Teenagers' perceptions of SMS Afrikaans in print advertisements

Abstract

The technological constraints of the mobile phone gave rise to a texting (SMS) language with very distinctive linguistic features. This study examines whether SMS Afrikaans could be employed as language of advertising in the print media. Drawing on the Communication Accommodation Theory by Howard Giles (Gallois, Ogay and Giles 2005: 131) and the theoretical model on message form by Hoeken, Swanepoel, Saal and Jansen (2009), this paper examines how teenagers would perceive the writer and the message when print advertisements are written in SMS Afrikaans. Two different print advertisements were used: a product advertisement and a health communication message. These two print advertisements (in Standard Afrikaans) were 'translated' by teenagers themselves into their own texting language. Two separate experimental studies were conducted for the two types of advertisements. In each of the two experimental studies, the teenagers compared the standard Afrikaans version of the...