Good Spellers Write more Textism than Bad Spellers in Instant Messaging: The Case of French

The increased use of digital writing has led to the emergence of a new form of communication between discourse and writing. We elaborated a research protocol to target the processes linked to the use of instant messaging to look for differences in the use of spelling modifications as a function of French students ’ spelling levels. The task required students to use Digital Writing in Instant Messaging (DWIM) in a semi-natural situation. Analyses showed that modifications that may be confused with misspellings in traditional writing (i.e. substitutions like “sa ” instead of “ça”) occurred more often than those that may not (e.g. reductions / alterations like “chepa ” instead of “je ne sais pas”), regardless of spelling level. These results show no impact of the use of DWIM on the quality of spelling (for good spellers only)