relationships between text messaging and conversations

People today communicate using verbal speaking, and texting. You will however find many similarities to the two different types of communication. Sometimes, they can influence each other, but sometimes they can be very different.

One of the main impacts on texting are omissions in speech. When we speak, we tend to purposefully miss out certain sounds or letters. For instance, when we say “what”, the h is silent. Therefore, instead of writing “what”, you can shorten it and say “wat”. Another example of omission in text is when we say “cool”. Prior to writing four letters, we can write “kl” instead. Using omissions make everything much more efficient (shorter and easier to write and read).This is due to the fact that by making a word shorter, we save time. Even if it is just a matter of two or three seconds, it benefits both the sender and recipient. The sender saves time because they don’t have to press as many letters to spell out the word; and the recipient saves time because if they see two letters that make a word, such as “kl”, their mind will instantly recognise the word without having to actually read it out.

Texting can also influence the way in which we speak. Acronyms are a main example of this. A popular version of this is “lol”. “Lol” was introduced into text conversations. It means laugh out loud. If you find something humorous in text, you can say “lol” to show that you find it funny. If people find something even more funny, they type “looooooool” to exaggerate their joy. Now people use “lol” in verbal speech. However, people don’t say it to express their joy, but their lack of it. If somebody were to tell a joke, and you did not find it funny, you could say “lol” to show your sarcasm. Unlike laughter, saying “lol”

We have many different facial expressions. They allow people to read how we are feeling. When we text, the person or people we are communicating to can not read our emotions. You could say “England were knocked out the rugby world cup”. If they don’t know who you were supporting (England or its opposition), then they wont know if you are happy that they were knocked out because you support another team, or sad. Emoticons are animated facial expressions which are a component on the majority of mobile phones and tablets today. Now, you could state something with an emoticon to let the person you are talking to know how you feel. Another way you can use them is when responding to someone else’s comment. If they said something funny, instead of saying “lol”, you could simply send a laughing emoticon.

Another way in which texting has influenced the way we speak is through initialisms. There are a number of these which are used both in text and verbal language. These include G2G, BRB, WUU2. The purpose of initialisms is to shorten a number of words into letters which are abbreviations. This results in it being much easier to type, but the receiver still understands the meaning of the initialisms. An example of this in conversation is “I’v GTG and eat dinner.” GTG means “got to go”.

Everyone has their own unique way of speaking. Sometimes, close friends and family or people who work with you notice your speaking traits, and would be able to tell it was you if you messaged them from a private phone number. Some people, like my friend Fraser who has a stutter, have more noticable speaking traits. He doesn’t  stutter when he texts of course, but if I heard him talking I would be able to know it was him, from hearing is voice and stutter. Other people have different speaking traits, apart from the way they talk. There are certain words they could say, or thing they could call people they know. For instance, my friends Ibby and lis on occasion call me “a dirty little swede”. Due to the fact that nobody else calls me that, I know it would be one of them if they messaged me from a private number. This is an example of how we subconsciously make relationships between text language and conversations.