R TXT MSGRS BAD RITERS? LOL! - California State University, Dominguez Hills Lynne Erwin, M.B.A.

R TXT MSGRS BAD
   RITERS? LOL!
 California State University,
       Dominguez Hills
    Lynne Erwin, M.B.A.

INTRODUCTION

• Controversy
  – Does texting make people worse
    writers?
  – Does more frequent usage of textisms
    lead to worse writing?

SHORT MESSAGING SYSTEM (SMS)
Maximum text message length is 160
characters, so text messagers use
shortcuts, or textisms.
 • Linguistic
 • Contextual

TYPES OF LINGUISTIC TEXTISMS

• Acronyms used
  – BRB for Be right back
  – OMG for Oh, my God!
• Symbols used
  – & instead of and

TYPES OF LINGUISTIC TEXTISMS
              (cont.)
• Lowercase “i” substituted for uppercase
  “I”
• Words shortened
  – tues instead of Tuesday
  – u instead of you
• Apostrophes omitted
  – dont instead of don’t

TYPES OF CONTEXTUAL TEXTISMS

• Letters capitalized to denote strong
  emotion
   – I AM MAD
• Symbols bracketed around words for
  emphasis
   – I **love** you

TYPES OF CONTEXTUAL TEXTISMS
• Emoticons or sequences of characters
  used to express emotion
   – ;) for a wink
   –  (Colon and right parenthesis) for
    happiness

SAMPLE TEXT MESSAGE 1

SAMPLE TEXT MESSAGE 2

IS SHORTCUT USE LEADING TO
         WORSE WRITING?

Thurlow (2006)
• Majority of writers of 101 popular press
  articles said text messaging damaged
  English literacy.

IS SHORTCUT USE LEADING TO
        WORSE WRITING?
                   YES
• Ream (2005)
  –“These kids aren’t learning to spell.”
  –“Kids aren’t writing letters.”
  –“Kids are typing shorthand jargon that
    isn’t even a complete thought.”

IS SHORTCUT USE LEADING TO
         WORSE WRITING?
                 YES (cont.)
• John Humphreys (2007)
  "It is the relentless onward march of the
  texters, the SMS vandals who are doing to our
  language what Genghis Khan did to his
  neighbours eight hundred years ago. They are
  destroying it: pillaging our punctuation;
  savaging our sentences; raping our vocabulary.
  And they must be stopped."

IS SHORTCUT USE LEADING TO
         WORSE WRITING?
                      NO
Plester, Wood & Joshi (2009)
• Higher the ratio of textisms to words the
  greater the word reading, vocabulary, and
  phonological awareness
• Higher the frequency of contractions, symbols,
  letter/number homophones, and
  unconventional spellings the better the word
  reading scores.

IS SHORTCUT USE LEADING TO
         WORSE WRITING?
                NO (cont.)
• Misspellings were negatively related to
  spelling.
• Texting is not contributing to the demise
  of pre-teen children’s literacy.

TEENS’ VIEWS ON WRITING
Lenhart, Arafeh, Smith & Macgill (2008)
• 86% Good writing is important to success
  in life.
• 11% Electronic communication, which
  includes textisms, harms writing.
• 73% Electronic communication has no
  impact on writing.

TEENS’ USE OF TEXTISMS
Lenhart, Arafeh, Smith & Macgill (2008)
• 64% use some type of informal writing in
  school writing assignments.
• 50% remove capitalization and
  punctuation.
• 38% use shortcuts such as LOL.
• 25% use emoticons.

PURPOSE OF CSUDH STUDY
CSUDH research team conducted two
studies to determine whether use of
textisms in daily electronic
communication was correlated to quality
of writing.

HOW CSUDH’S STUDY DIFFERS FROM
       PREVIOUS STUDIES
CSUDH’s research team
• Used writing samples, instead of
  standardized tests, to gauge mastery of
  English language.
• Directly queried respondents about their
  use of different textisms in their
  electronic communication.

HOW CSUDH’S STUDY DIFFERS
 FROM PREVIOUS STUDIES (cont.)
• Focused on young adults (18 to 25).
• Investigated role level of education
  played in relationship between textisms
  and writing.

VARIABLES
• Frequency of use of textisms in
  communication, including text
  messaging, e-mail, IM, Facebook.
• Ability to write, formally and informally.

HOW MEDIA AND TEXTISM USE
    WERE MEASURED
Surveyed 718 young adults
(ages 18 to 25) on how often they
• Used a cell phone (minutes/month)
• Sent text messages (# messages/month)
• Used a variety of textisms in their electronic
  communication (never, rarely, sometimes or
  often) .

HOW WRITING ABILITY WAS
         MEASURED

Assessed respondents’ mastery of writing
• Formal (study 1 and study 2)
• Informal (study 2).

FORMAL WRITING PROMPT
        STUDY 1 AND STUDY 2
Pretend that you want to complain to a
company from which you bought a product.
Write a letter to the company manager
complaining about the quality of service that
you received or the product itself and what
you want the company to do about it.

INFORMAL WRITING PROMPT
                 STUDY 2
Please describe in detail what it feels like to be
unhappy. What should a person do to
become happy again?

WRITING ASSESSMENT SCORING
Two raters assessed writing samples according
to Graduate Writing Exam (GWE) criteria
• 6 = highest (superior)
• 1 = lowest (incompetent)

RATING OF 6 (SUPERIOR)
“On 2008-03-17, I purchased a television set
from your company. It is non-operational.
When I inquired in store about receiving a
replacement, I was instructed to write to the
manager - hence my letter. Since I paid for the
television in full and received a faulty unit, I
would like to have a replacement television
delivered to my house at your earliest
convenience…”

RATING OF 4 (ADEQUATE)
“To my dissatisfaction i have found out that
your product is inferior to my expectation. it
doesn't justify the price that i paid for and,
thus i would like to get refunded. i wouldn't
write this letter unless i would feel strongly
negative about my acquisition. i have bought
from company before, and i will continue to
do so.”

RATING OF 2 (INADEQUATE)
“to whom it may concern i purchased your
produt last week and i have to say that i am
very disipointed in it frankly it is a peace of
c--p can you please refund my money.”

INTERRATER RELIABILITY

• Study 1 formal letter: .86***
• Study 2 formal letter: .85***
• Study 2 informal sample: .93***

***p

DEMOGRAPHICS
                    STUDY 1   STUDY 2
Age (18 to 25)        335       383
Gender
 Male                38%       43%
 Female              62%       57%
Educational level
 College degree      25%       16%
 Some college        65%       66%
 No college          10%       18%

ETHNIC BACKGROUND
ETHNICITY   STUDY 1   STUDY 2
  Latino      38%       38%
Caucasian     30%       27%
 African-     14%       20%
American
  Asian      14%       10%
  Other      5%        5%

HYPOTHESIS 1
Female young adults will use textisms more
than male young adults will.

HYPOTHESIS 1 RESULTS

HYPOTHESIS 1 DISCUSSION

• Hypothesis 1 was supported.
• Why? Psychosocial functions served by SMS.
  – Females: maintain relationships
  – Males: convey concrete information
    (Reid & Reid, 2005).
  – The former function of texting could require more
    time to “text" or more messages to achieve.

HYPOTHESIS 2
Those young adults who use more
textisms in their electronic
communication will produce better
writing.

HYPOTHESIS 2 RESULTS
   CORRELATION BETWEEN TEXTISMS
    AND FORMAL WRITING SCORES
   TYPE OF             ALL       NO COLLEGE    SOME
   TEXTISM         RESPONDENTS                COLLEGE
Shortened            -.14***       -.31**      -.12*
words
Total linguistic      -.10*          --        -.11*
textisms
Smilies           .08**            .31**        --
*p

HYPOTHESIS 2 RESULTS
   CORRELATIONS BETWEEN TEXTISMS
    AND INFORMAL WRITING SCORES
TYPE OF TEXTISM        ALL       NO COLLEGE   SOME COLLEGE
                   RESPONDENTS
Lowercase “i”          --            --           -.15*
Omission of            --           .27*           --
apostrophes
Emotional states       --           .28*           --
All caps               --           .26*           --
Total contextual       --           .35*           --
textisms
*p

HYPOTHESIS 2 RESULTS
CORRELATIONS BETWEEN FREQUENCY
 OF TEXT MESSAGING AND WRITING
             SCORES
 For the group that had some college, the
 more frequently respondents sent text
 messages
  • The worse the formal writing score
  • The better the informal writing score

HYPOTHESIS 2 DISCUSSION

• Hypothesis 2 was partially supported.
  Results suggest that the relationship
  between writing and textisms varies
  depending on
  – Type of writing
  – Level of education.

HYPOTHESIS 2 DISCUSSION
WHY USE OF LINGUISTIC TEXTISMS IS
 NEGATIVELY CORRELATED WITH
   FORMAL WRITING QUALITY
• No college education
• Shortened words
• Possibly have difficulty thoroughly
  expressing their complaint.

HYPOTHESIS 2 DISCUSSION
    WHY USE OF TEXTISMS IS POSITIVELY
      CORRELATED WITH INFORMAL
           WRITING QUALITY
•   No college education
•   Emotional topic
•   Increased daily writing output
•   Better essay or response

HYPOTHESIS 3
The use of textisms in writing will be low.
(Textism density will be less than 5% of
  total text.)

HYPOTHESIS 3 RESULTS
• Fewer than 25% used linguistic textisms .
• 5% used contextual textisms .
• Average textism density was
  approximately 2.5%. Respondents, on
  average, included between 2 and 3
  textisms per writing sample.
• Those with more education used fewer.

HYPOTHESIS 3 DISCUSSION
Hypothesis 3 was supported.

STRENGTHS OF STUDY

• Required respondents to write formal
  and informal writing samples.
• Surveyed respondents on frequency of
  texting and textism use in everyday
  electronic communication.

LIMITATIONS OF STUDY
• Group that had no college education was
  not asked if they planned to attend
  college.
• Group that had some college was not
  asked how advanced they were in their
  studies.

CONCLUSION
• Significant relationships between texting
  behavior and literacy.
• Results unique to CSUDH study
  – Negative associations between use of linguistic
    textisms in everyday electronic communication
    and skill in formal writing.
  – Positive associations between use of textisms and
    skill in informal writing.

CONCLUSION (cont.)
– Negative associations between texting
  and literacy moderated by gender and
  by level of education.

FUTURE RESEARCH
• Theory of transfer of skills--relationship
  between skill set involved in electronic
  communication and writing ability.
• Longitudinal study—change in text
  messagers’ writing ability over time.

FUTURE RESEARCH (cont.)
• Extension of current study—other factors
  related to writing ability
  – Parents and teachers’ writing ability
  – Socioeconomic class

TU
(Thank You)
    