murder grammar. They say, "It isn't right to attack them for the errors, because they are in a public forum and in such forums informal writing is acceptable."

Those people are wrong, because misspelling words and trashing grammar is not informal writing, it is just wrong writing. Informal writing is writing where the writer uses over familiarized terms and colloquialisms.
Of course those people also say that, "well, maybe the person didn't have the time to write everything out properly or the person was just too lazy to care and just wanted to get the idea across, believing that we would still understand him or her."

A great professor of mine once told me, "If you want to convey a message about something important or important you, write and communicate it properly or don't write or communicate it at all. The reason is that if people see that you don't care about taking an extra few seconds to write properly, they will believe you don't care about what you are saying and in turn they will ignore and not care about what you are saying."

Those words are definitely true for me, because if I'm reading a story somebody wrote and put on the internet, or a post somebody made on this site and that person didn't take the time to correct spelling and grammatical errors, I won't take that person seriously and 99% of the time I will just stop reading what he or she wrote.

I agree. Writing sloppily and expecting to be taken seriously is comparable to dressing sloppily and then being expected to be taken seriously in the workplace.

Sure, you can get away with that sort of thing if your someone like House, so good at what you do that it doesn't matter if you're unkempt (and I doubt that this sort of thing ever even happens in the real world). However, for most people, if you're going to be taken seriously at whatever job you work, you need a professional appearance that suits that job.

Likewise, if you want the idea that you are attempting to communicate taken seriously it needs to be presented properly.

This is all common sense to me, and I applaud your professor for emphasizing the importance of this concept.