Spelling Practices in Text Messaging

The sociolinguistic functions that text messaging plays in Nigeria cannot be over-emphasized. This chapter not only highlights the functions of text messages in Nigeria but also examines the strategies used by students of Obafemi Awolowo University in the composition of text messages. One hundred and thirty-four text messages, either sent or received, by volunteer participants whose ages range between sixteen and twenty-four years, were analyzed. The chapter showed that, although some words are spelt the same way by different texters, there is need to standardize the spelling conventions in SMS so as to make it more systematic and less chaotic. Findings revealed that among the strategies such as clipping, abbreviation, initialization, phonetic spelling is the most commonly used by Nigerian students.