Text Language?
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- 2/8/2009 |
- 10:00 am
On my morning radio show, I received a call from a teacher who mentioned something interesting about writing and text messaging. She said a few of her students had turned in papers that included a few 'text phrases,' as she put it. I've heard a few people suggest that this might be a problem...but is it really any different than other ways kids push the boundaries? Here are some thoughts...
For one thing, although I'm sure it happens, I don't think 'text phrases' or text language is the major issue that a lot of people try to make out of it. I'm sure the media likes to blow the concept out of proportion, but I'm convinced that deep down, kids know the difference between ordinary language and their abbreviated text-talk.
In fact, I don't see much of a difference between this and kids attempting to sneak certain slang phrases into a formal school paper. In a way, text-speak is a form of slang.
Kids have new and exciting technology, but kids are really no different today than in generations past. They still want to push boundaries, to see exactly what they can get away with. I asked the teacher some follow-up questions, such as "Did you correct their papers, mark the text language, and have them re-write it?" She said, "Yes, and their next paper was perfect."
Kids learn. Teach them that their abbreviated lingo won't fly, or will earn a poor grade, and they'll stop using it in school papers. In the meantime, they're going to try to get away with as much as possible...just like you did, and I did. You learn boundaries.
Plus, my friend Yvette added an interesting postscript to the whole discussion. She questioned why kids would want to use their text abbreviations in a school paper in the first place? "I always struggled to fill a two-page assignment as it was," she said. "I was looking for the biggest, longest, most impressive-sounding words I could find to fill up the space. Why would I want to use abbreviations?"
See what I mean? I think we're okay here.
