Texting, the often concise and linguistically playful language sent via cell phones and other mobile devices that use short message service (SMS), has been the subject of numerous doomsday assertions regarding youth literacy development and the future of language. Txtng: The gr8 db8 is David Crystal’s response to such concerns, in a format targeting a lay audience. In this brief eight-chapter book, he introduces readers to popular beliefs regarding texting’s impact on language, compares the linguistic features of texting to other forms of abbreviated language, explores the nature and function of texting, and outlines what research has shown so far regarding the relationship between texting and language use and development.
The first and eighth chapters are dedicated to the public controversy surrounding texting and language. Chapter 1 outlines the global history and growth of text messaging and introduces popular beliefs and concerns regarding the impact of texting on language that have made their way into popular discourse as a result. Here Crystal alludes to an additive role for texting, a position he elaborates in chapter 8 alongside a critique of media misrepresentation and over- inflated reports of text language use by students. Although admitting that research on the impact of texting on other aspects of language development, such as discourse skills, is too limited to suggest a clear trend, Crystal maintains that texting is in fact another language variety that fosters linguistic creativity and adaptability in the face of the demands and limitations of new technologies.
The middle six chapters are peppered with texting examples from English and several European and East Asian languages to explore its nature and function. In chapter 2 Crystal describes the orthographic diversity of texting and argues that the perception many share regarding the deviance of texting stems from a tendency to focus on special symbols and distinct spellings to the exclusion of other, more standardized elements. Chapter 3 identifies six distinctive features of texting: logographs, rebus writing, initialisms, omitted letters, and nonstandard spellings. However, examples drawn from non-texting environments are used to demonstrate that many of the conventions commonly associated with the abbreviated language of texting are not in fact linguistically novel. Chapter 4 explores the technical limitations of mobile devices that foster such brevity of language, as well as the creative and playful nature of texting language that has emerged as a result. Chapter 5 looks at characteristics of those who use texting and touches upon research that highlights differences across age groups and gender, while chapter 6 describes common social (e.g. humor, wordplay) and informational (e.g. meet-up arrangements, checking in, alerts) functions of texting. Finally, chapter 7 details texting characteristics and trends in languages other than English, including character-based languages, agglutinative languages, and languages that utilize diacritics. Overall, Txtng: The gr8 db8 is a quick and somewhat humorous overview of texting trends and research on texting generated over the past ten years, packaged in language accessible to the non-linguist.
