Facebook Usernames and their Attendant Identity Construction: Voices from Ghana (Published)
Social networking sites (SNSs), such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter (now, X) and Instagram, have now become an important part of communication in our world today. As a socio-technical system, SNSs have given users the opportunity to create, to expand, and to maintain new relations in a wider community; resulting in negotiation of varied identities in that social space. The present study, thus, aims at identifying the nature of Facebook usernames that are adopted by Ghanaian technical university students and to ascertain the kinds of identities enacted by such names. The Uses and Gratification Theory (UGT) was, essentially, adopted for the explanation of the rampant use of social media, and the intentions behind such use. An onomastic corpus of one hundred Facebook usernames was randomly and purposively sampled for the study and analyzed qualitatively. Personal names and nicknames emerged as common Facebook usernames. Concerning the kinds of identities that are projected, the local names were perceived to indicate an identity of patriotism to both ethnic groups and the nation as a whole. Nicknames were also observed to reveal a friendly platform for communication. The present study contributes to literature on naming practices, social networking sites and identity construction.
Keywords: Facebook, Ghana, Social media, identity construction, usernames
The Social Media, Human Dignity and Linguistic Violence in Cameroon: A Socio-Pragmatic Perception (Published)
Conflicts, violence, human rights abuses, and the influence of the social media are the most serious challenges the modern world and emerging democracies face today, and Cameroon, in which verbal and nonverbal violence, has become a daily social fact, is no exception. The language that we speak or write influences our cultural identities, and perception of our social realities. The aim of the present study is to collect and examine specimens of speech acts specific to acts of violence used by the social media practitioners as sociolinguistic facts in Cameroon, in order to analyse the different expressions that typify instances of use depicting verbal or linguistic violence in their discourse. The types of words, phrases and linguistic forms identified and analysed characteristically describe these texts as authentic lexicon specific to discourse of conflict and violence within Cameroon in the context of social tension and the Anglophone crisis. The objective being to create more public awareness on the devastating consequences of violence to unity, human dignity, insecurity, peace and living together in Cameroon. To handle complex sociolinguistic data of this sort, the mixed quantitative and qualitative methodology was used to collect online reports from content creators, trained and untrained media practitioners and to analyse these from a sociopragmatic perspective in order to describe its impact on the readers and Cameroonians in situ. The qualitative discourse analysis used was based on a combination of different theoretical frameworks including the Critical Discourse Analysis, Speech Act Theory, Semantic theories, communicative acts, and sociopragmatics relevant to pragmatically explain some of the vocabulary, frequently occurring in the corpus and characteristic of the lexemes of violence, referred to as linguistic violence. Note that words carry and transmit powerful vibrations and emotional energy discharges capable of igniting feelings of hatred, anger, insecurity, intolerance, bitterness, and consequently gruesomely unacceptable acts of human rights abuses. Equally, after the analysis, findings reveal that the different discourse types employ different performative speech acts and stylistic devices including connotation, imagery, symbolism, synonymy, polysemy, and neologism in the forms of verbal abuses, insults, minimisation, and stigmatisation that characterise the contemporary Cameroon society, which suffers from verbal abuses and indecent language use that communicates specific hate-filled and hurtful messages characteristic of linguistic violence in Cameroon, with an urgent need to be addressed. After the analysis, several findings reveal an unprecedented increase in violence and atrocities committed by both separatists and government military on the Anglophone population in particular and on Cameroonians as a result of the Anglophone crisis in violation of human rights and dignity. While suggesting the need to seek for a genuine and an inclusive dialogue, tolerance, the use of polite and decent speech acts, for peace to return is imperative, findings equally reveal that conflict and acts of violence has greatly enriched the Cameroon English language vocabulary, compounding old words to take on new meanings and introducing new words with connotative meanings from other languages like French, local and Pidgin English languages.
Citation: Willie Mushing Tamfuh (2022) The Social Media, Human Dignity and Linguistic Violence in Cameroon: A Socio-Pragmatic Perception, European Journal of English Language and Literature Studies, Vol.10, No.7, pp.24-120, 2022
Keywords: Conflict, Discourse, Human Rights, Perception, Social media, Socio-pragmatics, Violence
Net Generation, Norm Generators and English in Nigeria’s Publishing Ecosystem (Published)
Online communication has seen the emergence of those who may be called ‘norm generators’. Norm generators are producing changes in social practices and linguistic norms with implication on language use. The major culprit is English Language in Nigeria. Using data from online media platforms, this paper examines the emerging culture of netspeak within the Nigerian digital space and how it affects the various aspects of the publishing ecosystem. Findings from the corpus analysis of the data reveal that changes in the linguistic norms of English affect issues, such as writing, editing, typesetting and formatting of manuscripts. The paper concludes that if adequate care is not taken to harmonise and reinforce the conventional norms and practice, variations in the emerging English norms within the Nigerian digital space and publishing ecosystem will negatively affect proper English usage. Above all, it will adversely affect the quality of publishing generally in the ecosystem.
Keywords: Digital Literacy, Editing, Publishing Ecosystem, Social media, communication