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| Txtng: The Gr8 Db8 | 
 enlarge | Author: David Crystal
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Category: Book
List Price: $19.95 (46.96 RON)
Buy New: $13.57 (31.95 RON)
You Save: $6.38 (15.02 RON) (32%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  46 reviews
Sales Rank: 236980
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.4 x 1.1
ISBN: 0199544905
Dewey Decimal Number: 004.692
EAN: 9780199544905
ASIN: 0199544905
Publication Date: September 1, 2008
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Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
Text messaging has spread like wildfire, especially among young people, who appear to spend most of their time texting, and are unwilling to write much else. Indeed the phenomena is so widespread that many parents, teachers, and media pundits have been outspoken in their criticism of it. Does texting spell the end of western civilization?
In this humorous, level-headed and insightful book, David Crystal argues that the panic over texting is misplaced. Crystal, a world renowned linguist and prolific author on the uses and abuses of English, here looks at every aspect of the phenomenon of text-messaging and considers its effects on literacy, language, and society. He explains how texting began, how it works, who uses it, and how much it is used, and he shows how to interpret the mixture of pictograms, logograms, abbreviations, symbols, and wordplay typically used in texting. He looks at its manifestations in different languages, and explores the ways similar devices have been used in different eras. He finds that the texting system of conveying sounds and concepts goes back a long way--to the very origins of writing. And far from hindering children's literacy, texting turns out to help it.
Illustrated with original art by Ed MacLachlan, the popular cartoonist whose work has appeared in Punch, Private Eye, New Statesman, and many other publications, Txting: The Gr8 Db8 is entertaining and instructive--reassuring for worried parents and teachers, illuminating for teenagers, and fascinating for everyone interested in what's currently happening to language and communication.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 41 more reviews...
 u 2 cn luv txtng December 19, 2008
Those who fear text messaging is destroying the English language and marks the end of civilization can now relax. u 2 cn luv txtng. Linguist David Crystal, in his book "txtng: the gr8 db8," explains how text messaging is actually nothing radically new. Texting simply involves adapting a new technology through the application of centuries-old linguistic processes. Every new technology has generated fears of dire consequences. The printing press, telegraph, telephone, and broadcasting all generated predictions of society's demise. Similar fears about text messaging are unfounded, according to Crystal, and he supports his reassurances with research findings.
Oh, yeah? What about the lack of capitalization and punctuation in text messages? Crystal explains that use of lower case simply avoids extra key-pushes, saving time and effort. How about all those unintelligible abbreviations? Crystal cites research that shows very few messages actually contain abbreviations. And abbreviations are nothing new, being in use since at least the seventeenth century. We use them everyday. Some common ones are Mr., Mrs., VIP, CD, DVD, AIDS, IOU, AWOL, mph, p.m., etc.
There are those who argue that texting is preventing children from acquiring literacy skills. Crystal makes the case that texting actually benefits literacy skills. Crystal argues that text messaging requires children to already have sophisticated reading and writing abilities. The use of abbreviations requires a sense of how the sounds of a language relate to letters. Abbreviating words demands awareness about alternative spellings. Use of abbreviations also requires sensitivity to the communication needs of the person receiving the message. Crystal reassures us that texting is just another form of language that has emerged as an adaptation to a particular technology.
"txtng" is an informative and interesting read. Parents, teachers, and others concerned about the impact of technology on children and society will benefit from reading Crystal's book. As a bonus, the list of abbreviations at the end of the book can help you decipher the next text message you receive from your child.
gr8 Overview December 15, 2008
As a parent of teens, I found this book a fascinating look into today's most prevalent form of teen communication. I find the author's premise that texting is language in evolution to be very interesting - he supports his arguments with well thought out, researched and documented positions. My favorite portions of the book were the glossary and the appendices, which provide a great deal of helpful information and texting abbreviations in eleven languages.
A thought provoking read.
 Content Doesn't Match Marketing Pitch, Boring, and Too Short December 11, 2008
The marketing for the book said it was to be about text messaging and its affect on literacy, language and society. I was mostly interested in the affect on society part, how it affects interpersonal communications, how it detracts from face to face experiences and how it wastes time and money. I wanted to know its relation to literacy and if the young text messagers couldn't write well.
However only two pages deals with the society issue (in chapter four) so the book does not fulfill what the publisher states is 1/3 of its content. Instead chapter four switches topics to go back to the topic from chapter three to repeat what was already said once and then to say even more about it.
There is not much said about literacy at all and that again is supposed to be the other third of the book.
Almost the entire book is about language, SMS versus `standard' language.
The author is a college professor of linguistics at the University of Wales, Bangor, and the fact that Professor Crystal is passionate about linguistics and the history of language is made clear when we see what most of this book focuses on. He is clearly passionate about this topic, and asks if text message abbreviations are corrupting the standard language. The author came across to me as obsessed with linguistics and the history of language in different world cultures as he discusses it with a passion that will not be shared with a layperson in mainstream society as frankly even a person like me concerned with literacy and education of children just doesn't care this much about the history of languages across time and cultures. Perhaps the audience who will enjoy this book the most are other professors of linguistics. Regarding the SMS he analyzes it not just in English but how it is used in other countries speaking languages other than English.
This is not a negative tone book at all because the opinion of the author is that this new language of SMS is separate from the standard language used when talking or writing `normal' longer pieces. He believes this is a new way of communicating mostly dictated by trying to fit the most meaning into the small screen size or to keep the message to a certain short character count. He likes text messaging and is not threatened by it at all, not regarding literacy, language or society. Unfortunately he seems to not realize that at least in America young people are withdrawing from `normal' interactions in order to send text messages. Sometimes the damage of new technology or something like television is not what the item and its use does to a person but how too much time occupied with using that new technology takes the person away from spending the time doing other and better things! (Such is the argument for very young children watching too much TV, it is said that they need to be doing other good things with their time such as playing using their imagination and talking with other kids and adults and that too much time watching TV can harm them from what they have missed out on not from actual damage from the TV or the even from absorbing the content of the programming.)
The author lives in England. This is not an American-centered book. Since text messaging began was used a few years earlier and was cheaper than phone calls, it was used more often in the Philippines, Japan and China. The author used a good amount of his analysis based on those countries use of text messaging. However as an American, my concerns regarding the very real antisocial or rude behaviors of Americans using text messaging that break American etiquette rules is not applicable to the data collected in Japan, for example. You see, the author explains that the Japanese culture including trying to be polite and quiet while waiting on line for public transportation and while using public transportation (which is used so much more there than in America) was conducive to text messaging. Cell phone conversations were not used as much in Japan due to it being considered rude and invading the personal space of other public transportation users. Americans use public transportation less and it is a driving hazard for drivers to send text messages while operating their vehicles (or while working as the engineer operating a train).
In America we had the cell phone verbal conversations as the first and primary use of the cell phone, and people doing that rudely in public places where they did invade space. Now in America as text messaging gains popularity we have people breaking etiquette rules left and right, such as using them in business meetings, at formal celebration parties like weddings and during funerals, and at the Easter or Christmas holiday dinner table. Recently I watched three 20-somethigns out to dinner with each other not even talking to each other but one having a cell phone conversation for fun while the other two sent text messages or played video games on their cell phones. Am I alone in thinking that is bizarre and anti-social?
While at the Smithsonian museums earlier this year I saw literally hundreds of teens on supposed educational school field trips walking through museums and by the historical monuments at the Mall in Washington D.C. completely oblivious to where they were. They were text messaging and listening to iPods instead of having their heads up and looking at the monuments or museum exhibits or listening or interacting with the other people in their groups. This was going on in Arlington National Cemetery as well. Workers in service industries are ignoring their job and their customers in order to send text messages or have private talks on their cell phones. And recently in America the media reported that a train accident occurred seconds after the engineer was sending text messages. Something seems amiss here in America! It seems to me a lot of people are disengaged from where they are and from whom they are physically with and instead have tunnel vision and are obsessed with just the tiny screen they hold in their hands. Am I the only one who thinks this is creepy?
On the topic of the question if frequent text messagers or the young generation can write well and are illiterate with `standard' language or not, one thing discussed too much in the book was a poetry contest in which the poems were to either use text messaging lingo or must fit within the character counts and screen size used in text messaging. This poetry contest was overly used as the basis to say that those who use text messaging can indeed write well. However did the author not ponder that those who submitted entries to the contest were first and foremost poets who challenged themselves to write that way in order to participate in the contest rather than from Joe Teenager on the street that sends hundreds of text messages a week? Also in the section where he says teachers complain that kids today are poor composers of written material he blames the teachers for not teaching them well and for not setting clear expectations and ends the analysis of the teacher's complaints!
I was surprised that the editor didn't do a better job keeping the author from repeating himself and overly covering one of the three things the book is supposed to discuss and allowing the author to not even really cover the other two main points! Or perhaps the problem is with the publisher who is trying to broaden the market for a book that was intended by the author to cover really just that one issue of is text messaging changing our standard language and morphing it into something new and different.
I felt misled by the publisher's marketing for this book as it didn't contain what they advertised it to be about.
To boot, the book was boring and I had to force myself to finish it.
Lastly, the book doesn't have a lot of content. The book is a small page size with wide margins and there are only 175 pages of main text, the rest is a LONG glossary list and abbreviation list in eleven languages, 55 pages worth in fact, and also an eight page index.
I'm really disappointed in this book.
A well supported argument in favor of texting November 26, 2008
The more technologically advanced our society becomes, the dumber we get. That's always been my view, anyway. The generation that came of age by the time the Internet was as common as television had already been showing signs of diminished language skills. The ramblings and slang that pass for lyrics in rap music are indicative of that. Texting is simply another shovel of dirt to bury a coffin that's nailed shut and has already been lowered into the ground.
Right?
Wrong.
Or so says David Crystal, the author of "txtng: the gr8 db8." Crystal, an honorary professor of linguistics at the University of Wales, contends that "the popular beliefs about texting are wrong, or at least debatable." In fact, he believes that texting "helps rather than hinders literacy," and offers some convincing arguments, backed by testimony from teachers. Crystal observes that the linguistic adaptations involved in texting are "being introduced by youngsters, on their own, spontaneously, rapidly, and without professional tuition." If anything, such innovative use of the English language speaks well of the young people who use text messaging more than any other demographic.
But don't all those annoying and often confusing abbreviations that characterize texting find their way into school assignments? None of the teachers that Crystal talked to have ever encountered school work marred by texting, and the bright kids know the difference between correct English and text language, and express shock at those who don't.
As the subtitle makes clear, Crystal's positive view of texting is open to debate, but the author makes a strong case that texting is not a threat to literacy or our children's ability to communicate in correct English.
Brian W. Fairbanks
A very interesting and useful book on the phenomenon of texting November 24, 2008
Not just a dictionary of texting abbreviations - though there are lists of abbreviations (in multiple languages) at the back of the book - this book is a fascinating, in-depth analysis of the phenomenon of texting, drawing comparisons with the use of abbreviations and acronyms dating back many centuries. I learned that (rather surprisingly) a large proportion of texts don't use abbreviations; that there are texting poetry competitions; and that young people who text a lot are well aware that there is a difference between the texting argot and standard English (or Welsh, or German, or whatever language they use), and that the widely circulated story of a school paper submitted in texting abbreviations is most likely a hoax.
Like standard language, texting can be rich, complex, and precise, or simple, dumb and vague. Most likely there are some texters who don't know how to communicate in standard language, using correct spelling and grammar - but at the other end of the spectrum, there are those who use the limited scope of a text message in a highly sophisticated and intelligent manner. Whether you want to know what texting is all about, or just look up something you saw on your kid's cell phone, this is a very interesting and useful book to have.
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