Letter to the Editor

To the editor,

It is no doubt that texting has been a huge influence in the language of the youngsters in this time and period. “Text speak” has definitely spread around the entire world and the more teens text and the more abbreviations they use in text messages, the more likely they are to using that register in formal writing. Although teens have been being affect negatively with this technical language, there are some positives as well. In the article “Twtr? It's majorly bad! Leading headteacher condemns 'text speak' for eroding schoolchildren's language skills” the author argues that this is completely impacting in the vocabulary of youngsters and that it is limiting their language and also their brains. In the article it is discussed that young teens are forgetting how to distinct formal writing from texting and including abbreviations and “text speak” in school essays. Furthermore it has being said that technology and social media is the reason while all of this is happening “Youngsters are also in danger of growing up with limited vocabularies

because they spend so much of their free time on sites such as Twitter and Facebook instead of reading.”. But is it fair to apply this assumption to all teenagers and generalise the cause of poor vocabulary? 

Social media may be encouraging “text speak” but there are a lot of relevant information in social media. For example while an adult may read the news in the newspaper, a teenager that has twitter can follow the news channel and have just as much or even more access to the information as an adult. Furthermore everything that we used to do without technology can be done with it, reading the news, reading books, communicating and expressing opinions and etc. Media is an amazing platform which eases our communication and acquiring of information. I personally believe that the social media can and is affecting children but not all in a negative way. Most teenagers are smart and they use “text speak” and abbreviations during conversations to sound cool. It is possible that some mistakes might be made but overall they are aware of what they are writing tor saying. Additionally I do not think that social media is limiting vocabulary because personally I have learned new words in places such as Facebook and Twitter as I have learned reading books. It is true that books are richer in grammar and vocabulary and they also explore words that are more insightful but technology has its own dialect too. Perhaps teachers should be more open minded and less strict to “text speak” in conversations but they should keep reinforcing the importance of proper register in formal writing. 

The original article is somewhat correct but it is not fair to apply that assumption to all teenagers in the world. Moreover "text speak" in a way is another dialect and therefore it differentiates teenagers vocabularry. Teenagers are only affected by this if they let it affect them, because in order for someone to leave a word out or abbreviate it, they must first know the original word and know that the word is there. 


Luiza Helena Ferreira.

Source: hfile:///Users/luizahelena/Downloads/Twtr__It_s_majorly_bad__Leading_headteacher_condemns__text_speak__for_eroding_schoolchildren_s_language_skills___Daily_Mail_Online%20(1).pdf