Impact of Text Messaging on The Written English Language of One Hundred Level Undergraduates of Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida University, Lapai, Niger State.

Abstract

The study investigated the likely occurrence of SMS short forms in the written English of one hundred level undergraduates of Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida University, Lapai. Thiswas done after a test -re- test pilot study on one hundred and twenty students which gave a reliability index of 0.95. The study sampled three hundred mad twenty students from nine departments which were organized to represent the three fields of study, the Arts, Social science, and Science. The instrument used for the study was students' essays on a given topic, 'Corruption in Nigeria and Measures to curb it'. The essays we're analyzed using content analysis method in order to establish the appearance or otherwise of SMS forms. Five classes os SMS forms were utilized for the study. They are non- conventional spellings, phonological approximation, shortenings, letter- number homophones, grammatical peculiarities. Four research questions and hypotheses were formulated and tested using ANOVA statistics. The major findings revealed that SMS forms were found in students' essays across the three disciplines. It was also revealed that there is significant difference in frequency of SMS forms across the three disciplines. In the light of this, the study recommend among others, that teachers at the various levels of education should discourage the use of text message forms in formal writings as it may affect the intended meaning of the message being conveyed.