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March 26, 2016
Rhetorical Analysis by Cate Tauriello
In the Author’s Words
Lynne Truss is an English writer and journalist who loves to text. Truss expresses her love for texting
in her article, “The Joy of Texting,” outlining how her day essentially revolves around such events that she
gets to tap out personalized messages to friends and family, the importance of how texting etiquette does not
reflect the same in etiquette in, for example, a formal email, and “the trickiest issue” of whether or not to read
texts in the presence of others. The article is mostly short anecdotes followed by short after-thoughts and
rhetorical questions about her action of texting. She first addresses her internal battle every time her text
reaches a new length, she wants to “see if I can finish (for once) without getting to ‘SMS 5.’” She discusses in
depth the way she types, “my secret delight is to shorten no words, use no smiley faces, eschew predictive text,
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and employ no handy abbreviations except for ‘LOL.’” However, there is a clear generational barrier upon
mentioning her use of “LOL” to mean the less popular “lots of love” instead of “laugh out loud.” Truss makes
comparisons to films like Atonement to talk about the error that can be made when sending the wrong message.
The reference is made with the assumption that the reader has seen the film, given the small joke in parentheses,
“(Robbie had meant it save it in “Drafts”!).” Truss’s attempt to talk about negative aspects of texting is stumped
by her own conclusion, “Texting is a fundamentally sneaky form of communication, which we should despise,
but it is such a boon we don’t care.”
The Purpose
The main purpose of this article is to encourage a reader to think deeper about his/her texting habits
between family members, coworkers, and acquaintances. It is not to concern him with the negative aspects of
texting or persuade him to cease texting entirely, but to inform him of the risks taken when texting. The
motivation for such an article is clear: texting is currently one of the most prevalent forms of communication
with ages young and old, and the article is the perfect way to include different groups of people on the
conversation about texting. Truss mentions that “we are in love with effective communication, and there’s
nothing more effective than sending a message direct from your phone to someone else’s,” to explain that
successfully texting someone is what some people thrive off of to make themselves happier.
Where She Stands
Truss adores texting, it is clear from the description in the first sentence, “As someone who sends text
messages more or less non-stop” and as she types out a text to a friend, “I texted back, happily” that Truss
enjoys texting despite the negative things she has to say about it. She acknowledges the damaging aspects of
texting, the informal etiquette of sending or receiving a text “with the news that another friend had committed
suicide. This is not the right sort of information to convey by text.” The article is largely a battle that Truss has
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with herself, unsure of whether to love texting as a whole or to see its flaws and focus solely on those flaws as
reasons not to text. But this thought of a retreat from texting is pointless for her, as Truss has her own “favourite
text – which I lovingly preserve.”
Who Truss is Speaking To
While texting is a mostly well-known form
of communication in many countries, the
article seems to be directed at an older
crowd. Her use of “LOL” in the context of
“lots of love” is outdated and unpopular, as
a majority of people use the acronym to
symbolize “laugh out loud.” Truss’s
attempt to connect to a younger crowd is
apparent, the subject of the article being a
topic that many younger people would
appreciate and relate to because it is a
popular topic among younger readers. Her references to books like Atonement and Tess of the d’Urbervilles
are specific in that a reader may not have been mature enough yet to read either novel. Truss’s confession of
excusing herself in the company of other to reply to a text “feverishly… which seems less socially offensive,
even if I’m gone for at least 20 minutes (what with all the spelling out of long words, punctuating and so on)”
is another part of the article that proves that she is not fond of shortening words or eliminating unnecessary
punctuation to send out a message quicker. Had a younger reader observed this, he/she may not have been very
attracted to the rest of the article if he had not already stopped earlier in the article when Truss mentions “I err
on the side of overdoing it.” Most younger people who text cannot relate to this communication method
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because most are more concerned with getting a message out quickly and effectively without using longer
phrases.
Her Appeal
Truss pays attention throughout the article to the ethics of texting, often discussing the etiquette. Her
background consists of mainly writing achievements like writing novels and books on grammar and
punctuation and writing comic radio dramas which explains her want to pay close attention to grammar even
in a text. Her obsession with making sure she uses the correct punctuation when writing to a friend is evident
when she mentions a short conversation between her and a friend about her use of an apostrophe, jokingly
texting back to him, “Oh, I felt the apostrophe was required.” Truss takes a generally bland and uninteresting
topic, texting, and starts to strip it to discuss why each piece is necessary to the texting process. She invokes a
reader’s curiosity as to why texting is actually a more complicated process than sending a simple message. A
reader’s awareness of his/her own surroundings in significantly increased upon Truss’s mention of reading
texts with others around, “Asking permission from fellow diners to read messages seems fairly acceptable
(“Ooh, can I just see who this is from?”), but nodding and sniggering at the content, without sharing it, is not.”
Her Genre
The author of the article writes the piece as if it is an open letter without addressing anyone specific
except herself. However, the article is an essay that addresses different obstacles to texting. She opens her
article by talking about herself first “as someone who sends text messages more or less non-stop” to give the
reader a sense of who she is and how he/she can relate to Truss. She makes the article conversational and
personal as she describes small conversations about her text messages with friends. The article would have
had a different tone had she written it in a different form like a Facebook post. A different form of delivering
her words, such as a Facebook post, would have given readers the chance to respond to her opinion.
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In the Context of…
Truss writes this article with her audience at the center of her attention. She is attentive to the way she
explains her texting habits and etiquette. The article seems to be informal as she uses contractions, but she also
uses a sophisticated diction with words like “laboriously,” “pedants,” and “daft.” The context of the article is
speaking to no specific point in time, but rather any point in time in the future where a person will be texting
regardless of who, what, or where.
Final
Thoughts
The article brings to light
many
different
issues
concerning text messages.
Truss encourages the reader
to think critically about the
simple task with “The Joy of
Texting.” She mentions the
negative connotations when
one answers a text in the
company of others and offers
solutions so that it does not
seem as rude when one excuses oneself to answer the text message. It is the way that she approaches her
audience that allows her to present new issues with a popular and relatable subject.
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Works Cited
Truss, Lynne. “The Joy of Texting.” Everyone’s an Author with Readings. Ed. Marilyn Moller. New York:
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2013. 939-941. Print.
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