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The Discourse of Text Messaging: Analysis of SMS Communication: 11
Author(s): Caroline Tagg (Author)
- Publisher: Continuum
- Publication Date: 17 May 2012
- Language: English
- Print length: 272 pages
- ISBN-10: 1441174095
- ISBN-13: 9781441174093
Book Description
This title reveals the depth and complexity of the language used in SMS text communication, and how it exploits various linguistic resources to create identities. Understanding the discourse of text messaging has profound implications for society. SMS messaging has impacted considerably on how we communicate with others. At the same time, negative, sometimes alarmist media coverage continues to fuel debate surrounding its ‘damaging’ effects on language and children’s literacy. To what extent is this true? Should we worry about this communication tool – or embrace it? Drawing on a range of academic sources from various fields, this book describes the language used in a corpus of over 11,000 text messages, as yet the largest collection in the UK. In particular, the book defines text messaging as a language variety shaped by users’ creative responses to the functions and limitations of the medium. This is an essential book for upper level undergraduates and postgraduates studying discourse analysis, as well as educators wanting to understand this important new form of discourse. Discourse is one of the most significant concepts of contemporary thinking in the humanities and social sciences as it concerns the ways language mediates and shapes our interactions with each other and with the social, political and cultural formations of our society. “The Continuum Discourse Series” aims to capture the fast-developing interest in discourse to provide students, new and experienced teachers and researchers in applied linguistics, ELT and English language with an essential bookshelf. Each book deals with a core topic in discourse studies to give an in-depth, structured and readable introduction to an aspect of the way language is used in real life.
Editorial Reviews
Review
‘The Discourse of Text Messaging is a pleasure to read. A detailed analysis of a corpus of text messages reveals how people deploy all the resources of language – from spellings and punctuation through to grammar and discourse markers – to create meanings, to construct identities and to generally ‘get things done’. The wide-ranging analyses are clearly explained and engagingly written about throughout.’ — David Barton, Professor of Language and Literacy, Lancaster University, UK
‘Through a meticulous investigation of a rich corpus of authentic text messages, Tagg’s The Discourse of Text Messaging is by far the most comprehensive book-length study of mobile phone texting from a linguistics perspective. A must-read for anyone interested in digital discourse and communication in the mobile world.’ — Carmen Lee, Department of English, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
About the Author
Caroline Tagg is Lecturer in Applied Linguistics at the Centre for English Language Studies at the University of Birmingham, UK.
