Classifying the Textism Types

Textism types were classified according to their form, the operations involved in their creation, and the functions they serve. The classifications are presented in Tables 5, 6, and 7 below. Other classifications can be found in earlier studies on written CMC in different languages (Werry, 1996; Thurlow & Brown, 2003; Shortis, 2007; Panckhurst, 2009; Silva, 2011; Combes, Volckaert-Legrier, & Largy, 2014; Tagg, Baron, & Rayson, 2014; Kirsten Torrado, 2014).

Table 5. Formal classification of textism types.

Forms Types

letters initialism, contraction, clipping, shortening, phonetic respelling, single letter/number homophone, alphanumeric homophone, reduplication, visual respelling, accent stylisation, inanity, standard language abbreviation

diacritics missing diacritic

punctuation missing punctuation (apostrophe, period, hyphen), reduplication of punctuation (exclamation mark, question mark, period), extra hyphen

spacing missing spacing, extra spacing

Although textisms with changes from the standard language norms in letters are the most salient in new media writings, textisms represent a broader phenomenon. They can also involve deviations from the standard with other orthographic elements, namely diacritics, punctuation, spacing, or capitalisation. These are distinguished in the formal classification, as presented in Table 5.

Furthermore, there are certain patterns in the edit operations that underlie the creation of textisms, which have already been observed in other languages. As is shown in Table 6, there are textisms of omission, substitution, and addition (all the logically possible options – in Levenshtein’s (1966) terms, deletions, reversals, and insertions), in which orthographic elements are left out, replaced, or added. Note that not all textisms of omission lead to shorter messages – missing diacritics and capitalisation can only save time, not space, and that not all textisms of addition lengthen messages, witness extra capitalisation.

Table 6. Operational classification of textism types. Edit

operations Textisms created by... Types

omission leaving out

orthographic elements

initialism, contraction, clipping, shortening, standard language

abbreviation, missing diacritic, missing punctuation, missing spacing, missing capitalisation

substitution replacing orthographic elements by other elements

phonetic respelling, single letter/number homophone, alphanumeric homophone, visual respelling, accent stylisation

addition adding orthographic

elements reduplication of letter, inanity, reduplication of punctuation, extra hyphen, extra spacing, extra capitalisation

Finally, textisms can fulfil a number of functions. Three of these were recognized earlier, first in the context of SMS text messages by Thurlow and Brown (2003, ‘sociolinguistic maxims’) and later also by Androutsopoulos (2011, ‘themes’ of digital writing), Thurlow and Poff (2013, ‘maxims’ of text message style), De Decker (2015, ‘principles’ of chatspeak), and Vandekerckhove and Sandra (2016, ‘maxims’ of texting and online chat). I distinguish five functions: the ‘CC5-functions’ or ‘SUPER-functions’ of textisms, as shown in Table 7.31F32 Textisms can make the

orthography in computer-mediated communication more Speechlike,

Understandable, Playful, Expressive, or Reduced.

32 _{It is pertinent to point out that writers may not always be fully conscious of these functions} in their use of specific textisms.

Firstly, speechlike textisms are used to write words in alternative spellings that are in accordance with how they are pronounced in spoken language, specifically casual and/or colloquial speech (cf. Androutsopoulos’s (2011) ‘conceptual orality’, Vandekerckhove & Sandra’s (2016) ‘speech maxim’), i.e. to achieve phoneticism and informality. Phoneticism is the use of phonetically transparent letter-sound correspondences as licensed by the standard language orthography in new orthographic environments. It has also been called ‘phonological approximation’, ‘phonetic writing’, and ‘phoneticised respelling’ (Thurlow & Brown, 2003; Silva, 2011; Thurlow & Poff, 2013; Kirsten Torrado, 2014). This is in line with McWhorter’s (2013) characterisation of text messaging as “a way of talking with your fingers.” Since their spelling is unconventional but the grapheme-phoneme patterns of Standard Dutch should be applied accurately, youths who use such textisms are “accurate listeners who can detach themselves from their orthographic knowledge formally learnt in schools” (Silva, 2011:151): speechlike textisms require phonological awareness.

Secondly, textisms are used for reasons of understandability, to enhance clarity and text comprehension. Making the word structure of (long) compound words more explicit with additional hyphens or spaces, thereby increasing morphological transparency, can help receivers understand messages and facilitate the reading. However, not all extra spacing improves the transparency of a text. Such textisms may also arise due to interference of the English language, where elements of compounds words are regularly separated by spaces. What can also play a role is the predictive software that is often used on mobile phones. After typing the first letters of a compound word, the software may suggest the first element of the compound after which, if selected, a space is often automatically inserted, so that elements of the compound are separated by spacing.

Thirdly, playful textisms involve linguistic creativity: these are used because youths may enjoy playing with language. They regard intentional deviations from the standard language as cool. This emerges, for instance, in leetspeak or 1337, an online writing style with lots of visual respellings. According to the Urban Dictionary, an Internet-based dictionary of youth slang, “The point of 1337 is to replace all the letters with symbols, and is quite fun to play with”: the fun factor is essential here.

Fourthly, textisms can be used to make the orthography more expressive, to convey phonological stress or semantic nuances. By exploiting the orthographic possibilities of digital writing, textisms can express what in spoken language is voiced by paralinguistic cues or prosody (intonation, rhythm, stress, volume). Thurlow and Poff (2013) refer to this as ‘paralinguistic restitution’. This theme involves the ‘semiotics of compensation’ (Androutsopoulos, 2011) or the ‘compensation maxim’ (Vandekerckhove & Sandra, 2016): textisms can compensate for expressive cues that are present in speech, but not in conventional writing.

Fifthly, for the purposes of conciseness and curtailment, reduction-based textisms32F33 can be used to reduce the number of letters, characters, or keystrokes.

33 _{CMC language also contains grammatical features of reduction, i.e. the omission of function} words. These surpass the scope of this paper, which focuses solely on orthographic features.

Shortening the message form in such a way can speed up communication, minimize the physical effort required for composing a message,33F34 and, in some new media,

prevent exceeding the character limits. This has also been referred to as ‘linguistic economy’ (Androutsopoulos, 2011), ‘brevity and speed’ (Thurlow & Poff, 2013), and the ‘speed maxim’ (Vandekerckhove & Sandra, 2016). In CMC, orthographic brevity and velocity tend to overrule standard language norms: that is why McWhorter (2013) writes about an online “cult of concision.”

Table 7. Functional classification of textism types.

SUPER-

functions Corresponding CC5-functions Textisms used for... Types

Speechlike Casualness &

Colloquialism phoneticism, informality clipping, phonetic respelling (abbreviation, replacement,

extension), single

letter/number homophone, alphanumeric homophone, accent stylisation

Under-

standable Clarity & Comprehension morphological transparency extra hyphen, extra spacing

Playful Creativity &

Coolness language play, fun visual respelling, inanity

Expressive Compensation &

Cues phonological stress, semantic

nuances

reduplication of letter, reduplication of punctuation, extra capitalisation

Reduced Conciseness &

Curtailment orthographic brevity, velocity initialism, contraction, shortening, standard language

abbreviation, clipping, phonetic abbreviation, single letter/number homophone, alphanumeric homophone, missing diacritic, missing punctuation, missing spacing, missing capitalisation

Note: for the comprehensibility of the analysis, the textism types have been assigned to their most evident category/ies. Of course, in reality they can be used for more purposes, e.g. they can all serve an additional function of language play or informality: in other words, these functions are not mutually exclusive.

34 _{Such textisms may reduce the keystroke effort, but not necessarily the mental effort: in fact,} for fluent writers who know the standard spelling of a word by heart, it might be easier to simply reproduce what they have learnt than to create a different, reduced orthography. Likewise, writers may be somewhat burdened with mental effort in their pursuit of adhering to implicit social in-group norms regarding the textism usage.