Effects of SMS Texting on the Writing Skills of University Students in Nigeria: Case of the College of Education Akamkpa

Students are compelled, in examination situations, to use langue properly for an effective communication of their ideas and a grammatical formulation of their answers. Improper use of language is, in this respect, often sanctioned in various glaring ways. Despite this linguistic and examination requisites, students -often advertently or inadvertently - violate language rules, sometimes under the influence of intensive/frequent use of particular communication technology. This paper explores the influence of technology - particularly the SMS (Short Messages) texting - on the use of English language by Nigerian university students, in a typical pedagogical situation. It focuses specifically on students of the College of Education, Akamkpa in Nigeria. Based on a content analysis of 250 SMS messages generated by 50 third year students of the institution and answers scripts produced in an examination situation by these students, the paper demonstrates that intensive use of the SMS texting affects students’ language literacy. Texting influences them to consciously or unconsciously transfer the pattern of written proper for SMS messaging into their essays. The paper shows features of the SMS language observed in both SMS messages by the students and their answer scripts. The five most dominant features include vowel deletion, graphones, alphanumeric homophony, punctuation ‘errors’ and initialization among others.