Evolution of Writing from Old English to Texting Language

Abstract

Texting as a verb in the act of sending and receiving short messages (SMS) has entered the English lexicon. This paper is a study on texting lexis or textese (Crystal, 2008a, 2008b) in unsolicited messages (SMS) received in a mobile number in the city of Chennai in India for two months in 2015. The first section of this paper provides the rationale for the study, followed by a theoretical overview of texting lexis and a brief methodology of the study. The frequency of texting lexis in the topics like Technology, Sports, Dating, and Entertainment are reported before discussing the features of texting lexis: Pictograms, Initialisms, Shortenings, Nonstandard Spellings, and Genuine Novelties after Crystal’s list, and the type of each feature in the second section of the paper.