EDNAS SCHOOL OF SAN CARLOS

SAN CARLOS CITY, PANGASINAN

S.Y. 2016-2017

IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS

IN
GRAMMAR 10

The Effects of Using Shortcuts in Text Messaging to the English

Proficiency of the Grade 8 Students of
Ednas School of San Carlos

SUBMITTED BY:
FREDRICK CZAR T. DE VERA
JILLIAN GWYNE C. RUFIN
CAMELLE B. PARAGAS
PAULYN JOY C. CABANAYAN
JETHRO C. JARILLO
JOHN GLENN M. CANCINO
EJ C. MISLANG
SUBMITTED TO:
MRS. ODESSA C. MACARAEG
 INTRODUCTION

Teens today—who can understand them? Of course, this is a timeless sentiment, but one
that's no less true today, with young ones constantly nose-to-the-glass with smartphones and
tablets, chatting with their friends. If you dare to peek at their tweets and posts, other than a near
hieroglyphic scroll of emoji, you'll find a language of all their own.

Teens usually use text message abbreviations or shortcuts for two reasons. One of them is
to save time. Teenagers (13-17 years old) send approximately 3,000 – 4,000 texts per month. Of
course, they text fast, considering this number of messages. The second reason why teens use
acronyms is to code their message, to make it incomprehensible in case parents or other adults
see it. Terms have originated from various sources including Bulletin Boards, AIM, Yahoo,
IRC, Chat Rooms, Email, Cell Phone Text Messaging and other Social Medias that has spreaded
worldwide due to popularity and because of the mindset that if you use these slangs and
abbreviations you are considered “cool & trendy” by the society that were in so more people
wants to join in and learn this way of communicating just so that they could be a part of this
clique.

Although, this form of communication affects the English grammar and proficiency of
those who talks “hippy’’ most of the time that is alarming because it defeats the purpose of
learning the proper usage of words that will be vital in the later years for it can cause confusion
and cause embarrassing mistakes that could haunt you for a while.

This research study has the purpose of showing people the effects and downsides of
abbreviating and cutting words short that could affect your expertise in the form of formal
writing.
 REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

In the last decade, a number of studies have been conducted focusing on children’s text
message writing and use of textese. Textese is a form of abbreviated written—or actually
typed—language, that is characterized by the omission of words and the use of textisms, such as
abbreviations, letter/number homophones, emoticons, etc. Identified textism categories range
from 4 to 11. In public opinion, use of textese by children and young adults has been linked to
poor reading and writing skills and even language deterioration, as illustrated by a corpus study
by Thurlow, who investigated opinions on texting and textese in newspapers.

Some studies have indeed found negative associations between frequency of use of
textese and measures of spelling and other tasks measuring abilities related to literacy such as
verbal and nonverbal reasoning. However, in the majority of studies, children’s use of textese
and their spelling and literacy abilities were found to be positively related: accuracy of reading
textese and speed of reading and writing textese were positively associated with children’s
spelling, reading and non-word reading scores; and number of (certain types of) textisms and
textism density—the ratio of textisms used per word—were positively associated with spelling
skills; orthographic processing ability; phonological and phoneme processing, awareness and
retrieval abilities; verbal reasoning scores reading skills; and writing skills.

Nearly all studies on the effects of textese focused on children’s literacy development and
hardly any attention has been paid to the effects of textese on children’s language development.
Specifically grammatical development is interesting in this respect because, as mentioned by
Kemp and colleagues, grammar rules of conventional written language are often transgressed in
textese. As a result, this lack of grammatical conventions might leak into registers other than
textese. To the best of our knowledge, only four studies have investigated effects of use of
textese on children’s use of grammar. These studies have focused on the use of grammar in
written language and have shown mixed results. Cingel and Sundar obtained a negative
association between the number of text messages children sent and received and the number of
textisms used and children’s grammar abilities. However, these findings are hard to interpret, as
the authors did not calculate the textism ratio—which is a relative measure that takes text length
into account—but used raw scores. In addition, textisms at the word level (spelling), rather than
at the sentence level, were responsible for this effect.

Other studies looking into children’s grammar abilities did take into account children’s
message length when analyzing effects of use of textisms, all studied the relationship between
children’s texting behavior based on natural messages sent over a 2-day period and their
performance on a grammar assessment. Kemp et al. found that primary school children’s (8-10-
year old) performance on a grammatical spelling choice task was related to the proportion of
grammatical violations they made in their text messages: children who did not perform well on
the spelling task made more grammatical violations than children who obtained a better spelling
test score. These observations have to do with missing and unconventional punctuation, missing
capitalisation, word and grammatical errors (missing words, lack of verbal agreement, verb and
preposition merged; and grammatical homonyms). No textisms at the word level were included
in this measure. Wood et al., on the other hand, did not find any significant correlations between
children’s grammar scores and grammatical violations in their textese.
 REPORTING CHAPTERS

As the use of text messaging grows ever larger, with the rise of technology and social
media, and as people find ways to get the best with the time they have; the use of shortcuts in
text messaging has grown. With shortcuts also taking in a new from simple abbreviations and
acronyms to emojis, stickers and more. This is especially seen and done by the people of the
younger generation. Students of Ednas School are known for their proficiency in the English
language but with the rise of this trend the question rise if the use of these shortcuts affects their
English proficiency.

The researchers gave out surveys to 20 of the Grade 8 students of ESSC to see who uses
shortcuts often and those who don’t and to check if this affects how they view their proficiency
in the English language and to attest their views and opinions on the topic.

The survey questions are as follows:

1. Do you often use English in text messaging? YES/NO

2. If or when you do, do you use shortcuts? YES/NO
If yes, then how often? Not that often/Often/Always
3. How would you rate your proficiency in grammar? Bad/Not so good/ Good/ Very good/ Excellent
4. How would you rate your proficiency in spelling? Bad/Not so good/ Good/ Very good/ Excellent
5. Do you think the use of shortcuts in text messaging YES/NO
affects the English proficiency of a student?
Why or how? (Cite some instances)
6. (If you often/always use shortcuts and rated your YES/NO
proficiency bad/not so good) Do you think this
is the cause of using shortcuts?

Results of the survey show 35% of the students often using the English language as the
primary language in text messaging and from this, 75% of them often use shortcuts and 85%
overall including those who don’t often use the English language. 50% of the class often uses
shortcuts and rates both their proficiency in Grammar and spelling as good. One student who
always uses shortcuts rates her proficiency in grammar as “not so good” and spelling as “good”
and on another note one student who uses the English language and does not often use shortcuts
rates both his/her (Name & Gender not specified in the survey) proficiency in grammar and
spelling as “not so good.” The results also show how students who “not that often” and “often”
use shortcuts rate their proficiency in spelling better than their proficiency in grammar in which
most of their proficiency in grammar are rated at “not so good” and in spelling either “good”,
“very good” and even “excellent.” Majority of those who seldom use shortcuts rated their
proficiency as “very good” – “excellent” and some of those who not often use shortcuts and
majority of those who often rated their proficiency as good. Majority at 75% of the students do
think that the use of shortcuts in text messaging affects the English proficiency of a student and
25% disagree on this note. 5 or 25% odf the students surveyed often or always use shortcuts and
have rated their proficiency as not so good among the 4 or 80% agree that this is the cause of the
use of shortcuts and 1 or 20% says otherwise; but from the total surveyed student 70% agrees
and 30% says no.

The gathered data shows how the use of shortcuts in text messaging does lower a
student’s proficiency in the English language more on grammar than in spelling. However, it also
shows how this is not always the case; where in a student’s proficiency may also be the case of
various factors especially by the student himself/herself.
 CONCLUSION

The use of shortcuts in text messaging has been around for a long time now, but with the
rise of social media and the Internet text messaging has become ever rampant with shortcuts
having new forms such as emojis, stickers and more. This has made it more accessible and
widely used especially by the younger generation. This research study has the purpose of
showing people the effects and downsides of abbreviating and cutting words short that could
affect your expertise in the form of formal writing.

A survey was conducted on 20 grade 8 students of ESSC and found that majority of the
class agrees on the negative effects of the use of shortcuts on the English proficiency of the
student stating how they may adapt this bad habit and forgetting the proper spelling of words;
however most of the student who often/always uses shortcuts rated their proficiency in spelling
good-excellent and in grammar not so good – good. This meaning that the English proficiency of
the grade 8 students of ESSC isn’t really the effect their use of shortcuts in text messaging but of
what and how they learn. Those who do not agree that the use of shortcuts affects their English
proficiency stated that, “No (the use of shortcuts does not affect ones English proficiency),
because if you really know how to speak (and write in) English then it won’t affect you that
much.”

From this gathered data a conclusion was made showing how the use of shortcuts in text
messaging does lower a student’s proficiency in the English language more on grammar than in
spelling. However, this may also be the case of different factors in which the use of shortcuts
does not play a big role at allwhere in a student’s proficiency may also be the case of various
factors especially by the knowledge of the student himself/herself.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0152409

http://www.academia.edu/11245168/Text_messaging_affects_teen_literacy_

https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED521906