Your little texting runt may not be illiterate

A friend of mine recently showed me a text message from her boyfriend. "I luv u," it said. As she cooed over his ability to access his deepest feelings, I wondered whether he might access the deeper fact that three fewer letters do not make the romance greater.

However, there is now vast hope for all those who send texts with stunted spellings. And for their children.

Researchers at Coventry University in the United Kingdom decided to test whether those who are stunted texters really are literate-lite.

The academics' paper, published in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology, has a title that has one desperate to see the 12-year-old's texted version: "Exploring the Relationship Between Children's Knowledge of Text Message Abbreviations and School Literacy Outcomes."

Essentially, the researchers gave a bunch of kids a few scenarios and asked them to write texts. They then calculated the kids "textism-density." You know, a number that represented their frequency of txting rather than texting.

"Phlegm has a 'g' in it? Not any more."

(Credit: CC Riley Roxx)

Parents in the whole world (does Chinese have textisms?) will be tossing their family plans in the air when they hear the conclusions: "The ratio of textisms to total words used was positively associated with word reading, vocabulary, and phonological awareness measures."

Oh, but that's not all the good news for those who have shares in cell phone providers. Hark these words from the researchers' report: "Moreover, the children's textism use predicted word-reading ability after controlling for individual differences in age, short-term memory, vocabulary, phonological awareness, and how long they had owned a mobile phone."

I am not going to ask how these fine researchers from the English Midlands controlled for short-term memory. If electroshocks were involved, so be it. I am just delighted that they concluded that playing with words is the most important thing, even if you have your own version of their spelling.

I am also delighted that the world is not doomed and that writing runted texts does not preclude your child from penning the next Great American Novel. Of course, by the time your child grows up, there won't be any more novels. But why should we worry about that right now?

[bradleyguyle]

Interesting. Having a fourteen year old daughter (who actually doesn't text all that much) and having been an English teacher, I've long been curious about this. My educated guess however is that if a child's inclined towards high literacy, texting will not negatively affect that. If a child struggles with vocabulary, spelling and so on, the use of "textisms" may make that worse.

By the way, Chris, the following is one sentence, not two - "Oh, but that's not all the good news, for those who have shares in cell phone providers. Hark these words from the researchers' report: "Moreover, ...."

[and yes, savvy young Chinese use "textisms"]

[8301]

Far be it from me to challenge a former English teacher on an issue of syntax, but I don't see anything wrong with keeping those two sentences as they are.

[yanchineseguy]

Unfortunately, Chinese does have textisms.

[ChrisMatyszczyk]

@yanchineseguy,

Thank you for letting me know about that. I wonder how those textismic characters work? Are they, perhaps, stunuted characters?

Chris

[Grumpypaul]

My limited experiences with the word of texting (I am the old guy who uses ALL of the letters) comes from blogs and websites with posting. I see too many apparently young people, using text abbreviations as a norm for spelling. Probably has become proly, one that really goes up my back. Yes, I know that previous generations have bastardized certain words, (lite, brite, site, hiway) but it seems to me that within the timeline of texting, the number of bastardizations has grown exponentially. Maybe the youth of the world understand what they are attempting to communicate, but this grumpy old man has a hard time following them.

[Dylan_Wisor]

I type correctly when I have a keyboard in front of me. If I have to communicate with a keypad that has eight keys for twenty-six letters (don't get me started on the hellish subject of punctuation) then you better believe I'm going to be shortening things up.

[kelmon]

The sad part of this is that I'm trying to identify the pub that the photograph was taken in since I did my original Economics degree at Coventry (maybe The Royal Oak just up from the Business school?). Note: it's not exactly the best university.