2026· International journal of research and innovation in social science· 0 citations
Abstract
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.
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.
Jianxin Yang, Yililan Wang· Discourse & Communicatio...· 0 citations
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.
Unknown authors· Journal of Language Teaching...· 0 citations
This exploratory study examines how literary-language norms are observed and
transformed in Karakalpakstan online media. Its purpose is to identify recurrent lexical,
morphosyntactic, graphic, and pragmatic tensions in a small corpus of publicly accessible digital
posts and to explain their implications for Karakalpak language culture. The empirical corpus
comprises three purposively selected posts published between October 2024 and May 2026 by a
private Telegram channel, the Karakalpakstan News Agency, and the Ministry of Preschool and
School Education of the Republic of Karakalpakstan. Qualitative medialinguistic analysis was
conducted at four levels: orthographic and graphic form, lexical choice and code-switching,
morphosyntactic transfer, and stylistic-pragmatic function. The findings show three different
pressures on the literary norm: the insertion of Russian or English items for informality and attention,
literal transfer from Uzbek that produces lexical and syntactic calques, and inconsistent
representation of Karakalpak Latin characters on digital platforms. The selected cases also indicate
that institutional status alone does not guarantee normative accuracy, because errors occur in both
private and official channels. The article interprets these tendencies through media language, codeswitching, and communicative-rationality frameworks. It proposes editorial language guides,
institutionalized linguistic review, standardized digital input tools, and practice-oriented
medialinguistics education. Because the corpus is limited, the results establish analytical patterns
rather than population-level prevalence
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.
Patrick Carlos D. Famanily, Famanily Rosemaie A. Capili, Joseree Ann L. Ferrer et al.· Journal of Education, Social...· 0 citations
This study investigates the morphosyntactic alternation between the analytic possessive markers ḥaq and māl in Kuwaiti Arabic within a variationist sociolinguistic framework. Although descriptive studies acknowledge the coexistence of these forms, no prior research has provided a systematic quantitative account of their distribution or examined whether their alternation is conditioned by grammatical and social factors. Drawing on a corpus of sociolinguistic interviews with 80 native speakers, the study operationalises the ḥaq/māl alternation within a carefully delimited envelope of variation. A total of 1,120 tokens were extracted and coded for linguistic predictors, including animacy and definiteness of the possessee, syntactic position, clause type, polarity, and register, alongside social variables such as age, gender, education, place of residence, and sectarian affiliation. Mixed-effects logistic regression analysis using Rbrul, with random effects for speaker and lexical item, revealed no statistically significant conditioning effects for any linguistic or social predictor. The distribution of ḥaq and māl remains consistent across grammatical contexts and speaker groups, suggesting that the alternation represents stable morphosyntactic variability rather than socially stratified variation or ongoing change. These findings point to functional convergence between two grammaticalised possessive markers within Kuwait’s contact-rich and levelling sociolinguistic ecology. Processes of grammaticalisation, semantic bleaching, and dialect contact appear to have neutralised earlier functional distinctions and reduced the socioindexical salience of the alternation. Empirically, the study provides the first quantitative analysis of analytic possessive variation in Kuwaiti Arabic. Theoretically, it refines variationist models of socio-syntax by accounting for domains of stable grammatical optionality and underscores the value of null results in delimiting the social embedding of morphosyntactic variation.
Shadi Monther Alrabadi· Jordan Journal of Applied Sc...· 0 citations
The paper presents a cognitive-discursive study of the gendered proverb Boys will be boys with the focus on its actional and metalinguistic dimensions. The main aim is to explore the discursive dichotomy of the dictum, i.e. its role in 1) perpetuating gender stereotypes about men and reinforcing gendered expectations in Anglo-American society, and, more recently, in 2) reflecting and promoting change catalyzed by the gender equality movement. The material comprises 400 examples, including texts from online articles, opinion pieces, blogs, social media posts, and memes spanning the last twenty years. The research methods applied were Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Sociocognitive Discourse Studies (SCDS) methodology, complemented by the linguocultural method, stylistic analysis, sampling and corpus methodology. The comprehensive analysis of the linguistic, cognitive, and discursive profiles of the dictum Boys will be boys suggests that the gender stereotype embedded in the proverb is being challenged and redefined in discourse, both via canonical and recycled (modified) use, resulting in anti-proverbs. The anti-proverbial derivations attest to significant shifts in social norms and encapsulate sociopolitical change.
Anna Konstantinova· Proverbium· 0 citations
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