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0Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
SciVerse ScienceDirect
Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 55 (2012) 766 - 775
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON NEW HORIZONS IN EDUCATION
INTE2012
The Effect Of The Internet And Mobile Phones On The Habit Of Teacher Candidates' Using Turkish Language As Written
Language
Nilgun Tosuna
aAssist. Prof. Dr., Trakya University Faculty Of Education CEIT Department, 22030 Edirne, TURKEY
Abstract
In this study, it is aimed to reveal whether the habit of teacher candidates' using mobile phones and the internet has a negative effect on writing Turkish texts. In accordance with this purpose, the data collected via surveys from 405 teacher candidates, it was determined that students preferred mobile phone short text messages in written communication rather than chat and e-mail. Students stated that they used Turkish word abbreviations in chat, e-mail and short mobile phone texts. They also expressed some justifications as a result that using abbreviations is time saving, even though they do not write the entire word, the reader will understand what is written and they also think that writing entire word is more difficult. According to the data gained from the same survey, the majority of the students do not use a word or word abbreviation from another language in electronic media correspondence. The rate of male students using spelling and obeying punctuation rules is higher than the rate of female students while writing e-mail.
© 2012Publishedby ElsevierLtd. Selectionand/or peer-reviewunderresponsibility of TheAssociationofScience, EducationandTechnology
Keywords: Turkish language; internet; mobile phone; teacher training; writing habits.
1. Introduction
Language that is the most important tool for communication between people can be influenced by the other languages and change in an international platform like internet. That a language changes the other languages depends on the number of its users, use of frequency, namely on the domination in the
1877-0428 © 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of The Association of Science, Education and Technology doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.09.562
environment. The dominant language on the internet is English. According to statistical results of Internet World Stats, 536.6 billion users used English language on the internet in 2010 [URL1]. Since most of the internet sites are English, it has been experienced shortage to use Turkish language characters. The characters (letters) 5, g, 1, 0, § and u are not used. Due to the domination of English language on the internet, Turkish language has changed with the effect of English today.
It can be given as an example that the use of strange words which are the mixture of Turkish and English words in internet correspondence can cause the changes in Turkish language as well. The expressions such as hacking (hacklemek), downloading (download etmek), flash memory (flash bellek), chatting (chat yapmak), e-mail address (e-mail adresi) have been involved unfortunately not only in internet environment but also in the colloquial and written language of youth. Even though Turkish Language Institute has found Turkish equivalents to many of these statements, they have not still involved in our language. This is why some of the equivalents are long, difficult to pronounce, and they do not create awareness in the society.
The word abbreviations which are used especially in chat areas, blogs, e-mail, social networking sites, and forums are the indicators of the emergence of a special Turkish language that belongs to internet. For example instead of 'selam (hi), slm; instead of 'merhaba (hello)', mrb; instead of 'ne haber? (what's up?), nbr; instead of 'tamam (it's okay)', tmm; instead of 'ho§ geldin (welcome)', hg are some of the most common Turkish words abbreviations.
There are some typographical errors which young people often repeat on the internet such as English words shortenings as well as Turkish shortenings. The shortenings such as instead of 'Te§ekkurler (Thanks)' they use 'thnx'; instead of 'senin igin (for you)', they use '4u'; instead of sana/size (to you), they use '2u' are some examples of these. Sometimes while writing Turkish words, instead of using Turkish letters in correspondence, English letters are preferred. Particularly, it has been seen frequently instead of Turkish letter k, they use 'q', instead of 'v' they use 'w', instead of 'u' they use 'ou', instead of '§' they use 'sh', instead of '5' they use 'ch'. For example, Buqet, Turkish name (Buket); Haroun, Turkish name (Harun); Pasha, Turkish name (Pa§a); Chetin, Turkish name (Qetin) are the examples of this wrong kind of uses.
2. Writing and the Internet
Writing is the most common expression type that we refer to in our daily life after speaking and its basic aim is to transfer a message about a specific topic to the reader. Writing is also a need like speaking. Furthermore, it is one of the communication ways in the society. Writing is a necessity for transferring the feelings and thoughts as well as for sharing the professional knowledge and experiences. Additionally, it is extremely important for the development of language (Ozbay, 2006).
With the spread of Web 2.0 applications, social networks, blogs and wikis have been new favorites of young internet users. Social networks are the sites in which it is aimed to create a virtual community to act together, share ideas and produce new solutions (Ozmen et al, 2011). Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Badoo, and Flickr are the most common social networks. Today, Facebook has over registered 500 thousand users and half of these users log in every day. Three million messages are sent every 20 minutes on Facebook and one user writes 25 comments on average per month [URL2]. In 2010, with 18.679.460 Facebook users, Turkey was in the fourth place in the world [URL3]. Blogs, without requiring technical knowledge, are the log-like web sites in which people can create what they want and write about them
according to their wishes. Readers can comment on according to the choice of publisher. Comments are an important dynamic of blog culture; in this way, an interaction is created between the writer and readers [URL4]. Wiki is a web site which allows the visitors, without requiring membership, to add some contents, edit, delete and modify. Discussions about available data and changing these data can be made and these discussions and changes can be stored (Karaman et al, 2008).
Mobile phones are one of the most important communication tools as well. They are the most important technological products which young people use very commonly recent years because they have voice, text, and video communication support and can connect to the internet.
Today, e-mail, chat software, social networks, blogs, wikis, and forum correspondence and the mobile phones are the primary preference of young people for written communication. The most notable feature in these types of correspondence is the flexibility and irregularity of the written language. Yet, a regular and formal language is used in the texts such as letters, petitions, and reports in daily life. That mainly the electronic media correspondence is used reflects as a complicated Turkish language on the daily correspondence of young people. This reflection has become a serious concern as it is seen in the example of a college student who has written his surname 'Kahramanoglu' as 'K.oglu'.
3. Objective and Importance of the Study
Language is an integral part of national culture and an important tool to transfer the national culture to the next generations. Teachers who teach basic language skills can be more effective guides to make students meet cultural products and understand to improve these (Oguz, 2010, Co§kun transmitting from 2009). Considering this fact, this study was realized with the aim of determining the writing habit of teacher candidates and the effect of internet and mobile phones on their writing habits. It is thought that this kind of academic studies are very important in order to determine the negativity of the topic and take necessary precautions.
4. Method
4.1. Research Model
In this study, descriptive scanning model was used to determine the effect of the internet and mobile phones on the writing habits of the teacher candidates.
4.2. Population and Sample
The sample of the study includes the students who study in the various departments of Education Faculty of Trakya University in 2010-2011 academic year. 405 students in total participated in the study voluntarily. 284 of the students are females (70.12%) while the 117 of them are males (28.89%). 4 of the students who participated in the survey did not specify gender. Table 1 shows the distribution of the students according to gender.
Table 1. The distribution of the students participated in the survey according to gender.
Female 284 70.12
Male 117 28.89
Unanswered 4 0.99
4.3. Data Collection Tools
A survey improved by the researcher including 25 questions was used as a data collection tool. The first eight questions of these have been prepared in order to learn the demographic information of the student. The others are related to determining the habits of using internet and mobile phones of the students and also revealing the reflections of these habits regarding the accurate use of Turkish language.
5. Findings and Interpretation
When the answers students gave to the survey were analyzed in terms of gender, the following findings were obtained:
76.41% of the female students answered 'yes' to the question "Do you have your own computer?" while 69.23% of the males students answered the same question as 'yes'. Most of the students participated in the survey have computers. This finding indicates both students are willing to have computer and having a computer is not a luxury but a need. At the same time it can be said that the purchase conditions of computers are getting easier.
70.25% of the female students answered 'yes' to the question "Do you have internet connection (where you live such as home, dormitory, boarding-houses, etc.)?" while the rate of the male students answering as 'yes' is 61.61% for the same question. These values show that internet connection has been spread over a large area and available in many environments. Additionally, since the dormitories and boarding-houses serve on this issue, it is easy in terms of the access to the internet of the students. Regarding this finding, we can reach a conclusion that students use the internet in a multi-purpose way.
Almost all teacher candidates (99.65% of the girls and 99.13% of the boys) have their own mobile phones. This rate indicates that young people use mobile phones for both verbal and written communication quite often. No relation was found between the gender of the students and the time they devoted on average a day on the instant messaging (chat). The question "How many hours a day do you devote to the instant messaging (chat) on the internet?" was answered by the 39.55% of students as 'less than 1 hour', 25.94% as 'between 1-2 hours', 7.81% as 'between 3-4 hours', 2.27% as '5 hours or over five hours'. 24.43% of the students stated that they never devoted their time to instant messaging (chat) on the internet (Table.2). According to these findings, most of the students participated in the survey don't prefer to use internet with the aim of instant messaging (chat).
Table 2. The average time students devoted to instant messaging (chat) per day according to sex
Female Male Total
n= 405 f f% f f% f f%
Never devote 70 24.82 27 23.48 97 24.43
Less than 1 hour 103 36.52 54 46.96 157 39.55
1-2 hours 81 28.72 22 19.13 103 25.94
3-4 hours 24 8.51 7 6.09 31 7.81
5 hours or over 5 hours 4 1.42 5 4.35 9 2.27
Total 282 71.03 115 28.97 397 98.02
Chi-square df p fe<5% fe=0 8.91 5 - 25 2
There is a relationship between the variable of gender and the use of word abbreviations in the instant messaging (chat) correspondence on the internet (%2:5.24 df:1, p<.05). According to the answers to the question "Do you use word abbreviations in your instant messaging (chat) correspondence?", 81.14% of the female students, 70.69% of the male students use abbreviations in instant messaging (chat) correspondence (Table 3). Female students use abbreviations in their correspondence more than male students.
Table 3. The Circumstance of using abbreviations of the students in instant messaging (chat) according to sex
Female Male Toplam
n= 405 f f% f f% f f%
Yes 228 81.14 82 70.69 310 78.09
No 53 18.86 34 29.31 87 21.91
Total 281 70.78 116 29.22 397 98.02
Chi-square df P fe<5 % fe=0 5.24 1 p<.05 0 0
When asked whether they use a word or words abbreviations from different languages in their instant messaging (chat), 90.42% of the female students and 85.44% of the male students answered as 'no'. There is no relation between their genders and the time they devoted on average a day to e-mail processing. When we analyze the answers to the question "How many hours do you devote to reading-writing-answering e-mail a day on average?", 66.08% the students spend less than 1 hour, 9.87% of them spend between 1-2 hours, 1.27% spend 3-4 hours, 0.25% spend 5 hours or more than 5 hours. 22.53% of the students never spend time on e-mail processing (Table 4). According to these findings, many of the students participating in the survey do not prefer e-mail as a communication tool.
Table 4. Average time the students devoted to e-mail processing a day according to sex
Female Male Total
n= 405 f f% f f% f f%
Never spend time 70 25.00 19 16.52 89 22.53
Less than 1 hour 179 63.93 82 71.30 261 66.08
1-2 hours 27 9.64 12 10.43 39 9.87
3-4 hours 3 1.07 2 1.74 5 1.27
5 hours or more than 5 hours 1 0.36 0 0.00 1 0.25
Total 280 70.89 115 29.11 395 97.53
Chi-square df p %fe<5 fe=0 4.02 4 - 40 0
There is a relation between the gender of the students and the use of word abbreviations in e-mail correspondence (%2:11.38 df:1, p<.01). 57.30% of the female students and 38.39% of the male students answered as 'yes' to the question "Do you use word abbreviations in your e-mail correspondence?" (Table 5).
Table 5. The circumstance of students' using word abbreviations in their e-mail correspondence according to sex
Female Male Total
n= 405 f f% f f% f f%
Yes 157 57.30 43 38.39 200 51.81
No 117 42.70 69 61.61 186 48.19
Total 274 70.98 112 29.02 386 95.31
Chi-square df p fe<5% fe=0 11.38 1 p<.01 0 0
There isn't a relationship between the gender and the reasons why students use word abbreviations in their e-mail correspondence. Students were asked "What are the reasons to use word abbreviations in your e-mail correspondence?". According to the answers given to the question, 'saving time' is one of the primary reasons (44.13% of female students and 37.78% of male students).The answers 'Even though I don't write the word in its complete form, it is understood' (28.49% of female students and 31.11% of male students) and 'it is tiring to write it in its complete form' (25.14% of female students and 22.22% of male students) are among the other reasons (Table 6). The reasons of using abbreviations of male and female students in their e-mail correspondence and the reasons of using abbreviations in instant messaging (chat) are the same. While it is important to the female students to express many more ideas in the shorter time, the situation is different to the male students. Male students use Turkish language more accurate than female students in terms of using fewer abbreviated words in their instant messaging (chat) in the internet correspondence. The reason that everyone understands even though 'I do not write the complete word' means that these students, at the same time, are accustomed to understanding these abbreviations.
Table 6. The reasons why students use word abbreviations in e-mail correspondence according to sex
Female Male Total
n= 405 f f% f f% f f%
To save time 79 44.13 17 37.78 96 42.86
Since it is tiring to write in complete form 45 25.14 10 22.22 55 24.55
Even though I do not write its complete form, it can be understood. 51 28.49 14 31.11 65 29.02
For everyone writes in this way 1 0.56 1 2.22 2 0.89
Other 3 1.68 3 6.67 6 2.68
Total 179 79.91 45 20.09 224 55.31
Chi-square df P fe<5% fe=0 5.01 4 - 40 0
There is a relationship between the gender of the students and their paying attention to obeying the punctuation and spelling rules while they are writing e-mail (%2:4.01 df:1, p<.05). 56.63% of the female students and 67.54% of the male students answered the question "Do you pay attention to using punctuation marks and obeying spelling rules while writing e-mail?" as 'yes' (Table 7). Female students pay less attention to using punctuation marks and obeying spelling rules when we compare them to the male students. It can be said that male students are more sensitive to this issue.
Table 7. The circumstance of students' using punctuation marks and obeying spelling rules in e-mail correspondence according to sex
Female Male Total
n= 405 f f% f f% f f%
Yes 158 56.63 77 67.54 235 59.80
No 121 43.37 37 32.46 158 40.20
Total 279 70.99 114 29.01 393 97.04
Chi-square df p fe<5% fe=0 4.018 1 p<.05 0 0
When students were asked whether they used different word or word abbreviations from another language in their e-mail correspondence, 85.61% of the female students and 81.08% of the male students answered as 'no'. There is a relationship between the gender of the students and the number of average short text messages they sent daily (%2:16.66 df:4, p<.01). When the answers given to the question "How many text messages do you send per day on average?" were assessed in terms of gender, while 9.22% of the female students and 22.52% of the male students send 1-2 short text messages per day on average, 67.38% of the female students, 61.26% of the male students send 9 or more than 9 short text messages per day on average (Table 8). Female students send more short text messages than male students for communication. Students prefer to text messages instead of e-mail for communication. To obtain this result, the affordability mobile phones can be effective. In addition, reasonable call and text message packages offered by the mobile phone companies especially for the students are one of the important factors for the students to prefer communication via mobile phones. Sending 9 or more than 9 text messages per day supports this result. Information and Communication Technologies, according to the report of Market Findings of The Electronic Communications Sector in Turkey related to the fourth quarter of 2011, the number of the sent text messages via mobile phones in Turkey is described as 161,4 billion in 2011. In 2011, Turkey was ranked as the first among the European countries with an average of 212 short text messages per person in 2011 [URL5]. Taking this finding into consideration again, it can be said that female students are more enthusiastic in written communication and allocate more time.
Table 8. The average number of the short text messages sent per day by the students according to sex
Female Male Total
n= 405 f f% f f% f f%
1-2 2 9.22 25 22.52 51 12.98
3-4 27 9.57 12 10.81 39 9.92
5-6 20 7.09 4 3.60 24 6.11
7-8 19 6.74 2 1.80 21 5.34
9 and over 9 190 67.38 68 61.26 258 65.65
Total 282 71.76 111 28.24 393 97.04
Chi-square df p fe<5% fe=0 16.66 4 p<.01 0 0
There is a relation between the gender of the students and using word abbreviations in short text messages they sent (%2;9.78 df:1, p<.01). When students were asked the question "Do you use word abbreviations while writing short text messages?", 82.44% of the female students and 67.89% of the male students stated that they used word abbreviations in short text messages (Table 9). Female students used more word abbreviations in short text messages than the male students.
Table 9. The circumstance of using word abbreviations in short text messages according to sex
Female Male Total
n= 405 f f% f f% f f%
Yes 230 82.44 74 67.89 304 78.35
No 49 17.56 35 32.11 84 21.65
Total 279 71.91 109 28.09 388 95.80
Chi-square df p fe<5% fe=0 9.78 1 p<.01 0 0
There is no relationship between the gender of the students and the reasons why they use word abbreviations in short text messages. While 39.07% of the students use word abbreviations to save time, 22.95% of the students stated that writing entire word is hard for them (Table 10).
Table 10. The reasons why students use word abbreviations in short text messages according to sex
Female Male Total
n= 405 f f% f f% f f%
To save time 100 39.68 34 37.36 134 39.07
It is hard to write entire word 70 27.78 19 20.88 89 25.95
Even though I don't write complete form, it is understood 58 23.02 23 25.28 81 23.61
For everyone writes in this way 3 1.19 1 1.10 4 1.17
Other 21 8.33 14 15.39 35 10.20
Total 252 73.47 91 26.53 343 84.69
Chi-square df p fe<5 % fe=0 4.72 4 - 20 0
89.06% of the female students and 86.36% of the male students stated that they didn't use words or abbreviations that belong to a different language in their short text messages. The majority of the students participated in the survey don't use words or abbreviations from another language in their e-mail, instant messaging (chat) and short text message correspondence. The words used most commonly by the students in their e-mail, instant messaging (chat) and short text messages and their equivalents are presented in the Table 11 considering the frequency of use.
Table 11. Abbreviations most commonly used in the electronic correspondence and their equivalents.
ABBREVIATIONS EQUIVALENT
nbr (what's up?) ne haber
slm (hello) selam
sa (hello) selamun aleykum
mrb (hi; hello) merhaba
kib (take care) kendine iyi bak
iim (i'm fine.) iyiyim
tmm (okay) tamam
in? (i hope..) in^allah
eet (yes) evet
hg (welcome) ho§geldin
hb (thank you: as an answer to 'welcome') ho§buldum
cnm (dear,honey,etc.) canim
gzl (good, fine,nice,etc) güzel
npyn ( what are you doing?/how are you doing?) ne yapiyorsun
aeo (god bless you) Allah'a emanet ol
msj (message) mesaj
bb (bye bye/good bye) bay bay
opt (kiss you/kisses) öptüm
glyrm (i'm coming) geliyorum
gr^rz (see you) goru^uruz
nie (why?) niye
hyr ( no) hayir
aro (may god bless you/thank you ,etc.) Allah razi olsun
dbu ( do not forget me in your prayers/ pray for me) duanda beni unutma
The most attention-grabbing thing in the Turkish abbreviations written above is that words are written omitting the vowels especially all or some of the letters. Only the initial letter of some words was used in several abbreviations. Since the students have frequently used this kind of abbreviations for a long time, they can easily understand and analyze these abbreviations. For example, none of the students recognizes the abbreviation 'hyr'(no) as 'hiyar'(cucumber). Because previous experiences allow this abbreviation to be recognized as 'hayir'(no). Regarding the distinction of being organizational of perception (by Gestalt), the stimulants which affect sensory organs are perceived in meaningful relations but not one by one. When there are gaps between the stimulants affecting sensory organs, these gaps are completed. Thus, a figure or an object which has a clear meaning is perceived instead of a range of meaningless stimulants. The experiences a person had in the past and his/her learning process play an important role in perception. Considering this reality, it is possible to explain how easily young people perceive the abbreviations in electronic correspondence. Most of the students participated in the survey don't use abbreviations from another language in their e-mail, instant messaging (chat) and short text message correspondence. The most widely used abbreviations of words or phrases which belong to different languages and their equivalents in electronic media correspondence are: instead of "see" they use "c", instead of "for" they use "4", instead of "to" they use "2", instead of "you" they use "u".
6. Conclusion and Suggestions
When considering each of the students participated in the study is a teacher candidate, the difference between their writing habits and how it should be is easily seen. Taking the writing habits of the students in general into consideration, most of them abbreviate the Turkish words and very few of these abbreviations belong to a different language which is English in the correspondence.
Regarding using punctuation marks and obeying spelling rules in the electronic media correspondence, the desired situation is not available. While female teacher candidates participated in the study use abbreviations in the electronic media correspondence mostly with the aim of saving time, male students use abbreviations since the people reading them can understand easily. The remarkable findings of the research are that male students use abbreviations less while writing e-mail compared to the female students and show more care to use punctuation marks than female students.
Using abbreviations, avoiding the discrimination of small/large letters, forming texts ignoring punctuation rules are the major problems for teachers and teacher candidates who are the most important people should use Turkish language accurately. Since the concern of handling electronic media correspondence to real life correspondence has arisen, it has become a serious necessity to educate teacher candidates starting from their early education years about using Turkish language according to its rules. During this training, some competitions can be held to encourage students with the aim of creating awareness about the richness and beauty of Turkish language and some award-winning projects can be given to them. It will be convenient to add a criterion like "using Turkish language accurately" among the assessment criteria for the homework, project, and presentation given to students.
It is known that education continues outside the school walls in the family environment. For this reason, Turkish Education and use of Turkish language activities should be arranged for the families. Furthermore, families should be asked to support their children about the effective use of Turkish language in electronic media correspondence.
Today there are 11.5 billion web pages and more than 2 billion Turkish internet sites in the world [URL6]. The difference between the numbers is easily seen. In this context, international legal regulations can be done to increase web sites having Turkish content.
Young people and children use mobile phones very often for the written communication. Considering this reality, it has become easier to write text messages since the newly produced mobile phones are loaded with T9 predictive text messaging software. With T9 software, instead of pressing buttons repeatedly to write a single word, pressing only one button, many words will be listed to choose the necessary one. In fact in terms of learning correct writing of the words and not being able to use abbreviations, it is a good application, but, since most of the words installed in the software are English and this can create problems. It can be possible to teach Turkish words to young generation that uses mobile phones intensively and make them use properly via this kind of software. English T9 software can be uninstall from the mobile phones offered for sale in the boundaries of the country, and it is possible to install a program including only Turkish words.
It is an important issue that Turkish language which is the constant part of culture should be used accurate and effective by the teachers who have an important role to transfer Turkish culture to new generations. The most important task of the teachers is to be a good role-model in terms of using Turkish language not only in words but also in performance.
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