Does Instant messaging affect your grammar skills?
With huge numbers of teenagers using instant messaging and adopting its unique linguistic shorthand, many teachers and parents are concerned about the medium’s potential to corrupt kids’ grammar.
But a new study from the University of Toronto has revealed that instant messaging doesn’t deserve its bad reputation as a spoiler of syntax.
The study finds that instant messaging language does mirror patterns in speech, but that teens, surprisingly, are actually using a fusion of different levels of diction. Teens are using both informal forms that their English teachers would never allow, yet they also use formal writing phrasing that, if used in speech, would likely be considered “uncool.”
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