Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication
From Statistical Panic to Moral Panic: The
Metadiscursive Construction and Popular
Exaggeration of New Media Language in the
Print Media
Crispin Thurlow
Department of Communication
University of Washington
As a way of tracking popular framing of CMC, this article critically reviews an international corpus of 101 print-media accounts (from 2001 to 2005) of language-use in
technologies such as instant messaging and text messaging. From the combined perspective of folk linguistics and critical discourse analysis, this type of metadiscourse (i.e.,
discourse about discourse) reveals the conceptual and ideological assumptions by which
particular communication practices come to be institutionalized and understood. The
article is illustrated with multiple examples from across the corpus in order to demonstrate the most recurrent metadiscursive themes in mediatized depictions of technologically or computer-mediated discourse (CMD). Rooted in extravagant characterizations
of the prevalence and impact of CMD, together with highly caricatured exemplifications
of actual practice, these popular but influential (mis)representations typically exaggerate the difference between CMD and nonmediated discourse, misconstrue the ‘‘evolutionary’’ trajectory of language change, and belie the cultural embeddedness of CMD.
doi:10.1111/j.1083-6101.2006.00031.x
Popular Discourse and Online Discourse
Online language has developed into a shorthand that all but obliterates the
Queen’s English. Our kids log on and catch the Webspeak virus. This new
communicable disease spreads like jam on toast and, presto, Spell-Drek: The
Next Generation. {1: 101, headline}
As a dialect, text (‘‘textese’’?) is thin and unimaginative. It is bleak, bald, sad
shorthand. Drab shrinktalk. The dialect has a few hieroglyphs (codes
comprehensible only to initiates) and a range of face symbols. . . .
Linguistically it’s all pig’s ear. . . . Texting is penmanship for illiterates.
{2: 29}
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Much scholarly discourse has been committed to challenging common assumptions
that technologically mediated modes of communication are necessarily impoverished and antisocial. In the case of computer-mediated communication (CMC),
a great deal of research evidence now exists that demonstrates the potential for online
social interactions to sustain and even enhance human communication (see Walther
& Parks, 2002). By the same token, it is also perceived scholarly wisdom that generalizations about CMC are inherently problematic, conflating as they do important
differences in the specific affordances and communicative practices of different
technologies. As Herring (2001) notes, CMC is clearly affected by technological
variables such as synchronicity, granularity (i.e., how long or short text may be),
and multimodality (e.g., whether or not graphics, audio, and video are included).
There is also a range of social variables that empirical research shows influences the
nature and experience of CMC, such as the amount of time participants spend online
(Walther & Burgoon, 1992), the nature of their relationship (Walther, Slovacek, &
Tidwell, 2001), and their levels of motivation (Utz, 2000). In this regard, contemporary scholarship has come to recognize the relative inseparability of mediated and
unmediated communication; both are equally situated and context-dependent, and
mediated practices are intricately embedded in the daily lives of users (Howard,
2003).
None of this scholarly insight guarantees, of course, that popular discourse
necessarily follows suit. Indeed, for scholars of CMC it is widely accepted that all
communication technologies are accompanied by heightened popular reactions
regarding their impact on the existing social order (Kling, 1996; Standage, 1999).
Whether in terms of people’s experiences of community life, their standards of
morality, or the way they organize their personal relationships, public discourse
about emerging technologies is also typically polarized by judgments of their being
either ‘‘all good’’ or ‘‘all bad.’’ One major narrative thread in public discourse about
emerging technologies involves concerns about the way language is affected (Baron,
2000), and any perceived threats to conventional or standard language practices are
invariably met with the same anxiety people have about all language change
(Cameron, 1995). Public discourse about language is typically marked by attempts
to control the course of language change through the proscription of disfavored
forms and the prescription of familiar ones. Given its undeniable influence on
language (Baron, 2000), technology often becomes the focus of these public debates
about declining standards of ‘‘good’’ language use. Nowhere is this more manifest
than in the print media where, as with the examples given above, journalists’ evaluations of the impact of technology on language can be anecdotal, dismissive, and,
sometimes, surprisingly vitriolic.
Whereas mainstream CMC research is increasingly able to refute popular and academic misrepresentations of online communication, scholarly attention to computermediated discourse (CMD) has been much less forthcoming.1 With notable
exceptions (e.g., Baron, 1998; Herring, 1996, 2001), CMC scholarship has tended
to focus on the dynamics of interpersonal and group communication rather than the
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specifics of linguistic practice. Thurlow (2001; also Thurlow, Lengel, & Tomic, 2004)
proposes five ways in which CMD scholarship might be characterized for analytical
convenience: multilingualism (studies of national and other language demographics
and politics), language change (studies of linguistic forms and orthographic practices), discourse (studies of online conversational practices), stylistic diffusion (studies
of the spread and codification of online language), and metalanguage (studies of the
representation of online language/discourse in the media). Thus far, scholars have
been successful in tackling the first three of these areas. For example, papers in this
journal have recently addressed the prevalence and status of different languages
online (Danet & Herring, 2003; Warschauer, El Said, & Zohry, 2002). A handful
of scholars have also published studies that focus on lexical, syntactic, and grammatical dimensions of language use online (e.g., Androutsopoulos, 2000; Androutsopoulos & Schmidt, 2002; Baron, 1998) and in mobile telephony (e.g., Hård af
Segerstad, in press; Thurlow, 2003). Some of the best known work in CMD has been
concerned with the organization of interactional processes in language (e.g., Herring,
2001, 2004b). Far less academic attention, however, has been paid to the way that
particular features and practices of CMD have spread into mainstream usage; a rare
example is offered by Baron (2002) which, extending her earlier work (Baron, 1998),
examines issues of linguistic diffusion and/or stylistic uptake. This excellent research
is supplemented by a few other works (e.g., Herring, Kouper, Scheidt, & Wright,
2004; Koutsogiannis & Mitsikopoulou, 2003). Nonetheless, the least written about
(in scholarly terms) dimension of CMD continues to be the way it is commonly
talked about and represented more widely—in other words, its metalinguistic or
metadiscursive construction.
Folk Linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis
All language and language-use (or discourse) is inherently and self-reflexively metalinguistic insofar as meaning-making always relies on the implicit, interpretativepragmatic framing of language and communication (Silverstein, 1993; see also
Gumperz, 1982, on ‘‘metamessages’’ and Schiffrin, 1987, on ‘‘discourse markers’’). However, the term metalanguage is also used to refer to people’s explicit, conscious, and
articulated reflections about language—in other words, their talk about talk. For
some time, scholars have promoted the value of studying lay metalanguage and nonspecialists’ understanding of language (e.g., Hoenigswald, 1966; G. McGregor, 1998;
Preston, 1996). Preferring the term ‘‘folk linguistics,’’ Preston (p. 72), for example,
argues that metalanguage is ‘‘worthy of study not only for its independent scientific
value but also for the undeniable importance it has in the language professional’s
interaction with the public.’’ In this regard, the study of metalanguage is concerned
with investigating what people know and say about their own and other people’s
language practices. This approach starts from the premise that lay interpretations of,
or attitudes towards, accents, dialects, grammatical usage, and so on are ‘‘entirely
legitimate’’ (McGregor, 1998, p. 33) and evidently meaningful to people in the
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contexts of their everyday communication. As such, the objective of metalinguistic
research is not necessarily to evaluate folk linguistics as right or wrong against
scholarly standards, not least because people’s inability to articulate their understanding (declarative knowledge) does not necessarily preclude their understanding
how to use language effectively (procedural knowledge) (Multhaup, 1997). Similarly,
Ryle (1963, p. 29) dismisses what he calls the ‘‘intellectualist legend’’ which holds that
anything people do is preceded and steered by a separate, internal act of thinking,
considering, etc.
Notwithstanding this, people’s beliefs about language and communication do
serve to guide their practices (Giles, Coupland, & Wiemann, 1992) and are important for a ‘‘theory of human cultural development’’ (Garrett, Coupland, & Williams,
2004, p. 194). Studies of folk linguistic and metalanguistic comments offer insights
into the ways people value language and communication and how they view its role
in their lives. It is on this basis that Preston (1996) proposes three objects of metalinguistic analysis:
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the availability of information people have about language
the degree of ‘‘accuracy’’ involved in these descriptions
the nature and specificity of detail provided.
These perspectives of metalanguage are just as easily applied to all communicative practices and need not imply an exclusive concern for formal aspects of language
such as perceptual dialectology in Preston’s work. It is useful to think in terms
of metadiscourse and nonspecialist commentary about not only the forms of
language-use, but also its social functions and the organization of social interaction
through language.
On this point, the theory/method of Critical Discourse Analysis shares a concern
for understanding language about language or communication about communication (Cameron, 1995; Fairclough, 1992). Cameron (1995) has shown how popular
discourse about language is in fact an integral component of social life. Critical
discourse analysts have examined how metadiscourse not only reflects attitudes and
beliefs, but is also powerful in constituting ideologies of difference and structures of
social inequality (Cameron, 2000; Fairclough, 1992, 1999). This is particularly so in
the case of mediatized discourse, which acts as a powerful gatekeeper (e.g., van
Dijk, 1993). Where scholars may deliberately avoid judging lay metalanguage,
mediatized metadiscourse warrants evaluation and critique precisely because of
its institutional power and public influence. Underpinning the work of much
CDA is the belief that metalanguage (or metadiscourse) does not merely ‘‘guide’’
the communication of everyday speakers, but is instrumental in privileging certain
ways of communicating over others. Although this may also appear to be done on
linguistic grounds and for the sake of communicative transparency, popular metadiscourse also establishes hierarchies of symbolic and economic capital (Bourdieu,
1991).
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Current Study: The Metadiscursive Construction of CMD in the Media
As with the examples cited at the start of this article, newspaper and other media
reports often seem to portray CMD in a negative light. What is particularly troubling, however, is the tendency for these metadiscursive evaluations also to dovetail
with a rising public discourse about the communicative ineptitude of young people
(Thurlow, 2003, 2005). Often, it seems, adult anxieties about youth, about technology, and about language merge into a kind of ‘‘triple-whammy’’ panic about declining standards of morality and the unwinding of the social fabric. Where Thurlow
(2003) sought to challenge these popular discourses about CMD by comparing them
with a corpus of young people’s actual cell-phone text messages, the current article
extends this empirical work by undertaking a more systematic examination of the
media representations that powerfully frame CMD practice.
Data Generation
With the help of two research assistants, the ProQuest and LexisNexis newspaper
databases were searched for any English-language news articles between 2001 and
2005 covering issues related to young people, language, and new technology. (Search
terms included: language, teenagers, adolescents, adolescence, youth, young people,
technology, email, text messaging, instant messaging.) An initial sample of 156
different news stories was eventually condensed to form a dataset of 101 articles
specifically addressing young people’s language practices with new media such as the
Internet and mobile phones.2 While the majority of these articles were from national
and regional British (36) and United States (33) newspapers, the rest came from
Canada (9), New Zealand (7), Ireland (4), Singapore (3), Malaysia, Philippines,
Hong Kong, Australia (2 each), and Indonesia (1). As is typical industry practice,
a handful of news stories in the corpus were based on syndicated reports or had
picked up on stories reported by other papers.
Analysis of Discourse Data
The analysis of the corpus followed critical discourse analytic principles (e.g., Fairclough, 1999, 2003).
Critical discourse analysis aims to provide a framework for systematically
linking properties of . . . texts with features of their social and cultural
circumstances. Particular discursive events . . . are described in terms of the
potentially innovative ways in which they draw upon the orders of discourse
which condition them. (Fairclough, 1999, pp. 79–80)
Accordingly, whereas content analysis of texts usually prioritizes quantification,
the present analysis favors a more interpretive, critical approach that highlights
striking themes rather than statistical patterns. As is true of much qualitative analysis,
any interpretations therefore make few direct claims to representativeness but
instead appeal to an informed judgment of typicality, supported by the inclusion
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of multiple examples selected from a wide range of data sources. The current study
also works within that style of CDA that orients less to the inner workings of texts
and more to the distinctive ‘‘texturing’’ or discursive organization of social processes
(Cameron, 2000; Fairclough, 2003). In other words, the objective is to examine the
broad semantic and evaluative fields that are established linguistically and to identify
those recurrent narrative resources ‘‘threaded’’ throughout the corpus. In this way,
these media texts are seen to draw on and privilege particular points of view and
particular orders of discourse. The ultimate goal of this critical review is to stimulate
further research on the metalinguistic dimensions and/or mediatized representations
of CMC and CMD.
Focus of Analysis
In a sister publication (Thurlow, in press), I have analyzed and discussed different
aspects of this corpus with specific reference to the ‘‘technologization’’ of young
people in adult representations of their new media language use. The current article,
in contrast, is focused on the metadiscursive construction of CMD more generally. In
this regard, and with reference to the objectives of folk linguistics (Preston, 1996), the
corpus has been analyzed with a view toward characterizations of the nature of CMD,
descriptions of the spread and impact of CMD, and exemplifications of actual CMD
practice.
On this basis, the discussion that follows considers the dominant metadiscursive
themes by which CMD appeared to be commonly characterized, described, and
exemplified in these newspaper articles. In presenting these inter-related themes,
the intention is not necessarily to account comprehensively for the content of the
corpus in its entirety; instead, sequentially numbered extracts from newspaper
articles are cited as typical examples; these are indicated in bold and cross-referenced
to the original newspaper article listed in the appendix of primary resources.
Theme 1—Marks of Distinction: CMD as a Linguistic Revolution
CMD is often framed in popular discourse through the coining of labels such as
‘‘netlingo,’’ ‘‘weblish,’’ ‘‘netspeak’’ and so on (Thurlow, 2001). As a rhetorical strategy, these neologistic naming practices work in part to establish CMD as somehow
unique or distinctive from standard English, as a fully-fledged or ‘‘new’’ language
(Extracts 3 & 4). In keeping with this strategy, at least nine articles in the current
corpus set the tone by explicitly depicting the emergence of CMD as a form of
linguistic ‘‘revolution,’’ implying a decisive and dramatic break with conventional
practice (Extract 5, also Extract 13).
A language all of its own. {3: 22, headline}
A new language of the airwaves has been born. {4: 45}
Not since man uttered his first word and clumsily held a primitive pencil
nearly 10,000 years ago has there been such a revolution in language. From
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tapping abbreviated words into a mobile phone to emailing people on the
other side of the Atlantic, today’s technology is changing the way in which
we communicate at an alarming rate. {5: 24}
By itself, this metaphoric framing of CMD might be passed off as journalistic
license; however, the combination of a series of rhetorical devices establishes this as
a more dominant theme. Regardless of whether CMD was explicitly labeled revolutionary, a similar rhetoric of uniqueness and distinctiveness was evident throughout.
For example, from across the corpus reference was made to:
a text messaging movement; a shorthand language; a nouveau form of
communication; a lexicon for electronic communication; a virtual new
written language; a new language; a language of its own; a hybrid language;
a whole new language; a separate, private language; a language revolution;
new truncated language; a new dialect; text messaging lingo; hottest new
language; telegraphic shorthand; electronic lingo; a language all of its own;
a lingua franca; the lingo of generation text; lingo; technobabble; weblish;
textese; NetLingo; an abbreviated language; a second language; new argot;
new idiom; mysterious lexicon; a truncated language; digital dialogue;
webbish; new language of smileys and abbreviations; new shorthand
language; high-tech lingo; a new language called ‘‘globespeak;’’ a new
written language; text-messaging lingo; a new abbreviated language;
slanguage; a sub-language.
In many of these cases, the added use of the indefinite article in phrases like ‘‘a
new language’’ as opposed to ‘‘new language’’ further reiterates the implication of
a distinctive variety (see also Extracts 3 & 4 above).3
Distinction through Equivalence
Claims to the extent and distinctiveness of CMD were also made through more
subtle rhetorical means, in particular by establishing ‘‘relations of equivalence’’ (Fairclough, 2003; p. 87 et seq.) between CMD and ‘‘proper’’ or standard languages. For
example, references to bilingualism or the notions of translation and/or fluency were
not uncommon (Extracts 6 & 7). By the same token, talk about the diffusion of CMD
into mainstream usage, its codification into dictionaries, and other forms of official
recognition or acceptance all served to create an image of CMD as a new, distinctive
variety with the status and material substance of a language (Extracts 8–10).
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bilingualism, e.g., most texters are, in essence, bilingual {6: 25}
fluency, e.g., thousands of teens . . . are fluent in another language {7: 36}
codification, e.g., hallelujah for the world’s first text-messaging dictionary
{8: 64}
diffusion, e.g., text chats are starting to bleed over into others aspects of life
{9: 57}
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official recognition, e.g., words from text messaging . . . find their way into
the highest authority on the English language, the Oxford English Dictionary {10: 14}
Together with the broader theme of ‘‘revolution,’’ these relations of equivalence
serve to exaggerate further the nature and extent of CMD.
Privileged Voices of Commerce
Perhaps not surprisingly, heightened claims for the ubiquity and spread of CMD
were often a feature of direct quotes from, or the implied reported speech of, people
in the telecommunications industry. These are people for whom there is a clear
vested, economic interest in promoting the novelty and uptake of new communication technologies (cf. Silver & Garland, 2003). Once again, statements were framed
by an exaggerated sense of CMD being markedly different from standard linguistic
practice (e.g., in the extracts which follow: ‘‘unique,’’ ‘‘revolution,’’ ‘‘new language’’),
improbable claims for its novelty (Extract 14), or forecasts for its impact (Extract 15).
‘‘They have their own language. It’s unique.’’ {11: 13, vice-president of Radio
Shack Canada}
‘‘It’s really a new language and a new grammar.’’ {12: 48, marketing manager at
Qwest}
Messaging by cell phone is the biggest revolution in communications since the
advent of e-mail. {13: 28, vice-president of 3G Americas}
No one has really changed the English language like this since Webster’s
dictionary first came out. {14: 48, president of transl8it.com}
Text messaging might one day be as popular as talking. {15: 43, AT&T
spokeswoman}
Although many articles were supplemented by mitigating commentary from
scholars and also from everyday user-communicators themselves, commercial sources constituted a dominant voice across the corpus as a whole. This complicity
between journalism and big business accounts for some of the over-eager, ‘‘revolutionary’’ framing of CMD; in turn, these dramatic characterizations of CMD also
reinscribe popular misconceptions about the acute (rather than chronic) nature of
both technological change and language change. This particular metadiscourse is
also premised on a common folk-linguistic misunderstanding about the inevitable
hybridity of language varieties and the irregular trajectory of language change (Bauer
& Trudgill, 1998).
Theme 2—Statistical Panic: The Rise and Spread of CMD
One key rhetorical resource through which the prevalence of CMD was made vivid
was the use of numerous, superlative numerical citations that appeared throughout
the corpus.
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More than 16 million text messages are sent every day between Britain’s 40
million mobile users. That’s ten times as many as last year, and experts say
the total sent in 2000 could top an amazing SEVEN BILLION. {16: 26}
By 2004, a projected 10.5 billion will be sent in the United States alone.
Worldwide, the number of messages is projected to increase from 20 billion
last year to 82 billion by 2004. This works out to a rise from $1.73 billion in
worldwide text-messaging revenue to $6.6 billion in 2004. {17: 65}
As with Extracts 16 and 17, and in at least 76 other instances across the corpus,
the following sample reveals how figure citations usually depicted the volume of
messages being sent (usually text but also instant messages; Extracts 18–21), the rate
of increase (Extracts 22–24), the revenue generated (Extracts 25 & 26), and/or the
demographic profile of users (Extracts 27–29).
Superlative claims of quantity
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more than 1 billion text messages are sent every month in the UK {18: 54}
billions of text messages are already being sent daily in this country {19:
28}
in Europe alone more than two billion SMS messages are exchanged each
month, while worldwide the figure is put at around 15 billion a month
{20: 45}
75 million users sending more than 700 million real-time [instant] messages a day {21: 53}
Superlative claims of growth
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text messaging is expanding at the rate of 1,800% a year {22: 94}
in New Zealand texting has grown from fewer than 60,000 a day in 1999 to
more than 10 million a day this year {23: 71}
the number of texts sent daily by Vodafone costumers in Ireland alone
has dramatically increased from 25,000 daily in 1999 to five million a day
in 2002. {24: 85}
Superlative claims of monetary value
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an estimated 20 billion text messages sent worldwide last month—worth
almost £4 billion to Europe’s phone operators. {25: 41}
US carriers are starting to tap into this market, estimated at $20 billion
worldwide. {26: 63}
Superlative claims of usage
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nearly three quarters of online teens use instant messaging {27: 21}
text totals of 2,000 to 3,000 a month are common for older teenagers
{28: 6}
a text bomber racked up 27,000 messages a month {29: 71}
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On one occasion (two different articles), the same effect of quantity is produced
but with the added implication that CMD is disrupting conventional practices—in
this case, the sending of Valentines cards (Extracts 30 & 31) and the termination of
romantic relationships (Extract 32). In these instances an oppositional discourse of
new/old, of mediated/‘‘unmediated’’ and, usually by implication, of appropriate/
inappropriate is invoked.
This Thursday Britain’s phone network is expected to [be] swamped by up to
60 million Valentine messages. {30: 58}
On Valentine’s Day last year, 78 million text messages were sent. The
messages outnumbered Valentine’s Day cards by six to one. {31: 55}
13 percent of all cellphone users have ended romantic relationships with text
messages {32: 28}
However inaccurate or contradictory figures may be (compare Extracts 18, 19,
and 20), they serve important rhetorical, persuasive functions. Most obviously, there
is the straightforward display of quantity: The larger the numbers (e.g., ‘‘1,800%’’ in
Extract 22), the greater the escalation and ubiquity of CMD. An added claim to
legitimization is created through the scientific and/or objectivist connotations of
statistics themselves; in other words, we are persuaded that the rise and spread of
CMD is fact. The persuasion may, however, be even more subtle than this. Just as
detail in everyday conversational narratives fosters the perception of authenticity
(Tannen, 1989), the repetitive use of numeric detail in these articles also establishes
as ‘‘real’’ the metadiscursive representation of the nature of CMD as a whole. This
taste for excessive, quantitative detail is arguably also symptomatic of what Woodward (1999) characterizes as the ‘‘society of the statistic,’’ where a kind of statistical
panic instills a perpetual state of concern or fear in people. As such, media representations are again seen to be either generating or at least feeding popular, social
anxieties about the impact of new media.
Heightened Narrative Impact
Surprisingly or not, in most cases no organization was specified as the source for
figures cited in the articles. Once again, the credibility of figures is less important
than their dramatic, narrative effect. Of those sources clearly identified (in 34 cases,
less than half of the figure citations), moreover, almost all were supplied by commercial organizations, whether communications providers themselves, industry representatives, or research companies.
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Communications providers: BT Cellnet (x3), Vodaphone (x3), Verizon,
AOL (x2), NZ Telecom (x2), Cingular, T-Mobile, Upoc (x2), Tegic
Communications
Industry representatives: Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (x5), Mobile Data Association, Mobile Marketing Association
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Commercial research organizations: Nielsen/NetRatings (x2), Teen Research Unlimited, Yankee Group, IDC, Telephia, Forrester Research, Mobile
Lifestreams
The only noncommercial organization actually cited (in three cases) was the
charitably funded Pew Internet & American Life Project. Not only are industry
voices given ample opportunity to frame CMD in accordance with their particular
commercial agenda, but accounts for the spread of CMD hinge on notoriously
inflated and methodologically questionable commercial ‘‘webmetrics’’ (Thurlow
et al., 2004). Partly as a result of this, the nuanced qualities and social meanings
of situated CMD practice are often overshadowed by a journalistic preference for
generic, quantitative depictions of its rise and spread (as in Extracts 27–29). Just as
CMD has been depicted as creating a whole new culture (or, elsewhere, cr8ts a hul
nu cltur) or, indeed, as a cultural revolution, the assumption that underpins this
kind of ‘‘statistical panic’’ is that CMD is not only ubiquitous but also far-reaching in
its impact.
Theme 3—Moral Panic: CMD, Literacy, and the Social Order
Manifesting the deterministic view of an unstoppable ‘‘technological imperative’’
that characterizes many popular representations of computer-mediated communication (Thurlow et al., 2004, p. 41), CMD was depicted throughout the corpus as
a craze (x5), a mania, a fever, a huge phenomenon, a cultural phenomenon,
a meteoric rise, or a youthquake which was then variously described as booming,
blooming (x2), expanding, exploding (x4), rocketing, gaining ground, dominating, proliferating, rising (x3), brewing, zooming, leaping, gripping the nation/
country (x2), taking by storm, taking the world by storm, changing at an alarming/unprecedented rate (x2), or getting loose. Reported here in isolation from their
original contexts, it is not automatically clear whether items from this metaphoric
lexicon were intended negatively or positively. Notwithstanding the ambiguity of
valence, the semantic field established connotatively depicts CMD’s rise and spread
as excessive and, once again, revolutionary. In addition, other descriptions of stealth,
disease, and inundation (e.g., crept, riddled, spawns (x3), spreading like wildfire,
flooding; see also Extract 1 above) were more explicit in establishing a generally
pejorative tone.
While it would be untrue to suggest that there were no positive claims made for
the effects of CMD (see below), for the most part the nexus of popular discourses
about language, about technology, and about young people generates an overwhelmingly pessimistic picture (see also Thurlow, 2003, in press). In addition to being
described as reprehensible, frightening, depraved, infamous, criminal, jarring
and abrasive, apocalyptic, execrable, pointless, and aberrant, CMD was often held
responsible for a number of wider social and educational ills. For example, certain
journalists and commentators regarded it as being inflicted on the innocent public
{20}, creating a whole new culture in the country {9}, dumbing down the English
language {100}, and lowering standards all round {11}.
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In this regard, perhaps the most widely and commonly expressed social anxieties
in the current corpus were those related to the deleterious impact of CMD on standard English. Indeed, the most dominant theme throughout the corpus of newspaper
articles analyzed here was an over-riding sense of moral panic about declining standards of literacy. As one journalist put it, CMD signals the slow death of language
{35}.
Fears are growing that today’s teenagers are becoming ‘‘Generation Grunt,’’
a section of society that has effectively lost the ability to talk or express itself.
{33: 4}
If the already ingrained corruption of the English language is perpetuated,
we will soon be a nation made up entirely of grammatical duffers. {34: 19}
The Great Grammar Crusade
What Cameron (1995, p. 78 et seq.) refers to as the ‘‘great grammar crusade’’ is
unquestionably a central organizing principle in popular metadiscourse. However
unfounded, concerns about threats to the status of language and the protection of
linguistic norms invariably center on anxieties about standards of spelling, punctuation, and grammar among young people. As such, the presence of this overarching
metadiscursive theme in the corpus as a whole is not in and of itself surprising; what
is more surprising was its prevalence and extreme one-sidedness.
By the same token, articles occasionally extrapolated wildly from these concerns
about declining standards of literacy to reflect on the wider impact on social order, as
in the following examples from two different British newspapers:
Text messaging . . . is posing a threat to social progress. {35: 1}
‘‘The English language is being beaten up, civilization is in danger of
crumbling.’’ {36: 20}
In recognizable journalistic style, the same link between social decay and falling
standards of language was discussed in a Vancouver Sun article intertextually headlined as The decline and fall of spellin’ & writin’ {101}. The ramifications of CMD
and declining standards of literacy were taken to extremes in a fourth article which
concluded with the following series of unsubstantiated, tenuously connected claims:
Little wonder, then, that researchers have found poor basic skills greatly
increase the likelihood of individuals failing to secure or hold down jobs.
Those with poor literacy skills are likely to be among the prison population
or in sink estates. Poor health and relationship breakdowns are associated
with this lifestyle. {37: 40}
In this last extract, the revolutionary rhetoric discussed above is rendered almost
apocalyptic and the general tone of negativity most unambiguously established. As
before, the listing of these items implies a relation of equivalence and their inclusion
in an article on young people, language, and new media encourages an interpretation
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of causality. While it would be unfair to suggest that the entire corpus was characterized by such extreme depictions of causality, the link between new technologies
and declining standards of literacy was evident throughout.
As it happens, there are also tentative research findings that dispute any causal link
between declining standards of academic literacy and the rise of CMD (De Vries & Van
Der Meij, 2003; Raval, 2002). Most scholarship is certainly inclined to recognize any
number of factors contributing to language change rather than singling out new communications technologies as the sole or even primary cause (see Thurlow et al., 2004).
Theme 4—ROTFLMAO: The Fetishization of CMD5
Appalled teachers are now presented with essays written not in standard
English but in the compressed, minimalist language of mobile phone textmessaging: Gd sAv R grAshz QE2 Gd sAv R nObl QE2 Gd sAv D QE2. {38: 40}
An almost genre-defining feature of the articles in the current corpus was humorous,
tokenistic displays of examples of text messaging or text messaging language practices. For example, almost a third (30) of all articles used some example of text
messaging or instant messaging style in their headlines (see Appendix). Beyond this,
actual CMD practices were either given as in-text examples (with ‘‘translations’’) or,
in some cases, offered as a glossary or ‘‘Do-It-Yourself’’ listing at the end of articles.
For the most part, the depiction of supposedly real stylistic features relied on
a fairly restricted repertoire of hackneyed examples (IMHO, CU, L8R, BRB, LOL,
GR8, ASL), most of which tended to conceal the origins of these linguistic practices
and to conflate different technologies (e.g., instant messaging, text messaging, and
email). In almost every case, CMD linguistic forms were only ever rendered in terms
of abbreviations, acronyms, and emoticons, with little of the scholarly specificity of
letter-number homophones, contractions, or accent stylizations which might otherwise reveal something of their subtlety, technique, and variety (Shortis, 2001; see also
Androutsopoulos, 2000). Altogether, the exemplification of CMD was greatly simplified and caricatured.
What would Socrates think of instant messaging? {39: 57}
And to think this happened in the land of Shakespeare. If the bard were alive
today, he’d probably write, ‘2B or not 2B. . ..’ {40: 48}
The oppositional rhetoric alluded to above is also evidenced by constantly setting
CMD in negative opposition to ‘‘proper’’ language and received, canonical symbols
of acceptability (e.g., the poetry of Shakespeare, in Extract 41, or, in Extract 42, the
novels of Jane Austen). No doubt meant humorously, the intention behind these
parodic exemplifications was always to depict the subversion of standard, educated
language use; by implication CMD is rendered uneducated and therefore unacceptable. That these and many other examples are fabricated exaggerations of real CMD
practice is clearly irrelevant.
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Shall I compare U 2 a 0’s day? U R mo luvlE & mo temperate. Rough winds
do shAk d darling buds of mA, & 0’s lease hz all 2 sht a D8. {41: 53}
It Is A TrOth UniverslE Aknowledgd, Tht a SngI Man In PoSeSn Of A GOd
4tun, Mst B In 1 nt Of A Wit {42: 23}
What of comparable examples of less comment-worthy acronyms such as ASAP,
AKA, BTW, AWOL, SWALK? There is also a lexicon of official acronyms we function
with daily from TV to BBC to CNN and from USA to EU to UN. As the editors of any
dictionary know, there are always precedents for non-standard forms making their
way into standard language use. This is seldom considered in articles about CMD,
which appear more concerned with presenting exaggerated and extreme examples of
instant- and text-messaging styles. Many of these are not only improbable but
counterintuitive, requiring precisely the kind of effort or space that almost always
characterizes the style of online and cell phone discourse (Thurlow, 2001).
Fictionalized Accounts of CMD
In many cases, journalists appeared to have made up their own exaggerated examples
of CMD by ‘‘translating’’ otherwise unlikely phrases into ‘‘textese,’’ often using the
commercially available transl8it.com. While stylistic forms such as the use of capitalization to indicate elongated vowels are promoted in commercial publications
such as the Ltl bk of Txt Msgs, these would again seem counterintuitive for most
texters. Certainly these examples of supposedly typical messages seem highly
improbable, if not completely fabricated:
Mst f d tym dey usd ds knd f lng’ge 2 tlk 2 1 anthr nt 1ly n txt bt evn n wrtng
ltrs 2 {43:9}
lfYaMthWozNEBiGrUWdntHavNEFAcLft2Wsh {44: 23}
The exaggeration of the distinctiveness of CMD is also mirrored by the overstated
lack of mutual intelligibility between CMD and standard English (hence ‘‘hieroglyphics’’ in Extract 2). As such, CMD is represented in a way that may feed existing
adult mythologies about the inscrutability of young people’s communication in general (Thurlow, 2005). By the same token, it seems unlikely that most messagers would
fail to see a qualitative distinction between the widely recognized and increasingly
institutionalized :-) smiley and numerous examples of unfamiliar, semantically
obscure smileys which were depicted throughout (e.g., from three separate articles:
(:-. . ., :-r or :-); for ‘‘a broken heart,’’ ‘‘a raspberry,’’ and ‘‘a dribbling idiot,’’
respectively). In these cases, and in the so called ‘‘glossaries,’’ examples of instantand text-messaging style were usually presented as being of the same order in terms of
prevalence and applicability; at no point did any article in the current corpus allow for
changing fashions, subcultural and age-related variations, or differences in personal
style. Without exception across the corpus as whole, there was no evidence of ethnographic or other empirical validity for exemplifications that appeared to be based
largely on popular and anecdotal hearsay.
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One example of the way in which actual practice may come to be misrepresented
is the purported confusion of LOL. In a February 2001 article for the British Daily
Telegraph, Professor Jean Aitchison (formerly Chair of Language and Communication at Oxford University) is quoted as having commented on the potential for LOL
to be misunderstood as either ‘‘laugh out loud’’ or ‘‘lots of love.’’
‘‘Mostly they are original but sometimes you get a clash of meanings. For
example, take LOL which can mean both Laughing Out Loud and Lots Of
Love. That could lead to some embarrassing misunderstandings.’’ {45: 14}
This same point was then reported in two subsequent articles, first as a general
comment in the Vancouver, WA Columbian (October 2001) and then three years
later in a quoted statement for the British Observer (March 2004). On neither
occasion was the original source attributed.
. . . understanding the messages can sometimes be confusing. For example, LOL
could mean ‘‘laugh out loud’’ to one person and ‘‘lots of love’’ to another. {46: 55}
The problem is when people get so familiar with texting they inflict it on the
innocent public. Then it can lead to a breakdown in communication. For
instance, in text messaging LOL can mean ‘‘lots of love’’ or ‘‘laughing out loud.’’
If, say, you were texting your mother, you can see how things like this can get
out of hand. {47: 20}
By no means an isolated incident in the current corpus, this appears to be a revealing indication of the recycling of news stories and putative ‘‘facts’’ about CMD; as such,
it also exposes the mimetic transmission of unfortunate misunderstandings or unwitting misrepresentations more widely. Certainly, it is hard to imagine most young text
messagers or instant messagers being confused by the meaning of LOL. (My own
students have found the idea risible.) What this story evidently overlooks (or underestimates) is the significance of situated meanings, whereby ambiguity is usually minimized by the context of the sentence and/or conversation itself. By the same token, real
CMD practice recognizes the need for basic intelligibility if communication is to be
meaningful and efficient; many of the more lengthy examples offered would not qualify
in this regard. The LOL story, like most of the exemplifications across the corpus as
a whole, ultimately appeared to misrepresent the lived experience of CMD for young
people (and others) and its relative ‘‘ordinariness’’ (cf. Herring, 2004a) in their lives.
Voices of Moderation? Scholarly Commentary
First of all, e-mail replaces face-to-face communication. . . . because the
Internet creates a virtual community, local ones, which is to say, real ones,
tend to be eclipsed. . . . But humans, like ants and whales, are social creatures,
and eventually must deal with the consequences of contradicting their own
biological nature. {48: 100}
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In his op-ed piece for the Montreal Gazette (Extract 48), Barry Cooper (professor of
Political Science at Calgary University, Canada) offers comments that exemplify
some of the more troubling scholarly opinions and perspectives represented across
the corpus. This sort of commentary was by no means typical, however, and most
academic commentators in fact sought to frame language, language change, and
human communication in a scholarly, measured way. Indeed, the only other uniformly negative commentary came, in Extract 49 below, from Ken Lodge (senior
lecturer in Linguistics and Phonetics at the University of East Anglia, UK), Robert
Beard (professor emeritus of Linguistics at Bucknell University, USA), and Peter
Fernandez (professor of information technology at the Asian Institute of Management, Philippines).
‘‘This is a new kind of slang, a written slang. We’ve never had anything like it
before.’’ {49: 3}
Several other scholars were depicted as evaluating the issues in both negative and
positive terms; namely, Judith Donath (professor at the MIT’s Media Lab, U.S.),
Brad Mudge (professor of English Literature and Popular Culture at the University
of Colorado at Denver, U.S.) and, in Extract 50, Robert Thompson (professor of
Media and Popular Culture at Syracuse University, U.S.).
Texting can be incredibly simple. You can fill your role of returning calls and
keeping in touch with people without any pressure to be creative or witty . . .
We’re talking about language in its most stripped down kind of level. . . . {50: 54}
Beyond these seven academics, the remaining 23 instances of scholarly commentary in the corpus were shown to be more unequivocally positive in their evaluation
of CMD and CMC more generally. These scholars also represented a range of different academic disciplines: Linguistics (U.K.: Jean Aitchison, Ron Carter, David
Crystal, Geoff Hall, Kon Kuiper, Adam Jaworski; U.S.: Robert Beard, Scott Kiesling,
Donna Napoli, Geoffrey Nunberg, Stephan Reder, John McWhorter), English (U.S.:
Leila Christenbury, Brenda Clarke, Kevin Koch, Neil Randall, George Rasmussen;
Philippines: Mildred Rojo-Laurilla), Social Psychology (U.K.: Cynthia McVey; U.S.:
Robert Kraut; N.Z.: Anne Weatherall), Education (U.S.: Erika Karres) and Communication (U.S.: David Silver).4
Voices from Within the Field
With only a handful of exceptions, academic commentators were seldom new media
specialists. This may, in part, explain a tendency for scholarly commentary to contribute to the general underestimation of the nature and subtleties of CMC (e.g., 53).
Just two examples of this tendency are offered by David Crystal (Extract 51) and Brad
Mudge’s (Extract 52) comments which, as they were reported, apparently exaggerate
(‘‘some people spend all their lives’’) and oversimplify (‘‘text messaging is about
creating a practical language for a specific task’’) matters in ways that are more consistent with popular metadiscourses about technology and communication. This
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somewhat reductive accounting of CMD/CMC also occasionally appeared from
within the field of new media studies. In the three different articles in which Naomi
Baron (professor of linguistics at American University, Washington DC) was asked
for comment, she was cited as being surprisingly dismissive (‘‘superficial interaction’’
Extract 53) given her important contributions to new media scholarship (e.g., Baron,
1998, 2000, 2002).
Some people spend all their lives at their computers without socialising
properly. They are in a virtual world where they meet alternative characters.
{51: 24}
The language of text messaging is about creating a practical language for
a specific task—in this case, communicating in a small space of a little plastic
window on a piece of electronic gear. {52: 48}
You’re going from place to place, and instead of looking at people or the
scenery or thinking about where your life is going, you call someone or text
message. . . . [it’s] filling the time gaps with superficial interaction with other
people. {53: 74}
It is, of course, important to acknowledge that scholars and other specialists are
often loosely quoted, quoted out of context, or misquoted by journalists; it is also
possible that these academic commentators may feel compelled to say what they
think journalists want to hear, just as journalists usually orient themselves towards
what they think mainstream audiences will want to hear.
Undermining the Voices of Moderation
With only three notable exceptions (i.e., Veenal Raval’s study at City University
London, U.K., Mildred Rojo-Laurilla’s at De La Salle University in Manila, Philippines, and Bregje de Vries’ at the University of Twente, Netherlands), most of what was
written relied on apparently anecdotal evidence and, occasionally, official reporting
(e.g., the AQA report) rather than empirical research that might more reliably demonstrate and confirm the nature and extent of CMD. For the most part, in spite of their
largely positive commentary, scholarly voices of moderation were inevitably overshadowed by the generally negative tone of articles as a whole.
This happened more abruptly and obviously in some cases than in others. For
example, in one article {79} the following carefully qualified observation is offered
by an applied linguist (Geoff Hall, Swansea University, UK): ‘‘spelling and language are always changing, the way we spell words is not set in stone.’’ Immediately after this comment, however, the journalist concludes with the following
seemingly contradictory statement: ‘‘the changes we see taking place today in the
language will be a prelude to the dying use of good English.’’ This in an article
which, atypically, was headlined English should not fear the rise of text messaging. As Katz & Aakhus (2002) note with regard to mobile telephony, the relative
paucity of ‘‘expert framing’’ of new media issues is rendered all the more noticeable
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683
given the quantity and dominance of ‘‘folk framing,’’ including the framing done by
commercial stakeholders.
Making (Up) the News: Two CMD Case Studies
The kind of discourse-content analysis employed here is useful not only insofar as it
identifies media representations of a particular issue (in this case, young people’s
CMD), but also because it reveals something of the institutional processes by which
news is fabricated (cf. Bell, 1991). For example, a noticeable feature of many articles
in the corpus was the consistent use of unnamed agents, unspecified sources, and
unattributed examples.
Some linguists are hailing it as a new hybrid language. {54: 21}
‘‘It has been an accepted fact that the capability in English communications
of high school or even college students is quite lacking. . . .’’ {55: 9}
In other articles, similar types of passive or deindividualized statements were
made as follows: everywhere we see evidence of linguistic decline {40}, there is
growing concern in some quarters {70}, experts have warned {80}, this makes
some educators and linguistics experts nervous {62}.
In addition to revealing ordinary processes of syndication, another empirical
benefit of reviewing in detail a corpus of over 100 newspaper articles from around
the world has been the opportunity to identify other somewhat more problematic
processes of ‘‘informal syndication’’ and story telling. These processes in turn expose
the privileging of certain, usually negative, representations of CMD. The current
corpus contained two particularly striking cases of questionable, recycled news making.6 These case studies also serve to demonstrate how the primary metadiscursive
themes are invariably combined.
Case 1—The National Examiners’ Report
On November 7, 2004, the British Daily Telegraph carried an article under the
headline ‘‘Pupils Resort to Text Language in GCSE Exams,’’ in which its education
correspondent picked up on a report by one of the U.K.’s major secondary school
examination authorities (Assessment & Qualifications Alliance, AQA). In what
might be regarded either as an overinterpretation or as a gross misrepresentation,
the original article contained statements such as the following:
l
l
l
l
684
examiners have given warning that pupils are using text message language
in CGSEs
this is the first official acknowledgement that mobile phone shorthand is
undermining standard English
English GCSE scripts were peppered with abbreviated words which have
become second nature to many youngsters
the examiners’ report suggests that such abbreviations are becoming the
norm
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l
‘‘It’s quite appalling that school children cannot distinguish between ordinary language and text language.’’ {56: 29}
In point of fact, the 61-page, official examiners’ report (AQA, 2004, p. 15)
contained only a single statement in the middle of an otherwise long section about
general spelling and grammatical issues: ‘‘The usual errors with they’re/their; are/
our; we’re/were; your/you’re were frequent, and texting spellings such as U for ‘you’
are increasingly prevalent.’’7 Feeding directly into, and indeed helping to constitute,
the continual moral panic about falling standards of literacy, this original article was
subsequently picked up in a number of other articles in the current corpus where the
original incident was likewise overstated. For example:
Exam papers are ‘riddled’ with abbreviated words and spellings. Young
people seem to be throwing out the dictionary in favour of the quick and
easy way of writing. {57: 79}
Examiners have noticed in recent years that the language of text messages
has crept into GCSEs and a report published by the largest exam board in the
country showed papers were riddled with abbreviated words. {58: 50}
Chief examiners’ reports on trends in public examinations have begun to note
instances of texting language in exam scripts. Some cases—including a 13-yearold Scottish pupil who wrote an entire description of her summer holidays in
text-speak—have provoked concern among some teachers. {59: 70}
In Extract 59 above, the journalist mistakenly conflates the GCSE-examiners
story with a completely separate incident in which a Scottish schoolgirl reportedly
submitted a classroom essay using text messaging style.
Case 2—The Scottish Girl’s School Essay
On March 3, 2003, the British Daily Telegraph ran a story about an anonymous
Scottish teacher who claimed to have received from a 13-year-old pupil a composition completed entirely in the style of a text message. From the original newspaper
report, the following is reported:
British education experts have warned of the potentially damaging effect on
literacy of cellphone text messaging after a student handed in an essay
written in text shorthand. The 13-year-old girl, a student in a secondary
school in the west of Scotland, explained that she found it ‘‘easier than
standard English.’’ ‘‘I could not believe what I was seeing,’’ said her teacher,
who asked not to be identified. ‘‘The page was riddled with hieroglyphics,
many of which I simply could not translate.’’ {60: 93}
What is noticeable from this extract is how many of the same metadiscursive
tropes arise (e.g., ‘‘damaging effects on literacy,’’ ‘‘riddled,’’ ‘‘hieroglyphics,’’ ‘‘translate’’). What is even more telling, however, is how this particular story appeared also
in nine other articles in the corpus—in places such as The Scotsman, London Times,
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685
and Western Mail (all U.K.), the Ottawa Citizen and Montreal Gazette (Canada),
Reason Magazine (U.S.), the Irish Times (Ireland), Jakarta Post (Indonesia), and
BusinessWorld (Philippines). Reports of the story could also be found in the online
versions of both the BBC and CNN. In fact, a cursory web search at the time of
writing this article also revealed how the same story was featured as the focus of at
least 1,630 different websites. A year and a half after the original Telegraph article,
a British Guardian article, headlined Texting is No Bar to Literacy, included the
longest reported segment of the girl’s original essay (together with a ‘‘translation’’)
under the sub-heading SMS: A Textbook Case.8
My smmr hols wr CWOT. B4, we used 2 go 2 NY 2C my bro, his GF & thr 3:-@
kds FTF. ILNY, its gr8. Bt my Ps wr so {:-/ BC o 9/11 tht thay dcdd 2 stay in
SCO & spnd 2 wks up N. Up N, WUCIWUG – 0. I ws vvv brd in MON. 0 bt
baas & ^^^^^.
My summer holidays were a complete waste of time. Before, we used to go to
New York to see my brother, his girlfriend and their three screaming kids
face to face. I love New York, it’s a great place. But my parents were so
worried because of the terrorism attack on September 11 that they decided
we would stay in Scotland and spend two weeks up north. Up north, what
you see is what you get - nothing. I was extremely bored in the middle of
nowhere. Nothing but sheep and mountains. {61: 70}
Although this was surely an unfortunate misjudgment of register on the part of
the young pupil, what news reports uniformly fail to acknowledge is the undeniable
creativity, wit, and ‘‘new literacy’’ of the girl’s piece. Instead, as with the original
Daily Telegraph article, subsequent articles which ran this story condemned the
incident as an indictment of CMD, tending also to exaggerate and/or extrapolate
from the original news report—shifting, for example, from an isolated, individual
incident to a statement about the ‘‘current generation of teenagers’’ (Extract 62). In
fact, in the case of one article in the Indonesian Jakarta Post (Extract 63), an apparently fabricated excerpt is actually quoted.
This week we learn that the current generation of teenagers is so estranged
from real language that a 13-year-old in the west of Scotland has submitted
an essay to her teacher in text-message shorthand. {62: 38}
A student that was asked to write a short descriptive piece about a recent holiday
included the sentence, ‘‘U can get 2 the hotel straight from the beach,’’ whilst it is
possible to decipher what is meant it really is not appropriate for this kind of coding
to be encroaching in this way. Grammatical and spelling accuracy are things
that are going to be lost if this kind of coding goes on unchecked. {63: 86}
As almost quintessential manifestations of the availability heuristic (see Combs
& Slovic, 1979), these articles and others like them appear to overstate the prevalence
of CMD practices and their impact on standard, formal language use based on what
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is relatively minimal, secondhand but certainly sensational evidence. To suggest,
however adroitly, that this young person’s essay represents a ‘‘textbook case’’ of
CMD is clearly to misconstrue the realities of everyday CMD (cf. Thurlow, 2003).
To suggest that it might also epitomize—and internationally too—the literacy and
‘‘real language’’ of an entire generation is a gross extrapolation from the facts. That
adults get away with misrepresenting young people on such a scale says a great deal
about the relations of power that structure youth (Griffin, 1993; Thurlow, 2005).
General Discussion: Revolution or Evolution?
. . . we need to recognize that both our theories and practices have potential
consequences for the functions that writing and speaking will have in future
decades. These functions aren’t set in stone, but evolve in ways particular to
an entire nexus of social, religious, political, pedagogical, and technological
developments. (Baron, 2000, p. 23; emphasis added)
Few people read the same newspaper more than once; even fewer people regularly
read more than one newspaper. It is really only scholars and media analysts who
make a point of reading and rereading dozens of different papers, perhaps even
hundreds. The privilege of a study such as the one undertaken here, therefore, is
that it offers an otherwise unique opportunity to see how a single issue is reported in
many different papers, from many different locations, and over a substantial period
of time. This in turn puts the researcher in a better position to identify structural
patterns, topical consistencies, and emergent cultural narratives. For a critical
scholar, it also helps to reveal discursive ‘‘regimes of truth’’ (Foucault, 1980, p.
131), those ideological assumptions by which social practices come to be institutionally organized and popularly understood. Indeed, as some scholars note, new
media practices are as much a product of the cultural narratives about them as they
are about the technologies that underpin them (Silver & Garland, 2003; Sterne,
1999). In reviewing mediatized metadiscourse, therefore, the intention is not necessarily to judge the folk-linguistic claims as being necessarily right or wrong even
though this may be evidentially warranted. Instead, it is more informative to use
these public stories about CMD as a way to understand how lay people make sense
(or not) of the role of technology in their lives, and how new technologies come to be
discursively constituted and then implicated in wider social debates.
The Revolutionary Framing of CMD
While some journalists and commentators in the print media corpus analyzed here
appeared more measured, and arguably more accurate, in characterizing the emergence
of CMD as an ‘‘evolutionary’’ development (e.g., the headlines of articles 2, 21 & 30),
the general tendency was for articles to represent CMD in ‘‘revolutionary’’ terms,
whether implicitly (e.g., the exaggeration of linguistic distinction) or explicitly (e.g.,
the excesses of statistical panic). To be fair, it is by no means only lay writers who are
responsible for some of the exaggerated rhetoric about CMD, as evidenced by the
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following comment by renowned linguist David Crystal (2001, pp. 238–239) in his
widely cited book Language and the Internet:
The phenomenon of Netspeak [sic] is going to change the way we think about
language in a fundamental way, because it is a linguistic singularity—a genuine
new medium. . . . Netspeak is something completely new. . . . [It] is
a development of millennial significance. A new medium of linguistic
communication does not arrive very often, in the history of the race.
It would be hard to deny that linguistic and communicative practices are indeed
changing in the face of new communications technologies. It would also be untrue to
suggest that there is nothing new or nothing distinctive about the stylistic practices
of, for example, text messaging and instant messaging. What is less certain, however,
is whether so-called Netspeak does indeed manifest such a decisive or distinctive
‘‘revolutionary’’ break with conventional standards, whether, for example, in the
words of one journalist, suddenly English has become a foreign language {96}.
Although it may not appear or feel like this for lay people, it seems far more likely
from a sociolinguistic and scholarly point of view that language and communication
are changing and evolving as they always have.
As is true of CMC more generally, in spite of Crystal’s (2001) millennial rhetoric
about Netspeak, the fact remains that new linguistic practices seldom emerge in
isolation nor do they neatly replace or break completely with long-standing patterns
of interaction and language use. Furthermore, as Baron (2000) notes in the quote
above, technology is only ever one of many factors involved in language change.
While the new—or at least newer—may feel sudden and unusual to some, this does
not presuppose a drastic overthrow or complete rejection of the old ways, either
empirically or phenomenologically speaking.
The Negative and Oppositional Framing of CMD
What is perhaps most striking about the print media discourse discussed here is its
generally negative and oppositional framing of CMD, by which the emergence of
new media language is viewed as inherently contrary and detrimental to more established modes of language and, by implication, the moral order. In this case, the
specific (and explicit) object of concern is usually a perceived threat to young people’s conventional literacies and/or the status of standard English, even though
young people are apparently often criticized for language practices they might never
actually use. In academic terms, the juxtaposition and de facto evaluation of lay texts
against received literary canons is itself inherently problematic (cf. Lewis & Fabos,
2005). That no lay speakers nowadays actually use the English of Shakespeare is also
a point seemingly overlooked by new media language mavens.
Elsewhere, adult journalists and other commentators present a more diffused
sense of anxiety and negativity. Even a cursory review of the corpus headlines reveals
this slant in terms of the general content, style, and tone of articles (see Appendix).
As the one especially pessimistic Montreal Gazette op-ed piece put it, What price
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technology? {100; see also Extract 48}, the underlying assumption being that a cultural as well as financial price must inevitably be paid for the use of new communication technologies. In short, technology is consistently framed by the print media
as subtracting and diminishing rather than adding and enhancing. Voices of enthusiasm from lay and scholarly commentators and even the celebratory claims of big
business are ultimately framed by the pervasive narratives of literacy decline and
social disorder; in theoretical terms, these function as the complicating actions
(Labov, 1972/1999) in many of the articles in the current corpus. In other words,
it is these negative issues that apparently motivate most media interest in CMD. This
is consistent with news reporters’ well-established predilection for negativity regardless of the specific topic under discussion (MacGregor, 2002).9
The Disembedding of CMD
It seems from the current survey that media reports about CMD are seldom about
CMD per se. Rather, CMD offers itself as the focal point—an idée fixe—for a range of
public discourses about other issues, most notably here technology, language, and
literacy. In fact, it appears that language and technology are (once again) not only
being poorly represented, but also scapegoated for a range of adult anxieties about
newness, change, and perceived threats to the status quo. In the process, the
caricaturing of instant messaging invariably overstates the difference between online
and offline communication, while the fetishization of texting unfairly underestimates
the pragmatic subtlety and stylistic diversity of actual practice. Ultimately what this
type of misrepresentation does is belie the embeddedness (Howard, 2003) of these
technologies in the lives of so many users, especially younger people (cf. McKay,
Thurlow, & Toomey Zimmerman, 2005). As a general feature of the print media
discourse reviewed here, the exaggeration of the distinctiveness of new media language also functions powerfully to ‘‘other’’ young people by simultaneously exaggerating their differentness; this, in turn, serves to discipline youth and to elevate
adulthood (Thurlow, in press).
That mediatized discourse is often anecdotal or empirically unfounded should not
be surprising; the procedures and purposes of journalistic writing are understandably
different from those of academic writing. Nonetheless, the print media arguably fulfills
a more powerful gatekeeping role in shaping public discourse and popular understanding. Newspapers are more typical points of reference and sources of information
for lay people than are academic journals. Therefore, just as Baron (2000, quote above)
exhorts scholars to reflect on the power of their language theories and practices, the
nature of journalistic and other influential lay theorizing about language should not be
overlooked or underestimated, particularly insofar as it consistently misrepresents the
multiplicity of factors shaping language and the evolutionary nature of language
change. With reference to Preston’s (1996) objects of folk-linguistic analysis, there
appears to be no shortage of information available in the media about CMD; on the
contrary, the interplay of language and new technology offers itself as an obviously
entertaining and cathartic vehicle for adult commentators.
Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 11 (2006) 667–701 ª 2006 International Communication Association
689
What is less certain is the degree of accuracy and the specificity of detail offered in
media representations of CMD. For this reason, if for no other, future research
should pay greater attention to the linguistic and orthographic dimensions of
CMC and undertake more situated analyses of actual CMD practice. This might also
be done with larger surveys of diverse populations as a means of assessing the validity
of claims made in the media, especially as they concern the nature of CMD. It
follows, however, that any scholarly research also needs to be accompanied by a more
concerted effort to publicize its findings, if rigorous, empirical perspectives are more
effectively to challenge the persistent attitude of concern and negativity surrounding
the impact of new media on language and social life.
Acknowledgments
I am very grateful to Mary Beth Kaiser and Hazel Lin for their help with collecting
and compiling the corpus analyzed here. I am also grateful to the special collaboration of Katrina Barnes and the rest of my COM 482 Computer Mediated Interpersonal
Communication class at the University of Washington who, in the Fall quarter of
2005, worked with me in content analyzing some parts of the corpus used in this
paper. Last, thanks also go to my colleague Phil Howard for his useful, supportive
comments on an earlier version of this paper.
Notes
1
2
3
4
5
6
690
In an article in the journal New Media & Society, Herring (2004a) observes that, given
increasing digitization and media convergence, the purview of CMC (as both a label
and as field of scholarly research activity) can no longer sensibly be limited to discussions of the Internet and the Web. Consistent with this view, CMD is used here as an
umbrella term for any situated language practice mediated by a newer or emergent
communication technology (see Herring, 2001, 2004b, and Schiffrin, 1994, for more on
‘‘discourse’’ and ‘‘computer-mediated discourse’’).
The articles in the dataset were distributed as follows: 18 from 2001, 10 from 2002, 24
from 2003, 30 from 2004, and 6 from 2005. An additional 13 articles collected previously (from 1999 and 2000) were also included.
To avoid the evaluative, sociopolitical connotations of labels like ‘‘language,’’ ‘‘slang,’’
‘‘dialect,’’ and so on, sociolinguists usually talk about ‘‘varieties’’ of language in order to
respect the linguistic equivalence of different ways of speaking.
Working in the area of new technology, communication, and adolescence, I have myself
been approached for comment on a number of occasions. Although in one article in the
current corpus reference is made to my work (by a colleague elsewhere), I have avoided
using articles where I am commenting.
Subtitle: ‘‘rolling on the floor laughing my ass off;’’ Extract 38: ‘‘God save our gracious
Queen. God save our noble Queen. God save the Queen’’ (British national anthem);
Extract 44: ‘‘If your mouth was any bigger you wouldn’t have any face left to wash.’’
A more recent example of the mediatized gossip mongering regarding CMC arose in
April 2005 following the posting of a Hewlett Packard press release, extracted here:
Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 11 (2006) 667–701 ª 2006 International Communication Association
Abuse of technology can reduce U.K. workers’ intelligence
The abuse of ‘‘always-on’’ technology has led to a nationwide state of ‘‘Info-Mania’’
where U.K. workers are literally addicted to checking email and text messages during
meetings, in the evening and at weekends. . . . In a series of tests carried out by Dr Glenn
Wilson, Reader in Personality at the Institute of Psychiatry, University of London, an
average worker’s functioning IQ falls ten points when distracted by ringing telephones
and incoming emails. This drop in IQ is more than double the four point drop seen
following studies on the impact of smoking marijuana.
Within a matter of hours and days this already overstated, scientifically questionable press release was picked up by news organizations around the world as evidenced
by the following sample of headlines that somewhat predictably sensationalize the IQ
or drug links. A notable feature of these headlines is also their stylized (mis)quoting
of the original source.
l
l
l
l
l
l
l
l
l
l
7
8
9
‘‘Infomania’’ worse than marijuana (BBC News, 22 April)
Emails ‘‘pose threat to IQ’’ (The Guardian, 22 April)
E-mails ‘‘hurt IQ more than pot’’ (CNN, 22 April)
Txt and email ‘‘reduce IQ more than cannabis’’ (Daily Mail, 22 April)
Email destroys the mind faster than marijuana (The Register, 22 April)
Info-mania dents IQ more than marijuana (New Scientist, 22 April)
Low IQ 2day, m8? It’s the technology, stupid (The Australian, 23 April)
E-mails a big threat to IQ! (Rediff, 23 April)
You have mail—and it’s making you stupid (South China Morning Post, 24 April)
Stoned on E-mail (Information Week, 4 May)
A great deal was made of a similar report from the Scottish Qualifications Authority which
apparently stated that ‘‘text messaging language was used inappropriately’’ in students’
exams; for one article at least this became evidence of just how illiterate Scotland has
become {40}. Yet another incident arose in Australia where the cancellation of Ozspell (the
national spelling bee) was attributed, at least in part, by one journalist to the slow death of
language signaled by the rise of modern communication or CMD {34}.
This Guardian newspaper article was one of only three in the corpus that reported the
findings of modest, but nonetheless empirical, studies where scholars in the U.K. {70},
the Netherlands {56}, and the Philippines {46} have disputed the causal linking of poor
academic literacies and CMD (i.e., De Vries & Van Der Meij, 2003; Raval, 2002; RojoLaurilla, 2005).
The same metadiscourse is also to be found in the broadcast media. A recent broadcast
of NBC’s Today program, for example, featured a special item from journalist Katie
Couric about young people’s CMD. A recording of this 6-minute item may be
downloaded from my Web site (WMV file 70.6MB) at http://faculty.washington.edu/
thurlow/materials/today-clip.wmv.
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Appendix
Complete listing of news articles constituting the full corpus. (Article numbers
correspond to extracts used in the article.)
ARTICLE
WITH DATE OF PUBLICATION, TITLE OF ARTICLE, NAME OF NEWSPAPER, AND DATE OF RETRIEVAL
FROM SPECIFIED DATABASE
1. 2001, January 22. Phone txt chat ‘‘harms literary.’’ The Guardian, p. 7. Retrieved May 28,
2005, from ProQuest database.
2. 2002, December 12. ‘r u online?’ The evolving lexicon of wired teens. Christian Science
Monitor, p. 01. Retrieved May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
3. 2002, December 15. Instant messaging gives teen slang whole new look:-); net lingo
normal for wired set, but beware the grammar ,:-(Chicago Sun, p. 40. Retrieved
May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
4. 2004, October 25. Teachers of the grunt generation get new tips on running a grammar
school. The Times, p. 3. Retrieved January 19, 2005, from LexisNexis database.
5. 2004, December 29. Teens depend on messaging as adults debate toll on language.
The Patriot, p. A.01. Retrieved May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
6. 2004, May 15. Text appeal. The Dominion Post, p. 5. Retrieved January 14, 2005, from
LexisNexis database.
7. 2004, March 11. Street slang makes youths ‘‘unemployable.’’ The Daily Telegraph, p. 04.
Retrieved January 14, 2005, from LexisNexis database.
8. 1999, March 9. See you Jimmy, urar (see below for translation. The Scotsman, p. 3.
Retrieved May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
9. 2000, December 28. Text messaging cr8ts a hul nu cltur: Is that gud or bad?
BusinessWorld, p. 1. Retrieved May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
10. 2000, September 2. Children’s love 4 e-mail is threat 2 English. The Times, p. 1.
Retrieved May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
(continued)
Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 11 (2006) 667–701 ª 2006 International Communication Association
695
Appendix continued
ARTICLE
WITH DATE OF PUBLICATION, TITLE OF ARTICLE, NAME OF NEWSPAPER, AND DATE OF RETRIEVAL
FROM SPECIFIED DATABASE
11. 2000, September 2. Teens’ love for e-mail ‘ruining’ their grammar. The Vancouver Sun,
p. A.14. Retrieved May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
12. 2004, March 9. SMS creating a virtual new written language. New Straits TimesManagement Times. Retrieved January 14, 2005, from LexisNexis database.
13. 2004, April 28. English no problem for cellphone texters. The Press, p. 8. Retrieved
January 14, 2005, from LexisNexis database.
14. 2003, August 19. Phone for teens more than just for making calls. The Standard, p. B5.
Retrieved January 14, 2005, from LexisNexis database.
15. 2001, February 1. Virtually flirting with love’s new language text messaging on mobile
phones is creating a new language as users ignore traditional spelling and grammar.
David Cohen charts the rise of the SMS culture and asks: ‘1 dA wil Nglsh B ritN
llk this?’ The Daily Telegraph, p. 06. Retrieved May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
16. 2001, July 8. Mind your language. Sunday Times, p. Doors.2. Retrieved May 28, 2005,
from ProQuest database.
17. 2001, March 24. If u cn rd ths, u mst b gr8 at txt spk, u gk u! Jk:-. Daily Herald, p. 11.
Retrieved May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
18. 2005, February 19. Welsh expert says texting is best development since printing press.
Western Mail, p. 13. Retrieved May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
19. 2001, February 19. Perspective: Mind your language the news that teenagers could be
given free mobile phones on condition they send text messages to each other in a
bid to raise standards of literacy is viewed with horror by Ros Dodd while welcomed
by Lisa Piddington. Birmingham Post, p. 11. Retrieved May 28, 2005, from
ProQuest database.
20. 2004, March 7. British gas converts its workers to the joys of text. The Observer, p. 9.
Retrieved January 17, 2005, from LexisNexis database.
21. 2003, April 12. Call them ‘generation text’ teens’ instant-messaging lingo is evolving
into a hybrid language. The Seattle Times, p. E1. Retrieved January 17, 2005, from
LexisNexis database.
22. 2004, December 29. A language all its own. Cox New Service. Retrieved January 17, 2005,
from LexisNexis database.
23. 2001, May 4. Text messaging breeds new dialect — the queen’s English meets the
cellphone. Asian Wall Street Journal, p. N.1. Retrieved May 28, 2005, from ProQuest
database.
24. 2001, September 26. Blatherers—do they talk webbish at the expense of welsh? e-mail,
text messaging and the Internet is changing language at an unprecedented rate but
what effect will it have on welsh? Daily Post, p. 9. Retrieved May 28, 2005, from:
ProQuest database. Retrieved January 17, 2005 from LexisNexis database.
25. 2003, June. Text talk. (Reason, 352), 12. Retrieved May 28, 2005, from ProQuest
database.
(continued)
696
Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 11 (2006) 667–701 ª 2006 International Communication Association
Appendix continued
ARTICLE
WITH DATE OF PUBLICATION, TITLE OF ARTICLE, NAME OF NEWSPAPER, AND DATE OF RETRIEVAL
FROM SPECIFIED DATABASE
26. 2000, December 26. *Private message: Fancy going clubbing tonight? The Sun, p. 8.
Retrieved May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
27. 2003, October 27. The age of reason. Mediaweek, 13(39), 22. Retrieved May 28, 2005,
from ProQuest database.
28. 2002, April 15. Wsp! Werv u bin?* what’s up! Where’ve you been? In cellphone e-mails,
a new, truncated language blooms. The Atlanta Journal - Constitution, p. C.1.
Retrieved May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
29. 2004, July 11. Pupils resort to text language in GCSE exams. The Sunday Telegraph,
p. 12. Retrieved May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
30. 2004, May 9. English should survive text message shortcuts; teacher calls them a part
of the evolution of the language. Telegraph - Herald, p. B.10. Retrieved May 28, 2005,
from ProQuest database.
31. 2000, August 27. Hell is other people talking webspeak on mobile phones. Sunday
Times, p. 17. Retrieved May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
32. 2003, March 5. Concern at level of text spelling in school. Irish Times, p. 3. Retrieved
May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
33. 2003, June 12. S:w IM? (We can translate.) The Tampa Tribune. p. 3. Retrieved
January 17, 2005, from LexisNexis database.
34. 2004, November 10. Literary lapse a reflection of classroom attitudes. The Advertiser,
p. 18. Retrieved January 17, 2005, from LexisNexis database.
35. 2002, August 25. 4Get spllg & strt MSGing!; The language of expedience spread from
the Internet to the cellphone. The Record, p. F.01. Retrieved May 28, 2005, from
ProQuest database.
36. 2003, June 12. Teens create new language: Abrve8ted text messaging. The Oregonian,
p. 01. Retrieved January 17, 2005, from LexisNexis database.
37. 2002, September 19. I think, therefore IM. New York Times, p. G.1. Retrieved
May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
38. 2002, November 11. Can u txt? John Sutherland asks what texting is doing to the
English language—and finds it all a bit:-(. The Guardian Newspaper.
Retrieved May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
39. 2000, May 24. On the Internet, the spelling is a disaster. The Washington Post, p. C15
Retrieved May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
40. 2003. March 4. The writing on the wall? The Scotsman, p. 2. Retrieved January 17, 2005,
from LexisNexis database.
41. 2003, March 6. A langwidge going from bad 2 worse. Daily Mail, p. 15. Retrieved
May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
42. 2001, Jan 17. Office style: Want 2 chat? R u sitting comfortably? Cathy Mayer takes a
look at the revolution that is text messaging and why it is such a growing trend.
Birmingham Post, p. 18. Retrieved May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
(continued)
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Appendix continued
ARTICLE
WITH DATE OF PUBLICATION, TITLE OF ARTICLE, NAME OF NEWSPAPER, AND DATE OF RETRIEVAL
FROM SPECIFIED DATABASE
43. 2003, March 19. Over to you: Is text messaging threatening literacy? Irish Times, p.15.
Retrieved January 17, 2005, from LexisNexis database.
44. 2004, July 5. Generation text; they wl lam a3 n bbl*. The Patriot, p.D.01. Retrieved
May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
45. 2003, June 26. Collins has an aha moment with weblish. The Guardian, p. 6.
Retrieved May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
46. 2001, May 22. E-business: How text messages destroy language. Birmingham Post, p. 23.
Retrieved May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
47. 2003 May 19. Study shows texting can’t hurt grammar. Philippine Daily Inquirer.
Retrieved January 17, 2005, from LexisNexis database.
48. 2004 May 24. SMSes on idol send wrong message. The Straits Times. Retrieved
January 17, 2005, from LexisNexis database.
49. Porter, W. 2002, July 18. R u cyber-fluent? Here’s a short course. Denver Post, p. 10.
Retrieved May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
50. 2003, March 8. Tchrs tell y thy h8 cellph txt sas. The Dominion Post, p. 10.
Retrieved January 17, 2005, from LexisNexis database.
51. 2004, November 30. Texting shortcuts worry examiners. Western Mail, p. 15.
Retrieved May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
52. 2003, December 26. Teens get text heavy on phones; educators not pleased about class
distraction. The Daily News of Los Angeles, p. SC1. Retrieved January 17, 2005, from
LexisNexis database.
53. 1999, December 14. An instant language packed with meaning; online chatters invent
shorthand. The Washington Post, p. A.01. Retrieved May 28, 2005, from ProQuest
database.
54. 1999, December 17. Net spawns a new teen lingo: Noticed some odd spelling when
looking over your kids’ shoulders they’re on line? Here’s why. The Vancouver Sun,
p. E.7FRO. Retrieved May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
55. 2001, October 29. Tech-savvy people have developed a truncated language to get the
electronic message across. Columbian, p. D.1. Retrieved May 28, 2005, from
ProQuest database.
56. 2004, September 30. Of smileys and emoticons. New Straits Times, p. 08.
Retrieved May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
57. 2005, January 4. E-mailing may be sloppy but it’s educational. National Post, p. A4.
Retrieved May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
58. 2002, December 25. Instant gratification: Influence of text messaging spreads beyond the
net. Times Picayune, p. 03. Retrieved May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
59. 2002, February 11. Afaik ihtfp; and if you don’t know what it all means you need the
new txt dictionary. The Mirror, p. 15. Retrieved May 28, 2005, from ProQuest
database.
(continued)
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Appendix continued
ARTICLE
WITH DATE OF PUBLICATION, TITLE OF ARTICLE, NAME OF NEWSPAPER, AND DATE OF RETRIEVAL
FROM SPECIFIED DATABASE
60. 2004, March 24. Msg for prince: Im is cwot: Pop performer’s communication shortcuts
are corrupting teenagers’ language skills. The Gazette, p. D4.
Retrieved January 17, 2005, from LexisNexis database.
61. 2003, August 5. Globespeak could kill off ‘‘hello.’’ The Herald, p. 4. Retrieved
May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
62. 2003, February. Online lingo for dummies. Today’s Parent, 20(1), p. n/a. Retrieved
May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
63. 2003, September 5. Text message shorthand gets loose; -) see u l8r allig8or. Palm Beach
Post, p. 5.E. Retrieved May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
64. 2004, February 6. RU N2IT? The Post-Dispatch, p. C1. Retrieved January 17, 2005, from
LexisNexis database.
65. 2000, November 22. ‘Fanc gon clubn 2nite?’ baffled by all those shorthand text messages
you receive? A new dictionary can help you gal. The Independent, p. 7. Retrieved
May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
66. 2001, July 23. Pick up that cellphone and . . . write? The Record, p.L05. Retrieved May 28,
2005, from ProQuest database.
67. 1999, February 7. Cracking the code of teenspeak. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, p.1.
Retrieved May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
68. 1999, February 24. Hip-hop Internet build vocabulary of slang. The Plain Dealer, p.1.G.
Retrieved May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
69. 2003, February 14. Bad language? linguists sound off in an age of text message
abbreviations. The Grand Rapids Press, p. A.7. Retrieved May 28, 2005, from
ProQuest database. Retrieved January 17, 2005, from LexisNexis database.
70. 2003, February 23. Linguists worry about text messaging’s effects; 1 billion monthly:
Experts worry that the continual use of abbreviations will impact how we talk and
write sooner or later. Telegraph - Herald, p. D.10. Retrieved May 28, 2005, from
ProQuest database.
71. 2004, December 23. Texting ‘is not bar to literacy.’ The Guardian, p. 12. Retrieved
January 17, 2005, from LexisNexis database.
72. 2004, May 22. In touch with txting. The Press, p. 4. Retrieved January 17, 2005, from
LexisNexis database.
73. 2001, July 17. E-business: Tech talk, tech talk, clock is running on web jargon.
Birmingham Post, P .24. Retrieved May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
74. 2002, August 17. New exam lexicon not textbook. The Guardian, p. 6. Retrieved
May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
75. 2004, December 9. A modern-day linguist, and a global aid expert. The Washington
Post/washingtonpost.com., p. T13. Retrieved January 17, 2005, from LexisNexis
database.
(continued)
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Appendix continued
ARTICLE
WITH DATE OF PUBLICATION, TITLE OF ARTICLE, NAME OF NEWSPAPER, AND DATE OF RETRIEVAL
FROM SPECIFIED DATABASE
76. 2004, August 7. A few words of advice; watch your language. South China Morning Post.
Retrieved May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
77. 2004, September 9. Among text messengers, new ‘‘slanguage’’ crops up, and not just
with teens. Business Wire. Retrieved January 17, 2005, from LexisNexis database.
78. 2001, January 21. Briefcase: Trading floor: Sell. The Observer, p. 2. Retrieved
May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
79. 2001, April 24. Cul8r m8 -that’s mobile talk for: See you later, mate. The Sun, p. 3.
Retrieved May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
80. 2004, November 30. English should not fear rise of text messaging. Western Mail, p. 18.
Retrieved May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
81. 2003, March 4. Girl uses cellphone ‘‘ hieroglyphics’’ to write essay: use of text messaging
relies educators. The Ottawa Citizen, p. A10. Retrieved May 28, 2005, from ProQuest
database.
82. 2003, June 21. I txt there4 I am. The Times, p. 30. Retrieved January 17, 2005, from
LexisNexis database.
83. 2004, July 27. In the professional press. The Times, public agenda 5. Retrieved
January 17, 2005, from LexisNexis database.
84. 2004, November 24. Its a skill thats fast-disappearing. The Nelson Mail, p. 31. Retrieved
May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
85. 2000, September 2. Letters r histry thnx to e-mail, teachers fear. The Ottawa Citizen,
p. F.8. Retrieved May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
86. 2003, April 9. Over to you: In deference of text messaging. Irish Times, P. 15. Retrieved
May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
87. 2004, September 4. Real reading and writing skills are much needed by our children.
Jakarta Post, p. 6. Retrieved May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
88. 2003, August 5. Say yo wave laters. Evening Mail, p. 4. Retrieved May 28, 2005, from
ProQuest database.
89. 2003, April 28. Staying home. MX, p. 18. Retrieved January 17, 2005, from LexisNexis
database.
90. 2005, January 20. Survey shows frequent use of SMS abbreviations affects written
language. Channel NewsAsia. Retrieved January 17, 2005, from LexisNexis database.
91. 2004, Septermber 7. Tchaz h8 txt msgn; translation: Teachers hate text messaging as
do lovers of the English language. York Daily Record, p. 1. Retrieved May 28, 2005,
from ProQuest database.
92. 2001, July 27.Three sixty: Hot sync: Oed) 4 sms. What the *#?. Asiaweek, p. 1. Retrieved
May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
93. 2001, August 15. Text messaging and language. Irish Times, p. 15. Retrieved
May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
(continued)
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Appendix continued
ARTICLE
WITH DATE OF PUBLICATION, TITLE OF ARTICLE, NAME OF NEWSPAPER, AND DATE OF RETRIEVAL
FROM SPECIFIED DATABASE
94. 2003, March 03. Girl writes English essay in phone text shorthand. Daily Telegraph,
p. 05. Retrieved January 17, 2005, from LexisNexis database.
95. 2001, October 20. Text is the new haiku, says poetry editor; CHELTENHAM: Festival
workshop finds literary merit in message shortcuts. Western Mail, p. 8. Retrieved
May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
96. Texting shortcuts worry examiners. 2004, November 30. Western Mail, p. 15 Retrieved
May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
97. 2005, May 7. TIFM, parent will need to learn this sub-language. Daily News, p. 8.
Retrieved May 28, 2005, from ProQuest database.
98. 2004, July 10. Text talk and English. Waikato Times, p .A12. Retrieved May 28, 2005,
from ProQuest database.
99. 2005, January 22. Y talk? Just txt. Geelong Advertiser, p. 25. Retrieved January 17, 2005,
from LexisNexis database.
100.2005, May 9. What price technology? Montreal Gazette, p. A.23. Retrieved May 25, 2005,
from ProQuest database.
101.2001, November 3. The decline and fall of spellin’ & writin’. Vancouver Sun, p. 18.
Retrieved May 25, 2005, from ProQuest database.
About the Author
Crispin Thurlow is Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and
the Department of Linguistics (adjunct) at the University of Washington. Framed as
‘Discourse and Difference,’ his research examines the way language and other semiotic modes are used to negotiate boundaries of inequality in everyday interaction. He
is particularly interested in sites of difference less commonly investigated in mainstream communication scholarship such as adolescence and young people and tourism and global mobility.
Address: Department of Communication, University of Washington, Box 353740,
Seattle, WA 98195, U.S.
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