How does French texting compare to other languages’ informal writing

French texting informal writing is characterized by unique abbreviation techniques, phonetic spellings, and the use of acronyms, much like texting in other languages, but with specific linguistic traits influenced by the French language structure. Strategies include shortening words through acronyms, apocope (cutting off the end of words), phonetic writing (e.g., “c” for “c’est”), and consonant-only reductions (e.g., “ms” for “mais”) to create short messages that convey maximum content efficiently. ¹

Compared to other languages, French texting maintains a strong tendency towards phonetic abbreviation and consonant reduction, whereas languages like English often rely more heavily on acronyms and slang. Additionally, French texting sometimes involves code-switching, especially in bilingual communities such as France-Switzerland, which might not be as prevalent in monolingual contexts. ²

Research also highlights that informal writing in French texting uses distinct markers, such as the omission of diacritics and a playful yet rule-bending approach to grammar, which are tailored to the constraints of text messaging and digital communication platforms. Such informal styles contrast with more formal written French but are a recognized part of digital social interaction. ^{1, 2}

In a broader multilingual context, informal writing styles including texting differ significantly due to language-specific phonetics, orthographic conventions, and cultural communication norms, leading to diverse abbreviation practices and stylistic features in each language. ^{3, 1}

Thus, French informal texting shares commonalities with other languages’ informal writing but retains distinct phonetic and orthographic abbreviation strategies rooted in the French language’s characteristics. ^{2, 1}

References

• Techniques d’abréviation dans les webchats francophones

• Hallo! Voulez vous luncher avec moi hüt? Le “code switching” dans la communication par SMS

• Olá, Bonjour, Salve! XFORMAL: A Benchmark for Multilingual Formality Style Transfer

• The Frequency of Texting on Middle School Students’ Writing Achievement

• Classifying Documents based on Formal and Informal Writing Styles using Machine Learning Algorithms

• Informal features in English academic writing: Mismatch between prescriptive advice and actual practice

• Pauline Henry-Tierney , Translating Transgressive Texts: Gender, Sexuality and the Body in Contemporary Women’s Writing in French

• Writing in Korean as an Additional Language: Learners’ Attitudes, Perceptions, and Informal Practices

• THE SELF-REPORTED INFLUENCE OF USING SMS LANGUAGE IN TEXTING AND SOCIAL MEDIA ON SAUDI STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC WRITING

• Resisting Linguistic Rules in French-Australian Writing

• Informal Writing Instruction and Dramatic Play to Support Kindergarten Children’s Language and Writing Development

• Archives, Memories, and Masks in Writing the History of the French Resistance

• Contemporary French-Australian Travel Writing: Transnational Memoirs by Patricia Gotlib and Emmanuelle Ferrieux

• Les marqueurs de contraste au contraire, par contre et en revanche en français parlé et écrit, formel et informel

• A digital corpus resource of authentic anonymized French text messages: 88milSMS - What about transcoding and linguistic annotation?

• Don’t lose the message while paraphrasing: A study on content preserving style transfer

• CLEAR – Simple Corpus for Medical French

• Read. This. Slowly: mimicking spoken pauses in text messages

• Un regard sur le français inclusif canadien dans une journée de Twitter

• Indeterminacy in L1 French grammars: the case of gender and number agreement

• Multimodal Practice for Mobilizing Response: The Case of Turn-Final Tu Vois ‘You See’ in French Talk-in-Interaction

• C’est trop auch! The Translation of Contemporary French Literature Featuring Urban Youth Slang

• Forms Used to Convey Reported Speech in French Epistolary Novel

• Translating polysyndeton: a new approach to “Idiomaticism”

• De l’oral spontané et sa transposition écrite sous forme d’article : quelques jalons d’une analyse exploratoire

• Old French Si, Syntax and Function in Diachrony