Forda Ferson: The Morphological Structure of Generation Z Slang in Social Media

Abstract

Filipino Generation Z's creative ability to experiment with morphemes is a factor in the emergence of new words. These lexical items possess the capacity to function as nouns, verbs, and adjectives within the Filipino language. This study aims to examine how Filipino Generation Z slang terminologies are formed if such terms undergo a particular process that adheres to a specific morphological structure and if new sets of rules are observed that are not included in the current morphological rules. Since the researchers used words to analyze the gathered data, a qualitative research design utilizing content analysis was employed in this study. This study employed homogeneous sampling, with researchers extracting only Generation Z slang from the Facebook posts of PNUV first- to fourth-year students as the corpus. The framework matrix was used to determine the morphological processes underlying Generation Z slang. Consequently, it was determined that word formation processes such as coinage, borrowing, compounding, blending, clipping, acronyms, affixation, conversion, and multiple processes were utilized to create Generation Z slang. In addition, the data revealed additional word formation processes, such as contraction, reduplication, and spelling change. Most Filipino Generation Z slang word formation was categorized as a change in spelling. Future researchers can gain a deeper understanding of how the Filipino generation z's language is shaped and how it differs from previous generations by examining linguistic patterns and word forms.