Text messaging has more in common with speech than formal written language.
Introduction
2 hopefully better intro Throughout history written language has been used for preserving information over distance and time. Recently communicating with people through text is more related to spoken language than formal writing. In texting, people use speaking terms like slang, sound effects, using facial expressions and shorting words.
Slang
Slang is typically used in conversations between friends, this translates to texting. In texting slang or informal language is used to convey emotion more clearly than formal language. Spoken slang is influenced by the people around you, and texting is derived from speaking so slang changes with the time. If someone wanted to say that something was really gross, it would be “that’s so rank”
Emojis
When texting you can’t see the person you’re talking to, so it’s hard to judge the tone of the message. Because of the lack of visual information people use emojis to represent facial expressions and or to make a message more heart-felt or interesting. if you received a text from your mum and it featured a lot of ” ?” emojis, you can obviously tell she’s not very happy with you. Another way to use emojis is like “?♀️??????❤️ Love you little lady .. have a good weekend ???” which some of these have no specific or hidden meaning, it just makes it more fun to read. Emojis help the reader direct the tone of the message, it doesn’t always have to represent the exact expression the sender is showing.
Sound effects
Another spoken feature is sound effects, they are used to convey emotion in the conversation. When speaking an acceptable response could be just to make a sound, like ” aww, ooh, grr, pfft, ugh, eww” and many others.
Brevity
To speed up texting and speaking we shorten words. This is so information can be passed faster