Lesson Work: Investigation in the Language of Messaging

For my investigation looking into the language and different abbreviations that are used within messaging, I have decided to look at how differently younger teenagers talk compared to older teenagers. The difference in language, abbreviations and emojis/emoticons will be looked at depending what age the person is.

I have decided to research into the different use of socialect, grammar and use of emoticons/emojis depending on how old the person who is sending the message. I narrowed my category down to look into the messages of teenagers, looking further into the ages of young/pre-teens and old, mature teenagers.

The evidence that I have collected is a few sample conversations of myself talking to my friend. I have been friends with my sample friend for many years, meaning that I am able to look at our very first instant messaging messages, and the present messages we send, noticing a difference in how we speak. It has become apparent that there us a difference between the language that is used when I was a young teen, compared to how I talk now/in the present. There is a similar correlation between my friend's language and how it has changed.

There seems to be a continuous use of emoticons used to set a friendly tone in the messages at a younger age, ':)' is used an extravagant amount to keep the friendly register throughout the conversation. However looking at the recent messages, the register seems to be of a more intimate, jokey form. This is because we are both comfortable with the strong friendship and we know each other well enough to not need to set the friendly tone. It seems that the emoticons that are used in the recent messages are used, however for a different purpose. The emoticons that are used in the conversations are used not to be friendly, but to give a sarcastic tone to what has just been said, 'OK THEN;/////', ':((((((((', the multiple use of brackets and slashes are used for effect to show the messenger that the sender is not serious about what has just been said.

The use of abbreviations is also used during the young-teen period, 'hun' however the use of ‘babes’ during the more recent conversations is purposely put for a sarcastic tone. It seem to be seen as funny and ironic when old abbreviations and socialect is used within conversations. Using old short-hand text talk is seen as 'uncool' nowadays, and people tend to associate people who are young and still using this text talk as 'chavvy'. The short hand messaging is used to be sarcastic or to imitate 'chavvy' people as it is seen as grammatically incorrect/illiterate if you use this type of language.