International Conference on Language, Literature and Culture Studies What do Students Write on High School Bathroom Walls

Before the spread of social media and communication devices, people used to write their various heart-writings on public places such as school chair-desk hands, bus-station benches and public bathroom walls. Since students are not allowed to use their cellphones in most of the school activities, school bathroom walls are still a place of various kinds of writings. Teenagers write different stuff and perform graffiti on high school bathroom walls. The data for the present research have been gathered from 40 school bathrooms in Kerman, Iran. Totally, 189 bathroom wall writings were gathered for the research purposes. These wall-writings are within different kinds and contents. According to the type, they are either one-word, Adj-noun, noun-noun, poem, sentence, question, long text or English. According to the content, they are either memorable of person names, Love (quotes or poems), Advice (poem or text) (funny or serious), Teenage emotions, Jokes, Swearing words or Taboo words (related to sexism). Frequency of each type, accompanied with examples, are presented for each type. The reason for each frequency is also analyzed.

Keywords:

bathroom walls , public graffiti , teenager communication