SMS Language and Vocabulary Learning for EFL Senior High School Students: A Preliminary Study

Abstract

The goal of the present study attempts to investig ate the participants’ perceptions toward learning vocabulary through the different types of short messaging service (SMS) language. Over the last decade, mobil e phones have grown to be a popular communication tool for adults and children. Due to this trend, an issue concerning the non- conventional language use in text messages has begu n to concern scholars. Text messages, also known as textese , have been condemned of influencing children’s lit eracy skills in a negative way [6][8][11][12]. Nonetheless, according to previous studies, results have revealed negative and positive [18] influence on ch ildren’s literacy skills. Moreover, SMS language is not equally the same in terms of orthog raphy. Different types of SMS language may lead to different effects. Thus, the main objec tive of the present study aims to investigate the effects of different word forms of SMS language on English as foreign language (EFL) learners. The participants of the st udy consisted of 51 EFL senior high school students. A SMS language pretest was adminis tered at the prior stage. After the participants’ exposure to the SMS language list, a posttest was administered, followed by a perception questionnaire. Results of the pretest sh owed that the participants performed better on reduction of word type, followed by phone tically related type, then initialization type. According to the questionnaire, the results r evealed that 55% of the participants believe that phonetically related type can better h elp them pick up target words, their second preference is reduction of words type, and l ast is initialization type. Results of the present study showed that the different types of SM S language may have different effects on users. Moreover, the majority of participants be lieve that phonetically related SMS language will better help them learn vocabulary.