Related Papers
Journal of Writing Research
The impact of WhatsApp on Dutch youths' school writing and spelling
2021 •
Wilbert Spooren
This paper examines whether use of computer-mediated communication (CMC) and non-standard informal written language therein harms youths’ literacy skills. An experiment was conducted with 500 Dutch youths of different educational levels and age groups to assess if social media use affects their school writings. It was measured if chatting via WhatsApp directly impacts youths’ performance on a narrative writing task, in terms of writing quality and spelling, or their ability to detect and correct deviations from the standard language in a grammaticality judgement task. WhatsApp use had a direct effect on the story writing task, but only on participants’ spelling: adolescents who were primed with WhatsApp immediately beforehand produced significantly fewer misspellings in their narratives. The present study thus gives no cause for concern about negative transfer from social media to school writing: if anything, CMC use may provide youths with greater orthographic awareness and positiv...
Computers & Composition
Relationships between Dutch Youths' Social Media Use and School Writing
2020 •
Lieke Verheijen
Many youths are hooked on social media nowadays. Because computer-mediated communication (CMC) often deviates from standard language norms, it is feared to hurt literacy. A large-scale empirical study was conducted to examine whether social media affect school writings. 400 Dutch youths of different educational levels and ages participated; the data of 338 youths were used. We analysed whether relationships could be found between their self-reported social media use, as measured via extensive questionnaires, and the writing quality of their essays. We found more positive than negative associations between participants' CMC use and their school writing. Results revealed that passive engagement with CMC, by heavy reliance on mobile phone and consumption of social media messages, might hinder writing skills, but active and creative language production in CMC-via various genres, from an early age, with many people, and including textisms-might help develop writing skills. Educational level turned out to be a relevant demographic factor in relationships between CMC and literacy: (pre-)vocationally or 'lower' educated youths' school writing was most at risk of being affected, but could also benefit most from social media. The present study thus suggests that social media are not merely negatively associated with school writing.
Written Language & Literacy
Orthographic principles in computer-mediated communication The SUPER-functions of textisms and their interaction with age and medium
2018 •
Lieke Verheijen
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.
WhatsApp with social media slang? : Youth language use in Dutch written computer-mediated communication
2017 •
Lieke Verheijen
Texto Livre: Linguagem e Tecnologia
Pre-service Teachers’ perceptions on instant messaging and orthographic competence
Juan Antonio Núñez Cortés
This work examines the perception held by pre-service teachers of Spanish in Chile and Argentina of the digital written norm in IM, together with their opinion regarding the influence of textisms on secondary students’ acquisition of orthographic competence. The study uses a transactional approach based on surveys and uses and applies a descriptive non-experimental design. Results, when compared with studies for the European Spanish variant, showed that pre-service teachers in Chile and Argentina considered use of textisms as harmful to secondary students’ development of orthographic competence, despite their own frequent use of textisms. However, one of the main findings is a certain degree of tolerance of specific types of textisms in digital writing, as was a more integrative approach to those written variables on the part of participants in Argentina.
The Effects of Text Messaging and Instant Messaging on Literacy PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE
Altynay Ismailova
English Studies
The effects of text messaging and instant messaging on literacy
2013 •
Lieke Verheijen
This article reviews empirical studies published in the last decade on the effects of text messaging and instant messaging on literacy to determine whether they positively or negatively affect literacy. Although the majority of studies found a positive correlation between texting and/or instant messaging and literacy, others found a negative correlation, while still others report conflicting findings or no significant correlation at all. The studies reveal that literacy scores may correlate differently with frequency of texting, use of textese/textisms and knowledge of textisms; that there may be different correlations for reading, writing and spelling; and that the correlations may differ for formal and informal writing. The mixed results could also be caused by differences in the designs and populations of the studies. In addition, the correlational analyses conducted in most of the studies do not warrant conclusions about causality. All this suggests that there is a need for further research, preferably longitudinal studies with experimental intervention, on the relationship between text messaging or instant messaging and literacy.
INVESTIGATING COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION: CORPUS-BASED APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE IN THE DIGITAL WORLD
The development of DOTI (Data of oral teletandem interaction)
2017 •
Paola Leone, Solange Aranha
Teletandem (Telles and Vassallo, 2006) is a Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) communicative activity in which two speakers are involved, each of whom is an expert in one language and who wishes to learn the language of the interlocutor. “Virtual meetings” which last one hour are organized weekly; students speak half of the time in their L1, and the other half in the L2. Teletandem is also a growing field of research, and the related data, collected by video-recording the conversations between two participants, are an interesting resource for analysing communication and learning processes. In order to build a teletandem databank (DOTI – Data of Oral Teletandem Interactions), we collected data from Sao Paolo State University at São José do Rio Preto (Brazil: languages Portuguese/English), and from the University of Salento (Italy: languages Italian/English). DOTI is currently composed of about 700 hours of video data from, oral teletandem sessions. The current paper describes: i) the state of the art with regard to developing a databank with video recorded oral sessions, as well as chat conversations; ii) teletandem as an interaction space; iii) different learning scenarios and microtasks that might influence the type of data and, in turn, metadata, in this context.
Eralingua: Jurnal Pendidikan Bahasa Asing dan Sastra
The Sociopragmatic Perspective of Typographical Features in Students’ SMS and Whatsapp Text Messages
Ifan Iskandar
This study aims to examine the typographical features of English and Indonesian languages in students’ text messages delivered to the lecturers and the sociopragmatic perspective of the features collected from respondents of diverse profession and education backgrounds. Content analysis is employed to conduct the study whose data are the typographical features identified in 1,521 students’ SMS and that of in 527 WhatsApp text messages and followed by a survey of sociopragmatic attitudes towards the features gathered from 223 respondents. The findings recognize the typographical features of emoticons, vowel deletion, letter deletion, rebus writings—letter deletion, number deletion, letter-number deletion, and images or symbols—and phonetic spelling. The features are employed in various approaches as identified in the ways letters are deleted in the initial, medial and final syllables of the words. Social factor and dimension analyses underpinning the sociopragmatic perspective of the...
Linguistic characteristics of Dutch computer-mediated communication. CMC and school writing compared
2016 •
Lieke Verheijen
