Abstract:
The thesis presents a corpus based empirical analysis of the language used in SMS text
messaging in Pakistan. The study is descriptive in nature and examines types, causes,
and patterns/principles of various linguistic adaptations made in text messages. It also
provides historical insights, and discusses linguistic-cum-educational impacts and
implications of these adaptations. Primarily, the study is based on the linguistic analysis
of an SMS corpus of 5000 interpersonal text messages collected from Pakistani texters.
For triangulation purposes, it also examines the metalinguistic perceptions of 500 texters
who also provided their personal text messages for the study. The study explores
linguistic adaptations in six major categories, i.e. lexical, syntactic, punctuation, space,
code, and script adaptations in text messages. It was found in the study that linguistic
adaptations in text messages are mostly made under certain principles/patterns. Most
intentional adaptations in text messages are caused by three major factors that are to be
economical in the use of time and effort, to be creative/innovative in developing new
language patterns, and to be rapid in SMS communication. Some unintentional
adaptations are caused by the careless attitude or poor language command of texters. In
addition, many punctuation adaptations are specifically made for paralinguistic
purposes. Code alterations are made in the bilingual settings of texters. Lastly, the
Roman script is preferred because most Pakistani texters are not adept in typing the
Arabic/Urdu script, and so they use the Roman script for both Urdu and English. In the
historical perspective, these adaptations are not completely new in nature because their
traces are found in history or in other modes of communication. Moreover, these
adaptations have various linguistic/educational impacts, and these impacts lead to certain
implications for the conventional standards of languages and their teaching.
