Download list of chat abbreviations pdf

These studies showed a general negative relationship between the use of texting expressions in communication and scores on grammar assessment. This argument negates the positive impact of texting expressions as generalized by David Crystal.

Crystal leads the second camp to deal with texting as a blessing, rather than a harm, to student literacy. Texting messages and expressions enhance student literacy and communication skills. Text messaging is not just writing. It can include editing to format the messages into a limited and precise characters before they send them out.

The more students write, the more they improve upon their writing skills. Teachers can use the texting phenomenon as a perfect example to teach language change and innovation. Crystal disproves the general opinion that texting language and its profuse use of abbreviations and slang can impact negatively on student language and literacy. Text messaging is not the threat many fear it is. His book cites six main points. Second, abbreviating is not a new practice because it has been used for decades.

Third, children and adults alike use text language, the latter more likely to do so. Fourth, students do not usually abbreviate in their homework and examinations. Fifth, texting cannot cause bad spelling because people must know how to spell before they text.

The third camp doubts whether texting really has any effect, positive or negative, on literacy skills and language grammar at all. This group assumes that texting messages have neither positive nor negative impact on student writing.

This group looks at texting message as another language. They provide strong evidence by comparing texting language to slang. They state that slang words do not affect English grammar. English grammar has not changed over the years although each generation creates its own jargon. The research is still quite restricted about this phenomenon. More longitudinal data is needed to examine the issue of connection for this population, especially with grammatical understanding.

This area of written and spoken language development must be observed comprehensively. Methodology For the purpose of this paper, I collected data from different websites. I searched common social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter. I went through many reviews about video games in several digital games websites.

During my investigation, I focused on common abbreviations. I collected some data listed in Appendix A. Typing on these websites with computer keyboard as the input methods.

This compelled me to think about texting and cell phone messages that are composed on a number keypad. I thought to include more data about texting messages, where the abbreviated expressions started and grew. I added some common expressions used through text messages in Appendix B. After I started analyzing the data, I decided to dig in deeper and search for useful source or article to guide my analysis. I accidently discovered a website that has a list of texting abbreviations.

These websites include most of the virtual world vocabulary, texting language, web abbreviations, Internet slang, and emoticons. In addition, I found much of my collected data in these websites. Researchers, educators, linguists, and others interested in this topic can rely on them to conduct their studies. Looking at texting language in depth reveals different types of abbreviations used to communicate. Although it is mostly a sound-based, or phonological form of spelling, I coded the data and categorized them into four types: initialization, substitution or alphanumeric, spelling and writing error, and pictograms or logograms.

Some typos are not included in my coding. We cannot consider all abbreviations the same although some similarities exist. People might classify these abbreviations into different categories. Much of the literature on text messaging lists different typical features yet does not quote specific research or evidence. Researchers lists of features and categories seem to correspond with common belief. For example, Crystal followed the same trend in his observation and analysis.

Initials and acronyms exist in the data as the most common types of abbreviation. It means to substitute a letter by another letter, a group of letters by a letter, or by a number. This reduces redundant letters and makes substitution to improve correspondence with the spoken word. It attempts to get rid of difficulties of current spelling.

It might contain different kinds of errors. Letter omission is a common strategy in the interest of brevity in texting language, particularly with unstressed vowels or diphthongs.

Texting language also involves the use of pictograms and logograms, which are the fourth type of abbreviations in my data. Logograms are either numbers, letters, characters, graphic units, or combinations used to represent a word or a phonetic sound. It is worth mentioning that there are some overlaps between the categories that I follow to code my data.

Some abbreviations have more than one explanation. In other words, it is not simple to categorize and analyze certain expressions because they contradict with each other. Some letters and sounds are shortened in different ways. Ahmed Al Shlowiy Analysis and Discussion The data have many examples of texting expressions and linguistic shortenings.

Analyzing should start with inspecting the current communicative forms and recent technology. This will set the foundations for the next part of this paper. Texting language has many forms because technological devices enable people to innovate many ways to use language.

In addition, the combination of several existing forms into multimedia formats helps us combine various types of media for the purpose of communication Bodomo, We can integrate text, images, audio, and video features into any piece of writing.

Recent devices and applications give us more flexibility in communicative situations, such as a real-time communication in Skype or Internet telephone services that include both written and oral communicative types. These devices allow people to contribute in or engage with the same topic regardless of where they live. Such communication and flexibility lead to a unique language style. This language exists with new expressions and terminology that distinguish it from daily language.

This part of this paper discusses this unique style, which is full of abbreviations and looks at the reasons behind them. One of the main points about abbreviations is that, over history, they are common in language. English has many examples of abbreviation, acronyms, and initials. Contractions are a part of regular spoken language by most speakers of English and frequently occur in many genres of written language Crystal, Therefore, this phenomenon is well known among linguists and researchers as well as among language users and speakers.

This paper examines the use and frequent popularity of abbreviations in texting language and its pedagogical implications in language learning. TL originated, for the most part, with cell phone texts. Crystal and Baron state that text messages are limited to characters. For longer messages, one can stitch two messages together. But, this costs the sender more money. Texting abbreviations are used in different websites, social networking pages such as Facebook, Flicker, chatting rooms, MSN messenger, discussion forums, and comment sections.

They continue to be used in Twitter as a recent micro-blogging tool. Twitter is an Internet-based messaging service limited to characters. The nature of texting raises questions, such as how does character limitation affect text messaging and cause linguistic creativity? Character limitation is the commonality of most popular messaging services and websites. It influences producing linguistic innovation in short messaging services.

It, therefore, plays a role in linguistic innovations in text messaging and micro-blogging. Looking at my data, character limitation plays a considerable role in language innovations. Such limitation leads users to be creative to exploit the full possible length of every text message. This exploitation suggests that users might invent a new abbreviation or use colloquial abbreviated forms.

It encourages users to use a range of linguistic innovations to shorten their transmissions Baron, I cannot generalize that all texting abbreviations are innovations and contain new features. However, it is obvious that character limitation causes linguistic creativity, affects message length, and produces problems to a certain extent in both grammar and spelling.

It is difficult to decide the reason or reasons behind these abbreviations. These motivations for using alternative spellings and linguistic innovation in texting language enable the users to express themselves in unique ways without taking care of grammatical correctness.

Age of the users makes another difference. Children use the language differently from teenagers and adult. They might be not as well integrated as those of adults. It looks like a kind of playful use of unconventional orthographic forms. Looking at data again, different violations in unconventional orthographic forms exist, such as the use of symbols and emoticons in place of traditional words and punctuations.

It proves the positive side of the texting language, as Crystal states above, by linking phonological awareness and skills of spelling and writing. Plester, Wood, and Bell argue that children are more sensitive to orthographic patterns and they are more able to play with them to create texts. In English spelling system, there are some strange spellings in spelling words that produce complex relationships between sounds and letters.

English sometimes ignores phoneme identity in favour of spelling identity, shows the morphological relations between two words, and retains its original spelling if it is borrowed from another language. Wood, Kemp, Waldron, and Hart outline three main uses of texting language that harm grammar: spelling of individual words, spelling of word combinations, and correct use of orthographic and punctuation conventions.

Wood, et al. In terms of linguistic theories, the data that I produced might be discussed from different views. This means that frequent expressions have more opportunity to be affected as they are exposed to these online processes more than infrequent expressions. Phonological reduction takes place when expressions are often repeated. Frequency of use, thus, plays a huge role in popularity of texting expressions.

Texting expressions are common in familiar and casual settings where representations of sound change phonetically and lexically. This is another linguistic theory that is defined by Bybee as the creation of a new grammatical morpheme and a new construction out of a particular instance of an old construction. Therefore, an existing construction with specific lexical items in it, becomes more frequent, changes in various ways, and becomes a new construction. Grammaticization is the main vehicle for the creation of new grammatical morphemes because it proves the need for the cognitive representation of instances of constructions.

Grammar consists of specific cases of use that marry lexical items with constructions. In other words, grammar is routinized and entrenched by repetition.

He suggests that structure, or regularity, comes out of discourse and is shaped by discourse in a continuous process. In Emergent grammar, the forms of a language are spread during acts of communication among speakers who are not equal, but are different in their ability to make and exploit this adaptation.

Language is a complex system in which the processes that occur in individual usage events, such as texting expression, with high levels of frequency, lead to the establishment of a system within the individual. Language is not an abstract system of units with meanings and rules for combining them, but, instead, integrated normative modes of interactive behavior and the accompanying social use of corporeal signs such as words and gestures Hopper, Frequent patterns and chunks in the input, such as texting expressions, affect language acquisition.

These expressions are better remembered when repeated across learning experiences. Language Teaching and Learning TL has many implications in language learning and teaching. Although there are some constructive features of texting expressions in language learning as the second camp argued above, teachers and educators need to pay attention to the dark side of these expressions. Dansieh found that about This confirms the fact that texting expressions have a great impact on the work quality of students.

This low level of achievement may have resulted because the students use phones as a medium of communication in their daily lives. According to sociocultural theory and interactionist second language acquisition, it is hard to learn a language in isolation from its context and usage. The Internet, technology, and media currently are very valuable forms of communication to practice language.

Educators, therefore, must know how students deal with the linguistic, cognitive, social, and material resources in different communicative situations. This knowledge will qualify teachers to follow the language development of their students. Educators need to understand that learners learn new semiotic skills on the Internet. Learners in general and non-native English learners in particular are exposed to less standard writing and less linguistic accuracy and politeness on the Internet.

TL is regularly less correct, less complex, less coherent than other forms of language. Koutsogiannis and Mitsikopoulou point out that the hybrid vernacular varieties of English that learners develop in online contexts may not have much in common with the language in school contexts. The Internet and media provide language learners with more opportunities to socialize through language than the classroom does.

On the Internet, there are a couple of multimedia practices that go farther than print textuality. Many different forms of production exist on the Internet. Language learners are not only able to change their traditional discourse structures but also to join multicultural learning communities.

Technology and media help teachers to look at literacy skills from another perspective. It is not these tools per se that affect the learning of language but how they are used in classroom. The Internet has a wide array of skills, genres, and conventions. Warschauer argues for the need to develop different types of electronic literacies such as computer literacy, information literacy, multimedia literacy, texting literacy, and the like.

Technology use is integrated into numerous pedagogical approaches. Students can learn strategies for comprehension and become more independent readers. Writers have a habit of spending some time thinking about how to present their viewpoint and how to involve with prospective respondents.

Regarding learning contexts, there is no doubt that TL has arrived to the classroom. We know that students use their mobile devices in the school with and without teacher knowledge. Students are contented with their own devices because they have mastered their use. It is not a surprise if we find some of the school writing are nonstandard or informal.

Students use texting abbreviations when they take notes, answer questions, express themselves, compose a response, and write in daily journals. We might see these abbreviations in essay compositions that are more formal forms.

Educators should teach students how to distinguish between standard language and nonstandard language. Students should learn how, when, and where to use each form of language. This is more essential with non-native English learners who have several difficulties beside the new language. While texting language might be common and normally use by native English learners, it is not for non-native.

It does not help the foreigners to learn the accuracy of language, particularly if they are not exposed to the standard forms before non-standard forms or if they live in a foreign context.

Therefore, these expressions might be harmful to non-native speakers if there is no guide in their exposure or if they are not exposed to correct English, as Russell stated above. In virtual society, language learners need some educational implications to become more self- directed in their learning and to be successful in this new technological environment.

They should be able to learn self-monitor, improve their learning skills, and collaborate in the learning process around them. Teachers must include TL in classroom activities as casual practices. They should present it in speaking practices or short passages for reading practices. They must guide learners to the special features of the texting expressions and explain how it relates to the standard form. Conclusion This paper discusses texting abbreviations and its impacts on how people talk and write in general and on language learning in particular.

Texting messages are the process whereby users of portable devices and cell phones exchange short written messages. They were used mainly instead of voice calls in specific circumstances before they had become the best, quickest, and most dominant way of communication. They are full of abbreviations that make texting expressions a unique language style. This style spread extensively through the Internet. In addition, new mobile devices simplify the process of accessing and chatting in social networking services and microblogging websites.

There are three different views about the influences of texting expressions on language development and literacy skills. Some scholars believe that TL have negative effects while some other see the reverse. The third group are not sure about the effect of such language because they look at it as a new language. This paper does not support any view because it is misleading if we do not consider the content and context of learning.

Another consideration should be paid to the user of these expressions whether a native English speaker or not. This list will be updated regularly as I come across new abbreviations, as well as from comments from users. Following is a starter-list of some of the most commonly used acronyms and their general meaning. In addition to chat and texting acronyms, people also use symbols to convey information, especially feeling. These symbols eventually evolved into emojis, which save even more keystrokes!

Which is a good thing, because I hate typing these. Here are a few examples:. If you have any suggestions for the list of chat acronyms, please post a message below. If you like lists, visit our List of Lists section. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Home Sitemap About Contact Privacy.

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