TXTNG - new language - new literacy

The poetry of the text

Rather than discredit this new literacy, the linguist David Crystal is quick to praise it as an excellent means of 21st century communication: he also insists that txtng has great literary merit.

In 2002 at the beginning of the txt revolution the UK newspaper, The Guardian, held a txtng poetry competition. The rules stated that the poem had to stay within the 160 characters of the mobile phone screen. And the first most amazing thing to happen was that there were 7,500 entries.

The second amazing thing was that so many entries were so good. The judges were all well known poets and they were very impressed. And they didn’t need translators to help them decode the poetic contributions.

txtn iz messin
mi headn’me englis
try2rite essays
they all come out txtis
gran not plsed w/letters she’s getn
swears i wrote better
b4 comin2uni
&she’s African

Further examples of the literary potential of txtng are also readily available in Japan where novel reading (and writing) on mobile phones is extremely popular. So successful are these original txt forms that they have been transferred to the page. Japan’s best seller list is now dominated by books that were txts on mobile phones! The “chapters” take about three minutes to read - “the typical time between stops on the Japanese subway”.

These txt works are not the products of illiterate people who don’t know how to use the language - quite the contrary. The poems with their 160 characters are as appropriate and creative for txt messaging as 14-line sonnets were in the leisurely 19th century! The txt novels in Japan are as creative and entertaining as were Dickens’ novels in the new industrial society.

So what is it exactly that people get so hot under the collar about?

Educational objections

Standards

Gloom and doom educational commentators are among those who want to ban txtng on the grounds that it degrades literature and fosters illiteracy. Kevin Donnelly, for example, routinely speaks out against the new genres that he insists are undermining educational standards

In a discussion on ABC radio with me he was very much against texting on the grounds that you couldn’t teach Shakespeare with text messages. This came as a shock as I wondered why on earth you would consider teaching Shakespeare with text messages when there is such a rich amount of material available. But I have since reconsidered.

Schools everywhere are trying to bring Shakespeare to life in contemporary classrooms and there has been a growing interest in him as modern writer: there is the Hip Hop Shakespeare competition (in conjunction with the BBC) and enthusiasts are asking: “If Shakespeare were alive today - would he be a rapper?”

One excellent response comes in the form of “Macbeth rap”: it’s a great video, and there are countless others that are guaranteed to send previously disengaged students off to create rap scripts on their computers (text, music, cut and paste etc).