The Sociolinguistics of Persian SMS: Ways to Identify Age Limits

Moslem Zolfagharkhani, Zahra Khosrovazad

Abstract


A kind of social system which eases communication is language. Any form of language is very important for different types of communication: interpersonal and inter-group. A form of this social system is short messaging system (SMS) or texting which has been used increasingly since 1990’s. Text messaging, as a language style, is used in everyday life to maintain social networks, to regulate events and to help entertain oneself in the open moments of one’s day. This paper thus examines the SMS style of language communication between two groups of young and middle-aged people. Thirty messages are taken randomly from 10 cell phones (five from each group). Then we analyze the effects of the writers’ characteristic (age) on message length (number of words), dialogue structure (with or without an opening and a closing), and message function (informative vs. relational) to investigate variations among these two age groups. The paper concludes that a significant difference is found between young and middle-aged texters’ linguistic properties.


Keywords


Persian SMS; Text messaging; Sociolinguistics; Lexicology; Morphology

Full Text:

PDF

References


Bernicot, J., Volckaert-Legrier, O., Goumi, A., & Bert-Erboul, A. (2012). Forms and functions of SMS messages: A study of variations in a corpus written by adolescents. Journal of Pragmatics, 44, 1701-1715. doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2012.07.009.

Deumert, A., & Masinyana, S. (2008). Mobile language choices: The use of English and isiXhosin text messages (SMS). English World-Wide, 29(2), 117-147.

Döring, N. (2002). Abbreviations and acronyms in SMS communication. Retrieved from http://www.Nicola-doering.de.

Doring, N., Hellwig, K., & Klimsa, P. (2005). Mobile communication among youth in Germany. Passagen Verlag, Wien.

Goffman, E. (1967). Interaction ritual: Essays on face-to-face behavior. Anchor, Garden City, NY.

Hamrahe Aval (First Operator) (2012). History of the company. Retrieved from http://www. mci. ir/ web/ en/ history.

Herring, S. (1996). Computer-mediated communication: Linguistic, social and cross-cultural perspectives. J. Benjamins, Philadelphia.

Holmes, J. (2008). Gender and age. An introduction to sociolinguistics (3rd ed., pp.157-183). London: Longman.

Jadidonline (2009). Iran’s mobile text messaging. Retrieved from www.jadidonline.com/story/050322009/ frnk/sms_in_ira_eng.

Laursen, D. (2005). Please reply! The replying norm in adolescent SMS communication. In R. Harper, L. A. Palen, & A. Taylor (Eds.), The inside text: Social, cultural and design perspectives on SMS. Netherlands: Springer, Dordrecht.

Lenhart, A., Arafe, S., Smith, A., & Rankin Macgill, A. (2008). Writing, technology, and teens. Pew internet and the American life project. www.pewinternet.org/PPR/r/247/report-display.asp.

Ling, R., & Baron, N. S. (2007). Text messaging and IM: Linguistic comparison of American college data. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 26(3), 291-298.

Ling, R. (2005). The socio-linguistics of SMS: an analysis of SMS use by a random sample of Norwegians. Mobile Communications: Renegotiation of the Social Sphere. London: Springer.

Pew Internet & the American Life Project. (2010). Teens and mobile phones. Retrieved from http://pewinternet.org/reports/2010/Teens-and-Mobile-Phones/Summary-of-findings.

Plester, B., & Wood, C. (2009). Exploring relationships between traditional and new media literacies: British preteen texters at school. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication.

Rafi, M. Sh. (2010). The sociolinguistics of SMS ways to identify gender boundaries. Retrieved from www.igi-global.com/chapter/sociolinguistics-sms-ways-identify-gender/42774.

Randal, N. (2002). Lingo online: A report on the language of the keyboard generation. Department of English, University of Waterloo. Retrieved from http://www.arts.uwaterlooca/ ̰nrandall/Lingo Online-finalreport.pdf.

Rihll, T. E., Tucker, J. V., & Wang, V. (2011). On phatic technologies for creating and maintaining human relationships. Journal of Technology in Society.

Spagnolli, A., & Gamberini, L. (2007). Interacting via SMS: practices of social closeness and reciprocation. British Journal of Social Psychology, 46, 343--364.

Spilioti, T. (2011). Beyond genre: Closings and relational work in text-messaging. In C. Thurlow & K. Mroczek (Eds.), Digital Discourse: Language in the New Media (pp. 67-85). New York, USA: Oxford University Press.

Taiwa, R. (2009). The use of socio-cultural elements for creativity in Nigerian SMS texts. Journal of Linguistic Associations of Nigeria (JOLAN).

Thurlow, C., & Brown, A. (2003). Generation Txt? The sociolinguistics of young people’s text-messaging. Retrieved from http://faculty.washington.edu/thurlow/papers/Thurlow (2003)-DAOL.pdf.




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3968/4305

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c)



Share us to:   

Reminder

  • How to do online submission to another Journal?
  • If you have already registered in Journal A, then how can you submit another article to Journal B? It takes two steps to make it happen:

1. Register yourself in Journal B as an Author

  • Find the journal you want to submit to in CATEGORIES, click on “VIEW JOURNAL”, “Online Submissions”, “GO TO LOGIN” and “Edit My Profile”. Check “Author” on the “Edit Profile” page, then “Save”.

2. Submission

  • Go to “User Home”, and click on “Author” under the name of Journal B. You may start a New Submission by clicking on “CLICK HERE”.


We only use three mailboxes as follows to deal with issues about paper acceptance, payment and submission of electronic versions of our journals to databases:
[email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]

 Articles published in Higher Education of Social Science are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC-BY).

HIGHER EDUCATION OF SOCIAL SCIENCE Editorial Office

Address: 1055 Rue Lucien-L'Allier, Unit #772, Montreal, QC H3G 3C4, Canada.
Telephone: 1-514-558 6138 
Website: Http://www.cscanada.net Http://www.cscanada.org 
E-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]

Copyright © 2010 Canadian Research & Development Center of Sciences and Cultures