ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I outline the written system as it is found in SMS text messaging and related forms of digitally mediated, written interaction, including instant messaging, and postings on websites dedicated to social media, content-sharing and microblogging. Many of these were in wide circulation at the time of writing, and were better known by their commercial eponyms: for example, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Such person-to-person, vernacular interaction is conducted on mobile phones, ‘tablets’ and other handheld personal communication accessories, which are ‘carried on the body throughout the day, and close to one’s bed at night’ (Deumert and Lexander 2013: 36; Ito et al. 2005). Their manner of inscription differs from the material ‘infrastructure’ 1 of documents, files and desktops – real and virtual – used for composition in normative written forms, often associated with writing in institutional settings.
