Linguistic Features of English Textese and Digitalk of Iranian EFL Students

This study aimed at investigating the English textese of Iranian EFL learners by scrutinizing the linguistic features through a qualitative design. In doing so, 700 messages were collected from 43 MA Iranian EFL learners of both genders. The features were categorized and analyzed calculating the frequency and percentage. The findings of the study showed that Iranian EFL students used different types of linguistic features with different density in their textese. They had consistency in textism and their text messaging language was mostly standard. The findings of the study could be used to raise students’ awareness on the linguistic features in choosing the right kind of language when communicating with others.