Name: Phan Trúc Anh (Rita)
L9921953/ L7-A
Teachers: Dan and Luke
Date: 8 September 2013
Is texting valuable or vandalism? and Negative Effects of Texting on English Grammar

Economic development has seen a high level of technological development. The consequence of texting on grammar and sentence structure is a widely popular topic that many people are concerned about. In the article ‘Is texting valuable or vandalism?’, published in British Academy Journal in February 2011 by
Dr. Clare Wood and ‘Negative Effects of Texting on English Grammar’, posted on The Mountain Gazette in April 2013 by John Lester, the issue of texting’ s effect on English grammar is addressed. The aim of this essay is to critically respond to the views of each author.

In Wood’s article, the author maintains two main ideas about the positive development of phonological awareness and the literacy among children because of their texting use. The first opinion is that there is the relation between text abbreviation use and literacy which helps children develop their phonological awareness, reading, spelling and writing. The second one is that research does not support the popular idea that texting negatively affects literacy and grammar.

Lester opposes texting’ s use with two main reasons why this brings some negative effects on English grammar. The more texting messages teens send and receive, the more short hand words they use due to their laziness is his first argument. Secondly, the author claims that English grammar is negatively influenced by using punctuation incorrectly because short-handed texting does not need to use it correctly, so teens do not know how important the punctuation is.

Dr. Wood and Lester have different arguments about the effect of texting on English grammar and the literacy. Wood’s opinion that texting use can develop the phonological awareness and literacy skill in children is quite persuasive because the research which she and the other experts have already done.
Moreover, when the children are in school, they know that they cannot use texting language because their teachers would tell them the grammar’s rule is unacceptable. For example, when the students take an exam, they remember that cannot use texting language in the exam. In contrast, Lester’s opinion is not convincing when he claims when teens send and receive a high number of text messages, they may get lazy and increase their short-handed words. However, they have to choose precise words in some different situations, so they do not actually text use abbreviations at all. Consequently, texting can lead positive influences to the development of grammar and literacy in daily life.

The teachers’ and parents’ attitude need to be changed positively to develop children’ literacy and grammar is Wood’s logical idea. It is time to change the concept in instructors and parents because they have thought about negative effects of texting on grammar since texting language was created on the websites and social networking. To illustrate, the nature of texting Twitter makes students succinct, hence only the most relevant information is their option. This might lead them to use the same exercise when they do reading and writing at school, they choose the important phrases to explain their ideas intelligibly. Therefore, they need to realize that texting brings their children the opportunity to develop and practice grammar and literacy.

Although texting brings some benefits to grammar and literacy, it has a few disadvantages like using punctuation incorrectly which Lester examines. Additionally, people who have phones with auto-correct function rarely even recognize their mistakes including spelling can. That is the reason why people may not pay attention much to the position of punctuation in a sentence, so they use it incorrectly.

In conclusion, the influence of texting on English grammar and literacy is debated by the both authors with different arguments. Dr. Wood tries to prove her idea by studies to give some possible evidences phonological awareness and the literacy children’ texting use. On the other hand, Lester completely believes that texting influences negatively on the English grammar and the literacy among teenagers.