THE GRAMMAR OF SHORT MESSAGE SERVICES (SMS)

Abstract
The grammar of short message services resulted from introduction of the mobile phone. Previous work that has been done on grammar of short messages services focuses on slangs on sms grammar and also language used. There has been no attempt to classify this grammar according to their parts of speech; therefore this work aim to classify this sms grammar according to their parts of speech and also to provide their linguistics features that makes them different from other grammar. The theoretical framework that will be used for this work will be Schramm’s model of communication that was postulated by Wilbur Schramm in (1954) where he suggested that communication involve a two way process where both sender and receiver take turn to send and receive messages.
The data that will be used for this study is messages sent to my phone, friends, roommates and classmates. This research grouped the grammar in this messages according to their categories (part of speech) and also explain the linguistic features found in this grammar.
In the course of this study, I found out that:
(a) Spelling variation in sms grammar did not contradict the meaning of words.
(b) SMS grammar was not learnt in any institution.
(c) A number can be used in place of a word and be understood by sms users.
In conclusion, sms grammar is unique and the uniqueness of it is found in its word formation and not at its sentence structure. At the sentence structure it is the same thing with Standard English i.e. SVO sentence structure.