| Abstract: |
The 21st century has witnessed giant strides in computer-mediated communications (CMCs) and Internet Relay Chat (IRC), resulting in novel, revolutionary but compelling varieties or forms of language, especially English, in various social media such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, We chat, Instagram, Snapchat, Google+, etc. The social media has thus become a veritable platform for the exchange of ideas, opinions, gossip and the dissemination of information. It has also been observed that the global trend has infiltrated the online communication of Nigerian users of the English language birthing an equally new, evolutionary but increasingly influential variety of the English Language in Nigeria. This becomes the focus of this study. This study therefore through a purposive sampling collects WhatsApp chat messages of Nigerian students in South Eastern Nigeria with a view to investigate the nature of this online Nigerian English variety, the features, trends, most frequent forms and usage patterns. Through a sociolinguistic analysis of the data, the researcher discusses as well as establishes the nature and characteristic features of this emerging language variety in Nigeria. |
EBONYI JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE
