Mobile phone text messaging language : how and why undergraduates use textisms

Mobile phone text messaging has continued to increase in popularity since its inception in 1992, but research into the language used in text messages has produced variable results. The overall purpose of this thesis was to investigate factors which might be associated with variations in textism use between individual phone users. In previous research, methodological variations between studies have made comparisons difficult and include the use of various message collection methods (e.g., asking participants to create messages versus to provide previously sent messages) and variations in the definition, categorisation and counting of altered words in text messages, or textisms‚ÄövÑvp (e.g., 2nite for tonight). In Study 1 of this thesis, undergraduates (155 in Canada, 86 in Australia) were asked to provide text messages via three different collection methods. Messages that were translated and elicited under experimental conditions were found to contain more textisms than naturalistic messages copied from phones. Further, Australian participants used more contractive textisms (e.g., fri for Friday, bday for birthday) than Canadians, and more textisms overall. In Study 2, naturalistic data were collected from a further 386 Australian first-year undergraduates between 2009 and 2012. Over these time-points, textism use decreased, particularly for contractive textisms. Females used more expressive textism types (e.g., pleeease!?! for please) than males. Further differences in textism use were found to be related to the technology on participants' phones and to participants' attitudes towards textism use. In Study 3, the Australian and Canadian undergraduates from Study 1 completed a range of literacy and language tasks. The very few correlations between task scores and textism use that reached statistical significance were negative (students with higher linguistic scores used fewer textisms), although this relationship may have been influenced by differences in attitude and early literacy experience. In Study 4, the Australian students of Study 3 were able to discern situations in which textism use is appropriate. Further, the examination of 303 written exams of a separate group of Australian undergraduates confirmed that textisms were avoided in these students' formal writing. In conclusion, individual textism use in messages is related to a number of factors, especially the technology on mobile phones. Rather than being associated with poor literacy skills, textism use can be conceptualised as a form of literacy skill that is adapted to the social expectations of undergraduates and the developing technology on phones to produce maximally efficient and expressive text-based communication.