lol: new language and spelling in instant messaging

Written communication in instant messaging, text messaging, chat, and other forms of electronic communication appears to have generated a “new language” of abbreviations, acronyms, word combinations, and punctuation. In this naturalistic study, adolescents collected their instant messaging conversat...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inReading & writing Vol. 23; no. 6; pp. 719 - 733
Main Authors Varnhagen, Connie K., McFall, G. Peggy, Pugh, Nicole, Routledge, Lisa, Sumida-MacDonald, Heather, Kwong, Trudy E.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.07.2010
Springer
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects
Abbreviations
Acronyms
Adolescents
Chat
Classification
Cognitive Ability
Computer Mediated Communication
Conversation
Creativity
Departments
Education
Electronic Equipment
Electronic Mail
English
Error Patterns
Instant messaging
Internet
Language and Literature
Language Usage
Linguistics
Literacy
Neurology
Pragmatics
Psycholinguistics
Punctuation
Resistance (Psychology)
Retailing
Semiotics
Social Sciences
Spelling
Spelling errors
Taxonomy
Text messaging
Vocabularies & taxonomies
Written Language
Ontario Canada
New York
Canada
United States > US
Spelling
Instant messaging
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Summary:Written communication in instant messaging, text messaging, chat, and other forms of electronic communication appears to have generated a “new language” of abbreviations, acronyms, word combinations, and punctuation. In this naturalistic study, adolescents collected their instant messaging conversations for a 1-week period and then completed a spelling test delivered over instant messaging. We used the conversations to develop a taxonomy of new language use in instant messaging. Short-cuts, including abbreviations, acronyms, and unique spellings were most prevalent in the instant message conversation, followed by pragmatic signals, such use of emoticons, emotion words, and punctuation, and typographical and spelling errors were relatively uncommon. With rare exceptions, notably true spelling errors, spelling ability was not related to use of new language in instant messaging. The taxonomy provides an important tool for investigating new language use and the results provide partial evidence that new language does not have a harmful effect on conventional written language.
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ISSN:0922-4777
1573-0905
DOI:10.1007/s11145-009-9181-y