Txtng: The Gr8 Db8 is a book written by linguist David Crystal

David Crystal

David Crystal OBE FLSW FBA is a linguist, academic and author.-Background and career:Crystal was born in Lisburn, Northern Ireland. He grew up in Holyhead, North Wales, and Liverpool, England where he attended St Mary's College from 1951....

.

The title is a logogram

Logogram

A logogram, or logograph, is a grapheme which represents a word or a morpheme . This stands in contrast to phonograms, which represent phonemes or combinations of phonemes, and determinatives, which mark semantic categories.Logograms are often commonly known also as "ideograms"...

 which stands for Texting: The Great Debate. In his book, Crystal examines the use of text messaging

Text messaging

Text messaging, or texting, refers to the exchange of brief written text messages between fixed-line phone or mobile phone and fixed or portable devices over a network...

 and its effect on language and literacy

Literacy

Literacy has traditionally been described as the ability to read for knowledge, write coherently and think critically about printed material.Literacy represents the lifelong, intellectual process of gaining meaning from print...

. Based on research and experimental results, he disagrees with the popular view that the use of abbreviations and slang, such as those in SMS language

SMS language

SMS language or textese is a term for the abbreviations and slang most commonly used due to the necessary brevity of mobile phone text messaging, in particular the widespread SMS SMS language or textese (also known as txt-speak, txtese, chatspeak, txt, txtspk, txtk, txto, texting language, txt...

, will lead to low literacy and bad spelling among children.

Main Points

Crystal put forward the following points in his book:

• Typically, less than 10% of the words are abbreviated in text messages.
• Abbreviating is not a new language; instead, it has been present for many decades.
• Children and adults both use SMS language, the latter being more likely to do so.
• Students do not habitually use abbreviations in their homework or examinations.
• Sending text messages is not a cause of bad spelling because people need to know how to spell before they can send a text message.
• Sending text messages improves people's literacy, as it provides more opportunity for people to engage with the language through reading and writing. This is especially useful for school-age children.

External links

• Oxford University Press, Txtng: The Gr8 Db8
• Newsweek Article, The Death of English (LOL)
• Book Review By: Baron, Naomi S. Language, Dec2009, Vol. 85 Issue 4, p914-916, 3p