IndexThe season of mobile phones and short messagesThe language of short messagesTwo contrasting viewsConclusionAs time has passed, educators and parents have focused on literacy skills such as reading, writing, spelling and have worked very hard to develop these skills in their children. Therefore, they are unhappy with the visit of text messages and their techniques, such as symbols and abbreviations, expressing concerns about the impact of text messages on the literacy skills of children and adults based on assumptions that may not reflect the reality of the research . results on this topic. For example, Mampa Mphahlele and Kwena Mashamaite concluded that there is a big difference between standards of text message language and traditional standards of reading, writing and spelling, meaning that students' literacy skills are negatively affected by the way where words are written instantly. messages. In contrast, Clare Wood and other researchers have explored that the appearance of shortened words like "shud instead of should" in students' homework does not necessarily reflect weakness in language proficiency, depending on the empirical evidence. Therefore, this article argues that there is a negative reaction among many parents, educators and media towards the language of text messages on the literacy skills of children and adults who occupied the first place in the use of text messages, despite the impact positive as demonstrated by many researchers on the basis of empirical studies. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay The season of mobile phones and short messages As they say "necessity is the mother of invention", "Merry Christmas" was the first SMS sent by a British engineer, Neil Papworth, to his director at Vodafone in 1992 Papworth argued that this service can be considered as the greatest achievement in the communication revolution which aimed to simplify the way of communication between customers, allowing them to convey news, or greetings anywhere and at any time. 15 years later, portable devices, especially smartphones, have begun to widely invade our world, greatly contributing to the increase in the use of text messaging. For example, “According to Text Request, there are approximately 277,000,000 (277 million) “texters” in the United States excluding children 12 years of age and younger.” Additionally, the PEW Research Center and Statista reported that “the most active age group for sending and receiving text messages in the United States was 18 to 29 year olds, as 97% of respondents said to have used mobile messaging in 2013." In other words, people can reach the end of the world from their bed in a matter of seconds. These amazing features make text messaging very popular among people, especially children and young people. However, not only do statistics show the popularity of short messaging services, but there are also many sights and sounds around us that reveal how people are so attached to instant messaging in their daily lives. For example, the widespread sound of keyboard tapping in buses, classrooms, streets and homes. The Language of Short Messaging Short messaging has simplified the way of communicating at the surface level and the language of communication at the deep level. Therefore, many studies aimed to analyze the linguistic methods that people use in text messages formake this communication simpler, faster and effortless. According to Naomi S Baron, message language is full of linguistic features, stating that "a number of distinctive linguistic conventions that characterize many people's use of language on the Internet are beginning to penetrate traditional spoken and written language." Likewise, professor of language and communication, Crispin Thurlow analyzed the language of short messages, discovering many linguistic aspects of the forms that appeared in instant messaging. Here are some examples of most forms of text used by most users, as listed by Thurlow: "shortenings (i.e. missing final letters), contractions (i.e. missing middle letters), G-clippings and other clippings (i.e. omission of letters finals) final letter), acronyms, acronyms, letter/number homophones, spelling errors and accent stylizations”. Furthermore, people can write messages without restrictions and limitations such as punctuation, omission of pronouns and ignoring some grammatical rules. such as the subject-verb agreement rule. These changes have divided people into two different groups. Two contrasting views Our words are a translation or reflection of our emotions, beliefs and thoughts towards many things in life, such as " It is the relentless onward march of SMS, the SMS (Short Message" Service) vandals that are doing to our language what Genghis Khan did to his neighbors eight hundred years ago. They are destroying it: pillaging our punctuation; our sentences fiercely; violating our vocabulary. And they must be stopped." These lines were written by a journalist, John Humphrys, and published in the Daily Mail Newspaper, which revealed concerns about the effect of short messages, expressing hatred for abbreviations and emoticons. In this sense, there has been increased fear and concern among teachers and parents regarding the enormous popularity of SMS language that goes beyond text messaging. For example, Mphahlele and Mashamaite discussed the widespread appearance of short messages in “we luv u 2” television commercials, in books titled “the individualized diet solution to stay healthy, live longer and reach your ideal weight EAT RIGHT 4 THE YOUR TYPE" and official documents “MEMORY SPEECH AND POSTERS ELIMINATIONS WHEN? OCTOBER 15, 2003 NOW? 9:15-11:00 WHERE? LF119 CU HERE!”. Therefore, Humphrys was one of many people who argued against the possible dangerous effect of instant messaging on young people's literacy and English language skills. Furthermore, Mphahlele and Mashamaite assume that SMS language creates problems that destroy the writing ability of texters, becoming unable to write in formal English saying: "Students have a tendency to use SMS language as if it were a standard language when writing tests, tasks, and reports. They are therefore unable to differentiate the context and the appropriate situation for the use of SMS language”. This statement arises from the theoretical literature which is the definition of linguistic competence “Linguistic competence implies the ability to listen, speak, read and write with understanding by observing the grammatical, syntactic and semantic rules that govern that language. These basic language skills cannot all be learned effectively and efficiently when using SMS language”. a recent study on text messaging in the Netherlands conducted by teachers from the Department of Linguistic and Special Education at several universities in Amsterdam and the Netherlands, Chantal N Dijk et al. found that most experienced text messaging users have the ability to movebetween formal and informal written language, similar to bilingual children who can easily shift between two different languages, stating "On the other hand, children who are proficient in textese, might have similar advantages as bilingual children, as they might be considered a special type of bilinguals – in a different modality – who must switch from formal written language to text. This is because various studies have demonstrated superior performance in executive function tasks by bilingual children compared to monolingual children Their study indicated that “text messaging improves children's grammatical performance and creates better metalinguistic knowledge, taking into account children's age, age of phone ownership, vocabulary, and Allo phonological awareness measures.” Similarly, Plester et al. who are honorary professors and highly esteemed researchers from the Department of Psychology in the UK and Australia in a previous empirical study investigated the positive correlations between short message language and phonological awareness, finding that phonological awareness helps students develop their reading skills. In other words, Texism users type what they say that indicates good reading ability, such as “nite” and “luve” instead of “night” and “love.” This way of typing messages known as “accent stylization” by Thurlow and Plester et al. which is used by most participants, reflecting the correct pronunciation of English letters. In terms of spelling, the findings of Plester et al. The study revealed a highly positive association with spelling ability, stating that “there was a high correlation between symbol use and both reading and spelling scores. It is necessary to learn the meaning of these symbolic forms, and therefore this may be indicative of children's ability to learn new forms of orthographic representation, and without the corruption of already learned orthographic forms." In this sense, text messages improve children's literacy skills, in contrast to the frustration and depression created by the popular misperception of the media and some teachers, without taking into consideration the results of empirical studies that focus on collection of naturalistic evidence. Therefore, according to Thurlow, public understanding of texting can be considered an overreaction, such as Humphry's criticism cited above, which blames young people for the negative impact of the use of emoticons and abbreviations on traditional literacy skills. According to Thurlow, popular perception depicts texting language as a threat or injury that causes challenges and disruption to children's academic performance and the English language, stating that "The same is especially true of the use of cell phones and text messaging. text by young people, they are often understood to be - or rather accused of - reinventing and/or damaging the (English) language”. Furthermore, Dijk et al. strongly criticized the stereotypical views and bad images towards messaging services short that unfortunately ignore the results of empirical studies and rely on hypotheses, arguing that "this is in stark contrast to the results of several studies showing that children who frequently used textese did not perform poorly on spelling and tasks measuring literacy skills”. In 2009, Plester et al. were very interested in re-examining the relationship between short message language and literacy skills because of the significant role of reading, writing, and spelling on individuals and the community as a whole. So there were 88.