Serendipity35

The generally accepted theory is that the slang and abbreviations used for instant messaging is hurting the speech and grammar of teens.

Well, that's not true according to a study by researchers at the University of Toronto.

Sali Tagliamonte and Derek Denis studied about 70 Toronto teens and compared their use of language in speech and instant messaging. They say that 80% of Canadian teens use instant messaging and adopt its shorthand.

The study found that instant messaging language mirrors patterns in speech that fuse informal and formal speech.

"Everybody thinks kids are ruining their language by using instant messaging, but these teens' messaging shows them expressing themselves flexibly through all registers," says linguist Sali Tagliamonte. "They actually show an extremely lucid command of the language. We shouldn't worry. Teens are using both informal forms that their English teachers would never allow, yet they also use formal writing phrasing that, if used in speech, would likely be considered 'uncool."

For the language teachers out there:

• the study focused on characteristic features of computer-mediated communication
• examined four features of grammar: intensifiers, future tenses, quotes and deontic modality (I had to look up that last one at UsingEnglish.com
• teen IM users seem equally at ease with writing the terms "gonna" and "shall" for the future tense, though shall was no more common in IM than in other forms of speech.
• they showed more use of the personal pronoun "I" and less use of the second and third person pronouns "you" and "he, she" and "they" in computer mediated conversations than in written language

"What that tells us is that they have a fluid mastery of the language,"Denis said. "They're using it creatively and vibrantly and, most important, they're using it correctly."