When texting becomes its own language

“How am I even supposed to respond to this?” My friend shows me her phone screen, where her dad has replied to a long, complicated, logistic-filled text message with a simple “Ok 👍.”

We’ve all been there — left staring at our screens, trying to decipher the true meaning behind a vague message. In moments like these, the social discrepancies of texting become glaringly obvious. Texting has become intrinsic to modern communication: quick, efficient and always at our fingertips. It is wide ranging, able to convey practical information and also the deepest of emotions. We fire off messages instinctively and without a second thought — much like how we talk — and relay real-time information across the world. But texting, unlike physical speech, lacks the nuance of facial expressions and subtle gestures; instead, it has developed a linguistic life of its own. 

“Texting gives us a visual representation of linguistic information,” said Cherry Meyer, an assistant professor of linguistics and American culture, in an interview with The Michigan Daily. The letters on the screen are not just words and grammar, but instead are injected with deep cultural and linguistic meaning. 

Language is a push and pull, a constant interplay between efficiency and accuracy. Ideally and given infinite time, we could describe any thought, event or experience in minute detail, perfectly conveyed and perfectly understood. However, this is not a luxury we are afforded. Instead, we must sacrifice accuracy for efficiency, choosing which details take priority over others. Texting clearly prioritizes efficiency — communicating quickly with little regard for frivolous things like grammar, formality, punctuation or formal structure.

“When we use language, it overlaps with metalinguistic forms of communication,” Meyer said, referring to external communication beyond spoken words.

Facial expressions and body language are examples of such metalinguistic factors. The phrase “Shut up!” can be received very differently, depending on whether the speaker is smiling — body language loose and languid — or in a domineering stance with their eyes turned down. In general, people read and reflect on metalinguistics without much thought. Sarcasm, for example, is a facet of language that is impossible to convey without additional information. People need supplementary context around spoken speech to properly gauge what is actually being communicated. We, as humans, clearly depend on interpretive elements beyond pure linguistic information. 

At first glance, texting seems like pure language with no metalinguistic context. Body language, facial expressions and vocal inflections don’t accompany the words. It is raw data, a rudimentary foundation of language absent of substantive communication. But texters have developed workarounds, and metalinguistic tells have evolved. 

If your friend texts you “just ran into my ex,” you do not have a lot of metalinguistic factors to go off of. Are they confused, happy, distraught? “Lol just ran into my exxx✌️💀,” however, manages to convey embarrassment, social panic, sarcasm, feigned nonchalance and humor with only a few additional characters. 

“There is a lot more ambiguity in texting, so you end up using emojis and acronyms,” Meyer said. For example, “LOL” has developed a life of its own, straying quite far from its literal acronymic definition of “laughing out loud.” Instead, LOL has developed to mimic the way people use laughter in real-life interactions. While laughter can indicate humor, it also diffuses social tension, acknowledges understanding, conveys agreement and regulates negative emotions. 

“The real communicative purpose of LOL is social cohesion, to indicate to the other person ‘I’m in agreement with you,’” Meyer said.

Uses of “LOL” could be replaced with a slight chuckle, a punchy nose-exhalation which would have the same effect as laughter in verbal communication. Often, LOL will appear in all lowercase (lol), indicating a deviation from its acronymic meaning. Someone saying “Just saw my ex” followed by a huff of laughter diffuses a potentially fraught or embarrassing social situation, and “Just saw my ex lol” has a very similar effect. 

Emojis add yet another layer of emotional metalinguistics. 

“Most people would be in agreement of what the emojis represent, but in real life people’s facial expressions are a lot more complicated,” Meyer said. “…There’s a lot more conventionalization, agreeance and consensus on what the emojis mean, and body language is a lot more sloppy.” 

However, emojis’ streamlined approach to transferring emotional information also severely limits nuance. 

“It’s an approximation, and it’s trying to replace a lot of that metalinguistic knowledge that’s lost in the signal. It’s definitely not exactly the same,” Meyer said. 

Some emojis are very literal — the smiley face indicates the speaker would be smiling in a real-life situation. Others, like the skull emoji indicating embarrassment or laughter, are less obvious. 

Texters also add letters, intentionally misspelling a word, in order to characterize cultural norms. Who would you think is more excited to talk to you: your friend who texted, “hey” or the friend who texted, “heyyyy?” The letters communicate the text equivalent of vocal inflection, elevated pitch and a more casual social context; you read it as an onomatopoeia, stretching the syllables in your mind.

“Lol just ran into my exxx✌️💀” incorporates these metalinguistic features to make the sender’s meaning and emotions more easily understood. Emojis emulate facial expressions and body language, whether or not there is a literal physical translation. The “lol” serves to diffuse and soothe embarrassment and “exxx” is drawn out — an equivalent to vocal inflection. Textual metalinguistics are normalized, just like their real-life counterparts, so that texts communicate a lot of information quite efficiently. 

However, there are factors that just cannot be replicated in text, such as real-time feedback. In regular conversation, we can adjust patterns, gauge reactions and time responses for effect. When you say something unabashedly embarrassing, the worst possible response is that your audience falls completely silent. There is nothing meaningful in this response, but it is the very lack of response that is ultimately significant. In texting, however, timing is just a metalinguistic avenue you’re not able to use. “It’s part of the deficit,” Meyer said. Texting is an asynchronous form of communication; the recipient is not obligated to respond in any designated time frame. If someone takes a few days to respond to you, you might read into that as metalinguistic information. “But maybe they just had food poisoning!” Meyer joked, in which case your reading would prove unsubstantiated. 

And, of course, none of these digital-language nuances are universal. One of the biggest gaps in texting culture is between generations. Younger people love to complain about older people’s usage of ellipses. But while the “…” can be interpreted as rude — a sarcastic lilt or drawl — it imitates real-life speech patterns. For example, “I don’t know … ” allows for a textual open-endedness and indicates a rhetorical statement instead of one which requires an answer. While older generations seem to use ellipses to indicate real-life speech patterns in a very direct sense, younger generations have developed texting as a dialect of its own, in which ellipses can present as suspenseful and aggressive. Although texting’s metalinguistics have translations in the physical world, they also exist as their own entities. Texting is not a direct mirror of face-to-face communication. Instead, the metalinguistics of text emulate its “spirit.” 

Older generations are also less likely to use acronyms and slang in text, and when they do, it often reflects that acronym’s literal translation. If a younger person sends an older person a funny video and they respond with “lol,”  this exchange would probably lead to a misunderstanding. While the younger person might interpret this response as an underreaction (the equivalent of a slight chuckle), the older person is probably using it according to its literal definition (“laughing out loud!”). 

Language norms change over time; it is necessary and unstoppable. Time marches on, new terms arise, old ones die and people communicate differently. Often, the writing system is slower to catch on, still emulating language from an earlier time. But texting is different. 

“The writing system doesn’t (usually) keep up with the way people talk. So texting is, in a way, the writing system keeping up with the way people talk,” Meyer said. “I don’t think texting is changing the way that we talk. I think it is an accurate visual representation.” 

Text is unique in its ability to reflect linguistic information in a written form. As text becomes more and more integral to everyday life, it evolves alongside real-life communication: fast paced, dirty and ever-changing. 

Statement Contributor Eleanor Barrett can be reached at egbarr@umich.edu.

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