We all likely spend a fair amount of time analyzing text messages. It's not always easy to gauge a sender's feelings from written words, as facial expressions and patterns of rhythm and sound often used to shape meaning in spoken conversations are absent. But "textisms"—a term applied to various nonstandard writing methods of the SMS-style language—including abbreviations, intentional misspellings, and irregular capitalization offer clues, as does nonstandard punctuation. In a new study, Binghamton University researchers found that a period after every word, as well as messages broken down into one-word texts, made the messages seem more intense.
Researchers recruited up to 80 undergraduate students to read text exchanges created using an iPhone Text Generator, only some of which included these so-called "markers-extra." The readers then gauged the sender's emotional tone, rating various emotions on a seven-point scale. In texts with periods after each word (for example, "Buy. More. Milk."), readers saw intensified emotion, perhaps viewing the periods, which had no grammatical function, as being used to add emphasis. "The periods may communicate emphasis or may mimic a prosodic feature such as a dramatic pause after each word, being heard as staccato speech in readers' inner speech," reads the study published in Frontiers in Psychology.
Readers also saw an increased sense of emotion in texts where individual words were given their own text bubble—perhaps seeing the word breaks as likewise "equivalent to a dramatic pause"—but to a lesser degree than with the periods. Researchers note the periods might have been "more visually salient, and thus, conveyed a stronger meaning." Regardless, it appears "texters have found a way to communicate pauses," which serve as "important communicative functions" in spoken language, psychologist and study author Celia M. Klin says in a release. (More texting stories.)
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