MORPHO-SYNTACTIC CHARACTERISTICS OF GAY LANGUAGE: A LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS

The Morpho-Syntactic Patterns and Semantic Uses of Student Nicknames in Ghana

Nicknaming is a pervasive linguistic practice that indexes intimacy, identity, and social boundaries, yet it remains relatively underexplored in African sociolinguistic scholarship. This study presents an empirical analysis of 200 nicknames collected from students at a tertiary institution and a senior high school in Cape Coast, Ghana. Drawing on focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews, the paper examines the morpho-syntactic processes underlying nickname formation, including clipping, blending, compounding, reduplication, suffixation, and phonological manipulation. To account for meaning and social positioning, an adapted Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) framework is combined with Appraisal theory to analyse the evaluative, affective, and stance dimensions encoded in the nicknames. The findings identify three dominant morphological categories, derivative, descriptive, and associative, each associated with distinct semantic and interactional functions. Nicknames are shown to enact identity work through affiliation, teasing, role ascription, boundary marking, and stigmatisation. From an Appraisal perspective, they function as condensed evaluative texts that mobilise Affect, Judgement, and Appreciation to position individuals within peer hierarchies and social networks. Distributional patterns further reveal gendered tendencies in the assignment and interpretation of nicknames, reflecting broader sociocultural ideologies and normative expectations. The study argues that nicknaming practices both reflect and actively construct social relations in Ghanaian educational contexts, contributing to African morpho-syntactic scholarship and sociolinguistic research on language, evaluation, and identity construction.

Sounding global, meaning local: The amn -series as a translanguaging phenomenon in Chinese social media

This study examines the patterned formation and interactional functions of amn -series (e.g., bamn , samn , tamn ) in contemporary Chinese social media. Drawing on a corpus of 2,095 tokens from Weibo, the analysis investigates morpho-phonological patterning, analogy-based semantic anchoring, and cross-script integration. The findings suggest that a stylized rendering of the English word damn becomes stabilized in writing as a prosodically salient template and refunctionalized into a productive phonosemiotic construction in Mandarin. These forms are systematically integrated into Mandarin grammar and interaction, where they serve affective, evaluative, interpersonal, and metalinguistic functions. The study contributes to translanguaging research by demonstrating that what circulates across languages and platforms may include prosodically salient patterns, not only lexical or script-based resources. It further shows how such patterns are structured through analogy and embedded in local linguistic practices, highlighting prosodic templating as a key mechanism in digitally mediated communication.

Philippine English as a linguistic variety: A review of its features and sociolinguistic attitudes

This systematic review examines the linguistic and sociolinguistic characteristics of Philippine English (PhE) based on studies published from 2019 to 2026. Guided by research questions focusing on the phonological, lexical-semantic, and grammatical-syntactic features of PhE, as well as its sociolinguistic attitudes and functional roles in education, communication, and media, the study reviewed fifteen scholarly articles from credible academic databases and repositories. Findings reveal that PhE has developed into a legitimate and systematic variety of English shaped by local linguistic and cultural influences. Phonological studies identified recurring consonant substitutions, vowel mergers, and lectal variations influenced by regional and proficiency differences. Lexical-semantic features demonstrated linguistic creativity through borrowing, blending, clipping, compounding, and semantic shifts, particularly in digital communication contexts. Grammatical-syntactic analyses also revealed flexible subject–verb agreement, simplified tense marking, and localized sentence structures that reflect communicative adaptation rather than linguistic deficiency. Sociolinguistically, PhE is increasingly recognized as a marker of Filipino identity and communicative accessibility; however, native-speaker norms continue to dominate formal academic settings. The findings affirm that PhE is an evolving, rule-governed, and culturally grounded variety whose acceptance continues to expand across different social domains in the Philippines.

Phatic Norms in Kazakh and English Digital Discourse: Cultural Code and Pragmatic Function

This article examines how phatic norms in Kazakh and English are condensed in the shift from face-to-face interaction to digital communication while preserving culturally specific meanings. It focuses on brief confirmations, forms of address, gratitude formulas, apologies, emojis, and other signals that sustain social connection. The topic is relevant because these markers are often interpreted differently in multilingual online environments, creating misunderstanding and latent tension. This is especially significant in international work teams, online education, and AI-mediated interaction, where recognition of phatic norms is essential. The study identifies similarities and differences in Kazakh and English phatic strategies used to open interaction, confirm participation, shape interpersonal effect, and close communication politely, while revealing the cultural codes underlying these practices. The material includes traditional communicative data, such as biys’ discourse, oratorical speech, and literary dialogues, together with digital data from messaging platforms, social networks, and workplace chats. The data were analyzed qualitatively from a pragmatic perspective, focusing on socially meaningful markers in short messages. The findings show that English phatic communication tends to rely on brief, neutral confirmations such as ok, sure, got it, and thanks. Kazakh phatic strategies more often preserve interpersonal warmth and dialogic balance through forms of address such as ağa and apa, gratitude formulas, and etiquette sensitive to age and status. The study shows that phatic communication functions as a culturally conditioned mechanism of digital social regulation. Its practical value lies in supporting online etiquette in multicultural teams and improving AI responses in the Kazakh-English language pair.

Language use on Tanzanian Facebook: Linguistic features and trends

This paper examines linguistic features and language use trends in Tanzanian Facebook discourse. As in many African countries, social media has become an integral part of everyday communication in Tanzania, particularly among young people, making it important to understand its linguistic characteristics. The study employed an online survey and analysed 50 Facebook posts drawn from different users’ accounts. The findings reveal that Tanzanian Facebook discourse is characterised by graphological features, including images and emojis, and orthographic features such as creative punctuation, vowel deletion, and number-letter substitutions, reflecting brevity and informality. The study also identified translanguaging practices, including slang, code-switching, language shifts, and vowel lengthening, which express linguistic creativity, identity, and social belonging. In addition, translation practices facilitate communication across linguistic boundaries and promote cross-cultural interaction in multilingual online environments. These findings demonstrate the dynamic relationship between language, digital communication, and cultural identity in contemporary Tanzania. The study concludes that social media has reshaped language use by encouraging innovative linguistic practices while maintaining communicative effectiveness. It recommends digital literacy programmes to enhance awareness of how these linguistic features influence readability and engagement and calls for further research on language use across different social media platforms and their long-term impact on Swahili and English in Tanzania.

Journal of Arts, Meaning and Public Life