Abstract
Abstract
Online messages often diverge from the standard language orthography: so-called textisms have become an indispensable part of
youths’ written computer-mediated communication (CMC). This paper presents an in-depth corpus study of texts from four new media
produced by Dutch youths: MSN chats, text messages, tweets, and WhatsApp messages. It is demonstrated that Dutch informal written
CMC, as in other languages, is implicitly governed by orthographic principles. Relative frequencies of textism types in the corpus
show how textisms are effectively used by Dutch youths. Textism types are classified here in terms of forms, operations, and,
crucially, functions – the ‘SUPER-functions’: textisms can make orthography more Speechlike, Understandable, Playful, Expressive,
or Reduced. Moreover, this study proves that preferences for textism types greatly depend on age group and medium. New media have
their own combination of characteristics and constraints, while adolescents and young adults appear to have different perceptions
on language use and spelling.
© John Benjamins
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2018-11-02
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