SMS language

This study examines the formal and functional aspects of code-switching (CS) in a Swiss corpus of 26'000 text messages (SMS). Four corpora (Swiss-German, French, Italian and Romansh) are compared with regard to the absolute number of CS, the languages used for CS, the grammatical properties of the CS elements and their potential functions. The aim is to find out: a) which patterns are representative of one or more individual languages and b) which patterns are characteristic for SMS-communication in general and/or are valid for Switzerland as a whole. With regard to the differences in the number of CS and the languages used, the respective patterns seem to mirror the different language contact situations in Switzerland. As for the described CS-types, the corpora under scrutiny seem to share the extensive use of one-token alternations (isolated items) that carry out framing functions and may point out a shared type of minimal multilingual practice.

Resumen: A partir de un análisis de los géneros ciberperiodísticos en diez blogs políticos escritos por periodistas brasileños y españoles, el presente estudio revela que los periodistas-blogueros están creando nuevos géneros en el contenido generado desde dispositivos móviles􀀑 hemos identificado dos tipos de notas informativas cortas de tipo
móvil, que son publicadas en los posts vía Twitter o a través del envío de un SMS. Estos nuevos géneros se originan en dos de las bitácoras analizadas: Blog de José Roberto de Toledo y Escolar.net. En los resultados del trabajo, describimos la estructura y las características de ambos géneros.
Abstract: Based on cyber journalistic genres analysis of ten political blogs written by Brazilian and Spanish journalists, the present study reveals that the journalists-bloggers are creating new genres in the content generation from mobile devices. We have identified two types of short briefs mobile, which are published in the posts via Twitter or by sending an SMS. These new genres have their origin in two of the analyzed blogs:
José Roberto de Toledo’s blog and Escolar.net. In the results of the study, we describe the structure and characteristics of both cyber journalistic genres.

Since the beginning of the Internet, its features have been used to communicate knowledge between researchers in different universities or scientific laboratories, and later, with the increasing growth of the World Wide Web, knowledge became a collective good shared by its users. The current investigation has three main objectives: a) to describe the professional web forum as a discursive subgenre of the web, b) to illustrate the mechanism of knowledge transmission on the professional web forums, and c) to observe the variation across languages of the professional web forum as a subgenre of the knowledge transmission process.
In the analysis of the linguistic material of the professional web forum corpus we used a theoretical framework based on different linguistic trends and theories currently developed in France.
The analysed material consists in a comparable texts corpus, organised, in five sub-corpora, in function of the language the participants in the web forums use to communicate: English, Spanish, French, Romanian, and Catalan.
The analysis of the linguistic material of the professional web forum corpus provides essential information concerning the discursive features of the knowledge transmission process in different languages.

L’ouvrage
Pour la première fois, une étude scientifique propose une vision du « langage SMS ». Refusant de se fier aux intuitions ou aux impressions, les auteurs de cette étude linguistique attentive, basée sur un corpus de données authentiques, bousculent les idées reçues. La brièveté des messages est-elle une règle ? Tout le monde utilise-t-il les mêmes abréviations ? Ces jeux de langue sont-ils nouveaux ? Est-ce un langage de jeunes ? Est-ce la ruine de l’orthographe française ?

Le projet « Faites don de vos SMS à la science » a permis de rassembler 75 000 SMS dans une base de données qui constitue aujourd’hui la plus vaste source d’information accessible pour la recherche. Ce livre entraîne le lecteur dans les coulisses de ce projet scientifique avant de lui faire découvrir les trésors d’inventivité linguistique dont font preuve les usagers du SMS.

Le public
Amateur de SMS, simple usager ou spécialiste de la langue... ce livre s’adresse à toute personne intéressée par le langage SMS ou par les méthodes d’investigation utilisées pour étudier la langue. Accessible au grand public, mais sans concession sur la rigueur scientifique, cet ouvrage répondra également aux attentes des étudiants ou des chercheurs qui y trouveront détails techniques et données chiffrées présentant la plus grande base de données linguistiques destinées à l’étude du langage SMS.

Les auteurs
Les auteurs sont linguistes et informaticiens. Ils s’intéressent au langage, à son évolution et à l’influence des technologies de l’information et de la communication.

Cédrick Fairon est chargé de cours à l’Université catholique de Louvain et directeur du Centre de traitement automatique du langage (Cental). Linguiste et informaticien, il est spécialisé dans la description linguistique des langues en vue de leur traitement informatique.

Jean Klein est professeur ordinaire à l’Université catholique de Louvain et directeur du Centre d’études des lexiques romans (Celexrom). Linguiste spécialisé dans l’étude du lexique, il s’intéresse particulièrement à la créativité lexicale et au langage des jeunes.

Sébastien Paumier est maître de conférences à l’Université de Marne-la-Vallée, spécialiste de la linguistique informatique, il est le concepteur d’un logiciel destiné à l’analyse des textes par ordinateur.

La presente investigación se inserta dentro de un estudio sobre las prácticas lingüísticas de los usuarios de nuevas tecnología, poniendo en foco de atención las modificaciones ejercidas sobre el lenguaje estandarizado en la mensajería de texto como un tipo de texto en particular. En sucesivas etapas de esta investigación, nos hemos enfrentado ante las dificultades propias de la elaboración de un corpus: las posibilidades y fidelidad de la fuente, distinción de informantes claves, pertinencia y validez de los datos; sin embargo, en el caso particular de la mensajería de texto, hemos detectado nuevas limitaciones relacionadas con el tipo de soporte donde se desarrolla esta comunicación mediada tecnológicamente. Como antecedente, recuperamos los aportes de Amalia Carrique (en Cárdenas, 2005:60) sobre la dificultad de conformar un corpus de conversaciones de Chat. El soporte digital transforma y actualiza instantáneamente la comunicación, imperando cambios que no son percibidos por el emisor (modificaciones de caracteres en el envío, por ejemplo). En este trabajo describiremos la limitaciones del soporte digital al mismo tiempo que señalaremos aquellas características relevantes del medio que transforman las realizaciones de la lengua, dado que es de suma importancia para nuestra investigación delimitar las modificaciones en las que opera el soporte sobre el lenguaje y aquellas que son producidas por el mismo usuario/hablante. Esta investigación se adscribe teórica y metodológicamente a la Sociolingüística interaccional (Gumperz, 1982; Tannen, 1996) e integra herramientas de Pragmática -en su vertiente Sociocultural y Ciberpragmática (Yus, 2001), de Análisis del Discurso (Van Dijk, 2000) y Análisis de la conversación (Briz, 2000; Noblía, 2001; Bravo y Briz, 2004; Palazzo, 2005). La presente investigacion está inserta en el Proyecto de Grupo de Investigación “Interacción verbal en español bonaerense. Construcción de identidades, valores y creencias”, subsidiado por la Secretaría General de Ciencia y Tecnología de la UNS, dirigido por la Dra. Elizabeth Rigatuso.

The practicality and limited space of SMS have become features encouraging the emergence of various forms of SMS language. An analysis of SMS from 20 Acehnese female students in the University of Syiah Kuala was therefore carried out to inspect the elements of language employed within the text messages. The data of 110 SMS gathered through a mobile device were thoroughly analyzed and later categorized into linguistics and discoursal features. The result showed that female students tend to write about their psychological conditions in SMS by employing logogram and pictogram. A number of findings on omitted letters and nonstandard spelling were also indicated in their SMS. They rarely used initialism and shortening in writing the text messages because it is believed that these features can diminish intelligibility. These females also wrote complex messages and employed various languages into their text messages, including the national language (Indonesian), the language of their religion (Arabic), the language from media influence (Japanese), and their mother tongue (Acehnese). Their circumstance of being multilingual has expanded their linguistic performance in employing, typing, and inventing lively SMS. It is also interesting to discover that these texters created new symbols that are not generally found in SMS to identify their reciprocal relationship of the same culture and belief.

This research work is developed with two AT89C52 microcontrollers from Atmel. The microcontrollers provide all the functionality of the display notices and wireless control. The Display is obtained on a 7X96 Light Emitting Diode (LED) dot matrix display, arranged on a Vero board. A desired text message from a mobile phone is sent via a Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) to the GSM module located at the receiving end. The GSM modem is connected, through MAX 232 Integrated Circuit (MAX 32 IC), to the AT89C52 microcontroller. The message that is stored in the Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory (EEPROM) is then displayed on the LED dot matrix display. This hardware uses regulated 5V, 500mA power supply. A three-terminal LM7805 is employed for regulation of the voltage. A bridge type full-wave rectifier is used to rectify the AC output of the secondary of 230/12V step down transformer. The system was tested to work according to specification.

Les nouvelles pratiques de l’écrit dans les technologies de la communication ont fait couler beaucoup d’encre : on s’inquiète de les voir « détruire la langue ». Pourtant, l’écrit sms n’est pas un nouveau langage, ni une nouvelle langue, mais un nouveau code écrit, un nouveau type de transcription. Comment la langue
se réalise-t-elle dans ce petit écran de poche ? La syntaxe et les mots sont-ils en péril ? Telles sont les questions que pose cet ouvrage.
En se basant sur plus de 50 000 sms authentiques envoyés dans les quatre coins du monde, l’auteure propose une analyse détaillée de nombreux phénomènes linguistiques : de l’alternance des langues à l’usage de néologismes, en passant par l’emploi de régionalismes, l’étude propose également de nombreuses statistiques descriptives et inférentielles mettant en avant les tendances modernes de l’écrit sms.

The use of short message services (SMS) on mobile phones has gained huge popularity in most western and many developing countries — so much so that it has become established as the preferred medium for mobile communication especially among young people. This article explores SMS as used for discreet communication between people in the same physical space (‘shared physical space SMS’ — or ‘SPS-SMS’). Drawing from semi-structured interviews with young people in Norway, 10 different scenarios of SPS-SMS use are explored and analysed within an interactionist framework. These sites of SPS-SMS are presented here as ‘communicative affordances’. It is concluded that the mobile phone, by the application of SPS-SMS, affords communicative layers of transparency, by which various SMS users maintain semi-synchronous communication, both for care and coordination. Although a qualitative study of this nature does not lend itself to generalizations about SPS-SMS communication, it does demonstrate how detailed studies of extraordinary uses of mediated communication may be used to widen analyses of social interaction.

We report from ongoing research of 'SMS Chatter i ', the largest SMS-based mobile social networking site in India. The aim of this position paper is to share initial results from an investigation of the platform and note its emerging nature and the content of messaging. Unlike other social networking sites like Twitter where conversation, retweeting and maintaining a personalized profile take prominence, mobile social media in India shows different kinds of appropriation. SMS Chatter, seemingly, is not only for 'egocentric' users, but also for individuals and small and medium enterprises that choose the platform to promote various products and services. Posts that are not promotional take the form of short poetry, jokes or inspirational messages and constitute secondary content that is circulated without attribution. In this paper, we will emphasize and delineate two features of SMS Chatter, namely, a) the entwined and informal nature of social and business networking and b) the dominance of borrowed or secondary content of posts and the lack of conversational content or retweets.

The paper contrasts a monological approach to the analysis of mobile phone text
messaging with a dialogical analysis which takes the interactive nature of text messaging as its starting point. Based on a corpus of dyadic text message dialogues, the "classic" text message format is compared to internet-based WhatsApp messages in a conversation-analytic approach. It is argued that WhatsApp messages differ from "classic" text messages not only in their multimodal variability. Writers also use different practices of marking off dialogues as separate entities. Moreover, different sequential patterns emerge in WhatsApp communication: Writers tend to send adjacency pair parts in separate messages which in some cases even leads to a pair-by-pair interaction.

The practicality and limited space of SMS have become features encouraging the emergence of various forms of SMS language. An analysis of SMS from 20 Acehnese female students in the University of Syiah Kuala was therefore carried out to inspect the elements of language employed within the text messages. The data of 110 SMS gathered through a mobile device were thoroughly analyzed and later categorized into linguistics and discoursal features. The result showed that female students tend to write about their psychological conditions in SMS by employing logogram and pictogram. A number of findings on omitted letters and nonstandard spelling were also indicated in their SMS. They rarely used initialism and shortening in writing the text messages because it is believed that these features can diminish intelligibility. These females also wrote complex messages and employed various languages into their text messages, including the national language (Indonesian), the language of their relig...

SMS Afrikaans displays inconsistency with regard to spelling and shortening of language and this issue is explored in this article. This article provides a literature review of the sociolinguistic background against which SMS language functions. The article empirically determined the degree of shortening through clippings and reductions that are employed by university students in terms of gender, type of cellular phone, mother tongue, use of English content in Afrikaans text messages, as well as change in meaning. In this regard, the male respondents in this study shortened SMS texts the most. Furthermore, the study determined that the type of cellular phone does not have an influence on the shortening of SMS texts. However, Afrikaans as mother tongue among respondents, the use of English words and elements in Afrikaans texts and the change in meaning did lead to shorter text messages. In the second part of the empirical research, respondents had to rewrite some Standard Afrikaans messages in SMS Afrikaans. From the analysis of these responses it was evident that different types of phonetic spelling were employed together with the omission of vowels and diphthongs. English words, logograms and sound and symbol values were identified. However, it is clear that these spelling elements are not used consistently by the research population or even individuals. Through shortening, the meaning is narrowed or even changed. Therefore, SMS Afrikaans is not a homogenous entity and even if there seems to be some standards accepted by SMS users, a great deal of variation exists; however, this does not necessarily mean that communication is not effective.

Despite the fact that language is not consistent, some standards are accepted for the sake of communication. SMS language displays shortening and non-standard spelling that is employed inconsistently; however, it still seems understandable to the users of SMS language. SMS Afrikaans, like internet Afrikaans, can be considered as a genre of Afrikaans within the context of a certain medium.

SMS language is associated with computer-mediated communication and this form of language is therefore not limited to SMS messages. Language changes and language consistency are aspects that not only have an influence on SMS language, but should, according to the literature, also be regarded in terms of the wider language context. With SMS language, these issues are approached differently and are negatively viewed by the literature and popular media, especially in terms of the influence of SMS language on general language use. The skill to be able to use SMS language effectively, however, shows creative language use and a high level of phonological awareness. The technical context within which SMS language functions can also have an influence on the way language is used. Especially the size restrictions of messages force users to shorten text messages. It is not clear whether SMS language should be considered as written or spoken language and it could rather be regarded as a hybrid form of written and spoken language. Many properties of SMS language, and specifically SMS Afrikaans, are listed in the literature and were also identified in the data. Some of the possible contextual factors influencing the shortening of SMS texts were researched and SMS texts of a group of university students were analysed.

The empirical part of this research consisted of a corpus compiled by making use of a questionnaire that gathered biographical information and messages in Standard Afrikaans rewritten in SMS language by the respondents. Ten messages were compiled from actual SMS text messages that were identified in terms of the typical properties of SMS language, as described in the literature. The source texts were rewritten in Standard Afrikaans and comprised 92 words consisting of 444 characters, including spaces. The data was processed through the use of AntConc corpus linguistic software and MS Excel spreadsheet software. Among other things, the percentages of the shortening of the SMS versions were determined. The consistency of the spelling of repeated words was determined. In this regard, the focus was on the following words (the number of occurrences of the words are listed in brackets): nie (7), die (5), ons (3), hoekom (9), hoor hier (24), hoe (6), gaan (dit) (9) and wonder (14). These words were chosen as they displayed the most variation. The use of English words, sounds and symbol values was also identified. Furthermore, SMS messages with changes in meaning due to shortening were also identified. The statistical analysis was done by making use of Statistica software. The research population (n=108) included 73,1% females (n=79) and 26,9% males (n=29). Furthermore, 94,4% (n=102) respondents indicated that Afrikaans is their mother tongue, and only 5,6% (n=6) indicated that English is their mother tongue; however, all the respondents are studying at an Afrikaans-medium university.

The analysis of the data supported the literature with regard to inconsistency and nonstandard forms found in SMS language. From the analysis it is clear that variation does not exist only between different respondents, but also within individuals’ SMS messages. It seems that SMS language, due to inconsistent spelling, is quite different from the typical SMS language presented in the media. In some cases, from the data ”standard” spelling forms were evident (such as hkm, hu and gan), but generally this was not the case. The spelling of shortened forms followed the pronunciation pattern of words or the omission of certain letters. The empirical part of the article showed that the male students in this study shortened SMS text messages more than the female students did. The type of cellular phones did not have any influence on the shortening of text messages. Responses by mother-tongue speakers of Afrikaans, the use of English content and changes in meaning also resulted in shorter text messages. Respondents were expected to write messages in SMS Afrikaans. The analysis of these responses showed that different forms of phonetic spelling were employed together with the omission of vowels, diphthongs and double consonants. From the analysis it was clear that these forms were not consistently used by the research population. The meanings of the initial messages were narrowed or changed in some SMS text messages.

Therefore, shortening in SMS Afrikaans is done in different ways and sometimes appears to be similar to English. However, shortening is not done consistently. The field of language consistency, especially with regard to SMS language, would require further corpus linguistic studies.

Voix et silence se considèrent traditionnellement comme deux phénomènes opposés, s’excluant l’un l’autre. Les contributions contenues dans ce volume se proposent de dépasser une telle conception, en se centrant non seulement sur la valeur et les fonctions que les deux concepts peuvent recouvrir, mais aussi sur la relation complexe qui existe entre eux en linguistique et en littérature. Outre les deux pôles constitués par la voix et le silence, on peut repérer dans le domaine des langues romanes une grande variété de voix silencieuses ou de silences expressifs : la communication non verbale et son interaction avec le langage verbal, les différentes voix (plus ou moins silencieuses) donnant expression à ce qui ne peut pas être dit, ou bien la représentation graphique – et donc apparemment «muette» – d’un phénomène potentiellement acoustique.

La communication par texto (SMS et WhatsApp) a conquis les rituels de socialisation de la vie de tous les jours. Par l’intensification des connectivités socio-technologiques qu’elle accompagne, elle a contribué à la diversification des possibilités de contact linguistique.



Dans ce contexte, les pratiques plurilingues sont en effet courantes. Cet ouvrage en rend compte en décrivant précisément ce que les utilisateurs font lorsqu’ils utilisent différentes langues dans leurs textos, en détaillant comment ils le font et en identifiant les régularités dans ces pratiques.



Sur la base d’un dispositif méthodologique pluridimensionnel (linguistique, sociolinguistique et interactionnel), il expose les spécificités d’un nouveau type de compétence plurilingue liée à une communauté dont les membres ne communiquent pas forcément à l’aide de différentes langues dans leurs pratiques quotidiennes mais qui, lorsqu’ils passent à de l’écrit électronique informel, combinent de façon ludique et souvent virtuose les moyens hétérosémiotiques à leur disposition.

The practicality and limited space of SMS have become features encouraging the emergence of various forms of SMS language. An analysis of SMS from 20 Acehnese female students in the University of Syiah Kuala was therefore carried out to inspect the elements of language employed within the text messages. The data of 110 SMS gathered through a mobile device were thoroughly analyzed and later categorized into linguistics and discoursal features. The result showed that female students tend to write about their psychological conditions in SMS by employing logogram and pictogram. A number of findings on omitted letters and nonstandard spelling were also indicated in their SMS. They rarely used initialism and shortening in writing the text messages because it is believed that these features can diminish intelligibility. These females also wrote complex messages and employed various languages into their text messages, including the national language (Indonesian), the language of their relig...

The media often point an accusatory finger at new technologies; they suggest that there is always a loss of information or quality, or even that computer-mediated communication is destroying language. Most linguists, on the contrary, are firmly convinced that it is better to consider language as an evolving and changing entity. From this point of view, language is a social tool that has to be studied in-depth through the prism of objectivity, as a process in motion which is influenced by new social and technological stakes, rather than as a fading organism. In this volume we study and describe the societal phenomenon of SMS writing in its full complexity. The aim of this volume is threefold: to present recent linguistic research in the field of SMS communication; to inform the reader about existing large SMS corpora and processing tools and, finally, to display the many linguistic aspects that can be studied via a corpus of text messages.