Understanding Mobile e-Text Communication with the Framework of Orality and Literacy: Student Perception of Non-verbal Texts

The development of mobile devices and network technology is changing the ways in which people communicate with one another. Mobile text message has emerged as one of the most frequently used form of communication, which also gave rise to various non-verbal texts such as emoticons. Nonetheless, the use of text messages has largely been denied in education because text messages often involve colloquial and non-verbal texts considered inappropriate or grammatically incorrect by the teacher. In efforts to provide a theoretical framework to better understand mobile e-text communication, this research compared the practical usages of non-verbal texts in the mobile e-learning environment. The study developed three types of text messages according to the degree of using non-verbal texts and their phraseology as instructors' messages, which were then distributed to 259 students via mobile text messaging. The perceptions of students were analyzed using a semantic differential scale and a questionnaire. The results showed clear differences in students' perceptions of non-verbal text and traditional text, and that optimally designed non-verbal texts turned out to encourage the students' interaction the most out of the three types of text messages. Following the discussion of the results, an expanded theoretical framework beyond Ong's concepts of orality and literacy is also suggested to understand the evolution of mobile e-text communication in education.