INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

1.1 Introduction

This study examines the linguistic innovation of the electronic social medium that is Facebook

and WhatsApp chats of selected students in the University of Lagos. It is an investigation of how

language is changing its form due to social media- a genre of Facebook and WhatsApp. The

paper is concerned with the social mechanism of linguistic change. We begin by noting the

distinction drawn by Bynon (1977) between two different approaches to the study of linguistic

change. The first is associated with traditional nineteenth century historical linguistics which

involves the study of the ‘state of the language’. The second approach is associated with modern

quantitative sociolinguistics. An important objective is to specify how language passes from state

A to B in terms of the social processes involved and the effect on linguistics structure of a given

change.

Language has continued to remain an important tool in human social interaction. In almost every

domain of human activity or endeavor, its resources have become indispensable to facilitating

human communicating needs. Communication itself can be said to be imparting, conveying, or

exchanging of ideas, views and knowledge by means of speech, writing or signs. There is the

need therefore to impart unto another person our world view or ideas about things and concept

around us. ‘Thus, communication includes all the procedures by which one mind may influence

another’ (Mc Gary, 1972). Language is a social factor which aids communication among

individuals or group. It is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which a social group

cooperates.
According to Blog and Trager, 1942, ‘There is no way an individual, relationship, group’s

organizations and societies can create, transmit and use information to organize and coordinate

activities in the environment without the communicative effect of language.’ Thus, the power of

verbal communication underlies the inter-connectivity between language and language change,

and culture and society respectively. Language use affect or contributes to language change

through which members of speech community transmit their ideas, share knowledge and

influence one another in order to achieve communicative goals. It is pertinent to state that a study

of the appropriate use of language through electronic medium (social media) among students at

the University of Lagos will include the study of language variation and language change. It is

this language use that we are interested in analysing in this research.

1.2 Background to the Study

A keen observation of language use among students of the University of Lagos will reveal that it

has undergone much innovation with the way student demonstrate their creative ingenuity. In

which they have flooded the English with jargon, slang, vernacular, pidgin which has

restructured the English language.

The consequences of the fast development in science, technology and media are reflected in

every area of English language. ‘The classic language structure has changed dramatically the

evolution of the computer technology’ (Krashen 1982:10). Social media is a fairly new concept

since almost nobody heard or used social media a decade from now. Nevertheless, nowadays

websites such as Facebook and WhatsApp have more than 1billion users and account for almost

25 percent of internet use. According to an article posted on Facebook, Facebook’s monthly

active users now exceed 800 million and their daily active users, exceeds 400 million (Facebook,
2012). It looks almost overnight; social media has grown indispensable to our lives – from

friendship and dating to news, weather forecasts and business issues.

It goes without saying that the use of social media for communication in most Nigerian schools

among students has taken a new turn with student’s use of language. The term ‘linguistic

innovation’ is used as a reference to the new form of language – grammatically, phonetically,

syntactically and semantically among student at the University of Lagos. The use of social

media no doubt has become prominent. It has become natural phenomenon that student at the

University of Lagos make use of computer technology as a tool of interaction, exchange of ideas

and passing of information. This results too many fundamental changes in language. Many

linguists agree that whenever a speaker uses language that does not exist in their language

system, there is bound to be what is called inappropriate use of language. However, since the

advent of the computer technology, different form of language use has been considered

appropriate. The use of hashtag, abbreviation, smileys and slangs has been considered as an

appropriate lexicon for English language by social media users.

1.3 Research Objectives

The objectives of this study are:

i) to examine recent innovations in English;

ii) to investigate the impact of social platform on language;

iii) to investigate choice of medium of language use;

iv) to study how various social medium affect language use.

1.4 Research Questions

The following are the research question:

 i. How do social media affect language?

ii. What are the linguistic innovations of Facebook and WhatsApp chats?

iii. How choice of language affect its form?

iv. What are the effects of various social medium on language use?

1.5 Research Problem

Before the advent of computer technology, scholars of sociolinguistics and language variation

focussed more on the history of English i.e Old English to Modern English. Few scholars gave

little attention to tye future form of English. Since the evolution of technology, the world has

taken a giant leap from the industrial age to the information age. Computer technology has

affected every area of human features. Many scholars began to pay attention to the linguistic

innovation of the computer technology. One of such work is Language Variation: European

perspectives (Torgerson and Fox, 1990). Another prominent scholar who contributed to this field

is Venneman. In his paperwork, Casuality in Language Change (1963), he examined several

problems of language by use of computer technology.

This research paper examines some of the problem unsolved by previous scholars. Some of these

problems are presented in form of questions. Questions like: of what extent has the use of

language in social media affect language itself. Also, questions like: of what form will language

take regarding the increasing rate of users of Facebook and WhatsApp. This paper is committed

to unraveling the mysteries and as such, bridges the gap of communication between the students

and the general public or other language users.

1.6 Significance of the Study

First of all, it should be mentioned that language acquisition with technology is a pretty

fashionable topic, there are few studies referring to acquiring vocabulary with the use of internet.

This research presents the benefits of using Facebook and WhatsApp chats in learning

vocabulary. Again, it will serve as a reference point for students, teachers and individuals that are

interested in understanding this field of language. It is therefore structured to enhance the

understanding and appreciation of the importance of the vocabulary of English. Facebook and

WhatsApp provide students with a unique and up to date information portal being connected to

all the breaking news.

1.7 Scope of the Study

The focal point of this research is to bring into fore the use of appropriate language by students at

the University of Lagos. It focuses on the use of social media that is Facebook and WhatsApp

terminologies by the students in their discourse. It tends to unravel the mysteries by answering

the question of why students use social media as their discourse.

1.8 Research Methodology

This research work focuses on Lagos – the University of Lagos as its study area. The research is

from the output of six students, consisting of; three males and females. These students are known

among their peers to have many friends on Facebook while the others are group administrators

on WhatsApp. The students reside in hostels in the university. They include; King Jaja, Eni-

Njoku and Queen Moremi halls. The location of these hostels is seen as the center of attraction

because of the busy and lively settings. The data used for this research is gotten through

screenshots. Pragmatics is used as the procedure or method for the analysis of the data using
such aspects of context and co-text. The text which is in pictorial form as a result of the

screenshot will be presented followed by the meaning and pragmatic interpretation.

1.9 Conclusion

There is no gainsaying that this research has investigated the linguistic innovation of Facebook

and WhatsApp chats of students at the University of Lagos. It has been assumed that

technologies should be used as instructional tool for vocabulary acquisition. Facebook and

WhatsApp could become a very effective tool and medium for learning. This chapter has

provided the background to the study which gives us the general knowledge of what the research

is all about. It has given the aims and objectives of the research, the problem and the significance

of the research.
 CHAPTER TWO

A REVIEW OF RELEVANT LITERATURE AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

2.1 Introduction

This chapter reviews the relevant literatures and the theoretical framework that undergoes the

study. Here, we look at scholar’s views on sociolinguistics, language choice, and the role of

English in cyberspace, looking at some of the novel ways in which language is used on the

Internet.

2.2 Nature of Sociolinguistics

Sociolinguistics is a term which means different things to many different people. Hence, there is

basically no simple view as regards what it is. Therefore an understanding of the concept would

border on the perspective from which a linguist or scholar views it from. We shall examine

various definitions of sociolinguistics by some scholars. According to Labor (1972: 220), he

asserts that sociolinguistics is the study of a language in a social context. A context could be
micro or macro one. By micro, we are basically concerned with how a social structure influences

a language whereas macro is concerned with what societies do with their language as regards to

attitudes and attachments. Pride (1973) views sociolinguistics as not just an amalgamation of

sociology and language but for him, sociolinguistics embraces every aspects of the structure and

use of language that relates to its social and cultural functions. Hence, he sees language as part of

society and culture. Language is thus, a channel by which people transfer their culture.

According to Trudgil (1974) sociolinguistics is that part of linguistics which is concerned with

language as a social and cultural phenomenon. It also investigates the fields of language and

society, and has a close connection with the social sciences, computer studies, mathematics,

geology, social psychology, anthropology, human geography and sociology. This is why Yule

(1985) defines sociolinguistics between language and society. He goes on to say that

sociolinguistics, just like Trudgil (1974), has a strong connection to anthropology through the

investigation of language and culture, and to sociology through the crucial role the language

plays in the organization of social groups or institutions. To Pride, sociolinguistics is tied to

social psychology, particularly with regards to how attitudes and perceptions are expressed and

how in-group and out-group behaviors are identified.

Moreover, Hudson (1980) defines sociolinguistics as 'the study of language in relation to

society'. By implication, we cannot have language without a society. This is because; it is

through language that our humanness harmonizes our existence. Without language society will

be in chaos. Society is thus sustained through language. Coulman (1997) says that

sociolinguistics is concerned with the study of correlation between language and use and social

structure. What this means is that sociolinguistics attempts to establish casual links between

language and its users in the society asks what language contribute to making communities
possible and how communications shape their language by using them. It also seeks better

understanding of language as a necessary condition and product of social life.

From these definitions given above, it is observed that one common thing among them is that all

of them to an extent talks about the relationships that exist between language and society. This

therefore shows that there is no way one can expunge one from the other as both are intricately

connected.

2.3 Language Choice and Language Use

Language is an aspect of human life. Language differentiates human from all other animals. The

English language is, moreover, a widely studied language has received significant attention and

from distinguished grammarians since the last century. English as a second language is generally

considered a more useful language in the world at large than Mandarin, which has far more

native speakers. It is important to note also that the status of a language as a major language is

far from immutable. Indeed, as we go back into history we find many significant changes. For

instance, the possibility of characterizing the English as the world’s major language is an

innovation of the twentieth century. English is spoken around the globe and has a wider

dispersion than any other language. From its earlier home within what is now called the United

Kingdom (with 56 million speakers), English has spread to nearby Ireland (three and half million

speakers), across the Atlantic to America where some 232 million people speak English in the

United States, with perhaps as many as 24 million additional speakers in Canada and across the

world of Australia and New Zealand with about 17 million English speakers between them
(Comrie, 1987). English is the sole official language in more than two dozen other countries:

Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, Uganda, and Zimbabwe in Africa and many other nations.

The widespread use of English around the globe is often attributed to social prestige and the need

for English in technological advancement, as well as to the simplicity of English inflections and

the cosmopolitan character of its vocabulary. Hyme (1961) offers a more comprehensive

approach to evolutionary study of language. Among the reasons sometimes suggested for the

extension of English is the spread of technology, for the diffusion of American technologies

during the twentieth century. English is a distinctive cosmopolitan vocabulary, having borrowed

extensively from other Germanic tongue and especially from the Romance languages; Latin and

French, but absorbing tens of thousands of words from scores of languages over the centuries.

From earliest times, English has revealed a remarkable magnetism from loanwords, but in every

other arena of human activity as well. Some indication of the cosmopolitan nature of the English

lexicon is suggested by words like alcove, alcohol and harem (Arabic) tycoon and ikebana

(Japanese), taboo (Tongan), some 10,000 words of French origin added during Middle English

and even a larger influx from Latin during the renaissance.

The use of language over the past centuries has led to several changes in lexical, syntactic,

semantic, structural and grammatical meaning (Leonard, 1959). At first glance a selection from

Old English appears to be in a foreign tongue. According to him ‘more careful scrutiny reveals

that some of the words are almost the same as ours, that others have undergone considerable

change, and that still others have vanished’ as a result of language use. Likewise, the social

media apparently is playing a major role in the change of language due to its over 1 billion users.

When we use language, we typically use it to communicate information. The two dimensions of

communication and aboutness corresponds to two constraints, communicative and informational

(Leonard, 1959). These two constraints interconnect and jointly enable us to use language to

communicate information. Yule (1985) explained that ‘communication typically involves two

people; thus, all communication can be analysed into situations with speakers and addressee.

Language has so many interrelationships with various aspects of human life. The basic concepts

which are attributed to modern linguists and advocated by the committee on language are:

language changes constantly; change is normal and represents not corruption but improvement;

correctness rest upon usage; and all usage is relative. Language use has to do with the different

manifestations of a language. Rob Pope (1998) asserts that ‘discussions of language centers upon

what are often called “levels” of usage.’ According to Rob, the term ‘slang’ has suffered such a

wide extension of its signification and has been applied to so many varieties of words that are

extremely difficult to draw the line between what is slang and what is not. To him, slang cannot

be defined in terms of either the forms or the strict meanings of the words themselves; it can,

however, be characterized in terms of the suggested feelings accompanying certain words – their

connotations rather than their denotations. Today, the English language is used as language of

mass communication, print media, government, law, banking, finance, teaching, instructions,

trading and even in technological advancement. The English language is used as a central

language for technology and sciences.

Language choice is determined by different factors such as class, education, age, sex and other

social parameters. The choice and the language use in a particular society are determined by the

social background of the speaker. Here, we discussed the relationship between social values and

language use. Yule (1985) identifies the concept of prestige. Categorising the speakers or users

of English in Nigeria using the level of education will identify groups such as highly educated

user, averagely educated and minimally educated users. It is also believed that one’s age and sex
determines the choice of language use. Many young speakers especially students have come to

terms with the use of a different dialect of a language different from that of their parents. In

terms of gender variation, female speakers tend to use more prestigious forms than the male

counterparts with the same social background (Yule, 1985). Choice is a very vital instrument to

the study of language since it deals with the variations and the options that are available to a

speaker. Since language provides its users with more than one choice in a given situation, there

are different choices available to a speaker. This then depends on the situation and genre the

speaker chooses in expressing thoughts and opinions. With the author’s choice, there is a

reflection of his ego and the social condition of his environment.

2.4 Emergence of the Information Age

According to many social scientist and technologist, we live in a world that is radically different

from that experienced by our ancestors. This ‘new world’ is due in part to the rapid growth of

communication technologies such as cable and satellite television, fax machines and multimedia

computer and the growing data network sometimes called the ‘information superhighway’. The

world is increasingly experienced (at least by those with access to the new technology) as a

smaller more compressed place- a kind of global village, as the visionary 1960s writer , Marshal

McLuhan (1962 ) put it. The electronic media- in particular such innovations as cable and

satellite television or the word processor are often said to be rapidly transforming the world in

which we live, and partly because they are so conspicuous, they came to occupy a privilege

position in shaping our understanding of communication. The power of speech goes almost

unnoticed.
One of the dormant electronic media, which is widely, used all rounds the globe in respective of

age, gender, and social class is the Internet. The Internet which permits people in distant parts of

the world to communicate via electronic mail and other means without regards to distance or

social position, has emerged at the end of the twentieth century as one of the key communication

technologies. The Internet is the largest and most expensive system of data links; it connects both

large commercial computers – communications services and tens of thousands of smaller

university, government and cooperate networks. In some senses the Internet combines aspects of

telephone communication and broadcasting. The Internet makes it possible for communication

and the people who operate them to exchange messages and information.

The origin of the Internet helps explain some of its distinctive characteristics. It grew out of a US

government funded research program that began in the late 1960s. During the Cold War, the US

Department of Defense was worried about the security of the network of defense command. To

find solutions to this dilemma, the US began to examine the best way to interconnect widely. In

the mid-1970s, the US made available publicly the software which controls the flow of data. The

free distribution caused a massive increase in the use of computer networks. In the 1980s, these

protocols began to be used on computer network based in other countries, eventually allowing

computers in different parts of the world to communicate directly with one another. Most people

now connect to the Internet either from their place of work or from home using a modem or a

wireless network. Communications on the Internet take a variety of forms. Two of the most

popular formats are Electronic mail (which allows a text message to be sent from one user to

another person anywhere in the world) and World Wide Web pages (which allow anyone with an

Internet connection to browse through multimedia texts provided by other users). The paper,

however, is concerned with the electronic media; Facebook and WhatsApp.

2.4.1 FACEBOOK

Facebook is an American online social media and social networking service based in Menlo

Park, California. It was launched in February 4, 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook can be

accessed from a large range of devices with internet connectivity, such as desktop computers,

laptops and tablet computers, and smartphones. Users can add other users as ‘friends’, exchange

messages, post status updates, share photos, videos and links, use various software applications

(apps), and receive notifications of others users activity. Additionally, users may join common

interest user group organized by workplace, school, hobbies or other topics, and categorise their

friends into list such as ‘People From Work’ or ‘Close Friends’. In addition, users can report or

block unpleasant people (Wikipedia, 2018)

Facebook has more than 2.2 billion monthly active users as of January, 2018. Its popularity has

led to prominent media coverage for the company, including significant scrutiny over privacy

and the psychological effects it has on users. Each registered users on Facebook gets their own

personal profile that shows their post and content. The format user pages improved in September,

2011 and became known as ‘timeline’; a chronological feed of a user’s stories, including status

updates, photos, interactions with applications and events. Facebook further developed features

such as news feed, like button, instant messaging, following and privacy (ibid.)

Facebook has affected the social life and activity of people in various ways. Facebook allows

people using computers or mobile phones to continually staying in touch with friends, relatives

and acquaintances wherever they are in the world, as long as there is access to the Internet. It has

reunited lost family members and friends. It allows users to trade ideas, stay informed with local
and global developments, and unite people with common interests and beliefs through open,

closed and private groups.

In many countries, the social networking sites and mobile applications have been blocked

temporarily or permanently, including China, Iran, and North Korea. In February, 2018 the

government of Papua New Guinea announced that it might ban Facebook for a month while they

consider the impact of the website on the country (Wikipedia, 2018).

2.4.2 WHATSAPP

WhatsApp Messenger is a freeware and cross-platform messaging and voice over IP (VoIP)

service owned by Facebook. It allows the sending of text message and voice calls, as well as

video calls, images and other media, documents, and user location. Then application runs from a

mobile device though it is also accessible from computers. The service requires consumer users

to provide a standard cellular mobile number. WhatsApp was founded in 2009 by Brian Acton

and Jan Koum with only 100,000 users. By September, 2015 the user base had grown to 900

million, and by February, 2016 it had grown to 1 billion (Wikipedia, 2018).

As of April 22, 2014 WhatsApp had over 500 million monthly active users, 700 million photos

and 100 million videos shared daily, and the messaging system was handling more than 10

billion messages each day. In May, 2017 Smart Geeks Media reported that WhatsApp users

spend over 340 million minutes on video calls each day on the application. This is equivalent of
roughly 646 years of video calls per day. WhatsApp has revolutionised SMS and phone calls on

mobile phones.

2.5 English and the Internet

As earlier stated, the Internet is of two categories, the World Wide Web and the Electronic mail.

The Electronic mail is one of the greatly used avenues of the Internet. It consists of mail

messengers, social networks, and applications. Since the advent of the Internet, people around

the globe have made contacts for business, friendships or social purposes. Among these widely

used social networks, Facebook and WhatsApp have the highest users of the Internet consisting

of over 1 billion users (Google Play, 2018).Facebook and WhatsApp is used as an avenue for

communications with friend and making new friends. This has led to long term friendship,

marriages, business creation, and even fraud; which is an alarming issue in the cyber world.

Currently, the further reinforcement of the popularity and ongoing development of social media

is facilitated by the availability of increased mobile Internet accessibility, as effectuated by cell

phones and tablets computers. Sam Ilton, in her book,Understanding Social Media(2013), write

that social media, as a collective item, influences all levels of society; that it compromise an

integral part of the lives of a significant number of people worldwide; and that dynamic and

constant meaning is created through the use of different forms of social media. In this regard it is

correct in her assumption that most forms of social media, such as Facebook and other general

social networking services incorporate significant multimedia content, with images and videos

playing a significant role in meaning making.

Two of the most striking expressions and examples of the social media are undoubtedly the

social media platforms, Facebook and WhatsApp. Users of Facebook and WhatsApp are of
different countries around the globe, each users having his own language of communication.

Facebook, which was developed in 2004 from a college hostel room at Harvard University in the

United States of America has a subsequent growth – which in metaphorical terms, would make it

the third largest country after China and India, as far as user numbers are concerned (The

Economist, 2010).

Three main issues have arisen around the English language and the Internet. The first is the

extent to which the technology of the Internet supports and encourages the use of English more

than other languages. The second is the concern about the political and cultural dominance by

English speaking countries of a key global communications technology. The third issue is the

extent to which English itself changing as a result of its use on the Internet. The dominance of

the Internet by the United States of America (USA) is demonstrated by statistics of data flows

(David Graddol, 1996).

Table 1. Global distribution of Internet data traffic. Figure by region; year ending 2010.

Although this diagram looks mathematical in nature due to the figures, the fact, however, is that

the USA has dominated computer and software development in the second half of the twentieth

century. This results to the discourse of computing and computer sciences as English based.

Most technical terms, formal and informal, connected with computing derive from US English.

Even texts printed in British English will use US spellings for some computer technologies.

Moreover, the linguistic diversity of the Internet has led to a massive influx of new words, terms,

and expressions. Linguists have categorized the Internet as an ‘invader of the English language.’

Just as the Anglo-Saxons, Romans, Normans, and the Scandinavians influenced the grammar and

the lexicons of the English language, so as the Internet also. The Internet like its predecessors has

a great influence on the English language in terms of grammar that is structure and content. At

the
end of the twentieth century, print is no longer so clearly the main medium of power, and its role

in defining communication and power is changing.

2.6 Language Use in Social Media

The term ‘social media’ functions as an umbrella term that includes Internet base sites and

services that function or promote social interactions between individuals that used them as an

important part of their inter-personal communication (Daniels, 2017). People use social media

for the service they require. Facebook and WhatsApp offer communication services used by

people to maintain connections and relations.

The advent of social media has resulted to massive change in language use. Such effects are the

use of acronyms, hash tags, emojies and audio sharing, etc. Also, due to the different

nationalities of people who use social media, they abandon the use of alphabets, such as in

Thailand where 555 is used for expressing amusement, while in Russia, people use XAXA and

JAJAJA in Spanish. At the same time, social media service such as Facebook and WhatsApp

offer online voice chats and also allow for the use of video cameras for face to face dialogue

(Daniels, 2017).

Benjamin (1995) conducted a survey of postings in 116 culturally diverse discussion groups

under the Internet, and found that not more than twenty languages are used as the primary

medium of message posting. These included; English, Spanish, Serbo-Croatian, French, German,

Portuguese, Afrikaans, Albanian, Bulgarian, Czech, Dutch, Esperanto, Estonian, Flemish,

Indonesian, Italian, polish, Russian, Turkish, Chinese, Vietnamese amongst others. However,

English is by far the most popular language of the Internet, even if the subject matter is highly
cultural and ethnically oriented. He went further to present his assertion in a pictorial form. His

data was based on the frequently used languages on the Internet world.

Fig.1 Benjamin (1995) Language and Context

The diagram above gives a detailed illustration to the assertion made above. Among the

commonly used language on the Internet is English, with the other languages having a smaller

fraction of the portion.

2.7 Linguistic Variables

According to Romaine (1998), language is a resource which can be drawn on creativity to

perform different aspects of one’s social identity at different points in an interaction. Speaker

sensitivity responds to the ongoing process of interaction, including changes of attitude and

mood, and their linguistic choices which may emphasise different aspects of their social identity

and indicate a different orientation to their audience from moment to moment. Social class has

probably been the most researched. Many sociolinguistic studies have started by grouping
individuals into social class on the basis of factors such as education, occupation, income, and so

on, and then looked to see how certain linguistic features were used by each group.

According to Labov and Herzogi (1968), sociolinguistics has distinguished between ‘change

from above’ and ‘change from below’ to refer to the differing points of departure for the

diffusion of linguistic innovations through the social hierarchy. Change from above is conscious

change, originating in more formal styles and in the upper end of the social hierarchy; change

from below is below the level of conscious awareness originating in the lower end of the social

hierarchy. Gender is critical here too.

The study of language in its social context means the study of linguistic variation. In different

social contexts an individual will speak different way. This is called stylistic variation.

Moreover, speakers who differ from each other in terms of age, gender, social class, ethnic

group, for example will also differ from each other in their speech; even in the same context.

This is called social variation (Coates, 1966). In this section we are concerned with the gender as

the sole topic of linguistic variation. As far as terminology is concerned, gender rather than sex

will be the key category under discussion. ‘Sex’ refers to a biological distinction, while ‘gender’

is the term used to describe socially-constructed categories based on sex. In linguistic terms, the

differences in the speech of women and men are interpreted as reflecting and maintaining gender

specific subcultures. (Hymn 1989:51)

Most early sociolinguistic work was concerned primarily with social class differences. However,

it was soon apparent that other nonlinguistic variables such as ethnic group, age and gender were

involved in structured linguistic variation. In the case of gender, it was established that in many

speech communities, female speakers will use a higher portion of prestige than male speakers. In
other words, the prestige norms seem to exert a stronger influence on women than men.

Sociolinguistics studies found that men consistently used more non-standard speech. Recession

and growing unemployment are coinciding with new patterns of interaction and employment for

women. When men lose their interaction pattern and women live as neighbors and work and

amuse themselves together, then it is women who display consistent usage of vernacular forms.

There is widespread belief in our society that women talk more than men, most especially e-mail

discussion via computers (Heming, 1992). Research findings so far suggest that women use

interrogative forms more than men and this reflectswomen’s relative weakness in interactive

situations. They exploit questions and tag questions in order to keep conversations going. Interest

is growing in all female discourse. Deborah Jones works are landmark, because it put the subject

of women talking to women firmly on the sociolinguistic agenda. The setting for women’s take

is typically the home, and also sometimes shops, supermarkets and salons.

One of the linguistic consequences of gender differentiation in language is linguistic change.

Certainly, differences in the language of women and men are regularly associated with changes

in language. Linguistbelieved that linguistic change was something which could not be observed:

‘such observation… is inconceivable’ (Bloomfield, 1933). This misconception was partly the

result of de Saussure’s division of linguistic study in synchronic and diachronic studies.

Synchronic study took language at one point in time, while diachronic study took language

through time, comparing language at different points in time to see how it changed. The study of

change was firmly linked to diachronic linguistics, then. It is only with the advent of

sociolinguistics, specifically with the work of William Labov, that linguists have demonstrated

that linguistic change is amendable to analyse.

The above explanation shows that both women and men are initiating linguistic change;

conscious and unconscious. In a society where gender is a highly significant category, language

has a key role to play in the contribution of that category. In sociolinguistics research, gender has

emerged as an important variable, and experts have found that gender difference in language

often cuts across social class variation. The evidence above suggests that women and men do

pursue different interactive styles: in mixed sex conversations. This means that women dominate

conversations.

Labov defined the speech community in terms of ‘participation in a set of shared norms’ (Labov

1972: 121). Women and men have different set of norms for conversational interaction. We

cannot assume, therefore, that male and female users of language share grammatical and

phonological norms.

2.8 LINGUISTIC INNOVATION

2.8.1 Slang

Slang is a word or phrase commonly used in informal conversations. It is commonly used among

the people of the same group or set. It is a non-standard form of expression used in ordinary

speech. Slang varies from one group to another; hence, they share different interest and

experiences. The slang used among students will be different from those used among other

groups. Slang has been a common or natural phenomenon among young people. These young

people display their creative ingenuity as they constantly break new grounds with artistic

expressions of the situation around them. Slang among the young consists of lexicon of non-

standard words and phrases in a given language. It is one of the non-standard varieties of a

particular language.
Slangs are commonly used among young people. Among the many users of Facebook and

WhatsApp, the youth constitute the highest percentage of users. This results in an increase of

slangs on the Internet. Bethany and Dumas Jonathan (1978) argue that an expression should be

considered as ‘true slang’ if it meets the following criterion: if it reduces the dignity of formal

language. That is, if it is a glaring misuse of a register, when it is regarded as a taboo by people

of higher social status and if it replaces a well-known conventional synonym.

Slangs are used by students to display with, to sound different, to excite others, to show

creativity and to show belonging. Slang is identified with a particular group and plays a role in

constructing identities. The factors are the implications and motivations for the use of slangs.

These have been described as indexicality, and first and second order indexicality (Coleman,

1980). Slang use on Facebook and WhatsApp, or rather, Internet slang, have been developed and

used by users of the Internet. Many of these terms originated for saving key strokes and are often

written in lower case. Internet slang is, by its nature, difficult to interpret, especially in chat

rooms or in group chats, because much of it are quick inputs, and many assume falsely that their

audience know their body language.

Young people, especially students use slangs in their Facebook and WhatsApp conversation to

show that they belong to the ‘hood’ or what they now refer to as ‘street’. They, in most cases,

switch to using slangs in order to redefine the interaction as suitable to different social arena.

(Romine, 1995) according to Partridge (1993), opines that there are at least fifteen good reasons

for using slang. They include the desire to experiment with using language ‘poetically’ or

creatively for pleasure; the desire to be secretive; the desire to be expensive; the desire to use

language as a badge of group membership so as to express intimacy with those inside the group

and to exclude those who are not; and to indicate that one is casual and relaxed.
Coleman believes that slangs have to do with ‘playfulness’ of language. Slang to Coleman is not

slang unless people use it and as a way to flout standard language. Slang can also be a borrowed

language, phrase or word between groups. The use of slang has constituted one of the major roles

in linguistic innovation. During the 19th century, the use of slang was considered improper and

was majorly used by the uneducated. However, the advent of the Internet has paved the way for

the overuse of slangs even by students.

2.8.2 Abbreviations

The term abbreviations have several meaning. It means different things according to the fields of

biology, mathematics, and music. However, in the field of linguistics, it means a shortened form

of a word. Charles (16th century) defined the word as a shortened or contracted form of word or

phrase, used to represent the whole, utilisingomission of letters, or duplication of initial letters to

signify plurality; including signs such as , +,=,@. Abbreviations save space and prevent

needlessly repeated word or phrases. It is noteworthy to mention that the use of abbreviations go

back to several millennia, with abbreviations even occurring in Sumerian, which is the earliest

known civilisation of the ancient Near East located in lower Mesopotamia. The use of

abbreviations, nevertheless, was mainly used for government, military and business purposes.

The real explosion of the use of abbreviations began in the twentieth century after the World War

1 and 2, and majorly after the advent of the Internet. However, in today’s Internet media age,

society use of abbreviation is on a high rate. The linguistic shortcuts are in constant use in

communications sent by text chat on Facebook and WhatsApp.

The increase in abbreviation use on Facebook and WhatsApp is due to the fact that most users

quick type. Quick typing is a norm on the social media. Users prove their expertise by quick
typing. The idea of quick typing is to prove good use of one's smartphone or Internet devices.

Other users quick type because of limited time. Also, the use of Internet comes with a cost.

Characters use which is known as alphabets cost kilobytes. In order not to waste limited

subscriptions, users make a great deal of abbreviations. Students are among the many users of

abbreviations.

The twentieth century popularity of abbreviations is demonstrated by the increasing numbers and

size of dictionaries, some of which have gone into profitable later editions. Not to mention the

expanding number of specialized dictionaries. Among them are 1982 Webster’s New World

Dictionary, 1987 Concise American Heritage Dictionary, 1982 Concise Oxford Dictionary, and

Longman Dictionary. All evidence suggests that the already vast number of abbreviations is

expanding at ever higher rates and that they are moving ever more easily and quickly into

general English.

Algeo (1975) concluded that English abbreviations are easier to make than a word of any other

category, letting every person be creative, but also secretive and exclusive.

2.8.3 Hash Tags

The word, hash tag, is an Internet terminology. It can be defined as meta-data tag, signaled by a

proceeding hash sign (#), used to label content. The hash tag symbol (#) has come to comprise an

important expression in popular culture, and is generally associated with various dimensions of

activities in the social media environment. Currently, the use of hash tag is a common

phenomenon, and the symbol is used for a variety of purposes. Zappavigna (2012) describes the

hash tag as ‘an emergent convention for labelling the topic of a micro post and a form of a
metadata incorporated into posts’. What this means is that hash tags are conventions for marking

annotation for the topic of a post.

Currently, the further reinforcement of the popularity and ongoing development of social media

is facilitated by the availability of increased mobile accessibility, as effectuated by cellphones

and tablet computers. Sam Ilton, in her book, Understanding Social Media (2013), writes that

social media as a collective term influences all levels of society; that it comprises an integral part

of the lives of a significant number of people worldwide; and that dynamic and constant meaning

is created through the use of different forms of social media. In this regard, she is correct in her

assumption that most forms of social media such as Facebook and other general social

networking services, incorporate significant multimedia content, with images and videos playing

a significant role in meaning making.

Two of the most striking expressions and examples of the social media are undoubtedly the

social media platforms; Facebook and WhatsApp. Facebook, which was developed in 2004 from

a college hotel room at Harvard University in the United States of America has a subsequent

growth, which in metaphorical terms, would make it the third largest country in the world after

China and India, as far as user numbers are concerned (The Economist, 2010).

In various advertising campaigns, even politics, the core of the commercial message is linked

through the hash tag. The previous Nigerian and American presidential elections, made excess

use of hash tags for their political campaigns. Example, #saybaba2015 #change

#voteCHANGEvoteAPCvoteBUHARI #makeAmericaGreatAgain #ASUUstrike, and the now

global #MeToo campaign. Initially, hash tags were used within the Internet chat rooms.

Currently, hash tags are commonly used to refer to a variety of matters, ranging from news
events to jokes. The functionality of this symbol is found in common practices of sorting and

selecting thematically-related information from a torrent of messages within the context of social

media platform (Seward, 2013).

Most users make use of hash tag to create the so-called ‘trends’. 55% of hash tags are

compounds of more than one word (Seward, 2013). Hash tags are written in capital letters of

small letters, although most time it contains both. Hash tags consist of more than eight (8) or

nine (9) words. The use of hash tags, which initially originated from the Internet that is Facebook

and WhatsApp, has become rampant in everyday communication. It is used for commercial

adverts, political campaigns, concerts, and shows among many others.

2.8.4 Emoji

Facebook and WhatsApp are very popular platforms on which we rely to communicate our

interest, opinions, emotions and daily activities using short texts. The users of these platforms are

extremely diverse with respect to their writing style and, more in general, with respect to the way

they communicate with each other on these social media services. Yet, there is an aspect they

share: the use of emoji.

Emoji are ideograms that can be considered the natural evolution of the emoticons [:)] and (:D).

There are several types of emoji ranging from facial expressions to animals, place, and objects or

places. Emoji use is increasing every day, rapidly changing the way in which we communicate in

social networks. Young people cannot seem to envisage communication on mobile devices

without them anymore. The Oxford Dictionary named one as the Word of the Year in 2015.

Funny enough, it is not even a word; it is an emoji, a picture that roughly translates as laughing
with tears of joy. However, it was not these words that received the award, it was the image

itself:

Fig 2: Laugh Out Loud Emoji

Both as a digital entity and as a word, the emoji originates from Japan where, long before the age

of smartphones, teenagers had been using them on pages (Clark, 2015). The rise in the number of

people using emoji when they communicate has been so steep in these five years since their

introduction to digital culture that it has prompted some voices to contend that emoji stand on the

verge of evolving into a completely new pictorial language. The emoji contains both the seed of

revolution and innovation. Worries fear that we are witnessing the demise of written English.

Linguists, however, are pointing out that communication solely through emoji is akin to

communicating through grunts and gestures (McCuiloch, 2016)

Baron (2009) points out that just like linguistic words, the meaning of emoticons and emoji are

often under-specified. He goes further to argue against the idea of that emoji are signs of

emotion. Drawing on speech act theory, he argues that emoji are the indicators of the

illocutionary force of the textual utterance that they accompany. They ‘neither contribute to the

propositional content (the locution) of the language used, nor are they just an extra linguistic

communication channel indicating emotion's (Baron, 2009). He proposes that an emoji can

interact with the linguistic text in six ways: It can replace a word or phrase; express the speaker’s

emotions or attitude independently; enhance or emphasise an emotion expressed in the text;

modify the meaning of linguistic text; imply propositional content; and be used for politeness.

However, Clark (2015) contends that emoji allows us to communicate without actually saying

anything, saving people from having to actually spell out their feelings. Users tend to use more

than one emoji to express their feelings, especially when there are many to choose from. Baron

(2009) again goes further by purporting that we have nothing to fear from emoji because, in

order for them to become a true language, they would need grammatical rules. Moreover, they

lack flexibility due to their limited vocabulary.

As emoji are becoming a new language, various linguists and journalists have shown that at the

moment emoji are quite rudimentary. However, human language has witnessed pictorial stages in

the past, so the fact that emoji have appeared in the already discussed circumstances of our

digital culture might be considered a natural progression. Baron (2009) observed, ‘it’s not that

emoji are killing the English language – they couldn’t if they tried. But it may be that languages

that people are putting emoji next to – that’s a language that’s in trouble.’

2.9 Theoretical Framework: Pragmatics

Several scholars and linguist have critically explored a number of theories and concepts as study

of principles, for the study of language. Despite the myriads of theories, pragmatics remains of

the most popular theory in language study. According to Kirsten (1991) pragmatics may be

defined as ‘the study of rules and principles which govern language in use …’ One the one hand,

sociolinguistics is concerned with language and society, on the other; pragmatics is concerned

with language use in a speech community.

Over the past three decades pragmatics has grown into a well–established discipline. There are a

number of specialist journals (Journal of Pragmatics, Pragmatics, Pragmatic and Cognition,

Multilingual as well as others); there is at least one major professional organisation(The

International Pragmatics Association) whose membership goes into thousands, and regular

international conferences are held all over the world. Despite these achievements, none of the

many pragmatic theories and frameworks comes close to being a generally accepted paradigm,

not even a consensus as to the domain of pragmatics. Nevertheless, most people working in the

field would probably not disagree with some interpretation put forward by Charles Morris (1938)

that pragmatics is ‘the science of the relation of signs of their interpreters.’ In other words,
pragmatics is concerned with language not as a system or product per se, but rather with the

inter-relationship between language form, communication, messages and language users.

The above definition is also related said to Mey (2001), as it focused on some linguistic items

like the elements and structures such as sounds and sentences that the language users produce.

Mey (2001) believes that pragmatics is not just interested in the process of producing language,

but on the end product – language. Interaction in the community is through the medium of

communication, which is chiefly by language. A language as a single semantic relation to one

premise may be loaded with meaning in another speech community. According to Mey (ibid.)

pragmatics is ‘the study of the way humans use their language in communications. It bases itself

on a study of those premises and determines how they affect and operationalise human language

use.’ Apparently, he makes reference to context. The concept of context is pivotal to the

discussion of pragmatics.

The origin of modern pragmatics is attributable to Charles Morris (1938), a philosopher who was

concerned with the study of the science of signs or ‘semiotics’. According to Morris, semiotics

consisted of three broad branches namely: syntax being the formal relation of signs to one

another, semantics being the formal relations of signs to objects to which they refer, and

pragmatics being the formal relations of signs to interpreter. Within each of these branches

Morris also distinguished between ‘pure studies’ and ‘descriptive studies.’ Pure studies

concerned with the explanation and elaboration of sign systems and symbols used to describe

language called ‘metalanguage’. While descriptive studies are the application of the

metalanguage to a particular language, i.e. descriptions of signs or words, and their usages.

Interestingly, Morris’ broad use of pragmatics has been retained in some quarters and this
explains the use of the term in disciplines such as sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics,

communication etc. Pragmatics is also used within analytical philosophy.

It is noteworthy that the notion of discourse and pragmatics are intertwined. Discourse has

always remained connected with language use in human society. According to Herming (2004)

digital technologies has led to the development of other sub-disciplines of discourse analysis

such as computer-mediated discourse analysis. In an inaugural lecture delivered at the University

of Lagos titled Reconfiguring Our Worlds Through Words: A Critical Mapping of Discourse in

Human Socio-Cyberspace, Professor B.J Opeibi asserted that ‘our worlds can be transformed and

transmitted through the power of positive human discourse.’ He segmented discourse into five

sections: political discourse, legal discourse, literary discourse, digital discourse, academic

discourse and transcendental discourse. He explained further that discourse analysis, which is

seen as an approach to linguistics focused on language as an instrument of social interaction

rather than as a system that is viewed in isolation. According to him discourse analysis is ‘the

analysis of language in use’ and as such it cannot be restricted to the description of linguistic

forms independent of the purpose of function which these forms are designed to serve in human

affairs.’ He also explained that since function is key to the study of discourse, discourse analysis

implies the functional use of language because social situations in which language is used

springs full meaning to utterances. For him, discourse is the ‘functional use of language to

perform some functions in human socio-cyberspace. It transcends mere knowledge or basic

ability to understand and use words… improve our environment and to impact lives.’

Pragmatics spells out how contextual evidence available combines with the linguistic evidence to

help them work out what is communicated in any given occasion. If the account is sufficiently

detailed, it could help with the description and classification of cultural constraints on how
people select context for their interpretation of language and how they choose linguistic

expressions to convey messages directly. Pragmatics is a sub-field of linguistics and semiotics

that studies the ways in which context contributes to meaning. The study of pragmatics

encompasses speech act theory, conversational implicature, presupposition, and reference and

context.

2.9.1 Speech Act Theory

Speech acts refer to the theory, which explains the roles of utterances in shaping the attitudes of

participants in inter-personal communication (J.L Austin, 1962). It reflects the intentions of the

speaker and the effects the speaker’s expression have on the listener. The major propounders of

speech act theory are J.L Austin and John Searle. Their works are the leading source of debate

among many scholars. However, speech acts theory began with the Oxford philosopher, J.L

Austin in the 1930s. Half a century ago, John Austin gave a series of lectures; the William James

Lectures at Harvard, which were published as a book entitled How to Do Things with Words.

Austin distinguished between performative utterances and constative utterances. Performative

utterances perform various acts such as declaring, ordering, confirming, denying, offering,

permitting, and advising. Constative utterances are those used in making statements or describing

the states of affairs. It is believed that these utterances do not perform acts because they are not

performatives. By the concept of speech acts and the felicity conditions for performing them,

Austin showed that to utter a performative sentence is to be evaluated in terms of what we might

call conventionality, actuality, and intentionality of uttering the sentence. Uttering a performative

sentence is to be described in terms of associated conventions which are valid, the speaker’s

actual accurate utterance of the sentence to the hearer and an associated intention of the speaker.
In the later part of the William James lectures, Austin specifies performatively, formerly

introduced as an intuitive idea of performing an act. He introduces the concept of illocutionary

acts and carefully distinguishes them from locutionary acts and perlocutionary acts. Locutioary

acts include; phonetic, phatic, and rhetic acts. Phonetic acts are sets of pronouncing sounds,

phatic acts are acts of uttering words or sentences in accordance with the phonological and

syntactic rules of the language which they belong, and rhetic acts are acts of uttering a sentence

with sense and more or less definite reference. Perlocutionary acts are attributed to the effects of

uttering a sentence. According to Austin, when uttering a sentence the speaker performs an

illocutionary act of having a certain force, which is different from locutionary act of uttering the

sentence to have meaning and perlocutionary act performed by uttering a sentence, which is to

have certain effects.

Austin goes further to classify illocutionary acts into five types; verdictive, exercitive,

commisive, behabitive and expositive. Although it is often argued that Austin’s classification is

not complete and those coined categories are not mutually exclusive. Austin’s classification is

best seen as an attempt to give a general picture of illocutionary acts. One can exercise

judgments (verdictive), exert influence or exercise power (exercitive), assume obligations and

declare intentions (commisive), adopt attitude or express feelings (behabitive), and clarify

reasons, arguments and communication (expositive). The importance of introducing these

classifications of illocutionary acts is rather to explicate, as explained above, what type of

illocutionary act one can generally perform by uttering a sentence; and, with additional

specification, how much more diversified illocutionary acts are than we are usually aware of.

Generally speaking, the speech acts theorists after Austin focus on explaining illocutionary acts

in a narrow sense. John Searle, a major proponent of the speech acts theory, inherit his ideas
from Austin and elaborates on some of them, however, he develops the theory in his own

fashion. John Searle identifies different types of utterance he referred to as acts. He identified

five major types of actions that can be performed with the use of language; representative,

declarative, directive, expressive, and commisive acts (Searle, 1969). Representative acts

describe the process and state of being. They occur in form of assertions, predictions, reports,

prescriptions, conclusions, suggestions, claims, descriptions, and even hypothesis. They simply

describe a process. Declarative acts change the state of affairs as the expressions are uttered.

They have the tendency to change the course of people’s lives. Such acts are common in

baptizing, arresting, court sentences, christening, and so on. Directive acts as the name implies

persuade the hearer to carry out instructions. They occur as questions and directives. An

expressive act expresses the speaker psychological state of feelings or attitudes towards on event

or affair. They are used for greeting, scolding, apologizing, congratulating, condoling, and so on.

Lastly, commissive acts commit the speaker to a future form of action. Such as betting,

challenging, promising, threatening, offering, and vowing.

There are certain conditions given to justify the truthfulness or falsity of an utterance, and these

are called felicity conditions or truth conditions. These conditions were explained by J.R Searle

(1969):

a. The speaker must be a person that is qualified to make certain utterances on a particular

occasion for the utterance to have an effect.

b. All the participants must carry out all the conventional procedures carefully and

completely while the listener should carry out the appropriate action after the speech.
 c. All the participants must have what they are required to have by convention before they

can perform speech acts

d. The participants should be ready to do whatever they are required to do.

J.L Austin and J.R. Searle have a convergent point on the three speech acts performed by the

speaker through utterance which are: locutionary act, illocutionary act, and perlocutionary act.

Lastly, pragmatics concentrates on investigating speech acts as a fundamental unit of analysis;

the former investigates how speech acts can combine into larger units.

2.9.2 Context

The word ‘context’ is an important notion in understanding language in use. Context plays a

major role in the communicative process, and so an important task for pragmatic theory is to

elucidate the process (Verschveren, 1999). Context refers to the situation, within which language

functions. It may be physical or environmental, social context or institutional situation, including

events, time, culture or social conventions that can influence language use. The meaning of a

word is its relation to other features of the verbal and situational context in which it occurs. J.R.

Firth, a linguist, expounded this study in his contextual theory of meaning. He argues that

context is the bedrock of any linguistic enterprise because “normal linguistic behaviour as a

whole is meaning effort, directed towards the maintenance of appropriate patterns of life” (Firth,

1957).
In the 1980s, M.K Halliday developed a framework for describing what he termed the context of

situation – the social context of a text which allowed for meaning to be exchanged. The first use

of the term ‘context of situation’ is attributable to Bronislaw Malinowski, a social anthropologist,

who in his study of language behaviours among some native Indians concluded that language is a

‘mode of action’ and as social behaviour is closely tied to the relevant social situation in which it

is used (Malinowski 1935). Three terms were coined; field, tenor and mode. The field of

discourse is the general sense of what a text is about and refers to ‘what is happening to the

nature of social action that is taking place.’ According to Hudson (1980), the field of discourse is

the ‘what about’, ‘the why’ of discourse. It may be political, religious, academic, health,

marriage etc. The tenor of discourse is concerned with the participants, their relationship, their

roles and relative status. It is the ‘with whom’ of discourse. The tenor shows the kind of social

relationships that exists among interlocutors the type of role interaction, and how temporal or

permanent such relationships are. While the mode of discourse focuses on what language is

being asked to do – its function, the way it is organised, the medium (print, spoken and so on)

and also ‘the rhetorical mode, what is being achieved by the text in terms of such categories as

persuasive, expository, didactic and the like’(Halliday and Hasan, 1985).

Halliday’s context of situation denoted only the immediate environment for a textual event. He

introduced the term ‘context of culture’ for the broader institutional and cultural environment

within which the culture is embedded. Halliday’s colleague, Ruqaiya Hasan, in addressing

questions of textual structure, used the term ‘contextual configuration’ to denote the variable

interrelationship between field, tenor and mode. For her, identification of a text’s contextual

configuration can make sense of a text’s structure. It also relates to a genre, she regards as a

socialized language practice. Genre here refers to expository essays, resumes, reports, various
oral genres and so on. There are various types of contexts, which includes; linguistic context,

environmental context, interpersonal context, and situational context.

The interpersonal context focuses on psychological factors that influence speech or talk. The

state of the mind of the speaker or writer places some constraints on the quality or amount of

interactions she or he engages in. His inputs and reactions are predictable by his emotions.

Critics argue that the understanding of text and talk is also dependent on elements of social

factors such as ‘power’ and ‘status’, and how they are distributed and maintained linguistically in

the society (Lavandera, 1988). Many social analysts of discourse, among who are also interested

in pragmatics recognise the influence of socio-cultural variables that affect the production of a

text. Linguistic context refers to the set of words in the same sentence or utterance. This forms

the linguistic environment that determines the sense of the words in the context. The linguistic

context, also known as co-text, of a word has a strong effect on what we may think such words

mean. Unlike the other contexts, environmental context influences our interpretation of a word.

Our understanding of words or expressions is tied to the physical context particularly in terms of

the time and place being referred to in the expressions. Lastly, the situational context concerns

mainly with socio-cultural factors. The context of culture includes beliefs, value system, religion,

conventions that control individuals’ behaviour and their relationship with others. These socio-

cultural rules of behaviour often guide them in order to communicate effectively with one

another.

2.9.3 Reference

This implies the use of language to point to something. Reference therefore has the ability to

point to something within or outside a text. Reference is a type of verbal or written ‘pointing to’
or identifying of certain objects or individuals that a speaker wishes to talk about. Scholars have

argued argue that the meaning of a word or group of words is intimately connected to the truth

value of the sentence; therefore, reference is what relates words to the world of objects on those

condition truths rely on (McGin, 1981). Ogden & Richard (1923) gave a detailed pictorial

illustration on the concept of reference:

Fig 3: Ogden & Richard (1923) Semiotic Triangle

In the above figure, the symbol is the word or sentence; referent is the object in the external

world. Reference or thought is the concept. There is no direct link between the symbol and

referent. The link is through the thought or reference; that is, the concepts of our minds.

Reference is therefore the object that the mind conceives about the entity which the word

expresses or refers.

According M.K Halliday (1985), ‘it seems quite likely that reference first evolved as an

exophoric relation: that is, as a means of linking outwards to some person or object in the

environment.’ That is the interpretation of the text lies outside the text, in the context of

situation. However, exophoric relations play no part in textual cohesion. He also explained

anaphoric relationship. According to him (.ibid), anaphoric relation ‘points not outwards to the

environment but backwards to the preceding texts.’ Anaphoric relationship creates what is called
cohesion. Another type of reference item is demonstratives (this, that, these, and those).

Demonstratives may also be either exophoric or anaphoric (Halliday, 1985). Another form of

anaphoric cohesion is achieved by ellipsis. Ellipsis contributes to the semantic structure of the

discourse. However, ellipsis sets up a relationship that is not semantic but lexicogrammatical;

that is, a relationship in the wording (Halliday, 1985). An explicit indication, sometimes, may be

given that an entity is omitted by the use of substitute form. Halliday (1985) asserted that

substitution serves as a ‘place-holding device, showing were something has been omitted and

what its grammatical function would be’. There are three main contexts for ellipsis and

substitution in English, they are; the clause, the verbal group, and the nominal group.

Our understanding of reference is incomplete without the concept of deixis. Words such as us, I,

we, him, then, now, there, here etc. usually identify referents so that the addressee may be able to

quickly pick out a person, place or time relevant to the understanding of the intended meaning.

These words are called ‘indexical’ and their functions, i.e. being able to encode the context are

called ‘deictic’ borrowing from the Greek word meaning ‘pointing’ or ‘to point out.’ The above

deictic references are therefore used as pointers to persons, place or time the speaker has in mind.

Hence deictic expressions like I, we, you, him, them etc. are called person deixis. Other deictic

references like, here, there, thence etc. are pointers to locations and are known as place deixis,

while time deixis indicate time and are referred to as time deixis e.g. now, then, this evening,

today, tomorrow etc. All of these deictic references or indexical depend on the context to

indicate their referents.

2.9.4 Presupposition
Presupposition is a feature of a normal everyday discourse or conversation. When we

communicate, our knowledge of the language system enables us to make valid assumptions and

conclusions in order to interpret utterances correctly. Charles (2005) defined presupposition as

‘that piece of information which the speaker assumes that listener already knows.’ This means

the interlocutors share some form of background knowledge or information. Presupposition is

the assumption that the hearer already knows about the subject and the context of the

information. According to Charles (2005) presupposition can be represented formally as follows:

‘for x to presuppose y, the truth of y must follow from the truth of x, but if y is false, then x will

not have any truth value.’ The context includes shared knowledge of the environment, culture,

belief, or world view. This enables the hearer to make the right assumption or inference as

he interprets a piece of information. Pragmatic presupposition depends more on the context

for its interpretation and meaning.

2.9.5 Implicature

Implicature is a component of speaker meaning that constitutes an aspect of what is meant

without necessarily being part of what is said. Implicature actually occur when the

conversational maxims are violated. Implicature arise because of interlocutor’s mutual

understanding of the conversational maxims. Non-conventional meanings which arise as a result

of flouting some of the maxims become possible since a statement may result in different

implicature in different contexts. This is another way of saying that an implicature is a result

of a listener making an inference as the most likely meaning an utterance may have in a given

context. The conversational principle is assumed to be in operation in a conversation for

implicature to take place (Yule, 1996). Implicature occurs because a speaker flouts some or

all of the maxims deliberately or for reasons such as linguistic imperfection, socio-cultural
reasons, or where violation is already expected in order to encode some particular social

meaning. Conversational principles are another attempt at explaining how interlocutors encode

and interpret meaning in different contexts. Implicature results when a maxim is violated

forcing the hearer to make an assumption of some additional information which the utterance

conveys. Implicature has been defined as what is communicated less what is said Unlike

entailment which is the generally logical meaning that may be inferred from an utterance,

implicature relies more on the context for their interpretation. Implicature may be identified in

our everyday conversations, adverts, literary works, news headlines etc.

3.0 Conclusion

The advent of the Internet has led to many linguistic changes and innovation. The few mentioned

above are just the apparent dominant features. A discussion on the complete linguistic innovation

will be as voluminous as an encyclopedia. To mention a few, wrong use of punctuation marks

and the failing use of paragraph are also elements of linguistic innovation. Lastly, this chapter

has examined the relevant literatures and how they are related to the research. We have examined

scholars' views on some concepts of sociolinguistics. Lastly, we extensively discussed on

pragmatics.