“ Where Are You ? ” The Communicative Functions of Saudi Students ’ Text Messaging

The widespread use of the mobile phone service has greatly contributed to the proliferation of text messaging, particularly among young people. The main objective of this study is to examine the communicative functions of the text messaging of young Saudi university students. Thurlow’s (2003) theoretical framework is used in this study. The study has a straightforward research question: What are the communicative functions of young Saudi students’ text messaging? 750 text messages were collected from the participants. The data collected were coded based on their communicative functions. Five main categories of communicative functions emerged from the data, namely friendship maintenance, socialization, school collaboration, coordination, and exchange of information. The findings of the present study corroborate previous findings about communicative functions in text messaging.


Background
The world has been witnessing a huge revolution in the use of mobile phones.The widespread use of the mobile phone service has greatly contributed to the proliferation of text messaging, particularly among young people, sent via Short Messaging Service (SMS) (Klimsa, Ispandriarno, Sasinska-Klas, Döring, & Hellwig, 2006).It is the most popular and preferred method of contact among young people.Researchers show that text messaging has become an inseparable part of young people's everyday life (Grinter & Eldridge, 2001;Klimsa et al., 2006;Thurlow, 2003), who use it for a variety of functions, ranging from keeping in touch to discussing school topics.
Young people are so attached to their mobile phones because they provide them with the sense of connectivity via voice calls and text messaging.Nowadays, they are using different available phone applications that offer them free text messaging such as BBM and Whtsapp, which have contributed immensely to the widespread use of text messaging.Young people are referred to as the "Mobile Phone Generation" (Reid & Reid, 2004), "Generation Txt" (Thurlow, 2003), "Generation SMS" (Bosco, 2007;Klimsa et al., 2006), "Generation Y" (Koutras, 2006), and "Digital Natives" (Prensky, 2001).
The communicative functions of text messaging have been widely studied in the western culture, but it remains neglected in the Arab world.The present study attempts to examine the communicative functions of text messaging in an Arab setting, particularly the Saudi setting.

What is Text Messaging?
Text messaging or SMS is a "a service that enables its users to send short text messages to one mobile phone from another, or to a mobile phone via the internet" (Hård af Segerstad, 2002, p. 68).The abbreviation SMS formally stands for "short text messaging" (Baron, 2003), or "Short message service" (Hård af Segerstad, 2002).In much of the western literature into texting, the term SMS is also used to describe both the medium and the messages (Kasesniemi & Rautianen, 2002).Text messages are limited to a small number of characters, encouraging the use of abbreviations, shortenings and other shortcuts in the language used in text messaging.For instance, text messaging is limited to 160 characters for Latin alphabets and to 70 characters for non-Latin alphabets such as Arabic and Chinese.The terms "Text messaging" and "SMS" are used interchangeably in this study.

Statement of the Research
The widespread use of the mobile phone and its sister technology, text messaging has motivated many researchers to study its social impact on people, its language, and its use among people, particularly young people.Several studies on the use of text messaging by young people have been carried out in a western context and have mainly focused on specialized topics.Battestini, Setlur, and Sohn (2010) pointed out that there are clear differences in the use of text messaging around the globe, and a number of researches have been carried out in countries such as Germany, Finland, Norway, United Kingdom, Sweden, and Japan.However, the study of the use of text messaging in the Arab world in general, and in Saudi Arabia in particular, remains neglected to a certain level.The lack of such research inspired the researcher to conduct this study in a different country with a different language and culture.Thus, this study serves to fill in a gap in the related literature.

Objective and Research Question
The main objective of this study is to explore the communicative functions in the text messaging of young Saudi undergraduate students.As such, the present study has a straightforward research question: What are the communicative functions of young Saudi undergraduate students text messaging?

Related Literature
This section reviews the literature related to the study of communicative functions of text messaging.It discusses why young people prefer text messaging and what communicative functions they use it for.

Why Do Young People Use Text Messaging?
Although the mobile phone was invented in the 1970s, it was not until the beginning of this century that the power of the mobile phone became very clear (Vykoukalova, 2007).It has become an indispensable part of people's lives all over the world, and its amazing penetration is still growing.Texting is the preferred form of mediated interaction among young people, specifically youth, surpassing all other kinds of computer-mediated communication such as instant messaging, e-mail, voice mobile telephony and even land-line phones (Ling, 2005).Their low cost, their smaller size, their personal and private nature, and the introduction of the pre-paid phone cards have contributed significantly to the rapid adoption rate by young people (Faulkner & Culwin, 2005;Ling, 2005Ling, , 2008)).
The mobile phone is a significant social and cultural phenomenon which is highly symbolic for boys and girls alike since it represents reachability and popularity (Klimsa et al., 2006).SMS is particularly popular among young people who often have a very strong emotional attachment with their mobile phones.They regard it as an extension of oneself, making statements such as "It's part of me" (Oksman & Rautiainen, 2004); "I have my life on the top of my hand" (Lorente, 2002, p. 4); or "your mobile is like your shoes" (Wei, 2007, p. 11).This emotional attachment results from the fact that this technology offers young people something extraordinary that other modes of communication do not.Taylor and Harper (2003) stated that mobile phones and text messaging are "a manifestation and a reflection of deeply rooted needs in these social relationships, needs that have to do with the system of reciprocity and social solidarity."(p.268) Youths' interest in the mobile phone often originates from peer pressure (Boneva, Quinn, Kraut, Kiesler & Shklovski, 2006;Geser, 2004;Klimsa et al., 2006;Thurlow, 2003).Peer-based connectedness is very significant for adolescents (Boneva et al., 2006).As one adolescent reported: "If you don't use the technology, you are not part of the group", and he also said that: "If you are not a name or a number in my phone book, then you're not on my radar screen" (Grinter & Eldridge, 2001).Teenagers usually have a higher number of friends than adults and interact with friends more often than adults (Boneva et al., 2006).Reid and Reid (2004) also highlighted the importance of peer relationships by noting that one of the most important findings of their studies is the notion of "text circles" (p. 7).Young texters seem to establish closely-knit groups of "textmates" with whom they engage in regular, and may be perpetual contact.Additionally, there is a pressing need for adolescents to have close friends to talk to, to hang out and have fun with.Thus, they take advantage of SMS since face-to-face interactions are sometimes very limited to them (Grinter & Eldridge, 2001).Ling (2005) concluded that youths use SMS messaging to extend their social activities, gain prestige, and facilitate the process of courting and flirting (p.336).Their developmental period is characterized by the need for person-to-person communication with friends (Klimsa et al., 2006).Peer talk, according to Kyratzi (2004), is very essential for adolescents to show their identities and ideologies.This explains why they maintain a higher number of friends than adults.
A different psychological account explaining youths' motivation for mobile phone adoption is presented by Geser (2004) who mentioned that texting provides a means through which youth can overcome the "adult-controlled power structures" that control their everyday lives.Furthermore, mobile phones offer young adults and teenagers a special kind of freedom, independence and privacy (Grinter & Eldridge, 2001;Ito & Okabe, 2005).

What Do Young People Use Text Messaging for?
Previous research has looked into the communicative purposes for which young people use text messaging.
Studying the text messaging of 200 people from Germany, Doering (2002) found out that German text messaging was used to fulfill five main communicative functions, namely: contact, information, appeal, obligation, and declaration.The prominent function of the German text messaging was contact, of which 20% dealt with appointments, 17% with greetings, 9% with change of media, 4% with relationship statements, and only 1% with emotional support.
In his study of the text messaging of young people in Wales, UK, Thurlow (2003) revealed nine communicational orientations and themes.They include: informational-practical orientation (14%), informational-relational orientation (8%), practical-arrangement orientation (15%), social arrangement orientation (9%), salutory orientation (17%), friendship maintenance orientation (23%), romantic orientation (9%), sexual orientation (3%), and chain messages (2%).Deumart and Masinyana (2008) verified that the communicative functions found in their corpus were quite similar to those of Thurlow's.They pointed out, however, that the number of messages included under the category of practical/social arrangements are fewer than the ones mentioned by Thurlow (2.45%), and having more love-related messages and chain messages (19% and 7% compared to 12% and 2% respectively).According to Deumart and Masinyana, the low count of messages in the category practical/ social reflects the financial problems of many of the participants who prefer making such arrangements in face-to face meetings, if possible.Grinter and Eldridge (2001) mentioned that young people use text messaging to arrange and adjust times to talk, coordinate with family and friends and chat.They have also reported the use of text messaging among intimate friends for a unique function," which is the "good night" function.Ling and Baron (2007) showed that most American students have experience with text messaging, which they use to keep in touch with friends and family, arrange meetings, and share news.
In his study of the sociolinguistics of SMS by teen and young adult Norwegians, Ling (2005) found that 75% of the text messages fell into the categories of coordination, grooming, and question and answer.The remaining messages included categories such as 1) information, 2) command and requests, 3) personal news and 4) others.Battestini, Setlur, and sohn (2010) found out that the most common content found in the text messaging of 71 undergraduate and graduate American students was planning.They revealed 13 different contents in the participants' text messages, namely: planning (31.7%), relationships (15.3%), chatting (13.7%), school/jobs (10.9%), places (10.2%), information seeking (10.2%),food (9.5%), current status (9.0%), sport/TV/News (6.8%), communication (5.3%), illicit activities (2.9%), health (1.7%) , and money (1%).Bosco (2007) presented a number of communicative functions used in the text messages of the people in Hong Kong.He stated that text messaging is mainly used for informal communicative functions.The following four categories of communicative functions were set up from his data: information 24%, interpersonal relationship 49%, social arrangement 26%, and chain messages 1%.The findings of Bosco's study in terms of the communicative functions used in text messaging agree with that of Thurlow's.

Methods
The present study is both quantitative and qualitative in nature.Specifically, it is a case study that examines the communicative functions of the text messaging of a group of Saudi undergraduates.

Participants
This study employed non-probability sampling, particularly purposive sampling, to select the participants.One hundred and seventy eight Saudi undergraduate students from different majors at Yanbu University College participated in the current study.They were all males ranging from 18 to 22 years of age.The mean age of participants was 19 years old.Only Saudi students are allowed to study at this college.Arabic is the first language of all the participants, but they all know English as a second language and use it as a medium of instruction in the college.All of the participants completed their foundation year, which is mandatory in the Saudi educational system.During this year, Saudi students study 640 credit hours of basic English along with courses in Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science, and Physical Education.The participants are homogenous www.ccsen in terms of the study w

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Discussion
The current research studied the text messaging of young Saudi students.In particular, it investigated the communicative functions in their sent text messages drawing upon previous work by Thurlow (2003).This study was conducted to fill a gap in the literature concerning the communicative functions of text messaging in an Arab setting since almost all of the research conducted on this particular topic took place in a western setting.Therefore, by analyzing the text messaging of Saudi students, this study came to complement previous work, and to show similarities and differences among them.
Friendship maintenance dominated the communicative functions found in the text messaging of the students in this study.This finding supports the findings of Battestini et al. (2010), Bosco (2007), Deumart andMasinyana (2008), andThurlow (2003).Most of the text messages were sent by the students to strengthen their alliances and cement their relationships with their which includes close and intimate friends.Text messaging allows them to enhance their relationships through sharing their emotions and exchanging content that is personally important to them.Therefore, you find these young students sending messages supporting, wishing well, offering help, advising, inviting, and so on, in order to stay close to their friends.This finding also emphasizes the necessity and high importance of such friendships among the students, since the text messages sent to close friends were 9 times more than those sent to family members.In this stage of life, it seems that young people are more attached to their friend than to their families.They usually seek help, emotional support, and favors more from their social circle.
It is noteworthy that some of the text messages in this category were highly intimate and showed a great deal of intimacy, particularly among the students.The need for intimacy and solidarity is an essential part of young people's culture.This need is significant to their identities.However, these intimate text messages lack romantic and sexual content.This may be due to the sensitive nature of text messaging since it is a very private part of the students' life, and may be to the conservative nature of the students' culture, where emotional and sexual intentions cannot be expressed openly.
Socialization came as the second dominating category in the list.As revealed from the data, the students used a high percentage of text messaging to stay in constant contact with their friends and family.This particular finding confirms Battestini et al.'s (2010), Bosco's (2007), Doering's (2002), Grinter and Eldridge's (2001), and Ling's (2005) findings that young people use a considerable part of their SMS messages to stay in touch with others, especially their text-circles.The young students sent more socialization text messages to their friends than to their family members, and the difference was similar to that in the friendship maintenance category.91% of the text messages belonging to this category were sent to friends, whereas only 9% were sent to family members.The same finding was reported by Eldridge and Grinter (2001).
The need to stay socially connected and not feeling isolated is one of the important reasons that incite students to send this kind of messages.Some students reported feeling unhappy or sad and wanted someone to talk to and share their feelings with; therefore, text messaging with a friend or a family member provides them with a sense of peace and tranquility.Sharing their happy moments was also instantiated in their text messaging.Others mentioned that chatting with a friend via text messaging helps them get over their boredom by killing time and keeping themselves busy (Grinter & Eldridge, 2001).Further, the data revealed some meaningful socially-oriented text messaging, discussing some serious issues of life.Socially-oriented text messaging may also help young people strengthen their relationships with others by sharing their feelings, ideas, experiences, and ideologies, and complementing face-to face interactions.
It is important to mention that all the text messages belonging to the phatic communication category were sent in Arabic.Being all native speakers of Arabic, the students found it more expressive to send SMS messages of this type in Arabic.An explanation is that it may be difficult for them to translate such formulaic expressions or poetic verses into English.Another explanation is that it is more practical to send a Quranic verse or a saying in its original language because it might lose meaning in the process, or one may consider it irreligious.
Moreover, this study reveals that text messaging is an important tool for school collaboration.This means that not only does text messaging help students keep in touch with others and maintains friendships, it also provides them with a platform to conduct school-related matters.Thus, they utilize text messaging to inquire about school topics, teachers, courses, assignments, quizzes, exams, and other school work.Other students used text messaging to offer their help to their classmates concerning school issues.They also used it to coordinate times with their classmates and teachers even though they scarcely used it with teachers.
Although previous research revealed that text messaging was used for school work (Battestini et al., 2010;Ling, 2005), the current study is the first to specify it as a separate category.School collaboration via text messaging assists students to enhance their relationships and better their school performance.Previous research has shown that text messaging has contributed to the improvement of students' academic performance (Crisp, 2009;Crystal, 2008;Mahmoud, 2013).Nowadays students are using new social network applications such as Whatsapp, BBM, and LINGO to set up study groups where they can ask questions, send feedback, discuss exams, as well as other school-oriented affairs.According to Motwalla (2007), students use text messaging to complement classroom interactions.They can ask specific and direct question using text messaging instead of making a phone call that might take a longer time, cost money, or disrupt an ongoing activity.Furthermore, since text messaging offers students the advantage of being reachable 24 hours a day, it is the most used form of computer-mediated communication among the students, allowing them to communicate with classmates anywhere and anytime.
Coordination is another main communicative function yielded from the data of the present study.This finding agrees with the findings of Battestini et al. (2010), Deumart andMasinyana (2008), Doering (2002), Grinter and Eldridge (2001), Ling (2005), Ling and Baron (2007), and Thurlow (2003).Text messaging is the most common used means of interaction among people, particularly young people, to plan, arrange, and rearrange their times and activities with their friends and family.Its omnipresent nature and affordability may be the reason for that.Young people even prefer it to voice calls, emails, and instant messaging.
The findings showed that the students coordinated specific times to meet for lunch, to go visit someone, to play cards, go to the beach, and pick someone up, among others.The students also coordinated spontaneous activities and plans such as going to Jeddah, playing a game of soccer, meeting somewhere, going shopping for food or a new mobile phone and the best places to buy them.This category does not involve text messaging sent for coordination of school business.This finding goes in line with Ling and Yttri's (1999) study that text messaging is used for hyper-coordination.As the findings of this study revealed, the young students coordinated times and events more with friends than family using text messaging.A possible explanation is that text messaging is a peer-to-peer medium.
The data also revealed that the students employed text messaging to share personal and practical information.The same finding was reported by Bosco (2007); Ling (2005), and Thurlow (2008).The students asked questions and answered questions from others.They also kept friends and family members updated on personal events and news, and inquired simultaneously about their personal affairs.Further, the findings showed that they requested practical information such as directions, locations, best places to shop for something, best kinds of laptops or smart phones, among others.Seeking and conveying information is essential for the continuity and reinforcement of relationships among friends.
Moreover, text messaging is an important source of information nowadays.One can easily obtain a piece of information from one's friends or family since they are connected round-the-clock.People can also get a variety of information via text messaging such as breaking news, sports news, weather updates, doctor's appointments, bank transactions, flight updates, entertainment news health information, etc.As instantiated in the data, the students inquired and sent information about all the above mentioned.In sum, text messaging is offering the students what no other medium of communication is.

Conclusion
In conclusion, there are five main categories of communicative functions found in Saudi Undergraduate text messaging.They are: friendship maintenance, socialization, school collaboration, coordination, and exchanging information.The findings of this study complement previous research that has focused on the communicative functions of text messaging.The findings revealed more similarities than differences between the findings of this study and that of other studies.This study shows that there is a cross-cultural similarity in terms of the communicative functions of text messaging.The study shows that via text messaging, students can maintain and strengthen their existing friendship, as well as start new ones.They can also stay connected and socialize with their text messaging social network and family members through chatting and gossiping.The study also indicates that text messaging is used beyond its original purpose, which is staying in social contact.It proves text messaging to be significant for students' school affairs.Not only does this medium of communication help young people plan and coordinate times and events, it has become one important source of information.
This study has its own limitations.Firstly, the results are confined to Yanbu University students and may not be generalized to other populations.Secondly, the data analyzed for the purpose of this study were those text messages sent from the participants.It was not possible to collect received text messages because the researcher did not have the permission to study them, and because the researcher would not be able to know the demographic information about the sender.Thirdly, the researcher and coder faced difficulty in analyzing certain text messages since they were decontextualized.Thus, the intention of the sender was not clear in some cases.
Fourthly, the present study was circumscribed to Saudi male students.Obtaining data from female students is a tough task for two reasons.The first is the conservative nature of the Saudi community, and the second is that coeducation is prohibited in this country.Finally, the participants may have avoided including some very private text messaging such as highly emotional ones.This may explain the scarcity of emotional SMS in the data.However, this study offers a contribution to the existing literature on text messaging.In the end, research on gender differences in the communicative functions of Saudi students' text messaging is recommended.

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