Word Formation Processes in Nigerian Short-message Service

One of the features of a living language is that it constantly changes with new words finding their way into the vocabulary of the language. Languages' vocabularies grow from time to time as a result of new innovations that continuously spring up in different sectors of life and human endeavour...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Theory and practice in language studies 2014-11, Vol.4 (11), p.2215
Main Authors: Okeke, Chukwuma Onyebuchi, Obasi, Gloria Tochukwu
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Abbreviations
Cellular telephones
Communication (Thought Transfer)
Computer Literacy
Grammar, Comparative and general
Innovations
Language
Linguistic research
Morphology
Neologisms
Semantics
Technological change
Text messaging
Word formation
Words, New
Writing
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Summary:One of the features of a living language is that it constantly changes with new words finding their way into the vocabulary of the language. Languages' vocabularies grow from time to time as a result of new innovations that continuously spring up in different sectors of life and human endeavour; one of which is the Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM), in the recent century. This study, therefore, explores the various processes employed by Nigerian Short-Message Service (SMS) writers in generating new words, by critically sampling and analysing some of these new words to see the processes employed by these GSM users. It is discovered in this paper that these GSM users have the capability of reducing any form of expression to the starkest abbreviation. Generally, the new words analysed are in one way or the other in their reduced forms and this may not be far from the characteristic SMS requirement of limited number of characters. Index Terms--word formation, GSM, SMS, clipping, alphanumeric and coinages
ISSN:1799-2591
2053-0692
DOI:10.4304/tpls.4.11.2215-2222