In most news readings of texts, the viewer potentially both sees and hears the message’s content, which is displayed as an image on the TV screen. Much new media representation focuses on orthographic form (Shortis, 2007; Thurlow & Poff , 2011), and this level of representation pertains to the metalin- guistic construction of text messaging’s formal properties. For each message, the on-screen text was compared to the original message transcript, and dis- crepancies between the two were marked. Table 1.1 summarizes the coding; 114 messages are included in this and the text-to-voice replication analyses.
Table 1.2 gives examples of the most frequent discrepancies: omission,
capitalization , and punctuation . Less than half of the on-screen messag-
es include these particular discrepancies; such inconsistency is a way in which horizontal heteroglossia across message representations emerges. However, it is illuminating to look at which kinds of discrepancies are more likely than others.
First, most omitted material is either message-initial or message-fi nal (compare with Spilioti in Chapter 4, this volume). Often, however, dis- course markers occur at the start of an original message; their omission refl ects the focus of the newscasts on the messages’ content. Also omit- ted are immediate responses to prior texts—second-pair parts of adjacency pairs (Sacks, Schegloff , & Jeff erson, 1974). In several instances, this omit- ted message-initial content also includes a nonstandard linguistic feature, including <LOL> (“laugh out loud”; an acronym seen as emblematic of new media discourse). 4 For instance, Extract 1.1 shows Kilpatrick’s exaggerated
form of <LOL> in a response to a prior message, omitted in the on-screen image. In fi ve messages, the originals include <LOL> both message-initially and message-fi nally but are omitted on-screen, such as in Extract 1.2.
Table 1.1 Text-to-screen replication coding scheme
Discrepancy Type Description
Omission Words or phrases present in original text but
omitted on-screen
Addition Words added to on-screen image
Capitalization Diff erences from original capitalization
Punctuation Diff erences from original punctuation
Spelling Diff erences in word spellings
Table 1.2 Examples of text-to-screen replication: most frequent discrepancies by type, number of messages exhibiting the type of discrepancy, original message
feature, and on-screen rendering (my glosses in parentheses)
Discrepancy type Occurrences Examples (out of 114)
Original message feature On-screen rendering
Omission 46 <LOL>
Acronyms Profanity Emphatic text
Capitalization 44 ALL CAPS
midsentence Uppercase <k> <u> <mtg> Sentence case. midsentence lowercase <K> (“ok”) <U> (“you”) <MTG> (“meeting”) Punctuation 32 < ! > < > < . > < , >
Extract 1.1: Text-to-screen omission of <LOL> and turn-initial second pair-part (line
breaks are represented as they appear in the on-screen image) (Mayor Kilpatrick to Christine Beatty; WXYZ)
Original text On-screen visualization
LOLOLOLOLOL! That’s BECAUSE IT MAKES ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE. I WILL FIGURE OUT WHEN AND HOW WE CAN SPEND THE REST OF OUR LIVES TOGETHER!
“I will fi gure out when and how we can spend the rest of our lives together.”
Extract 1.2: Text-to-screen omission of <LOL> (Kilpatrick to Beatty; WDIV)
Original text On-screen visualization
LOL! The might is on YOU! LOL The “might” is on you!
As seen in Extract 1.1, on-screen renderings commonly set the text off with quotation marks. Not present in the original messages, these marks may give the feeling that the reported speech is faithful to the original, even when this is not the case.
In one case of message-medial content omission, the uppercase phrase <WITH MY COS> (probably “with my Chief of Staff ”) is omitted from a
Extract 1.4: Text-to-screen omission of acronyms (Beatty to Kilpatrick; WXYZ)
Original text On-screen visualization
I will always be YOUR GIRL. I hope to one day be much more and get to show you and for me to experience the full depth of life as “your girl! Goodnight SM, BF, LOML! Talk to you tomorrow.
“I will always be YOUR GIRL. I hope to one day be much more and to get to show you and for me to experience the full depth of life as “your girl! Goodnight
In erasing some visually emblematic text message forms, these imaged transcripts represent text messaging as more like standard written English than as something especially novel, and as more standard than the original messages. This constructs Kilpatrick and Beatty’s voices as perhaps more “adult” or more “offi cial” than their original texts appear.
The modifi cation of written text to be more standard-like is also seen in the alteration of capitalization and punctuation. A common capitalization change is from all capitals to sentence case (evident in Extract 1.1). Many of Kilpatrick’s messages are written either wholly or predominantly in all capitals, and his automatic signature is in all capitals, so that original mes- sages coming from Kilpatrick in reply to other messages read <Reply from THE MAYOR>. This is never shown on TV. Elsewhere, sentences written in title case are also changed to sentence case. And, sentence-initial low- ercase letters are changed to uppercase. These holistic changes are moves toward standard print conventions.
message from Kilpatrick; another omits the emotive form <(smile)> from one of Beatty’s messages. In Extract 1.3, an on-screen instance omits a message-fi nal sentence containing several nonstandard features used by Kilpatrick (<FINE>, <b4>, <:)>, <XOXO>; note that <u> is also changed from lowercase to uppercase letters, highlighting this phonetic substi- tution). In Extract 1.4, several presumably aff ective initialisms (possibly “soulmate, best friend, love of my life”) are omitted.
Extract 1.3: Text-to-screen omission of nonstandard features (Kilpatrick to
Unknown; Fox 2 News)
Original text On-screen visualization
Hey sexy, hope u had a good day. By the way, meant 2 tell u that u look great-you’ve lost weight-not that u weren’t FINE b4 :) XOXO
“Hey sexy, hope U had a good day. By the way, meant 2 tell U that U look great...”
Extract 1.5: Text-to-screen alteration of capitalization to sentence case (Kilpatrick
to Beatty; WXYZ)
Original text On-screen visualization
In this important and somewhat confusing time in your life, please know with all our heart and soul that I love you. And you will never, NEVER be alone. TBC
“Know with all our hearts and soul that I love you...and you will never, never be alone.”
Extract 1.6: Text-to-screen alteration of punctuation, replacing <!> with <.>
message-fi nally (Beatty to Kilpatrick; Fox 2 News)
Original text On-screen visualization
LOL! YOUR GAME IS WAY ON BABY! “YOU HAD ME AT HELLO!” JERRY MCGUIRE 2000. LOL. I JUST DIDN’T WANT TO GET CAUGHT!
LOL! Your game is way on baby! “you had me at hello!” Jerry McGuire 2000. LOL. I just didn’t want to get caught.
Another capitalization alteration is nonstandard abbreviated forms changed from lowercase to uppercase, presumably to visibly mark them as abbreviations. This happens once for <mtg> to <MTG> (“meet- ing”), and twice each for <k> to <K> (“okay”) and <u> to <U> (“you”). Occasionally, individual words presumably capitalized for emphasis in the original message are changed into lowercase in the on-screen tran- scripts, as in Extract 1.5.
For punctuation, alterations are also in the direction of standard writing conventions. Several of the changes involve aff ective punctuation, where rather than exclamation marks <!> in the original, there are on-screen periods <.> sentence- or message-fi nal, as in Extract 1.6, or no punctuation message- medial, as in Extract 1.7 (which also omits a period message-medially).
Extract 1.7: Text-to-screen alteration of punctuation, omitting <!> message-
medially (Kilpatrick to Beatty; WXYZ)
Original text On-screen visualization
LOLOLOL! RIGHT. You Are MY GIRL. You ALWAYS HAVE BEEN.
“LOLOLOL RIGHT You Are MY GIRL You ALWAYS HAVE BEEN.
There are also additions of punctuation to the message text where there is none in the original. Three messages add apostrophes, fi ve commas, and two
periods. These move the text in the direction of standard punctuation, as in Extract 1.8. (Note also the spelling out of the ampersand character from <&> to <and>, which makes Kilpatrick’s usage consistent within the message.)
To summarize, while no alterations at the level of a single variable o ccur in a majority of messages, most messages do contain some altera- tion. Extracts 1.6 and 1.7 show that the omission of nonstandard features like <LOL> is in no way categorical, that nonstandard features do some- times remain in the screen visualizations—just not to the extent that they occur in the originals. The alterations pertaining to written form predomi- nantly move the text toward standard print and away from the individual style of the message authors, yet at other points, Kilpatrick’s style as playing with textual features and inserting aff ective markers comes through in the visual representation. This variation is what I mean by horizontal heteroglossia.