Communication as defined by Wikipedia “is a process of transferring information from one entity to another”. In recent times, the use of contractions, slangs and icons in mails does not necessarily signal the development of a new communication style, rather it’s a matter of choice of form of expression or communication.
Contractions have long been in use before what is simply known as Textese became so rampant in chat rooms, email messages and SMS messages. In SMS messages the main motive of using contractions will be to minimize the number of text per page thereby reducing cost. So many slangs and contractions have been coined recently that helps you reduce the number of characters in an SMS message while trying to express yourself, for example:
• “LOL” for “Laugh Out Loud”;
• “TTYL” for “Talk To You Later”;
• “GTG” for “Got To Go”; and
• “GR8T” for “Great”.
If you are sure the recipient can interpret the message then it’s not a problem, but if the recipient cannot interpret and understand the message, you have failed in communication. Contractions, slangs and icons if used excessively, chances that one might start having difficulties in remembering the actual spelling of some words are very high.
It is important also to know when and where you are using contractions. If one is writing a formal mail, I think slangs or contraction should be avoided completely. The problem today, is that most people are so use to contractions and slangs that at times they forget where and when not to use them. A friend of mine recently was talking about how he feared failing a written professional exam, because he was using contractions like “u” for “You”; and “n” for “And” in the exam. Another problem we face is that gradually, written language might be lost, with the rate at which technology is changing our lives.
Unfortunately for my language which is Igbo, we are at the verge of losing the spoken form of it, talk less of the written. In Nigeria, the lingua franca is English, with about 317 different tribes, with tribes sharing one or more languages; I can bet that most of the written forms of those languages must have met their death. Everybody is trying as much as possible to be perfect in the use of English language both written and oral, and in the process not learning their own mother tongue.
In conclusion, I think that the use of contractions, slangs and icons might as well be the death of appreciation of written language. We might be headed back to the stone ages when mainly symbols were used for communication.
References:
Wikipedia, Communication 3rd July 2010[Online] Available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication (Accessed: 3rd July 2010)
Wikipedia, SMS Language 3rd July 2010[Online] Available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_language (Accessed: 4th July 2010)
Neville Agius, Communication Style 6th December 2009 [Online]. Available from: http://nagius.blogspot.com/2010/02/does-use-of-contractions-slang-and.html (Accessed: 3rd July 2010)
Christopher Dawson, Text messaging and the death of English language 27th April 2007 [Online]. Available from: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/education/text-messaging-and-the-death-of-the-english-language/1021 (Accessed: 3rd July 2010)