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Article published In:
Understanding Writing Systems
Edited by Merijn Beeksma and Martin Neef
[Written Language & Literacy 21:1] 2018
► pp. 111–145

Orthographic principles in computer-mediated communication

The SUPER-functions of textisms and their interaction with age and medium

| Radboud University

Online messages often diverge from the standard language orthography: so-called textisms have become an indispensable part of youths’ written computer-mediated communication (CMC). This paper presents an in-depth corpus study of texts from four new media produced by Dutch youths: MSN chats, text messages, tweets, and WhatsApp messages. It is demonstrated that Dutch informal written CMC, as in other languages, is implicitly governed by orthographic principles. Relative frequencies of textism types in the corpus show how textisms are effectively used by Dutch youths. Textism types are classified here in terms of forms, operations, and, crucially, functions – the ‘SUPER-functions’: textisms can make orthography more Speechlike, Understandable, Playful, Expressive, or Reduced. Moreover, this study proves that preferences for textism types greatly depend on age group and medium. New media have their own combination of characteristics and constraints, while adolescents and young adults appear to have different perceptions on language use and spelling.

Keywords: computer-mediated communication (CMC), new media, social media, writing, orthography, spelling, youth language
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
    • 2.1Technological innovations, folk-linguistic concerns
    • 2.2Criticism on CMC language in the Netherlands
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Collecting a new media corpus
    • 3.2Compiling a taxonomy of textisms
    • 3.3Coding the data
    • 3.4Classifying the textism types
    • 3.5Delimiting the definition of textisms
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Formal classification
    • 4.2Operational classification
    • 4.3Functional classification
  • 5.Discussion
    • 5.1Age effects
    • 5.2Medium effects
  • 6.Conclusions
  • 7.Limitations and suggestions for further research
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 2 November 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/wll.00012.ver
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