Chapter 16 SMS Texting Practices and Communicative Intention Susana M. Sotillo Montclair State University, USA ABSTRACT This study focuses on the predicate-argument structure of frequently used lexical verbs in the text mes- sages of members of five SMS social networks. Using a text analysis tool, lexical verbs were identified, coded for semantic category, and tagged for analysis in a corpus of 31, 288 words. Three research questions are addressed in relation to lexical verb usage, structural simplification, recovery of implied argument, and achievement of communicative intention via mobile telephony. The results reveal that (1) predicate-argument structures determined by certain lexical verbs become simplified in text messages; 2) particular O-roles assigned to particular arguments become implicit but are easily recovered; and (3) text messaging language constitutes a variety of naturally occurring language. It is possible that such language variations in use may bring about language change over time. INTRODUCTION In our post-modem global culture cell phones, Smartphones, and other portable technological artifacts currently in use are regarded as extensions of our identities, group affiliations, and social net- works. European, Asian, and American teenagers haveused mobile or cell phones fora variety of social and functional purposes such as to achieve instan- taneous communication and to express individual DOL: 10.4018/978-1-61520-773-2.ch016 style, status, and group affiliation (Androutsopoulos & Schmidt, 2001; Skog, 2002). Campbell & Park (2008) cite Miienpaa’'s (2000) study that the mobile orcell phone in Finland became knowncolloquially as ‘kanny’ (also kinnykkt) or “extension-of-the- hand/paw.” Likewise, Ukritwiriya (2003, 2005) points out that Thai youth make meaning by calling their mobile phones, “Mue Tue,” which has the same connotation as the Finish term ‘kiinny/ kiinnykka’, and engage in extensive text messaging practices that have altered their lifestyles, language, social norms, and cultural identities, omright © 2011 lbs. Copying sitting in print or etic ams wit writen pension of 1G loa spokes.‘SMS Texting Practices and Communicative Intention ‘AsCampbell & Park (2008) argue from asocial constructivist perspective to the study of social networks, the wide spread diffusion of mobile phones has ushered in a new type of personal ‘communication society, one where the quality of interaction varies because of changes in the ‘composition of social networks. Furthermore, as Vishwanath & Chen (2008) point out inareview of researchon mobile phone adoption, social factors, intercultural norms, contextual factors, and local and large-scale communication associations have a significant influence on the types of personal communication networks that emerge based on new technologies. Even adults, who form part of different types of social networks, have adopted these new tools and mode of instantaneous com- ‘munication known as SMS text messaging. For example, Florin Troaca reports in Communica- tions News that by June 30, 2008, 95.4 billion text messages had been sent by US mobile users. This type of instantaneous communication rapidly surpassing the traditional phone call so that by 2010, 2.3 trillion text messages will be sent to and from mobile phones. Among adults, text messaging is now common in a variety of settings: the workplace, home, school, the mall, and the campaign trail By collecting and studying communicative electronic exchanges researchers have begun to describe how young people manipulate the con- ventions of discursive practices and incorporate creative linguistic elements like letter-number homophones, typographic symbols, G-clippings, and emoticons intoa vast array of social networks or what Ukritwiriya (2005) refers to as semiotic microsystems. For example, Italian children in the 12-14 age range have created a new style of language tailored for SMS usage (Betti 2008). They use abbreviations such as svttb for ti voglio tanto tanto bene (I love you very, very much) when communicating deep affection. This cre- ative use of linguistic forms and symbols in text ‘messaging serves a pragmatic function. Due to the spatial constraints imposed by a maximum of 160 characters the sender must transmit mean- ing and intention efficiently in order to elicit a quick response from a targeted recipient (Hird af Segerstad, 2005). Research by Zarantonello (2001) confirms observations made by other in- vestigators that text message brevity presupposes a strong component of implied information. This fact also presupposes that those texting share cultural or technical background knowledge and the use of a code for interpreting abbreviations, phonetic writing, acronyms, and combinations of these elements. This chapter is based on an investigation that focuses on an aspect of syntactic theory ~ the 6-criterion (thetacriterion) or grid of lexical verbs. used in text messages by members of five differ- cent short message service (SMS) text messaging networks. The functional uses of these verbs by senders and receivers of text messages are examined for the purpose of understanding how members of these SMS networks accomplish a variety of pragmatic functions. In this study, we define SMS social networks as sets of relation- ships, links, or ties between and among several actors (Meyer, 1994). Research on social networks thas shown that relationships, links, or ties usually -vary in subject matter, strength or density, and fre- quency. Additionally, findings from recent social ‘network analysis demonstrate that individuals or ‘actors use specific mechanisms to guide them in their choice of exchange partners. Clustering, one such mechanism, accounts for what is known as cascading benefits on actors in densely connected social networks Levine & K.urzban,2006). Others claim thatthe structure of social networks is based ‘on meaning, and that this is achieved by applying culturally available role patterns to the relational frames in social networks (Fuhse, 2009). Thus, social relationships “are conceived of as dynamic structures of reciprocal (but not necessarily sym- metric) expectations between alter and ego” (p. 51). In this study, ties or relationships would be represented by the linguistic characteristics and frequency of messages sent by the owner of a 253specific SMS network to other individuals or actors, as well as by the messages received by “ego” from all those who form part of his/her SMS (social) network. The focus of this study is on language ~ the grid of lexical verbs inthe text messaging practices of members of five SMS networks ~ not on the underlying socio-cultural features or structure of SMS social networks. The sections that follow will describe findings reported in the extant literature about this form of linguistic economy, text mes- saging, and how the results of this study add to the growing literature on SMS. The main objec- tive is to explain how members of five socially diverse SMS networks achieve communicative intention as they negotiate information transfer among group members; share facts and plan strategies in local political campaigns; strengthen neighborhood and community ties; and maintain ‘SMS TEXT MESSAGING AND MYTHS ‘Textmessaging is quickly outpacing regular phone calls. Nielsen Mobile reports that as of “Q2 2008, atypical U.S, mobile subscriber sends or receives 357 textmessages per month, comparedto placing ‘or receiving 204 phone calls.” This represents an increase of 450% in text messaging since 2006 And “tweens” (ages 812), who represent an im- portant sector of mobile phone users, account for ‘55% of textmessages generated last year (Nielsen Mobile — September 16, 2008). Asexpected, some journalists and social critics have expressed concen about these new commu- nication technologies, especially text messaging, ‘They claim that SMS text messaging is bringing about undesirable linguistic changes, such as implified forms of oral and written communi tion due to the spatial and functional constraints of cell phones. For them, electronic: messages ‘exemplify the loss of significant referential con- tent, lack of clarity, and incomplete information 254 ‘SMS Texting Practices and Communicative Intention about the message author’s identity or intentions (Cateutt, 2001; De Sandoval, 2001; Sutherland, 2002). However, communication specialists, sociolinguists, and others who have empirically investigated the nature of text messaging in re- sponse to dire warnings by media pundits have concluded that young people’s text messages are at times both noteworthy and quite ordinary or conventional. For example, Crystal (2008) recently deconstructed various myths associated with texting and its alleged negative influence ‘on young people’s writing skills, specifically their ability to spell, punctuate, or write in full sentences. He interviewed groups of teenagers in 2007 who were studying for major exams at vari- us schools in the U.K. and was able to ascertain that youngsters were very aware thatthe language of texting was not to be used in formal academic ing. Furthermore, Crystal (2008) concluded after reviewing research findings of recent stud- ies in the U.K., Finland, and other countries that “children could not be good at texting if they hhad not already developed considerable literacy awareness” (p. 162), It is simply a manifestation of linguistic creativity and lots of humor with the use of new technologies or cultural tools. Thus, whatis written by pundits about SMS in the popu- lar press “is often theoretically and empirically unfounded and greatly exaggerated” (Thurlow, 2003, p.21), RECENT SMS FINDINGS French-speaking Belgium linguists and other communication specialists at the Center for the Automatic Treatment of Language, Catholic Uni- versity of Louvain, compiled a corpus of 75,000 authentic SMS text messages, preprocessed, and translated them into “standard French” (Fairon, Klein, & Paumier, 2006). Utilizing a subset of 30,000 SMSs, Fairon et al. addressed three major research questions: (1) Does SMS constituteanew language? (2) Are linguistic forms systematically‘SMS Texting Practices and Communicative Intention shortened in SMS? (3) Is there one (global) SMS. language? Theie findings indicate that SMS gives the illusion of being a new language when in fact itis not since it utilizes extant linguistic conven- tions such as contractions, initialisms, shorten- ings, and homophones. As others have pointed out, non-standard orthographic phenomena are determined by the physical constraints imposed by this mode of communication. With respect to the existence of common SMS language, Fairon ct al. indicate that this contradicts the essentially changeable and playful nature of this type of electronic language. Above all, it appears that SMS is a written language extensively used by those between the ages of 10 and 25, and that at- tempts to codify SMS jargon will fail due to the idiosyncratic nature of rebus-like texts or words run together, along with the use of extensive non- standard conventions. Thus, SMS text messaging representsa variety of natural language with mixed features which appear closer to the spoken mode. Since there is. ‘a need to compress information in a message to speed up its delivery, it is important to codify as. much information as possible inthe limited space available to users. In order to interpret contrac- tions, acronyms, and blendings, participants must possess shared background information and be part of an SMS network. LINGUISTIC ECONOMY AS STRUCTURAL SIMPLIFICATION: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND The phenomenon of linguistic economy in text messages practices has not been sufficiently investigated. This study seeks to explore the nature of linguistic economy by focusing on the predicate-argument structure of frequently used lexical verbs in the text messaging practices of ‘members of five SMS social networks. The study ‘examines how members of the five SMS networks achieve communicative intention. Unlike other studies that have focused primarily on the social or symbolic features of text messaging prac- tices, this study focuses on an aspect of syntactic. theory ~ the 6-criterion (theta criterion) or grid of lexical verbs used in text messages. Since it is the @-grid of a particular verb which determines the number of arguments it requires for 6-role assignment, if the required argument is missing, in the surface realization of a text message, the standard @-criterion of current syntactic theory willbe violated (Cowper, 1992; Haegeman, 1991; Jackendoff, 2002). Predicate-argument structure shows how many arguments the predicate takes and their thematic roles or 6-roles (Bresnan & Kanerva, 1989; Fromkin et al., 2000). Gruber’s (1965) original framework was expanded by Jackend- off (1972) whose approach became the standard method to the study of thematic relations. Thetwo main principles of the 6-criterion are summarized by Cowper (1992): (1) Every noun phrase (NP) with a referent must receive a @-role at the deep or D-structure. If there is a lexical NP without 1 O-role at the D-structure, the sentence is then ‘ungrammatical; and (2) An NP can only receive a @-roleonce; in other words, each O-role is assigned to one and only one argument. Thus the lexical ‘entry for each verb will specify or determine how many noun phrases (NPs) it takes, and which NP ‘gets which thematic relation (e.g., Mark sold his house to Mary =). The verbassigns particular thematic role (0-Criterion) to each argument (Jackendoff, 2002). For example, the following verbsassign specific thematicroles:eat . Although at the present stage ofthe theory there isnoagreementabouthow ‘many such specific thematic roles there are and whattheirlabelsare, sometypesare generally dis- tinguished: Agent, Patient, Theme, Experiencer, Benefactive/Beneficiary, Goal, Source, Location, Recipient, Percept, and Instrument. (See Fromkin et al,, 2000, pp.101-127; Haegeman, 1991, p. 42). Also, there are different views of argumentstructure depending on the theoretical choices scholars make, and there is some disagreement as to whether argument structure is a semantic level of representation or a syntactic one. There is also the question as to how much semantic and syntactic information should be part of argument structure (see Alsina, 2006). STUDY METHODOLOGY ‘The study was motivated by recent findings con- cerning the use of text messaging as embedded in post-modern communicative practices. Since few studies have focused exclusively on lingui tic features, there was a need to investigate th example of linguistic economy by focusing on the predicate-argument structure of frequently used lexical verbs in the text messaging practices of members of five SMS social networks. Three research questions frame this investigation: (1) What types of lexical verbs are frequently used in the text messaging practices of par- ticipants who form part of different SMS social networks? Which frequently used lexical verbs tend to have an “incomplete” predicate-argument structure? ‘What are the implications of “incomplete” predicate-argument structure with respect to achieving communicative intention via text messaging? @Q) eB) Data Collection Data for the present study were systematically collected over a period of 14 months (January 2007 through April 2008) from five SMS social networks that included 59 participants. Text mes- sages were sent by volunteers for this study to the ‘owners of these social networks (two males and three females). Volunteers were recruited from among family members, colleagues, political as- 256 ‘SMS Texting Practices and Communicative Intention sociates, neighbors, former students, high school teachers, and parents. The age of participants ranged from 16 to 64, All the participants had access to either cell phones or SmartPhones that allowed them to send and receive text messages. The initial goal ofthis pilot study had been to find volunteers who would be willing to respond to text-message prompts on any topic at least three times a week for a period of 16 weeks. Given the paucity of text messages received, this was later expanded to a period of 14 months. Since our university's Institutional Review Board (IRB) requires that strict confidentiality and anonymity guidelines for collecting informa- tion be observed, all identifiable information was, stripped from headers and text messages thatwere downloaded using a specific type of software for Treo users — the Treodesktop. This software was developed in Italy (December 2005) by Bruno Naglieri. A total of 4829 text messages were downloaded by the ownersofthree SMS networks that used Treos fortexting, and 382 additional text messages contributed by two young texters were subsequently added to this SMS corpus. These were messages to and from youngsters. whose ages ranged from 16 to 19. Out of a total of S211 text messages for all five SMS social networks, 2308 text messages were randomly selected for analysis. MonoConc, a software for analyzing electronic corpora (Barlow, 2002), was used to compile a list of lexical verbs. These were then manually identified, coded, and tagged for sub- sequent analysis with MonoCone. The combined SMS corpus selected for analysis consisted of 31,288 words (tokens) and 5245 types. Frequently Used Lexical Verbs and Data Analysis This study does not focus on @-role assignment per se, but on the predicate-argument structure of frequently used lexical verbs in a subset of 2308 text messages. The text messages analyzed were exchanged among owners and members of these‘SMS Texting Practices and Communicative Intention SMS networks. Five categories of participants ‘were identified as forming part of these SMS social networks: Family members and friends, neighbors, political acquaintances, co-workers! colleagues, and former students. Following the identification of the most frequently used lexical verbs in the combined SMS corpus, three raters randomly selected 10 percentofthe total instances a lexical verb (in its base form and wi ‘ous inflections: talk, talks, talked, talking) had been used in each of the five social networks, and subsequently analyzed its predicate-argument structure. For example, if“get” appeared 50 times in the list generated by MonoCone for one of the social networks, 5 usages of this verb were randomly chosen for analysis. This process was repeated ‘when randomly analyzing lexical verbs in each ‘of the other social networks. In some cases, verbs such as “take” appeared 21 times in one social network and fewer than 10 times in the others. Working separately, each rater analyzed the predicate-argument structure ofrandomly selected examples of lexical verbs, determined the number ofargumentsrequired, and specified the particular thematic role assigned by the verb. Once this task ‘was completed, the raters compared their results. so as to ensure complete agreement with respect. to the analysis of predicate-argument structure and thematic role assignment. The third rater, an experienced professor of syntax and semantics, ‘who wasnot involved in the data collection phase, corrected erroneous thematic role assignments and helped raters reach consensus. Any appar- ent surface simplification of predicate-argument structure and thematic role assignment was coded as.an instance of linguistic economy. Those verbs that satisfied the required number of arguments and their respective d-role assignments were not included in the analysis. Examples 1 through 12 from all five SMS networks show how the predicate-argument structure of lexical verbs fre- quently used in thesetext messages was analyzed. (The ‘argument’ isthe NP which is required by the verb, and the “thematic role’ consists of ‘agent’, ‘experiencer’, ‘theme’, ‘patient’, ete.) (1) Brought camera home...Bring The external argument NP and “thematic role’ as agent are missing, (2) La going to dill9. please bring prompt thanks. Bring Missing: The internal argument NP and thematic role as goal/recipient. (3) Bring U gd food! CU I8r. Bring External argument NP and thematic role as agent are missing. (4) Workanymoreon your paper? Work Missing: External argument NPand thematic role as agent. (Auxiliary verb is also missing.) (5) Driving truck 2 accup? Drive Missing: External argu- ment NP and thematic role as recipient. (J) Jamming out haha. Jam out — (listen- 1g to or dancing to a particular type of music) The internal argument NP is missing as well as the thematic role as goal/recipient. (9) Tell U @ Milton talk over dinner. Tell Missing: Extemal argument NP and thematic role as agent. Also missing, the intemal argument NPand thematic role as theme. (10) Chewing on my phone again. Chew The external argument NP smiss- ing, as well as the thematic role as agent. (Auxiliary verb is also missing.) 257(11) Wannatalk itunes wyou. Want Missing: External argument NP and thematic role as experiencer. (12) leamed lessons in this campaign! Lear .The external argu- mentNPis missing, as well as the thematic, role as experiencer. RESULTS A list of lexical verbs found in this corpus was generated using MonoCone Pro2.2. As shown in ‘Table 1, 49 different lexical verbs were identified in the text messaging practices of members of five SMS networks. Following Biber, Conrad, & Leech (2002), these were semantically classified as activity verbs (23), communication verbs (9), ‘mental verbs (12), causative verbs (2), and verbs of existence/relationship and aspect (3) Table 2 shows that activity verbs were most frequently used by all participants (705), followed closely by mental verbs (545) and communica- tion verbs (353). Few causative and relationship ‘existence and aspect verbs were found in the text messages analyzed (39 and 36, respectively). In the researcher’s SMS text messaging network, ‘SMS Texting Practices and Communicative Intention 420 instances of lexical verbs were classified as activity verbs. These involve motion or refer toa volitional activity (i.e., an action performed intentionally by an agent or doer): bring U gd food! or Gave Anna a copy. This was followed by mental verbs (280) that normally express ‘mental states and processes, such as just heard an ‘amazing talk by Claire Kramsch from Berkeley .., Communication verbs (184), a subcategory of activity verbs that describe the activities of speaking or writing, causative verbs (37), and relationship/state of existence/aspect verbs (35). ‘The SMS social networks of Gerard and Merlin, two adult texters, had the following distribution ‘of semantic categories: activity verbs (188 vs. 65, respectively), mental verbs (233 vs. 15, respec- ‘tively), and communication verbs (146 vs. 13, respectively). Activity verbs were frequently used inCory’sand Tuti’s SMS social networks(e.g.,17 vs. 15, respectively). This was followed by mental verbs (8 vs. 9, respectively), and communication verbs (4 vs. 6, respectively). Causative and other types of verbs were rarely used by members of these SMS social networks. Table 1. Semantic categories of lexical verbs used in text messages “Ratvty Verb usualy refer fo volitional activity 23) ‘ing, rings, binging buy, bought (bo, catwalk, catwaking, chil ou, chilling out, come, comes, coming, at eting irish, Finished, nshing, ix, fied, get, ets, et, gotten geting give, ve even 0, BOE, going, gone, weat, jam out, eve, eaving. eR, mike, makes, made, meet, mecting, pickup picking up. put print tae, fake taking, 100K, ty, red, use use, sed, sending. ‘Communication Verbs (9) ‘ik, asked call calle, calling email, email fone, sy, sai, saying, tak, aking, el ol, thank mailing, phone! ing ext ‘Meal Verbs (processes, enetins, tits) (2) fea, ling el nd, nding, ound, forget ergot, hope hoping, epow, knows Hike ove, need, neds ead, reading, see, Cs, Sen, think, inks, though, want ‘Causative Verbs (bring about a new state of fais) @) el. et ‘Verbs of Existnce/Reatonship (report a state of existence or a logical eltionshipy; Verbs of Aspect (sage of progres of an event oractiviy) (3) Took, looks, looked, sop, topping, wai, wating 258SMS Texting Practicos and Communicative intention Table 2. Semantic categories and lexical verb usage frequencies in text messages analyzed* SMS Social] Acivity | Mental | Communication Verbs | Causative | Other Verbs (Relationship? eemorks Vers. | Verte Verbs Existence Aspect Researcher | 20 20 i FT s ‘Gerard 18 2 146 Mein 6 6 3 Cory 7 5 “ 1 i Tat 5 2 5 1 7 Toss 718 s___[ 3 9 36 “pseudonyms are used in his study to protect the identity ofthe informants DISCUSSION The first research question addresses the types of lexical verbs most frequently used in the text. ‘messaging practices of participants who formed part of these SMS text messaging networks. Figure 1 shows that activity verbs were the most {frequently employed lexical verbs inall five SMS networks analyzed, followed by mental verbs, communication verbs, causative verbs, and other typesofverbs. Semantic categories and frequency of lexical verb usage by members of each of the five SMS social networks are displayed as raw frequencies in Figure | The activity verbs most frequently used in- volve movement (¢.g., come, go) and take goals and sources as thematic relations or internal NP arguments, whereas other lexical verbs involve change of possession (bring, buy, give) with the ‘external NP argument and thematic role as agent/ actormissing, Also frequently missing are internal NP arguments and thematic roles as theme and recipient. For example, “bring,” a frequently used lexical verb found in all five social networks was often missing the external NP argument and its thematic role as agent, as well as the internal NP argument and thematic role as recipient (e.g. brought 45 copies!). The SMS dataanalyzed show ‘that these movement and transfer lexical verbs are structurally simplified since texters omit the required external NP argument and thematic role as agent or doer of the action, as well as at least one of the required internal NP arguments. The individual who receives text messages involving ‘movement or transfer easily recovers the missing NP arguments from the context. ‘The second research question asks which frequently used lexical verbs tend to have an “in- complete” predicate-argumentstructure. Theresults of our analysis show that out of 168 instances of, lexical verbs selected for analysis, 17 of them tend. to have an incomplete predicate-argument struc ture. These include verbs that are normally used to perform routine activities (.g., Going 2 gym I8r) or everyday chores: bring, buy, call, come, eat, find, get, give, go, know, leave, love, phone(fone), send, tell, thank, and want. Some ofthe verbs with incomplete predicate-argument structure that are used in these text messaging practices appear to bind individuals in closely knit relationships since they often involve a transaction or some type of request. Using ‘bring’, ‘buy’, ‘call’, or ‘send” seems to establish reciprocal obligations in future transactions. In the case of teenagers such as Cory and Tuti, Grinter & Eldridge (2001) explain that youngsters seem to prefer texting one another as.a communicative practice because ofitsconvenience and affordability. Additionally, teenagers establish secure SMS networks in order to share common ‘cultural interests and engage in preferred social activities with members of their own personal ‘communication spheres. 259Figure 1. Semantic categories: lexical verbs usage +1200 Frequency 3 400 200 o é ‘SMS Texting Practices and Communicative Intention Other Vetos ‘Scausatiw Verbs "Communication Vere Moral Vers mAcivty Ves ° ee SAS SMS Networks In the textmessages analyzed, the formal structural configurations of verbs and their cor- responding thematic role assignments as required ined by 6-Criterion may show structural ication (i.e. the required argument may ‘not appear) and semantic implication (ie., the thematic role assigned to the relevant argument becomes implicit). In other words, the omission of the required argument(s) can be recovered through reference to previous SMS discourse o metalinguistic contextual information involving shared background information between texters and textees. Thus, the strict @-Criterion may not be able to account for the surface realization of perfectly comprehensible text messages among members of various SMS social networks, which is a variety of a natural form of communication that uses mobile telephony. In the case of “bring,” ‘one of the frequently used lexical verbs that had an incomplete predicate-argument structure, brought camera home , though the external argument NP assigned the thematic role as agent is missing, those receiving these text messages recover the missing extemal argument NP from the context provided the required internal NPargu- ‘mentappears or has surface realization; otherwise, brought home would make no sense. However, in bringing U good food! , the textmessage, sending acheckisclearly understood by the message recipient who recovers the implied intemal argument NP as goal from the previous SMS discourse (I’m sending you a check). Also, in Got ur delayed message, get , themessage meaning isunderstood since the thematic role as agent in the missing external argument NP is easily recoverable from the SMS. context, With respect to the focus of the third research question — the implications of “incomplete” predicate-argument structure or the unexpressed @-role assignment as regards the pragmatic func- ns of these text messages — the results show that ‘implicit’ thematic roles assigned to their ‘underlying’ arguments reflect the text message sender’s pragmatic strategies needed to achieve his or her communicative intentions or intended ‘speech act’ through what would be referred to as theillocutionary force ofthe textmessage (Searle, 1969, 1975; Verschueren, 1999). For example, in the interrogative clause, coming to prez thing?, the auxiliary verb “be” is missing, as well as the external NP argument and thematic role assigned agent, but this text message can be accurately interpreted as an implicit request from the sender! texter to the addressee/textee, a co-worker, for a rideto an end-of-semester social event sponsored by the institution’s president (“prez”). Common interests or shared background information or knowledge is a precondition for accurately inter- preting this request. It is also important to point out that examples of these SMS text messaging, practices or contributions adhere to Grice’s(1975) ‘maxims of quantity, quality, relevance, and man- ner. Enough information is conveyed effectively that is true, relevant or to the point, and specific. ‘Variations in surface predicate-argument structure and thematic role assignments indicate that par- ticipants engaged innormal communication, using the cell phone or Smartphone to send and receive text messages, share a ‘common ground” or the required background information that allowsthem to recover the implicit thematic roles assigned by the verb to the underlying arguments. The data on verb predicate-argument struc- ture analyzed reveal that the extemal argument or grammatical subject is often left out in these text messages because it is easily recovered by the participants (texter and textee). For instance, the interrogative clause, Driving truck 2 accup?, illustrates structural simplification or omission of required arguments which can be easily recovered through reference to earlier exchanges. In this particular case, two males are discussing meeting at a specific place, presumably a store that sells house furnishings, which is the interpretation recovered from previous text messages. This supports similar findings with respect to SMS. reported by Zarantonello (2001) and others. The thematic role assigned to the missing extemal NP argument appears to be in most cases the text message sender who could be agent, experiencer, recipient, or source. Some of the lexical verbs in these text mes- sages, such as bring, give, send, tell, are among those verbs that appear in two possible syntactic frames as shown by Jackendoff (2002): (a) J / brought/gave/sent Ana the book ot (b) I brought/ _gave/sent the book to Ana ; and, (a) Mary tolda story to Eileen, (b) Mary told Eileen a story. The syntactic variables corre- late with the semantic ones. “Thus the verbs that frames, with the same meaning” (Jackendoff, 2002, p. $4). *Bring’, ‘give’, and ‘send’, which are frequently used in the text messages analyzed, involvemovement and transfer of X or something, toarecipient. ‘Tell’, on the other hand, acommu- nicative verb viewed as a subcategory of activity verbs, as in Mary told Eileen a story, involves the active transfer of information (the story or theme) from Mary to Eileen, the recipient. FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS This study has analyzed empirical data based on sample of text messages of 59 adults who were part of five SMS social networks. It has sought to explain how communicative intention is suc- cessfully achieved by adults and youth who formartof these SMS text messaging networks. Text messages represent a form of linguistic economy because they save time and speed up communica- nn. Their spatial constraints encourage message senders tomake theircontributions brief, relevant, ‘true, and intelligible. The message exchanges in these social networks can becharacterized asbrief conversations between and among individuals Whoknow each otherto varyingdegreesand share knowledge and socio-cultural interests. Thus the context and implied meaning of each message is determined by personal relationshipsandashared common ground. With respect to future trends in linguistic analysis, the focus of this chapter on a form of naturally occurring language, American English text messages, poses a challenge to a strict inter- Pretation of the 9-Criterion. Since one of the re- quired arguments, primarily theexternal argument NP assigned the thematic role as agent, is often omitted in these text messages, the 0-Criterion as defined in syntactic terms is violated. In other words, the required verb arguments fail to appear ‘on the surface; therefore, the predicate-argument structures, according to the -Criterion, are vio- lated because all arguments have to appear. The standard @-criterion appears to be too strict or exacting to adequately describe and explain naturally-occurring performance data such as text messages. As it has been suecess- fully demonstrated, the textee or addressee can easily recover the @ relations with their implica- tions in synchronous communication mediated by.a techno-cultural artifact — the cell phone. In the context of mobile communication, including every required verb argument on the surface is superfluous and adds nothing to the interpretation of the message. Since this study involvedasmall corpus which isnotrepresentative ofa large cross-section of the ‘American English-speaking population, a large corpus of approximately 30,000 SMS text mes- sages is needed for future investigations of the argument structure of lexical verbs. Participants 262 ‘SMS Texting Practices and Communicative intention from the 15-19 age cohort and individuals from different geographic and socio-economic back- ‘groundsneed to be recruited for future studies. Ad- ditionally, adverbs and other elements that might co-oceurwith lexical verbs used in text messages, as well as pragmatic inferences, need to be taken into consideration when undertaking this type of research, This will lead to a more sophisticated understanding of what we describe as a type of linguistic economy resulting from structural simplification and semantic implication in natural communication via mobile technology. CONCLUSION To summarize, despite violations of the 4-Criterion in the text messages analyzed, where the external NP argument normally assigned the thematic role as agent is often missing, or in cases when the internal NP argument assigned the thematic role of theme or goal isalso missing, the recipient of the text message or addressee Promptly recovers the implicit thematic roles assigned to the verb’s underlying arguments. ‘The sender's pragmatic strategies that result from constraining message meaning to 160 characters are successfull as demonstrated by theaddressee’s ability to accurately interpret the implicit thematic roles and meanings. In other ‘words, communi is successfully achieved as evidenced by the message recipient’s compliance with an implied request, Wanna talk ‘tunes wyou, or with the carrying out of specific errand, brought U good FOOD! Some important findings of this study and their implications include: (1) Predicate-argu- ‘ment structures determined by certain verbs may become simplified in text messages, which represent a form of spontaneous, abbreviated communication thats technologically mediated. (2)Particular 8-roles assigned to particular argu- ments become implicit but are easily recovered and understood by both parties (i.e., the sender!‘SMS Texting Practices and Communicative Intention texter and textee or recipient of message) be- cause of the collectively shared information or background knowledge. (3)SMS text messaging language appearsto constitutea particular variety cofnaturally occurring language, which is widely used on a global scale across age cohorts and socio-economically and occupationally diverse networks. (4) It seems possible that language variations in use, as exemplified by the use of lexical short- ‘enings, G-clippings, homophones, abbreviations, structural simplifications and semantic implica- tions in this text messaging language, may cause potential language change overtime, and this may in tum affect the learning of standard varieties of natural language, especially among second-and foreign-language learners. REFERENCES Alsina, A. (2006). Argument Structure. Encyclo- ‘pedia of Language and Linguistics (2nd ed., pp. 461-468). Amsterdam: Elsevier Ltd, Androutsopoulos, J & Schmidt, G. (2001). SMS- Kommunikation: Ethnografische Gattungsanalyse ‘am Beispiel einer Kleingruppe. Zeitschrift flr Angewandte Linguistik, 36. Barlow, M. (2002). MonoCone Pro (MP 2.2). Houston, TX: Athelstan. Betti, . (2008). He escritote quieroen lapequefia pantalla (del mévil). Cuadernos Cervantes, 12, 1. Biber, D.,Conrad, S., & Leech, G.(2002). Student grammar of spoken and written English. Essex, UK: Longman/Pearson Education Limited. Bresnan, J.,€ Kanerva, J.(1989). Locative inver- sion in Chichewa: A case study of factorization in grammar. Linguistic Inquiry, 20, 1-50. Caleutt, A. (2001). Generation Txt: Mixed messag- es. Retrieved January 8, 2007, from http:iwww. spiked-online.com/Articles/00000000S4DF.htm Campbell, S. W., & Park, Y. J. (2008). The Rise of Personal Communication Society. Sociology Compass, 2(2), 371-387. Cowper, E. (1991). A Concise Introduction t0 Symtactic Theory. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. De Sandoval, PX. (June 10, 2001). Aprender a desescribir. El Pais, 29. Fairon, C., Klein, J. R., & Paumier, S. (2006). Le langage SMS. Etude d°un corpus informatisé 8 partir de Penquéte “Faites don de vos SMS & lascience”. Louvain, Belgium: CENTAL, UCL, Presses Universitaires de Louvain. Fromkin, V.(E4.).Curtiss,S., Hayes, B.P., Hyams, N., Keating, P.A., Koopman, H., et al. (2001). Linguistics (An introductionto linguistic theory). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers Ltd. Fuhse, J. A. (2009). The Meaning Structure of Social Networks. Sociological Theory, 27(1), 51-73. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9558.2009.00338.x Grice, H. P.(1975). Logic and conversation. In P. Cole & J. L. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and Seman- tics, (Vol. 3, Speech Acts, pp. 41-58). New York: Academic Press. Grinter, R. E., & Eldridge, M. (2001). ‘y do tngrs uy 2 txt msg?" In W. Prinz, M. Jarke, Y. Rogers, K. Schmidt, & V. Wulf (Eds.), Proceedings of the Seventh European Conference on Computer- ‘Supported Cooperative Work ECSCW ‘01, Bonn, Germany (pp. 219-238). Dordrecht, The Nether- lands: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Gruber, J. (1965). Studies in Lexical Relations. InJ. Gruber, (1976), Lexical Structures in Syntax and Semantics. Amsterdam: North-Holland. 263en Haegeman, L.(1991).Jntroduction toGovernment & Binding Theory. Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell Lid, Hird af Segerstad, Y. (2005). Language in SMS — socio-linguistic view. In R. Harper, L. Palen, & S. Taylor(Eds.), The Inside Text: (Social, cultural and Design Perspectives on SMS) (pp. 33-50), New York: Springer. Jackendoff, R. (1972), Semantic interpretation in generative grammar. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Jackendoff, R. (2002). Foundations of lan- ‘guage. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. doi:10,1093/aeprof:0s0/9780198270126,001.0 001 Levine, 8. S., & Kurzban, R, (2006). Explaining clustering in social networks: towards an evolu. tionary theory of cascading benefits. Manage- rial and Decision Economics, 272-3), 173-181. doi:10.1002/mde.1291 Mienpai, P. (2000), Digitalialisen arjen ituja Kénnykk ja urbaani elamantapa. (The Shoots of day-to-day digital life). in Hoikala, T., & Roos, 4B. (Eds,), The cell phone and urban lifestyles. ‘4a 2000—huvum eltima, (Life in the 21 Century). Helsinki, Finland: Gaudeamus. Meyer, G, W. (1994), Social information process- ing and social networks: A test of social influence ‘mechanisms. Human Relations, 47(9), 1013-1047 doi:10.1177/001872679404700901 Searle, J. (1969). Speech acts: an essay in the Philosophy of language. Cambridge, UK: Cam- bridge University Press Searle, J. R. (1975b). A classification of illo- cutionary acts. Language in Society, 5, 1-23 doi:10.1017/80047404500006837 264 ‘SMS Texting Practices and Communicative Intention Skog, B. (2002). Mobiles and the Norwegian Teen: Identity, Gender, and Class. In Katz, J. E., & Aakhus, M. A. (Eds.), Perpetual Contact: Mobile Communication, Private Talk, Public Performance (pp. 255-273). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/ €BO9780511489471.020 ‘Sutherland, J. (2002, November 11). Can u txt? John Sutherland asks what texting is doing to the English language — and finds it all a bit ©. The Guardian Newspaper: Retrieved January 8, 2007, from http://www.guardian.co.uk/mobile/ article/0,2763,837709,00.htmt Thurlow, C. (2003). Generation Txt? The so- Ciolinguistics of yourig People’s text-messaging, Discourse Analysis Online. Rettieved November 3, 2006, from http:/extra.shu.ae.uk/daoV/articles! ‘Ul /a3/thurlow2002003-paper htm! Ukritwiriya, C. (2003). Understanding Mobile Phone Culture ~ An Ethnographic Semiotics approach: the meaning in advertising of Thai consumers, (pp. 1-27). Cardiff School of Jour- nalism, Media and Cultural Studies. Retrieved November 17,2006, from http:/www.bs.mut.a.th’ copy/paper/pdt/2.pdF Ukritwiriya, C. (April, 2005). Mobile Phone — “Mue Tue": An Extension of the Hand — A Cool Brand and the Cool Self in Everyday Lives. Paper resented at the meeting of the Hungarian Acad- emy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary. Verschueren, J. (1999). Understanding Pragmat- ies. London: Arnold, a member of the Hodder Headline Group. Vishwanath, A., & Chen, H. (2008). Personal communication technologies as an extension of the self: A cross-cultural comparison of people's associations with technology and their symbolic Proximity with others. Journal of the American ‘Society for Information Science and Technology, 5911), 1761-1775, doi:10.1002/asi.20892‘SMS Texting Practices and Communicative Intention Zarantonello, G. (2001). Nuovi media ed iano parlato: gli sms (1) & (2). Comunitazione. it, Retrieved January 2, 2007, from http:/Avww. comunitazione.t/stampa.asp?kart=87 KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Background Information or Common Ground: The knowledge and cultural assumptions that the senderand receiver of text messages share about the situation they are texting about. Cell Phone or Mobile Phone: A hand-held mobile radio telephone for use in an area divided into small sections or base stations, each with its own short-rangetransmitter/receiver. Mostcurrent mobile phones connect to a cellular network. Communicative Intention: In text messag- ing practices this refers to the successful sharing of implied meaning or intended message in the simplified linguistic code of the texter/sender. Lexical Verbs: This is one of the four lexical word classes in English. Lexical verbs act as main verbs in clauses. Linguistic Economy: This involves the structural simplification of language in SMS text messages sent and received by members of various SMS social networks. Mobile Telephony: This term covers the use ‘of mobile phones, radio systems, and satellite phones, Predicate-Argument Structure: This deals ‘with how many arguments he predicate of lexical verb takes and their thematic roles or @-roles. SMS: Also known as Short Message Service, commonly referredtoas “text messaging,” Thisis aservice forsendingand receiving shortmessages of upto 160 characters to mobile devices, such as cell phones, Smartphone, and PDAS. Theta (0.) Role: The semantic role played by a participant in an event or situation, such as Agent, Patient, or Goal.