This research investigated the address terms used by WhatsApp group members in expressing birthday wishes among its members. The WhatsApp groups constitute the undergraduates’ WhatsApp platform and the College of Education Academic Staff Union (COEASU) WhatsApp platform, all in Nwafor Orizu College of Education, Nsugbe, Anambra State. Address terms is a phenomenon that exists in our day-to- day communication and are bound to vary as a result of many social factors. Therefore, this paper focuses on the address terms used by the members of these groups when expressing birthday wishes to their fellow members, as well as the factor(s) that may be the face behind the mask of choice of address terms. The address terms are classified under the following: first name (FN), last name (LN), title (T), special nickname (SN), pet name (PN) and without address term (WAT). This study revealed that the combination of two or more address terms neutralises the original concept of one address term or the other. The without address term depicts more of solidarity than degree of intimacy and familiarity. Furthermore, the use of dual language in the address terms portrays a high degree of intimacy and the use of codes and abbreviations depict the highest degree of intimacy between the addresser and the celebrant or addressee. Finally, this simply means that the context in which an address term is used and the combinations of other address terms can neutralise the concept of a particular address term. Also, some address terms are status specific and the proposition of Wardhaugh (2010) that title (T) is the least intimate address term does not hold water in this paper, instead, it is without address term (WAT). Keywords: Address Terms, Birthday Wishes, Students, Lecturers, Whatsapp Group.
Language change is a process by which change occurs in the distribution of linguistic variants across sounds, words or constructions of a language. The change can be as a result of the following factors: contact, region, level of education, gender, age and so on. In the light of this, the research investigates the lexical change in the personal names that occur in the following novels of Chinua Achebe: Things fall apart, No longer at ease and Arrow of God. From the findings, this study portrays that contact is the major factor that brings about the lexical change in the personal names used in these novels. Furthermore, this contact is classified under religious contact, culture contact and education contact. Finally, Holmes (2013) opines that for there to be a language change, there must be language variation. In the case of language change in the personal names that occur in the aforementioned novels, there are no variations before the lexical change in the personal names. Eckert & McConnel- Ginet‟s (1992) proposition that no single variable can be held responsible for language change is visible also because inasmuch as the reason for the language change is stemmed to contact with the white men but it further spilled to other factors like education, religion and culture. Key words: Novel, language, Lexical Change
The current research work hinges on the variation, birth, and death of some slang expressions in the Onitsha environment. Slang expression is a language style that has various definitions, but one common thing about these definitions is that slang is an informal expression used during an informal communication. Due to its informal nature, variation, birth, and death do occur and that is the crux of this study. Over the years, some researchers have carried out research on slang expressions and some of them rooted their research on the Igbo slang. This spurred the quest to look at the variation, birth, and death of some slang expressions in the Onitsha environment. Data for this work were sourced from the students and the residents of Onitsha. The research portrayed that there are variations in some slang expressions that express female body structure endowment, beauty/handsomeness, sex drive, short of words deeds, and smoking–the birth of new slang expressions, which is the cause of slang variation and the death of slang expressions. The research has it that some of these slang expressions originate from some of the Igbo contemporary songs. Finally, Holmes’ (1) idea that slang expressions are specifically for the young people is not applicable in the Onitsha environment because slang expressions are used by both young and old. In fact, it is gradually becoming a way of communication among people.
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