Cover image for Txtng : the Gr8 Db8
Title:
Txtng : the Gr8 Db8
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Publication Information:
Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2009
Physical Description:
ix, 239 p. : ill. ; 20 cm.
ISBN:
9780199571338
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PRZS3000001254 TK5105.73 C79 2009 Open Access Book Gift Book
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Summary

Summary

Text messaging has spread like wildfire. Indeed texting 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 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, a 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.


Author Notes

David Crystal is honorary professor of linguistics at the University of Wales, Bangor. He has written or edited over 100 books and published numerous articles for scholarly, professional, and general readerships, in fields ranging from forensic linguistics and ELT to the liturgy and Shakespeare. His books include the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language (2nd edn 1997), the Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language (2nd edn 2003), Words, Words, Words (OUP 2006), and The Fight for English (OUP 2006).


Reviews 1

Choice Review

In this witty, insightful work, Crystal (Univ. of Wales, UK) examines the phenomenon of text messaging, notably in terms of its impact on language and society. An authoritative, accessible writer, Crystal is the author of the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language (CH, Jun'88), Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language (CH, Nov'95, 33-1255; 2nd ed., CH, Feb'04, 41-3145), and myriad other books on language. Here he considers such aspects of texting as form, content, social context, and uniqueness, both in English and in other languages. Much as he did in Language and the Internet (CH, Apr'02, 39-4397), Crystal cuts through the exaggerations about the dire impact of the medium on language and places texting in context, i.e., he looks at it as yet another way in which language continues to evolve. Including a glossary of texting-related terms, appendixes of text abbreviations in English and 11 other languages, and a solid index, this book serves both as an excellent introduction to texting for the uninitiated and as a scholarly resource for those who study the phenomenon. Summing Up: Essential. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers. G. A. Mayer SUNY College at Oneonta