Manufactured Words for WhatsApp Interactions: A Morphological Approach to the Analysis of Yaba Tech. HND II Students’ Selected Messages
Keywords:
Word-Formation Processes, WhatsApp Platform, Morphological Analysis, Social Media, StudentsAbstract
This study investigates the morphological processes used by WhatsApp platform users for the formation of new words for WhatsApp communication. The WhatsApp messages of HND II students of Yaba College of Technology serve as data for the study. The selected data were analysed within the theoretical framework of Distributed Morphology. The morphological processes were employed in the analysis of the selected data in order to explore the morphological strategies that WhatsApp users adopt in deriving new words on the platform. For example, the morphological processes viz compounding, prefixation, clipping, aphetic form, abbreviation, acronyms are identified and analysed in the study. Effort is also made to find out whether the manifestations of those identified processes are the same as those of the English language word-formation processes. The findings of the paper show that the word formation processes (i.e. clipping, abbreviation, blending etc.) used for newly derived words are distinct from the English language word-formation processes. It can be concluded, based on the findings, that WhatsApp users manipulate the English word-formation processes to derive new words for communication on the WhatsApp platform.
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