Spelling Features of SMS Communication in Russian and Croatian Languages

Abstract

In this article, we define the range of problems associated with spelling rules used in mobile communication, with a focus on SMS communication. SMS messages are one of the most common methods of communication today. The subject of our research is the language of private SMS, which is difficult to describe. This is explained by the liberties users take with the norms of the literary language, as well as the appearance of numerous regionalisms, vulgarisms, dialectisms, neologisms, etc. Although we are talking about colloquial vocabulary, not literary, and SMS messages that do not observe spelling rules, we note that some patterns exist and are used in both Russian and Croatian languages. We can say that with the advent of virtual communication, in contrast to the traditional (written) genres of spoken language, new modern genres and styles of written colloquial speech have appeared; that is, new rules are established and created that differ from the rules of traditional spelling. Drawing on the latest research on this topic, we analyse SMS messages at the spelling level. The corpus of the studied texts includes several dozen SMS messages of different styles of speech, which reflect some of the features of SMS communication in the Russian and Croatian languages.

Keywords

• spelling
• sms communication
• russian language
• croatian language