Text Talk: is it killing the English language?

Txting is killing language. JK!!!

Link to the TED talk:  https://www.ted.com/talks/john_mcwhorter_txtng_is_killing_language_jk

Analysis:

This Ted Talk by John McWhorter, an Associate  Professor of English and Comparative literature, details the effects of texting. McWhorter would argue that in fact texting is good for language stating that texting is almost bilingual and research suggests that this is better for people. The professor goes onto state that texting is writing how you speak, it's informal and with pragmatic markers. For instance he analysed the use of LOL; LOL is a pragmatic marker connoting empathy in his example, they understand the struggle the other person is feeling. The Ted Talker also shows evidence that even before texting academics were complaining about language, so texting isn't the cause of the mistakes.

Analysis of my text language:

"oi how long you gonna be?" - My text shows an opening to an adjacency pair in which the person I was texting would answer my question, furthermore it is standard in structure as per the greeting and question. My opening of "oi" shows the informality of the text and colloquialism as well as attracting the recipients attention. This informality is because of the relationship between me and the recipient (my brother). The elision "gonna" instead of going to shows the different grammar used in texting, maybe also contributing to the informality too. However I used the elision to just save time, but other people use them for all sorts of reasons.