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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Psychology of Language
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1410698

MIMCKING SPOKEN PAUSES IN TEXT MESSAGES 1 Read. This. Slowly.: Mimicking spoken pauses in text messages

Provisionally accepted
Rachel Poirier Rachel Poirier *Andrew Cook Andrew Cook Celia M Klin Celia M Klin *
  • Binghamton University, Binghamton, New York, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    In contrast with face-to-face conversations, text messages lack important extra-linguistic cues such as tone of voice and gestures. We ask how texters are able to communicate the same nuanced social and emotional meaning without access to this rich set of multimodal cues. The current paper expands on the work of Houghton et al. ( 2018) who examined the role of one particular textism, the period, and found that the inclusion of a period after a single -word text (yup.) could convey abruptness, or insincerity. Across three experiments, we examined two additional textisms and found that the inclusion of a period after each word in an exchange (No. just. go) as well as breaking the exchange into a series of single-word texts ([no] [just] [go]) conveyed emotions such as disgust and frustration. These textisms may have mimicked prosody, influencing readers' understanding of the emotionality of the message. More generally, the results demonstrate that texters make use of a variety of textisms to communicate social and emotional information.

    Keywords: computer-mediated communication, CMC, Texting, Text Messaging, language processing, Language comprehension

    Received: 01 Apr 2024; Accepted: 08 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Poirier, Cook and Klin. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Rachel Poirier, Binghamton University, Binghamton, 13902, New York, United States
    Celia M Klin, Binghamton University, Binghamton, 13902, New York, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.