The Impact of Texting on Comprehension

This paper presents a study of the effects of texting on English language comprehension. The authors believe that English used in texting causes a lack of comprehension for English speakers, learners, and texters. Wei, Xian-hai and Jiang (2008:3) declare “In Netspeak, there are some newly-created vocabularies, which people cannot comprehend them either from their partial pronunciation or from their figures.” Crystal (2007:23) claims; “variation causes problems of comprehension and acceptability. If you speak or write differently from the way I do, we may fail to understand each other.” In this paper, the authors conducted a questionnaire at Aligarh Muslim University to ninety respondents from five different Faculties and four different levels. To measure respondents’ comprehension of English texting, the authors gave the respondents abbreviations used by texters and asked them to write the full forms of the abbreviations. The authors found that many abbreviations were not understood, which suggested that most of the respondents did not understand and did not use these abbreviations.


Introduction
The advent of modern electronic communication has created a whole new world of information, giving access to unlimited variety of fields. Millions of literate and illiterate people around the world text everywhere. They are either using keyboards or keypads to input data into computers or mobile phones. They text in classrooms, buses, trains, houses and even religious places; while walking, working, sitting, standing, driving, stretching, taking rest and eating. This must have an impact on Standard English and this is what the authors are going to discuss in this paper. In this present paper, the authors will explore how the English used in texting affects the comprehension of English language among speakers and learners of English. In this paper, modern electronic communication refers to the three tools of communication; email, SMS and chat, while texting refers to English used in these three tools of communication. The authors use the term 'texting' throughout this paper to refer to the English used in email, SMS, and chat texts. Texting is also known as MEC English, ICT English, txtng, text messages, short messaging, CMC, textspeak, netspeak, SMSing, netwrite, short email, mobile messaging, chat messaging etc. Baron (2008: 199) labels texting as a threat. For her, if email more or less entirely replaces the old-fashioned letter, the culture as a whole will end up with a deficit; it will have lost in quality whatever it has gained in quantity. Wei, Xianhai and Jiang (2008:3) declare; "In Netspeak, there are some newly-created vocabularies, which people cannot comprehend them either from their partial pronunciation or from their figures." Crystal (2007:23) claims; "variation causes problems of comprehension and acceptability. Crystal (2007:23) maintains, "If you speak or write differently from the way I do, we may fail to understand each other". One of the problems of texting, according to Shaw (2008: 48), is "the uncertainty and variation of spelling words: anything can appear as anything, nething, nethin, anyfing, anyfin, nefin, anyting, anytin or netin".Crystal (2008: 46) has rightly talked about the abbreviated forms which appear in different guises, as he says; "Abbreviated might appear in half a dozen different guises. I have seen tonight written as tnight, tonyt, tonite, tonit, 2nt, 2night, 2nyt, and 2nite, and there are probably several more variants out there." In this connection, Baron (2008), warns that "unless we learn to regulate our current language use, we will have difficulty understanding each other and the standardized forms of our written language will be lost." (as cited in Maynard, 2010:2). Mphahlele and Mashamaite (2005) report confusion as one of the main problems of texting as the word 'hand', which means the part of body at the end of arms, appears in texting to mean 'have a nice day'; the word 'ATM' which means in Standard English 'automated teller machine' is SMSed to mean 'at the moment'.

Flourishing Creativity & Literacy
According to Choudhury et al. (2007:16) texting may seriously hamper the understanding of the message. Thus, two opposing forces, shorter message length, and semantic ambiguity shape the structure of this compressed non-standard form. Kesseler and Bergs (2003) argue that despite their wide usage, new message types like SMSes and emails still appear unnatural or odd at least to parts of the public. Walker (2010) argues that "society is split between those who embrace technology and those who don't have the skills -or the money -to live in a wired world." Huang (2008:1) argues that texting is "a horrifying language … a nascent dialect of English that subverts letters and numbers, drops consonants, vowels, and punctuation." For him, this makes no distinction between letters and numbers, and people will no longer know how they are really supposed to communicate. Sutherland (2002) makes the interesting observation that the word "text" etymologically originates in Latin for "tissue". "It's writing on Kleenex. One blows, then throws." "Throw" and "blow" metaphorically suggest a lack of ownership. If there is no consistency between texters, or even within a single texter, as Crystal (2008) has rightly pointed out, then who will own and comprehend texting?

Subjects Selection
This paper was particularly intended to measure the respondents' familiarity and comprehension of texting. To conduct the study and achieve its objectives, a convenient sample was selected. This sample consisted of ninety AMU participants who were enrolled at Aligarh Muslim University, India. They were grouped according to their levels: Plus Two, Bachelor, Master and PhD. The subjects were supposed to be equally distributed across all the levels of education, i.e. the same number from each level of education. However, this was not possible because some faculties did not have Plus Two level. Hence, only 15 respondents were taken from Faculty of Social Science and 15 respondents from Faculty of Engineering and Technology, while 25 respondents were taken from all other Faculties which have Plus Two levels, i.e. 25 respondents from Faculty of Arts, 25 respondents from Faculty of Science and 25 respondents from Faculty of Commerce. The following table shows the distribution of the subjects of the study: The Plus Two level in India refers to a pre-bachelor course which covers the span from Intermediate and Higher Secondary. The researcher selected this group because they are almost younger than other levels of this study.

Data Collection
In this paper, the authors gave to the respondents questionnaire in text forms like "ILNY" and asked them to write their Standard forms which is "I love New York". They were asked to write the Standard forms of 35 short forms (see Appendix) that are commonly used among internet users with the directive as follows: "Please write the standard/full form of the following. Please include the appropriate capitalization and punctuation, and spell out all words". An example was given to make it clear. Most of these 35 short forms were given in contexts because some of the items, if not given in proper context, could get interpreted in a different way by texters. The short forms were carefully picked to achieve the aims of this particular test. They included varieties of short forms used by internet users such as single letters which represented full words, numbers which represented words or parts of words, a group of letters which stood for words, or a group of words. The full forms given by the participants were counted on each participant's page. They were grouped as 'comprehended by respondents', 'not comprehended', 'repetition of the same short form' and 'missing'. The items of the 'not comprehended' group were further subcategorized into the variations given by the participants. The questionnaire was evaluated by experts of designing and experts of statistical analysis before its final distribution. The questionnaire that is described here was the final version after edition and correction. The completed questionnaires were transferred to a text file and then imported to SPSS, version 16.0, for analysis.

Linguistic Analysis of Texting
This part includes the analysis and interpretations of the data collected from AMU participants. As mentioned above, the respondents were ninety. They had to translate the ten items from texting forms to Standard English. As mentioned above, this paper aimed at examining the respondents' comprehension and familiarity of texting. The authors gave the respondents texting forms like" ILNY" and asked them to write their standard forms which is "I love New York". The texting items were categorized in the following way: 'Comprehended by the respondents', 'Not comprehended by the respondents', 'repetition of the same short form' and 'missing'. The following table shows the statistics of the categories of this study.  As shown in table (2) and graph (1), out of the short forms given, 59.17% were comprehended by the respondents, 11.59% were not comprehended by the respondents, 3.05% were repeated, i.e. the same short forms were written as they were, and 26.19% were missed. Repetition of the same short forms .579

Missing
.385 As shown in table (3) above, there was no significant difference between the level groups in any of the categories of the test. With respect 2 Where 2 wr (were) The abbreviation wr that stands for were offered two variations. Two of the respondents wrote that wr stood for where and two wrote that wr stood for with respect.

CWOT (complete waste of time)
This abbreviation was given to the respondents in a context, but no one of the respondents wrote its standard form. Some of them repeated the same short form or left it blank. The short form CWOT offered twelve variations in interpretation. Five respondents wrote that CWOT stood for caught, one wrote that it represented quiet, one wrote cute, two wrote somewhat, one wrote Kuwait, four wrote see what, one wrote short, one wrote come with our tour, two wrote coming, one wrote completely out of station, one wrote covered and one wrote quite.

B4 (before)
Almost all of the respondents comprehended this abbreviation, as they wrote that it meant before. Only one of the respondents wrote but.

2C (to see)
Almost all of the respondents understood this abbreviation, as they wrote that 2C stood for to see. Only one of the respondents wrote twice, one wrote took and one wrote to come.

GF (girlfriend)
Almost all of the respondents understood this abbreviation, as they wrote that GF meant girlfriend. Only three of the respondents wrote grandfather.

thr (their)
Some of the respondents comprehended the full form of this abbreviation, as they wrote that thr stood for their. 21 of the respondents wrote there which is similar to their in spoken form and one wrote other.

:-@ (screaming)
The emoticon :-@ which stands for screaming offered six variations in interpretation. One respondent wrote that :-@ stood for other, five wrote at, six wrote at the rate of, one wrote small, one wrote adult and one wrote and.

FTF (Face to Face)
None of the respondents understood what FTF stood for. Most of them just tried to write its full form by understanding the meaning or by understanding the spoken form. All the respondents failed to get the intended full form by guessing the intended form from the context or from its spoken form. Some respondents repeated the same short form or left it blank. The abbreviation FTF offered five variations in interpretation. Three respondents wrote that FTF stood for fit and fine, two wrote that it represented for the fall, two wrote fifty, one wrote fighting and one wrote five to fifteen.

ILNY ( I love New York)
The respondents offered six variations of the short form ILNY. One respondent wrote that ILNY stands for If New York, two wrote that it represents I only, one wrote I will new, and one wrote only, two wrote I living in New York and one wrote I love new year.

gr8 (great)
Almost all of the respondents understood that the abbreviation gr8 stood for great. Only one of the respondents wrote grow at which was really meaningless.

plc (place)
Almost all of the respondents comprehended the full form of the abbreviation plc, as they wrote that it meant place. Three of the respondents wrote pleasure. They understood it as "it is a great pleasure" instead of "it is a great place". to bother 1 2b (to be) Almost all the respondents comprehended the full form of the abbreviation '2b', as they wrote that it meant to be. Only one of the respondents wrote to bother.

th (the)
The abbreviation th offered six variations in interpretation. Two respondents wrote that th stood for something, two wrote that it represents truth, two wrote there, two wrote that, three wrote this and two wrote so.   Title  19  Total  2  Totally  6  Till  2  try till  1  Telephone  1  Style  5  Tell  1 ttyl (talk to you later) The abbreviation 'ttyl' offered eight variations. Nineteen respondents wrote that ttyl stood for title, two wrote that it represents total, six wrote totally, two wrote till, one wrote try till, one wrote telephone, five wrote style and one wrote tell.

y (why)
The abbreviation offered four variations. Twelve respondents wrote that 'y' stood for yes, one wrote that it represents you, two wrote bye, one wrote yea.

IMHO (In my humble opinion)
The abbreviation IMHO offered seven variations in interpretation. Three respondents wrote that IMHO stood for I am hand of, two wrote that it represents I am honoured, eleven wrote I am, one wrote I am honest, one wrote I may, three wrote I am who and three wrote I am Mohd.

gr8 (great)
Almost all the respondents comprehended the full form of the abbreviation 'gr8', as the overwhelming majority of them wrote that it meant great. One wrote that gr8 stood for grow at and two of the respondents wrote graduate. Barber 2

brb (be right back)
The abbreviation brb offered five variations in interpretation. Four respondents wrote that brb stood for brother, one wrote that it represents Bihar Board, eleven wrote bribe, six wrote brave and two wrote barber.

btw (by the way)
The abbreviation btw offered two variations. Sixty eight respondents wrote that 'btw' stood for between and one wrote that it represents but way.

lol (laugh out loud/ lots of love)
The abbreviation 'lol' offered twelve variations in interpretation. One respondent wrote that lol stood for loly pop, one wrote that it represents lovely, three wrote loyal, one wrote boys, one wrote loll, one wrote laughter of laughter, one wrote friend, two wrote loveable, one wrote one zero one, two wrote kidding, one wrote one by one and one wrote less of luck.

The Comprehended Short Forms
The short forms such as 'summr', 'hols', '2go2', 'bro', the digit '3', etc. were not misunderstood, but there were some respondents who repeated the same short forms or left them blank.

Interpretation
From the linguistic analysis of texting, it was found out that texting creates lack of comprehension for the respondents. Wei, Xian-hai, and Jiang (2008: 3) found that "In Netspeak, there are some newly-created vocabularies, which people cannot comprehend them either from their partial pronunciation or from their figures." (Crystal 2007:23) claims "variation causes problems of comprehension and acceptability. If you speak or write differently from the way I do, we may fail to understand each other." The important factor regarding abbreviations is that people interpret abbreviations differently. In one geographical area, or within one group of people, the abbreviation gf could mean "girlfriend", and in another area it could mean "grandfather". In a third area it could mean something entirely different.
The abbreviations that seem to be relatively frequently used in text messaging were the ones that were interpreted in the same way by most of the respondents. Less established abbreviations within the language of text messaging, such as CWOT and FTF, etc. opened for different interpretations, and will most probably lead to misunderstandings in many cases if they are used. Many abbreviations were not understood, which suggests that most of the respondents do not understand and do not use these abbreviations.
Often, one can understand what is intended by looking at the context, but the texts are often sent without much context because some people abbreviate almost every word, and do not make the messages long. Though the authors in this paper gave the respondents text forms in a context to write their full or standard form, it was found that the context did not help the respondents to comprehend the intended meaning. Ali, Hasnain and Beg (2011) argue that the context does not always help in understanding texting language which an author /writer intends to convey. The short form CWOT for example, opened for different interpretations which show how much confusion this language creates. The twelve variations offered by the respondents have some meanings. They were not written randomly. Most of the respondents have their own meanings and they translated texting according to their guessing and not according to the given context. They tried to translate the short form CWOT and fail to get the intended meaning. Those who wrote that CWOT stands for quiet, cute,(in) Kuwait, short, coming, completely out of station, quite and covered, have something right. They understood it as "my summer holidays were quiet or cute or (in) Kuwait or short or coming or completely out of station or quite or covered". They created a new context which is grammatically correct and sometimes contextually correct, but not the one which is intended. Fifteen respondents looked at CWOT as one word, two translated it as four words: one translated it as come with our tour and one looked at it as completely out of station. Four looked at it as two words which is see what. Others repeated the same short form or left it blank. If we look at completely out of station, we will find a cultural explanation, as Indians always say out of station for someone who is outside the city or state. Those who wrote that CWOT stands for see what, somewhat, caught went only by the spoken form and that is why we cannot find any meaning in them. The one who wrote come with our tour tried to go by spoken form and meaning, but he could not get the intended meaning.

Conclusion and Suggestions
The authors found that many abbreviations were not understood, which suggests that most of the respondents did not understand and did not use these abbreviations. In cases where the respondents took a guess at what the abbreviation could mean, their interpretation was an indication of how much texting creates confusion for speakers and learners of English language. The authors also found that most of the respondents interpreted the well-established abbreviations within the language of text messaging in more or less the same way, and the abbreviations that are coming into more use opened for different interpretations by most of the respondents of the five Faculties.
There are certain measures to be adapted in order to minimize the negative effects of texting that the authors described above. The authors and those who are raising the alarm strongly believe that email, SMS, and chat are distorting and destroying Standard English language. This warning should not go unheard. Realistic methods should be found to deal with the issue in a way that can make the intelligibility, status, consideration, and value of Standard English survive among the English speakers, students and texters.
Ali (2012) argue that email, SMS and chat could also be useful tools to teach standard English. As they have become global ways of communication, they might be exploited in teaching Standard English and making the acquisition of Standard English more accessible for everyone using email, SMS and chat. He maintains as texting is inevitable and there is no way to stop it completely, methods and measures should be created to make students differentiate between the standard and non-standard English and separate them accordingly. The differences between Standard English and non-standard English should be shown especially to the young people and school students where the major complaints are raised. Longman (2006, 2) argues that; "the message we must present to students is that this non-standard is perfectly acceptable for use in text messages and in chat rooms but school work, formal letters, business communication and examinations require conventional language." The authors recommend that texting should be confined to its own communication context. In other words, the students must be aware of where and when texting can be used and where and when it cannot be used. Nadler-Nir, R. (2008) suggests that "we need to accept it [texting] and seek for solutions to the complaints that it is invading the standard written language use". (as cited in Barasa and Mous 2009).