Exploring the differences between 'standard' and digital writing

In today’s digital age, writing is everchanging due to the constant emergence of new technology and social media platforms – due to this, the way we use and manipulate language can change daily. Therefore, language standards keep on evolving. Language standardisation, as defined by Straaijer (2019) is a term that is used within linguistics to talk about the becoming of a new ‘standard’ language. Standardisation is achieved through using both speaking and writing to create a ‘consistent norm and form’. This deviation from the norm is an important maxim in informal digital communication. The term ‘digital literacy’ came into use in the 1990s, being digitally literate involves multiple skills that are also associated with print reading. For example, drawing on previous knowledge of a topic to read between the lines and understand the piece of digital literacy.

‘Standard’ writing and digitalese differ in numerous ways but let’s have a look at the most visual differences... Pictograms (😂❤️🥳😓👍🏼) are signs that have iconic resemblance with the meaning they represent; logograms (xoxo = hugs and kisses) are signs that are conventionally associated with certain meanings, no iconic relationship, no sound associations; phonetic spellings (bcos = because) are signs that represent sounds and voices associated with certain accents and ways of speaking; consonant writing (tmrw = tomorrow) is where signs represent concepts through a series of consonants. Boyd et al. (2010: 5) coined the term ‘disemvoweling’ as ‘an approach to shortening […] tweets by removing vowels.’ Disemvoweling is a metaphorical play on the word ‘disemboweling’ which means removing internal organs, where disemvoweling removes vowels from words. ‘Content without vowels is more difficult to read, but the words remain interpretable with a little bit of extra cognitive effort’ (Boyd 2010: 5). The use of these characteristics of digitalese creates an informal tone, especially if you were to compare the style of writing used in ‘standard’ writing.

Features and examples of digital writing (Deumert 2014: 131)

 

            Yet another difference between digital writing and ‘standard’ writing is the high level of interactivity that you can achieve while writing online, ‘standard’ writing does not have the ability to create interactive pieces of writing. Multimedia platforms can create a more engaging piece of writing due to the chance to incorporate images/videos and other forms of interaction. In turn, the use of images/videos and even hyperlinks can all increase the engagement between the you, the reader, and the piece of writing.

            A pro of digitalese (in my opinion) is pictograms (emojis). Pictograms make it easier to understand how people feel in their text messages, this saves any confusion and/or miscommunication of having to imply how someone feels from written language alone. As well as saving the humility of understanding someone’s message in the wrong way, pictograms help the writer to express themselves and thus, communicate emotions that could possibly be difficult to convey in formal, ‘standard’, writing. An attractive attribute of digitalese is the aspect of brevity. Brevity is best described as being concise. By cutting out vowels, or using rebus writing, you are able to get to the point of your message across much quicker then if you were to use ‘standard’ language. However, Deumert (2014: 136) argues that ‘aesthetic writing’ can take just as long as writing in a ‘standard orthographic form’.

            Another con of digitalese comes from evidence included in the Telegraph, a UK newspaper (Cramb 2003 as cited in Tagg 2015: 20). A 13-year-old girl wrote this in her essay at school:

Extract from a 13-year-old girl’s essay written using features of digitalese (Tagg 2015: 20)

 

            The above extract is translated as ‘My summer holidays were a complete waste of time. Before, we used to go to New York to see my brother, his girlfriend and their three screaming kids face to face. I love New York.’ The use of digitalese created a massive panic in educators that it was damaging students’ ability to write in ‘standard’ English. Opposing research suggests that digitalese either has no impact or a positive impact on literacy. In schools, researchers found positive correlations between the number of textisms used by students and the score achieved for verbal reasoning and spelling. It is also understood by children and adolescents that digitalese isn’t appropriate language to use in more formal situations.

            In conclusion, digital and ‘standard’ writing do present with numerous different characteristics. While digital writing strives to allow individuals to express themselves and be creative in doing so, it proposes a challenge to keep ‘standard’ writing alive. Digitalese allows more ‘linguistic creativity’ in youths than ‘standard’ writing (Thurlow 2007 as cited in Lee et al. 2013: 109). Overall, the amount of pros vs. cons of digitalese is up to personal interpretation. But if we can still preserve ‘standard’ writing then what is so wrong with being creative and using digital writing?

Word count: 800

References

Deumert, A. 2014. Chapter 7 ‘Textpl@y as poetic language’ Sociolinguistics and Mobile Communication. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Indriyanto, I. 2023. The Analysis of Maxim in Student and Lecturer Conversations through WhatsApp Messenger. Journal of English Language and Education, 8(1), pp.7-14.

Kumari, R. and Gangwar, R. 2018. Use of expression based digital pictograms in interpersonal communication: a study on social media and social apps. International Journal of Innovative Knowledge Concepts, 6, p11.

Barton, D. and Lee, C. 2013. Language online: investigating digital texts and practices. Abingdon; New York Routledge.

Straaijer, R. 2019. Language Standardization. Linguistics. doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/obo/9780199772810-0250.

Tagg, C. 2015. Exploring digital communication: Language in action. Routledge.