Rhetorical Analysis of “Text Messages”

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Rhetorical Analysis of “Text Messages” Charles McGrath in the section “The Way We Live Now” in the New York Times Magazine wrote “Text Messages” on January 22 of 2006. Charles McGrath is a writer and editor for this big company, the New York Times. Most of the time his articles are about culture, literature and his big obsession golf. In the article he talks about how people are communicating with others in the present, and he gives a good example of text messages. Shorthand, contractions, emoticons, numbers and all the types of symbols that could exist to be able to communicate with the society are now the new language that all of us are using. People do not use real words to say what they want to say; they use some abbreviations that have been invented over time, and they are getting a new culture. By this time McGrath is showing his audience that people today really do not have too much to say because they are using contractions and all those shorthand. They do not think about what they are writing. Nowadays text messages are making us lose our language because of the shorthand contractions. When it is time to communicate with someone by text messages, people use lots of emoticons to express feelings rather than using complete thoughts. They do not think about grammar or the rules that they have to follow when they are writing as in high school. Also, McGrath does not have any stereotype in this article. He talks in a general context because he does not pick any particular group of people. He is communicating with readers of all ages in a standard tone. His tone is not that informal but it is not too formal. He uses easy words such as emoticons, acronyms, and abbreviations, for example, “ TTYL” that means “talk to you later” and “u” that means “you”, so that the audience, the readers of The New York Times magazine, can understand the abbreviation or symbols

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