E-Slang Pervasive, But Not Here

Everyone has done it: you’re sitting at your computer, plugging away at a response paper for that Lit & Arts core, when you catch yourself forgetting to capitalize, omitting punctuation, using abbreviations—and even, god forbid, emoticons.

While you brush it off as a result of sleep deprivation, a new study says that you’re not to blame—technology is.

A report, published last week cooperatively by the Pew Internet & American Life Project and the College Board’s National Commission on Writing, found that two-thirds of high school students frequently use common e-mail, instant message, and text message slang in their academic writing.

Students who have blogs or are members of social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace were found to be 15 percent more likely to use informal writing styles in academic work.

The report also found that girls were about 10 percent more likely to use text shortcuts and nearly 20 percent more likely to use emoticons than boys in academic writing.

But at Harvard it’s rare to find a stray “ttyl” in course writing, Molly H. Donovan ’10 said.

“Here at Harvard we’ve been so trained to write correctly, so it’s not as much of an issue as it might be at other schools,” Donovan said in an interview in Adams dining hall.

Donovan added that she thinks techno-slang is more likely to be found in verbal communications—a conclusion supported by the report.

“I think in terms of colloquialisms, more so than seeping into writing, they are seeping into verbal communications,” she said.

English professor Lawrence Buell echoed a similar sentiment, stating that he hasn’t noticed a presence of e-mail speak in his students’ formal writing.

“This is the top of the mountain peak that you’re surveying as far as potential quality and smarts of the student group,” he said. “Maybe [Harvard] is unrepresentative of American human youth.”

Richard Sterling, who chaired the advisory board for College Board’s National Commission on Writing, believes that the fact that students are using informal language in school is “good news.”

When students use this type of language in their academic writing, it opens a dialogue between students and teachers, said Sterling, who is a professor of education at the University of California at Berkeley. “It’s helping them to understand when certain language is appropriate.”

Sterling said that the incorporation of e-mail speak into more formal modes of discourse is part of the natural progression of the English language.

“Capitalization could end,” said Sterling. “Young people have always used their own language. They invent it, they speak it, and now they’re writing it,” Sterling said.