Instrumentos y hojas de cotejo

Despite the negativity described above, others believe that rather than causing literacy to go to rack and ruin, CMC has several language-related benefits. First of all, the ‘reinvention’ of language in CMC, where one is not bound to the constraints of conventional spelling and grammar, may lead to creative, innovative language, to “playful use of language that enables creating a variety of graphic forms of the same word” (Plester, Wood, & Bell, 2008:142–3). Tagg (2011) notes that creativity is prevalent in textese, not just in terms of spelling variation but also in terms of e.g. idiom manipulation, a form of language play. Shortis (2007) feels that textese should not be seen as “the deficit practice of a moronic default,” but as “a source of creativity, diversity and pragmatic cultural accomplishment” (23). This creativity can result in a wide variety of spellings for a single word: for example, anything can occur as anything, nething, nethin, anyfing, anyfin, nefin, anyting, anytin, or netin (Shaw, 2008:48). Variants may even occur within the linguistic repertoire of individual CMC users, because there is no need for them to be consistent as long as their message can be understood by the recipient. Kemp (2010) suggests that it is possible that “the language ‘play’ encouraged by extensive practice with textisms … helps to boost interest in language and thus scores on language tasks” (65). Text poetry and text message novels – poems and narratives written on and distributed by mobile phones – confirm that texting can result in “creative expressions of … engagement with language” (Plester, Wood, & Joshi, 2009:156). Mobile phone novels originated in Japan, where these keitai novels have become quite popular (Nishimura, 2011). The ‘fun factor’ of written CMC – using language without having to worry about spelling or grammar rules – may increase young people’s motivation to read and write. This is acknowledged by a European Union expert group on literacy: “Digital tools provide a clear, strong motivation for writing, one that is particularly evident among young people” (European Commission, 2012:23). O’Connor (2005) says that students see CMC as recreational ‘writing’ rather than work. Crystal (2008b) states that “the human ludic temperament,” our “drive to be playful,” is what causes people to enjoy using textese (10). CMC may even have a positive effect on youths’ attitudes towards other literacy activities (Van Dijk et al., 2016).

Secondly, it has been suggested that CMC provides youths with more exposure to written text and with extra opportunities and incentives to engage with written language, which may facilitate reading ease (receptive literacy) and writing proficiency (productive literacy). This sentiment is conveyed in the following quote: “Ga eens kijken hoe jongeren tegenwoordig hun tijd doorbrengen. Ze schrijven zich te pletter. Veel meer dan een generatie terug. Ze SMS’en, twitteren, forummen,

chatten, MSN’en bij het leven” (Consider how youngsters are spending their time nowadays. They are writing their asses off. Much more than a generation ago. They text, twitter, forum, chat, and IM all the time) (Cornelis, 2009:¶9). Sweeny (2010) also recognizes that CMC offers valuable writing practice to youths:

Writing, for adolescents who live in an age of digital communication, has taken on new importance and plays a prominent role in the way they socialize, share information, and structure their communication. [...] Their writing uses the mediums of instant messaging (IM), text messaging (or texting), Twitter, and e-mail, as well as shared electronic documents and postings on blogs and social networking sites. (121)

Likewise, Kalantzis and Cope (2008) state that “we are witnessing a return to writing (emails, SMS messages, and the web as a written medium), albeit in new forms and requiring radically changing writing practices” (17). Lee (2011a) rightly states that notwithstanding their multimodal possibilities, new media “still involve extensive use of the written word” (110). Nicotra (2009) agrees that new communication technologies call for an expanded conception of writing. Cart (2007) mentions increased exposure to text, stating that “traditional print materials are no longer enough when assessing reading” (53): technology-based reading, such as in CMC, plays an important role in youngsters’ lives nowadays, and the same can be said for technology-based writing. Therefore, he argues for a redefinition of the concept of reading: it should now include CMC-based reading – by the same token, the concept of writing should include CMC-based writing or ‘e-writing’ (Abdullah, 2003).

A third possible advantage of using CMC is that textisms may increase phonological or metalinguistic awareness, which are helpful for literacy development: CMC could help youths become more sensitive to the underlying (sound) structure of language, or to register differences between different writing genres. As an example of the former, phonological abbreviations (fone for phone) and letter/number homophones (gr8 for great) reflect an understanding of the grapheme-phoneme (letter-sound) patterns of a language: users of textese “exploit the polyvalence of grapheme-phoneme correspondences that is inherent in most orthographic systems in playful, evocative or subversive ways” (Androutsopoulos, 2011:151). Vosloo (2009) explains that “[w]hile spelled incorrectly in a conventional sense, many textisms are phonologically acceptable forms of written English” or another language (3). Indeed, even in textese one’s freedom to deviate from the standard language norms is not unlimited: CMC users are “bound to principles of English orthography which ensure that variation from the norm is recognizable and effective” (Tagg, 2011:225); too much idiosyncrasy may cause a lack of recognisability, which in turn causes problems of intelligibility and leads to unsuccessful communication. Fairon and Klein (2010) add to this that “De l’analyse du langage SMS à une meilleure perception du système graphique normé” (Analysing text language can lead to a better perception of the system of writing norms) and that texting is even “un atout pour l’enseignement de l’orthographe” (an asset to spelling instruction) (117,119). All these possible merits bring Tagliamonte and Denis (2008) to the conclusion that CMC is

unjustly thought of as “an inferior mode of communication” that is “filled with grammatical errors, incomprehensible words, and secret codes” (8): it is not linguistic ruin, but rather a “new linguistic renaissance” (27).

British linguist David Crystal is a proponent of textese, which he vigorously defends in his book Txtng: the Gr8 Db8 (2008). He feels that the negative views on CMC expressed in the popular press are unfounded: “a huge popular mythology has grown up, in which exaggerated and distorted accounts of what youngsters are believed to do when they text has fuelled prophecies of impending linguistic disaster” (Crystal, 2008:7). In Language and the Internet, Crystal (2006) already made clear that he does not agree with doom-mongers who claim that “the relaxed standards of e-mails augur the end of literacy and spelling as we know it” (2). Following up on that point, Crystal asserts in Internet Linguistics (2011) that such linguistic worries caused by new technologies are based on myths, and that texting and IMing help rather than hinder literacy. According to Crystal, the language used in CMC will not have a lasting impact on ‘older’ varieties of languages. It does not radically deviate from the standard; it is only that its non-standard features, such as textisms, are so striking that we fail to notice its standard features. He sees textese not as a disaster, but as language in evolution.

Dutch linguist Marc van Oostendorp (2003) does not believe that CMC wreaks havoc on language either. He argues that, from a historical perspective, language has recurrently influenced technology rather than vice versa. Van Oostendorp argues that writing an effective text message requires a certain amount of virtuosity and creativity. He applauds CMC for being creative, direct, and personal – for casting off the yoke of standard language norms.

American linguist Naomi Baron expresses a moderately positive view on digital communication tools. In 2002, she still speaks of CMC as ‘chaotic’, as containing “devil-may-care spelling and punctuation” and “logical incoherence,” and its users of having an attitude of “linguistic whatever-ism”: a laissez-faire attitude, i.e. indifferent feelings, towards traditional linguistic conventions (Baron, 2002). Yet in 2005, Baron, in contrast to Sutherland, uses Shakespeare to argue that strict spellings norms should not be seen as a sacred cow: “even Shakespeare spelled his own name at least six different ways” (Baron, 2005:29), since orthographic conventions only became fixed and prescriptive in recent centuries – Standard English, in fact, only came to be institutionalized in the eighteenth century and it was only then that the denunciation of non-standard spelling truly commenced. Baron feels that textese is an empowering phenomenon and she asserts that “[t]he writing style commonly used in IMing, texting, and other forms of computer-mediated communication need not spell the end of normative language” (ibid.), provided that youngsters are instructed by their parents and teachers to use situationally appropriate language, so that they can distinguish between situations in which they can be creative in their language use and situations in which they are expected adhere to conventional spelling and grammar standards. Even more recently, she succinctly summarized it as follows: “Whatever is happening with language, we can’t lay much of the blame on computers and mobile phones” (Baron, 2015:xi), seemingly convinced of no (or only a negligible) impact of CMC on language and literacy.

Along the same lines, Irish psychologists Francesca Farina and Fiona Lyddy (2011) state that “rather than signalling the demise of language, CMC and text language likely reflects the workings of a productive and flexible language system,” but they still urge that “use of non-standard language in inappropriate contexts,” i.e. use of textese in school writings, should be monitored (148). O’Connor (2005) makes the same point: “Students need to understand the importance of using the appropriate language in the appropriate setting, and that who one is writing for affects the way in which one writes.” What ultimately underlies this is the concept of audience: making youths aware of which language to use when writing for a particular audience, such as their friends and family versus their teachers. Turner (2009) calls this “flipping the switch,” switching between textese and standard language according to context. Presenting a case study of a girl who was a successful writer at school, despite being a “hardcore IM user” (205), Jacobs (2008b) similarly argues that it is possible to be proficient in both CMC and school writing, as long as one manages to separate the conventions of the two in one’s repertoire of literacy practices (which she calls “creating separate worlds” (207)). This requires metacognitive awareness of register. Such awareness should restrict the unintentional intrusion of textisms into school writing. This includes careful and conscious writing decisions about choice of words, grammar, and spelling in each writing genre.

Who also does not believe that digital communication is ruining language is British linguist Caroline Tagg (2015). Tagg claims that adults’ concerns about any negative impact of online communication on language and literacy are mostly based on misconceptions. She identifies three such beliefs which, according to her, are utterly mistaken: firstly, that all youths use many non-standard language forms in their written CMC; secondly, that textese consists of fixed abbreviations, functioning as a code language to which adults cannot have access; and thirdly, that textese and the standard language are in competition with each other. On the contrary, she contends that digital communication may be good for developing children’s literacy skills, because they need linguistic awareness to be able to play with language through textisms. Tagg goes on to state that youths can have a command of several kinds of literacy (‘multiliteracies’), can be proficient in several languages and language varieties (‘heteroglossia’), and can employ these effortlessly (via a process called ‘translanguaging’). Her views on CMC are thus not gloomy at all, at least not from a linguistic perspective.

Finally, Dutch linguist Elma Blom (2014) argues that textese or ‘digi-talk’ can improve children’s cognitive abilities. Similar to the benefits reaped by bilingual children, switching between the registers of standard language and CMC language would train children’s brains – provided that they are fully proficient in both registers. Therefore, she feels that youths should be stimulated to chat, tweet, text, and whatsapp after school.