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LANGUAGE INTO "LANG": WHATSAPP IMPRINTS ON TEENAGERS

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Acme International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research ISSN: 2320 – 236X Volume - 6, Issue – 1, January - 2018 Available Online at http://www.researchjournals.in Quality Impact Factor: 5.79 (CARS) U.G.C. Approved International Refereed Research Journal

LANGUAGE INTO “LANG”: WHATSAPP IMPRINTS ON TEENAGERS

Indrajith I J & Titto Varghese Christ College, Vizhinjam, Trivandrum (India)

INTRODUCTION “Language is always evolving, and technology is a healthy part of that evolution” (Tenore, 2013). From the days of its invention, language and its oral and written forms have been evolving according to the systems, technology and cultures of the place and period. Now it has come to a certain phase where the technology and the fast moving society have made a clear difference in the usage of language from the ancient times. Dewdney & Ride (2006) speaks of this difference in their ‘New Media Handbook’. They observe that “New Media is trending to be a much favoured term for a range of media practices and also emerging as a key institutional term in education and culture” (Dewdney & Ride, 2006). As researchers like Srygley (1978) predicted decades back, media culture is totally disturbing the young people through shaping modern culture, by selecting and portraying a particular set of beliefs, values, and traditions. The Telegraph (2015) observed that “smart phones gave people a much wider range of communication options which means we are no longer restricted to a limited number of characters. The social media language that perplexes millions of parents, points to a future where may replace the written word” (source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk).

IMPACT OF NEW MEDIA ON ACADEMICS Developments of New Media are resulting in new approaches to designing and developing, teaching and learning at a higher education level (Bates, 1999). It is important to realize that you have to adapt to the evolution and keep up with all of the new technologies and language that are being offered (South, 2017). Multimedia technology has brought changes in the aspects of both teaching and learning. It does this in three ways: how it presents information; how students interact both with the medium and through the medium with the teacher and other learners; and the way knowledge is structured within multimedia (Aloraini, 2012). However the darker side within technological evolution has resulted in dilemmas, such as the setback of real values of life, especially among students who form the majority of users interacting through social networking sites (Peter, 2015). With so many of these social networking sites being introduced, students are tempted to engage in them rather than spending time for their studies. Bates (2000) observes that new technologies are fundamentally changing the nature of knowledge. Many skills cannot or should not be taught solely through technology, although the range of knowledge and skills that can be taught effectively in this way is probably much greater than most teachers would credit (Bates, 2000).

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INFLUENCE OF NEW MEDIA ON The major effect of New Media on language is that sentences and phrases have become shorter (Willgress, 2016). Technology has a great deal to say about how we communicate with each other online. Twitter only allows tweets of 140 characters or less – and people convey a lot in those 140 characters (Cohn, 2014). are not only used in personal communication, but also used in online interactions. Everyone speaks, but nobody speaks in a common language. Technology has transformed the words we use into and acronyms, for instance, ‘Electronic Mail’ has become ‘E-mail’. Certain emoticons such as ;-) and abbreviations like LOL enhance beneficial features of non-verbal communication in the written format itself (Reed, 2014). Another example is of the word ‘Facebook’ to be both a noun and verb (Bayucan, 2015). Hence, generally, language is always evolving and technology is a healthy part of that evolution. New media is making it easier than ever to contribute to the evolution of language. That’s why Mallary Jean Tenore (2013) argues that the way in which we use social media takes us back to the oral tradition, as it is much more conversational (Tenore, 2013).

REVIEW OF LITERATURE Geertsema et al (2011), conducted studies which aimed at determining the possible influence of on certain aspects of learners’ written language skills. The research makes an observation that in general teachers and other educationists are of the opinion that SMS language has a negative impact on the written form of . The negative influence is perceived which leads to poor grades and a diminished knowledge of Standard English. Muhammad (2009), in his studies discovered that Text Messaging has a negative impact on spelling skills of students and increasing appearance in formal school papers. According to him, the impact of text messaging on spelling skills is the fact that texting is here to stay – at least until the next trend in communication comes along. Another study conducted by Aziz et al (2013) demystified the popular belief about texting. It was believed that texting adversely affect writing and thus destroy Standard English. Baron (2008) observes that the usage of SMS language establishes creative use of letters, marks and numbers and it increases students’ awareness regarding phonetics. It is also observed that different people have their own unique texting styles. Crystal (2008) also was of a positive opinion regarding the SMS effect on language. For Crystal (2008), texting is something that gave a new aspect to language use, but it has a very minor long-term impression. It is not a disaster and it will not harm the standards of language. vanBart (2015) is of the opinion that “SMS and WhatsApp are expanded with autocorrect option with . Both technologies are devised to enhance text input. While autocorrect has its annoyances, it helps us to spell a word correctly and insert our next word in our ”. Riyanto (2013) speaks about the positive influence WhatsApp can make in English Language learning. He says: “with various features in the application of WhatsApp, it offers collaborative language learning. In other words, usage of media like WhatsApp can improve English language skills such as reading, writing, speaking and listening” (Riyanto, 2013). Another study by Fattah (2015) speaks about the statistical analysis of WhatsApp usage. He tried to observe the effectiveness of using WhatsApp as one of mobile learning technique to develop the writing skills of students. Participants were 30 second year college students from a private university in Saudi Arabia. 15 of the participants (experimental group) were allowed to use WhatsApp to develop their writing skills. On the other hand the same number of

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members of the control group was asked to learn writing skills through prescribed book. The pretest and post-test comprised three questions, punctuate a paragraph, correct a paragraph and write an essay. This research was limited to punctuation marks, sentence structures and generating ideas. The experiment concluded that students who used WhatsApp to improve their writing skills had a better performance compared to other students (Fattah, 2015). Regression analysis conducted by vanDijk (2016) showed that “omissions were a significant predictor of children’s grammar performance after various other variables were controlled for: the more words children omitted in their text messages, the better their performance on the grammar task. Textisms correlated significantly with vocabulary, grammar and selective attention scores. Omissions correlated marginally significantly with vocabulary scores (vanDijk, 2016). A negative impact was found in school going teenagers’ language usage because of the over usage of WhatsApp and SMS in a study conducted by Salem (2013). Helderman (2003) observed that the negative effects of messaging systems on the usage of English language by the students could be brought down if the teachers are strong enough. He is of the opinion that students know to distinguish between the SMS writing and Classroom writing. The students would be careful not bring in SMS language in their academic writing if the teachers create an awareness about it (Helderman, 2003).

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY Multitudinous studies have been conducted so far on the influence of SMS or WhatsApp on English language usage. Most of these studies were on the influence of these messaging services and their use by students in their usage of English Language. These studies hadn’t concentrated on the language preferences when students, especially where regional language options are ready for these messaging services, make use of SMS or WhatsApp. Again, the influence of WhatsApp on the English usage of students with mother tongues other than English also has not been studied extensively. Based on the studies conducted so far this study makes an attempt to find out the following: (i) How frequently do members of a group send messages? (ii) What is the most preferred language for sending chats and what is the total percentage of English messages? (iii) What are the Different Styles of English Language used as abbreviations in the messages?

METHODOLOGY A convenient sampling method was used to identify 4 WhatsApp groups as the major source of data for this study. The chats in these 4 groups for a time period of three weeks were analyzed. The first group had 13 members and the second group had 5 members. The third group had 7 members and the fourth group had 6 members. The total number of members (in other words, the respondents in this study) in these 4 groups was 31. An analysis of these groups and the messages in them was done manually for the purpose of the study.

RESULTS, ANALYSIS & DISCUSSION The study was conducted using 4 WhatsApp groups. The first group consists of 13 members. The second group consists of 5 members. The third group consists of 7 members and the fourth group consists of 6 members.

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Table 1: Number of Members in the 4 groups Groups G 1 G 2 G 3 G 4 Total

Number of Members 13 5 7 6 31

The total number of members present in all these 4 groups was 31. Three groups among these four were very active every day. Members of the fourth group were literary passive. The First objective of the study was to find out the frequency of members sending messages in the group. The Second objective of the study was to find out the most preferred language in which the members are sending messages. The following 5 tables depict the frequency of messages and the language preferences of teenagers. The members sent messages in three different language patterns. There were purely English messages (English sentences alone), purely Malayalam messages (Malayalam typed in Malayalam fonts) and Malayalam messages typed in English. These tables clearly show the numbers and averages of purely English messages, purely Malayalam messages and Malayalam messages typed in English.

Table 2: Messaging style of Members of Group 1 Member English Malayalam Malayalam typed Total Messages Messages in English M1 16 - 31 47 M2 4 11 47 62 M3 - 27 28 55 M4 27 - 19 46 M5 12 4 16 32 M6 4 - 9 13 M7 - - 21 21 M8 8 1 17 26 M9 2 3 36 41 M10 - - 19 19 M11 3 - 36 39 M12 18 - 14 32 M13 21 4 17 42 TOTAL 115 50 310 475 Avg. 8.85 3.85 23.85 36.5

The total number of messages sent by the group members during the 21 days time period ranges from 13 to 62. The total number of messages these 13 group members sent in their group was 475. Among these 475 messages, 115 were purely English messages, 50 were purely Malayalam and 310 were Malayalam messages typed in English. On an average, a single member of the group sends 3.85 purely Malayalam messages, 8.85 purely English messages and 23.85 Malayalam messages typed in English. 3 out of 13 members in this group had not sent any English messages in the period of 21 days. 7 out of 13 members had not sent a single Malayalam message during these days. Altogether, a single

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member of this group sent 36.5 messages during the time of study. In other words, the average number of messages a single individual of a particular group sends per day is 1.74. This group was the most active group among all the four groups under investigation. Most of the members preferred to send Malayalam messages typed in English, except 3 members who sent more number of purely English messages. Number of purely Malayalam messages was just less than half of that of the purely English messages. But Malayalam messages typed in English was almost more than 6 times that of the purely Malayalam messages. Though people had an inclination to send more messages in regional language, they did it with the help of English letters. This may be because of two reasons: (i) people do not have Malayalam fonts ready in their mobile phones or (ii) people are not patient enough to take time to type Malayalam using their mobile phones.

Table 3: Messaging style of Members of Group 2 Member English Malayalam Malayalam typed Total Messages Messages in English

M1 27 - 18 45

M2 24 3 36 63

M3 7 - 46 53

M4 - 18 37 55

M5 - 6 43 49

Total 58 27 180 265

Avg. 11.6 5.4 36 53

Five members of this group together sent 58 purely English messages, 27 purely Malayalam messages and 180 Malayalam messages typed in English. On an average, a single individual of this group sent 11.6 English messages, 5.4 Malayalam messages and 36 Malayalam messages typed in English. Total number of messages sent by the group members here was 265 which makes an average of 53 messages by a single individual member of this group. The average number of messages a single individual sent here was 2.52. Here, again the most preferred language pattern is Malayalam typed using English letters. Purely Malayalam message was the least preferred one. Though the number of members was less in this group they had a constant chat going on everyday with almost all participants taking part in the discussions actively. This group has all its members contributing to the group chat in one way or the other.

Table 4: Messaging style of Members of Group 3 Member English Malayalam Malayalam typed Total Messages Messages in English

M1 7 3 24 34

M2 3 - 32 35

M3 - - 21 21

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M4 29 4 3 36

M5 6 - 29 35

M6 14 1 3 18

M7 64 13 7 84

TOTAL 123 21 119 263

Average 17.6 3 17 37.5

The total number of messages sent by the group members during the 21 days time period ranges from 18 to 84. The total number of messages these 7 group members sent in their group was 263. Among these 263 messages, 123 were purely English messages, 21 were purely Malayalam and 119 were Malayalam messages typed in English. On an average, a single member of the group sends 3 purely Malayalam messages, 17.6 purely English messages and 17 Malayalam messages typed in English. One member in this group had not sent any English messages in the period of 21 days. 3 members had not sent a single Malayalam message during these days. Altogether, a single member of this group sent 37.5 messages during the time of study. In other words, the average number of messages a single individual, of a particular group, sends per day is 1.78. The range of number of messages sent by the group members go down to 18 and then up to 84. This shows that though the group is active some of the members are not that active. On the other hand some members are completely involved in and committed to their WhatsApp groups.

Table 5: Messaging style of Members of Group 4 Member English Malayalam Malayalam typed Total Messages Messages in English

M1 2 - 2 4 M2 - - 18 18

M3 - - 16 16

M4 2 1 7 10

M5 - 2 - 2

M6 - - 14 14

TOTAL 4 3 57 64

Average 0.67 0.5 9.5 10.6

Total number of messages sent by 6 members of this group was 64 and was very less compared to other groups. The total number of English and Malayalam messages was comparatively less (total of 4 & 3 messages respectively), whereas the number of Malayalam messages typed in English was 57. On an average, a single individual sends was just 0.5. This group is found to be the least active group as far as their WhatsApp chats are concerned. The group just exists and only two or three members are making some kind of contribution to the group chats. Even in this group the preferred language pattern is the same as in the other groups. Malayalam typed in English is the most preferred ones and purely Malayalam messages are the least preferred.

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Table 6: Messaging style of Members of all Groups Group English Malayalam Malayalam typed Total Messages Messages in English

G1 (13) 115 50 310 475

G2 (5) 58 27 180 265

G3 (7) 123 21 119 263

G4 (6) 4 3 57 64

TOTAL 300 101 666 1067

Percentage 28% 9.5% 62.5%

Table 5 gives a clear idea of the total number of messages the members of different groups sent during the research period. Total number of members present in the study was 31. The number of English messages sent by these 31 members was 300 and that of the Malayalam messages was 101. These 31 members together sent 666 Malayalam messages typed in English. Total number of messages sent by the members in all four groups was 1067. In all these groups, 62.5% of the messages sent by the members were Malayalam typed in English. 28% of them were English messages and only 9.5% messages were pure Malayalam messages. The Third objective of the study was to find out the different styles of language used for sending English messages. Only purely English messages were selected for this particular analysis. There were 300 purely English messages in all the four groups together. Among these 300 quite a few (92) were real full sentences, though there were spelling and grammar mistakes. Among the rest of the messages (208) there were abbreviations of all sorts. Every individual seems to have his / her own styles of abbreviations. In many cases it was found that members of their groups easily understand these abbreviations, whereas outsiders may find it difficult to comprehend what they really mean by these abbreviations. Some use a style where all vowels are omitted. Some others invent their own versions of spellings. For same messages different people have different styles of abbreviations. From the table below it is clear that the greeting “Good Morning” can be articulated in many ways in WhatsApp. It can be “gdmg”, “gudmng” or simply “gm”. Same is the case with “Good Night” too. Teenagers write “gdnt”, “gudnite” or just “gn”. The most common among the abbreviations found are “hru?” and “wru?”.

Table 7: Sample of Abbreviations used by Teenagers Full Form

Good Morning Gm / gudmng / Gdmg

Good Night Gnt / Gudnite / Gdnt / gdn8

By God’s Grace BGG

Happy New Year HNY

God Bless You GBU

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Not yet Started NYS

About to Begin A2B

How are you / Where are You Hru / hwu? / Wru?

Happy Birthday HB’day / HBD

What is your Opinion WIYO?

I am there for you IT4U

Forget it 4getit

Get together G2gt

Oh My God OMG

Oh I see OIC

See you Later CUL8R

Chaka et.al (2015) found 10 major SMS language features that appeared in SMS and WhatsApp chats. They were accent stylizations and respellings; initialisms and alphabetisms; upper and lower cases; contractions; aphaeresis; apostrophe omissions; combined two words; colloquialisms; G- clippings; and and emoticons, were not detected (Chaka et.al, 2015). According to Crystal (2008) there are six major features of SMS language. They are: (i) logograms and ; (ii) initialisms; (iii) omitted letters; (iv) non-standard spelling; (v) shortening (abbreviations) and (vi) genuine novelties. David Crystal (2008), in his book “Txtng the gr8 db8” speaks elaborately on these six features. Logograms: “use of single letters, numerals, and typographic symbols to represent words or parts of words as in “2b or not 2b? “ : “When visual shapes, or pictures, are used to represent objects or concepts.” It looks like ;-) ; (^_^) ; @(---’---’--- Initialism: Reduces words to their initial letters. They are also called acronyms or alphabetisms like that of in “GF- girlfriend”. Omitted letters: These are usually less noticeable but more common. Letters are dropped either in the middle or at the end and are usually vowels, like that in “txtin” or “rite”. Nonstandard spelling: People constantly manipulate the , and nonstandard spelling is one way they achieve this. For example: “skool = school”; “dat = that”. Shortening: A word is shortened by omitting one of its meaningful elements. The days of the week are usually shortened to Mon, Tue, Wed, etc and months are shortened down to Jan, Feb, Mar. Genuine novelties: Self made abbreviations as in “IMHO= in my humble opinion”

For this study, these six features proposed by Daniel Crystal (2008) are taken into consideration. Teenagers in this study are found to be making use of all of these SMS language features, though there are differences in the frequency of their usage. One of the major features was to make use of the first letters of each word as in the case of HNY (Happy New Year) and HBD (Happy Birthday). Another major feature was the combination of letters and numbers as in A2B (About to Begin), IT4U (I am there for you) and 4getit (Forget it). Some of the genuine novelties found in these groups by some members were the following: NYS (Not Yet Started); WIYO? (What is your Opinion?) and G2gt (get together).

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John Humphrys (2007) argued that texters are "vandals who are doing to our language what Genghis Khan did to his neighbours 800 years ago. They are destroying it: pillaging our punctuation; savaging our sentences; raping our vocabulary”. Table 8: Features of SMS language Feature Number of Occurrences

Logograms & Pictograms 41

Initialism 14

Omitted letters 22

Non standard spelling 13

Shortening 109

Genuine novelties 9

TOTAL 208

Table 8 depicts the number of occurrences of the features of SMS or WhatsApp language. The above displayed table shows that the most occurring WhatsApp language feature is shortening followed by logograms, pictograms and omitted letters. Initialisms and non-standard spellings are found to be the next preferred features. Genuine novelties occurred just nine times in the whole set of messages. The special feature of the shortening done by teenagers is that they don’t follow any rules in making abbreviations. Some were very creative in making genuine novelties, though it was very less in number. Crystal (2008) observes that “the possibilities of what you can send in a text message are much more expansive than just a ‘text message’”. For an outsider these may be meaningless words or phrases; but for the members of the group these may be words of appreciation and encouragement. It can be concluded that members of the group clearly understand each others’ way of abbreviating words and sentences. No questions for clarifications regarding these abbreviations were seen in any of these groups. Teenagers are believed to have an unwritten dictionary or thesaurus of abbreviations which are known to them and only to them. That is why they can communicate with each other in their WhatsApp groups so fluently using abbreviations which others cannot digest so easily.

CONCLUSION

“2 txt or not 2 txt, tht is the ?” John Sutherland

This study is aimed at finding out the influence of WhatsApp on the usage of English language. In the initial part of the study, the influence of New Media on academic field and other such areas have been discussed, leading to the topic of the study, “Influence of New Media on language”. Manovich (2001) observes that language is undoubtedly God's greatest gift. Society and language are inseparably interlinked and it is believed that no society can exist without language. Language evolved and diversified over the course of time. The use of language is deeply embedded in human culture. Apart from communicating and sharing, it has different cultural uses such as being a group identity, social grooming and entertainment (Manovich, 2001). On a daily basis, we encounter with many different groups of people. As our ability to reach members of groups who are thousands of

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miles away increases, so does the requirement to keep in touch with as many group members as possible (Manovich, 2001). As the sample of study, four WhatsApp groups were selected, WhatsApp being one of the most used digital platforms currently amongst the New Media. The language used in WhatsApp chats by these four groups’ members and their different styles were analyzed. Different language styles have been used by members such as purely English, purely Malayalam and Malayalam typed in English. Texting, according to McWhorter (2013), is actually talking with your fingers. One of the main effects of social media on language is that sentences and phrases have become much shorter. Language always changes with the passage of time, indeed, and it is society that decides what words to be used and what not. There have been instances where Students, because of the high usage of new media-styled words in daily discourse, are found replacing the accepted spelling into the media-styled words answering questions in exams, like “for” for “4”; “your” for “ur” etc (source: www.academia.edu/). It’s a matter of concern that social media are transforming the way that language is looked at and used. Social media affect our language by altering the meaning of some of the words and expressions. Its impact on language usage is evident in the amount of communications we have daily, the number of people with whom we communicate and, the nature and style with which we choose to communicate. As technology and social media continue to advance, there will surely be more issues connected to the usage of language (source: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov). Social media not only alter the usage of our language, but also introduce new usage and vocabulary. With the need for quick and concise language and communications online, full verb phrases have become common acronyms that are now used in everyday settings and not just online (source: www.quora.com). New media or the social media is here for a long heave. It is important to realize that we are obliged to adapt to the evolution and keep up with all of the new technologies and language that are being offered. Everyone uses language to discourse but nobody uses a common language to do the same. Language is alive; keeping an open mind about letting new concepts and new words in to be a part of it is generally an intelligent thing to do (source: www.compukol.com). Media have always played a key character in manipulating language from the very first document to the use of language in the present age. In fact, globalization and development in modern technology have enhanced the learning process. It is evident that ever since media came into existence, it has played a pivotal role in moulding and forming the thought process and language of all who came under its spell. Social media have generated new words and morphed old ones (source: www.compukol.com). With the advent of quicker and more vivid communication channels through social media and social technologies, we see a change in the usage of English language. Today we have many conversations that would mean little to someone from 2005. Even though the definitions of specific words are given, the total setting of the communication and the technologies that have been in use are to be understood to have its complete meaning. This is not the first occurrence in history but certainly the increase in the pace of this transformation resulted in our language is changing equally and rapidly; and with it, our thoughts (source: linguagreca.com). The ever increasing use of text messaging among students is damaging the use of language in speaking and writing. The use of abbreviated words will affect the standard form of language in the long run. There are negative impacts of SMS in the formal writing of University students (Aziz et al, 2013). Merritt (2013) observes that though we cannot see any problem in the shorter version of English used in SMS and WhatsApp it doesn’t look like a revolution. But, there is an unassuming deterioration in proper language skills, born out of a digitally literate culture that has grown too comfortable in an age of abbreviations and spell checks (Merritt, 2013). According to her observation “children write more these days than they did 20 years ago, because of texting and social media. Students are now so used to writing in ‘text-speak’ that they can’t easily remember (or apply) proper language rules” (Merritt, 2013). People who send a lot of text messages end up in using the SMS-styled words even when they write an academic paper or a class test (Storm, 2015). Tagliamonte & Denis (2008) observed that the frequency of abbreviations is much less than what we actually imagine; and students know

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when and where to use these shorter versions of words and sentences. But it’s almost a decade after this study and we may not reach the same conclusion today as the volume of text messages has increased to multiples through SMS, Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp. Indiscriminate use of SMS words will have an undesirable impact on standard spelling, grammar and punctuation. This will lead to depleted knowledge of Standard English. One must use the standard form of language to uphold the beauty and purity of any language.

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