Impact of instant messaging on language

The birth of technology has changed our daily lives drastically. People seem to be very dependent on the technology. Due to the growing usage of instant messaging services such as Yahoo Messenger and Windows Live Messenger, it is now a pertinent issue for the teachers to figure out how these instant messaging services will affect students’ academic writing skills (O’Connor 2005). With IM, it enables users to interact with the people in their contact list. Moreover, they can get the reply in just a second or two. This is what makes IM a pop culture and a popular communication tool.

Example of the usage of conversational language

Instant messaging (IM) are now very popular among the society, especially the students. Instant messaging appears on the internet scene since November 1996, which is when Mirabilis introduced ICQ, the first instant messaging utility (Tyson & Cooper 2001).The informal language they use while sending instant message is said to be a kind of internet language. There are languages used under the purpose of facilitating or furthering a particular form of activity (Halliday & Hassan 1985, p.7). While chatting online through IM services, the field would be ‘a conversation carries on’, whereas tenor would most probably be both friends, while the mode would be a more conversational language. To let the readers feel engaged, informal or narrative form of affordances of the modes, play their role in interpreting the meanings (Walsh 2006). Thus, the language used here would be more friendly and informal.

As analysed by product-centred researchers, different genres have different textual features to typify them, like for instance, the format of a formal report (Putnis & Petelin 1996, p.231). It consists of measured length and content or even mechanical errors, grammars or language style. It is different from instant message which has no limitation in the format or language style used. Sometimes, short forms maybe used while typing instant messages too. Some students do not even know it is actually ‘y-o-u’ but not ‘u’ (O’Connor 2005). I personally think that the usage of abbreviation should not be practised too often as in some degree it will affect our wirting ability in academic essays. It is also undeniable that, typing instant messages is a kind of writing practice. Some people might be very alert about the differences between instant messaging and academic writing, but some people may get confused of that. So,for those who notice that instant messaging style of writing starts to appear on their academic paper, they need to be careful and try to practice good language even during instant messaging too.

Writing an academic essay and typing a conversation, the situation and the cultural contexts are different. Academic writing is formal while instant messaging is more to informal. Students must be aware of choosing the appropriate language while writing in different genre of documents.



References:

Halliday, MAK & Hasan, R 1985, Language, context and text : aspects of language in a social-semiotic perspective, Deakin University, Waurn Ponds, Vic, p.7.

O’Connor, A 2005, Instant Messaging: Friend or Foe of Student Writing?, viewed on 31 October 2007,
http://www.newhorizons.org/strategies/literacy/oconnor.htm

Putnis, P & Petelin, R 1996, Professional communication: principles and applications, Prentice Hall, Sydney, p. 231.

Tyson, J & Cooper, A 2001, How Instant Messaging Works, viewed on 31 October 2007,
http://communication.howstuffworks.com/instant-messaging1.htm

Walsh, M 2006, ‘textual shift’: examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts, Australian journal of language and literacy, vol.29, no.1, pp.24-37.