NOVICE LANGUAGE IN SMS COMMUNICATION: LINGUISTIC INVESTIGATION OF YOUNG ALGERIANS’ TEXT MESSAGING IN ORAN

Abstract

The present study on young Algerians’texters living in Oran aims at investigating the different linguistic features of SMS communication in Algeria and discovering the various attitudes towards the impact of SMS language on the standards of traditional written language. To achieve this, I researched to what extent the language of SMS is indeed a new form of language, and also the ways in which this language draws upon features of spoken and written language. I also questioned the use of code switching and discussed its very nature. The dissertation challenged also popular assumptions that SMS language is deteriorating traditional written media and tried to survey texters’ attitudes towards the effect SMS language is having on standard written language. The main results obtained in this study are that language use in SMS among young Algerians is creatively used and well suited to achieve the communication situation needs. Strategies such as phonetic spelling, syllabograms, logograms, and punctuation are employed to fulfil technical, economical, linguistic, psychological, and also communicative needs. SMS language is also found to contain unconventional spelling based on the French language and a Romanized version of Algerian Arabic (ORSA). A mixture of these two varieties and others are depicted and identified through Yau’s (1993) model as being written forms of oral code switching. As for the spoken and written-like features of SMS language, results have shown that texting in Algeria bears far more resemblance to oral language than to its written counterpart and that it is , according to the psycho-structural model, a written version of oral language. The study’s results end with the overall suggestion that a number of young texters demonstrate negative attitudes towards SMS language, but a more important category shows a laissez-faire approach to the concern of language deterioration accelerated by SMS communication. These attitudes may be seen as a key element in the study of the future of both written and oral language in Algeria.