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Abstract
Communication in the twenty-first century is increasingly devoid of the verbal and visual cues that have been proven to be critical in conveying and interpreting meaning. Communicating with clarity is the challenge imposed with text-based forms of dialogues, and this becomes more and more important as a greater number of our personal and professional exchanges are transacted via text-based methods of delivery. Use of email, text messaging (texting), instant messaging (IM), discussion forums, and social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are increasingly routine and rapidly becoming the norm for many day-to-day interactions.
This article proposes that a new set of typographic elements needs to be developed that extends our written vocabulary, complementing and improving the communication opportunities that technology – and its increasingly text-based forms of interactions – offers. Voice-less and face-less interactions create enormous challenges when expressing and interpreting meaning and intent. A viable system of new punctuation that supports brevity and clarity can be developed utilizing existing typographic glyphs, making implementation of new marks convenient and immediate. Unlike emoticons, and texting acronyms/abbreviations, new punctuation marks might have the advantage of being appropriate for personal and professional dialogues.
This argument introduces evidence across a broad temporal canvas. It examines our current communication environment, follows with a historical review of punctuation; continues through to a 2013 survey of high school students; and concludes with a recommendation around the number and type of new punctuations necessary to advance the clarity of our text-based dialogues.
Notes
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