“Texting is ruining language.” It’s a very familiar statement that finds backing from scholars and laymen alike, but is there any truth to the statement?

Granted, texting does break many “grammar rules” by often disposing with punctuation and utilizing abbreviations, but texting isn’t really ruining the English language. Rather, it teaches another form of language altogether. Texting combines the informal, ungrammatical markers of speech with the characters of writing to create a whole new type of communication.

Texting is not like speaking on the phone, where the tone of a person’s voice conveys meaning, or like conversing with someone in person, where both tone and body language can communicate intent. Texting is also different than written language as texting does not require formality or an adherence to the rules of grammar or spelling. It involves a different kind of communication, a mix of both the spoken and the written contained on a cell screen.

One important element of communication that texting is forced to exclude is the non-verbal. Psychologists say that body language and other non-verbal cues accounts for 55 per cent of how we communicate. The tone we use accounts for 38 per cent and the words we use only account for 7 per cent. If it’s more important how we say something than what we’re actually saying, how can texting adequately transfer meaning from one phone to another without these all-important non-verbal cues?

The only way to derive emotion or meaning from a text message is to read between the lines, to use the nuances of language to determine meaning. Is someone being serious or trying to be funny? Sarcastic or just mean? The meaning and interpretation of a text can hinge on a single word, which means things can easily be lost in translation.

Reading body language has become a science, with articles explaining what gestures as simple as a tilt of the head can mean, so perhaps text reading will become a science too.

It’s already, in its own way, a pseudoscience. I doubt there is any one person who has not turned to a friend or a number of friends to attempt to decipher the meaning of a text. Amongst my friends it’s common practice to hold a forum because texts are so open to interpretation and often difficult to read. It’s easy to spend hours poring over a text, closely examining the syntax and diction but still, you’re usually just speculating. And most likely, you’re wrong. Just like the “science” of body language is often ridiculous — a suspiciously long blink apparently means someone is lying, while I think it means they’re falling asleep — sometimes it’s better to take a text at face value and save the analyzing for English class.

Texting even has its own rules of communication and its own etiquette. How long is an appropriate response time? Should it be directly proportional to the time it took the other to respond or should it be doubled? How long should a text be? As concise or as detailed as possible? And the all-important, how soon is too soon to include a winky face? Each person has an opinion on what is appropriate and what is not appropriate for the realm of SMS.

Much like each person is easily identifiable by their voice and manner of speech, people can also be easily identifiable by the texts they send. Texting is as unique to an individual as the words they use in everyday conversation. There are those whose texts are almost unintelligible, filled with so many abbreviations and shorthands that they require translation.

There are also those who use an inordinate number of emoticons, and those who seem to answer before you’ve even sent the text. No two people text the same way. Everyone has a unique style, just like everyone has a distinct writing style.

To me, aptitude in texting is based on a few factors: response time, relevance of text and wittiness of text. Response time and relevance have less to do with style but if someone’s texts are always dull and boring, they can expect to get few of them in return from me.

Texting in itself has evolved since its inception and so has the texter. The language is always changing, new words are added and old words become out of date just like established languages, and texters even have their own sociolects and dialects.

Texting is more a reflection of individual differences in language that it is a universal language we all share. I can tell who sent almost any text in my inbox without needing to see the author because most people text like they speak with some time saving devices like acronyms and lack of punctuation thrown in for ease of communication.

It’s never correct to say that someone who texts doesn’t know how to write because texting presupposes literacy. It would be nearly impossible to understand all the acronyms and misspelled words if the texter didn’t have a basic understanding of the language. Each person uses texting differently to achieve different means in much the same way that speaking and writing are individual to the user. Just like someone can be can be a good or bad writer, someone can be a good or bad texter. It’s more correct to say that if someone knows how to text well they know how to write.

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Photo: Erik Schlange/Flickr