THE PHENOMENON OF TEXTING

Traditionally, the concept of communication is considered as the exchange of information between individuals through the common system of symbols. According to the type of relations between the participants, there are such forms of communication as interpersonal, public, mass communication; by means of communication it may be written, oral and paralinguistic (gesture, facial expressions), real sign communication like visual arts. Nowadays there is also an electronic form of communication, used not only in the virtual space, but also in everyday life. Language mediated by electronic discourses like chats, SMS texts, e-mails significantly differs from the standard form of the language and is known as the texting language. In the course of such communication, oral speech is used, transferred to a written format without a corresponding edition, with preservation of mimicry and intonation at the expense of written means. Texting language is creating its own sort of grammar and vocabulary using symbols of different semiotic systems, forming the phenomenon of telescoping, that is contraction of a phrase, word, or part of a word, reduction of a series of words to some of their component syllables. The relevance of this study is due to the particular popularity of the SMS language and its influence on the culture of writing and speaking, since writing has been recognized as a leading tool in learning. The use of SMS is constantly expanding, which leads to the universalization of SMS language and to its emergence beyond the limits of electronic communication in teen slang, media language, and advertising. The aim of the research is to investigate how the texting influences the language, to systematize a set of lexical, grammatical and semiotic characteristics used in SMS language and to analyze if the texting has a really negative effect on the literacy skills of students or a text whole arises under the influence of a certain set of extra linguistic and text forming factors. The methodological base of the research are communicative and discursive approaches, the linguistic concepts of creolized and polycode texts. The results of the research refer to the text in continuous connection with the situational context, which determines everything that is essential for generating this text, in connection with the system of communicative and pragmatic goals of the text author, interacting with the addressee. In this regard it becomes obvious the distinction in text writing depending on different communicative situations external to the text. The research results may find use in further development of Internet Linguistics and the language of electronic communication.