An Analysis of Abbreviations Used in A Computer Mediated Language: A Case Study of Facebook

Citation: Muhammad Yusuf YUNUSA & Aliyu Alkali ISHAKU (2021). An Analysis of Abbreviations Used in A Computer Mediated Language: A Case Study of Facebook. Yobe Journal of Language, Literature and Culture (YOJOLLAC), Vol. 9, Issue 1. Department of African Languages and Linguistics, Yobe State University, Damaturu, Nigeria. ISSN 2449-0660

AN ANALYSIS OF ABBREVIATIONS USED IN A COMPUTER MEDIATED LANGUAGE: A CASE STUDY OF FACEBOOK

By

Muhammad Yusuf YUNUSA

Aliyu Alkali ISHAKU

Abstract

The study aimed at a discourse analysis of Facebook (a platform for online social media) and computer mediated communication in order to identify the abbreviations used by the students in writing on Facebook and to determine their functions. This is because researchers have shown that the emergence of CMC has created and led to the inception of a new variety of language called the e-Sociolect. A quantitative research design is used to carry out this study as it proves to be the most result yielding and reliable design in carrying out a discourse analysis. The data for the study was collected from participants through Facebook using random sampling for the population, where the Facebook users from different areas were selected for the study. Total number of the posts collected from the Facebook status was twenty-eight (28). Other data were collected from the secondary sources such as journal articles and books and they were mainly used for the interpretation of the meaning of some part of the data which the researchers are limited to know, and also for the review of the relevant literature. Ten (10) participants were used to carry out this study. Each of the participants is an active Facebook user. Their age grades range from 20 to 26years. The study conforms to the Principle of Least Effort proposed by the Harvard linguist George Kingsley Zipf as the phrases that have been reduced are those that are being used frequently.

1.0 Introduction

Language has entirely taken a different shape both grammatically and orthographically with the coming of the online Media. CMC means Computer Mediated Communication as against the normal everyday face to face (F2F) communication. Baron (1998) stated that Computer-Mediated Communication is the system in which the occurrence of information changing happens through the computer. Researchers have shown that the emergence of CMC has created and led to the inception of a new variety of language called the e-Sociolect.

Sociolect is a variant of a language that is produced by social variation, not variation connected to the geographical distance between speakers (Danesi, 2016) and e-Sociolect is a sociolect that is related to online context. As the internet has been common to people, it has created numerous online communication media such as Facebook and Tweeter where the users can have alternative ways to converse with users from other places. This makes sociolinguists question whether there are any differences between online and offline communications linguistically.

In online communication, one of the linguistic features that is commonly used is reduced forms. Crystal (2006) stated that reduced forms are frequently used among other features of CMC. One of the reasons is people want to write as fast as they can respond to comments that they have received. “Speedy communication allows less time for careful, organized thought. Partly for this reason, emails, text messages and broadcast messages (instant messages, chat messages) are in many ways stylistically more similar to spoken language than traditional written forms” (Ross, 2006, p.41), as cited in Siti and Azianura, (2012). Users nowadays often update their status from the mobile phones and they might find typing on the keypad would be time-consuming than using the actual keyboard. According to White (2012), certain forms are often reduced in many ways, such as ‘please’ being reduced as ‘plz’, ‘pls’, ‘plse’, or ‘pl’. He also concluded that the reductions and the change of its frequency are caused by the situation and not the language.

Lee (2002) pointed out that unlike in conventional writing; reductions in CMC are not restricted to acronyms and initialism. Additionally, Hård af Segerstad (2002) included sentence acronyms, letter and number homophones. Words combining both reductions of individual words and combinations of the above-mentioned in his classification reduced forms. Yus (2011) has a similar list of features and specific phonetic spellings. Thus, he distinguished different types of phonetic spellings, but this study only considers them as a group. Besides, Yus’ study includes abbreviations, acronyms, and clippings. Crystal (2006) has also classified the variety of reduced forms. His list included full sentence acronyms, reduced individual words (such as ‘pls’ for ‘pleas’), and letter or number homophones. To summarize, the previous research has classified reduced forms common in CMC as follows:

· Hård af Segerstad (2001)

• Conventional abbreviations

• Unconventional abbreviations

• Consonant writing

· Lee (2002):

• Acronym of sentence - GTG (―Got To Go),

• Letter homophone - U (―you'), R (―are)

• Number homophone – 99 (― Nite Nite [good night])

• Combination of letter and number homophone - b4 (―before')

• Reduction of individual word - tml (―tomorrow), coz/cos (―because)

· Crystal (2006):

• Full sentence acronyms - GTG (―got to go)

• Reduced individual words - pls (―please)

• Letter/number homophones - L8R (―later)

· Yus (2011):

• Phonetic orthography

• Abbreviations

• Acronyms

• Clipping

2.0 Literature Review

2.1 Some of the Common Features of CMC include:

1. CMC marries both the written and the spoken characteristics or features of a text and comes up with a unique variant of such word in question.

2. The informality of language is one of the most noticeable features of CMC this is because of the type of text that usually features in the different platforms which moves towards imitating the real-life communication.

2.2 Situational Features of CMC:

There are many situations or platforms that govern the use CMC, these include but are not limited to; email, netnews, bulletin board, chat programs, chat rooms, mobile phone text, etc. Emails are usually non-interactive as usually, the interlocutor can only respond after a while which depends on the interlocutor’s accessibility to network and whether he/she is online or not. Chat programs and chat rooms, on the other hand, are characterized by the ability of the users to see and reply to each other instantly but are only limited by lack of visual nodes. Their platforms include Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, Tumblr, messenger, instant messaging and Flickr etc. The advantage with the users of non-interactive computer media is that they can make amendments to the text and add facts and they may choose to post it in real- time.

2.3 Other Notable Linguistic Features of CMC

Computer Mediated Communication is marked as a new variety of language based on the following linguistic features that exist in it as different from the conventional linguistic elements. The areas of interest include:

1. Vocabulary

2. Paralinguistic and graphic (emoticons)

3. Code-switching

4. Borrowings

5. Grammar

6. Orthography

7. Spelling

2.3.1 Vocabulary:

The vocabulary of CMC is that which make use of so many informal words, interjections, and abbreviations.

Example: Informal words:

· I was whatsapping.

· Can you holla me?

· The use of interjections

· phew! That makes sense.

· This is superb, oh, you are excellent.

· I am going away: grooh.

2.3.2 Paralinguistic and Graphics –emotions

2.3.2.1 The use of spaced letters for emphasis is a notable feature of CMC.

Example:

· Are you livn in that G H E T T O area?

2.3.2.2 The use of multiple letters which cuts across consonants or vowels.

Example:

· Noooooooooo waaaaaay

2.3.2.3 The use of alternative markers for emphasis, this could include the star, the hash or the hyphen.

Example:

· *gud* _how_

2.3.2.4 The use of capitalization also for emphasis

· YES YOU ARE

2.3.2.5 The use of little or "too much" punctuations

· Why on earth are u nt sooo caring???

2.3.2.6 The use of “similes" (the similes are used as emoticons)

The emotions are programmed already in the database of various platforms where CMC is found.

·

2.3.3 Code-switching

It is the practice of alternating between two or more languages or varieties of language in conversation. It refers to any system of communication involving alternating between two or more languages in CMC. It can be used to avoid the terminology such as- dialect, style, pidgin, creole etc.

Example:

Hausa/English bilingual

· Jiya I saw you in the market kana siyan albasa

· (I saw you in the market buying onions).

Malay/English bilingual

· This morning I hantar my baby tu dekat babysitter tu lah.

· (This morning I took my baby to the babysitter)

2.3.4 Borrowing

A word or phrase adopted from one language into another. It is also used in online conversation.

Example:

· Saying “Bueno bye” (Spanish and English) instead of “Goodbye” (English) or “Buenos dias” (Spanish).

2.3.5 Grammar

CMC is characterized with “telegraphic” language or “texts” whose grammatical features are unique.

Example:

a. Have givn hm d mani.

Meaning (I have given him the money)

b. Will do it tomao.

Meaning (I will do it tomorrow)

2.3.6 Orthography

The way in which words or letters are represented itself is another striking feature of CMC. Example.

2.3.7 The use of informal phonetic spelling:

a. U are my luv

(“U” stands for the word “you”, “luv” stands for the word “love”

b. C, I dunno, c u then

(“C” stands for the word “see”, “dunno” stands for the words “don’t know”, “c” stands for the word “see”).

c. Wot r u sayn?

(“wot” stands for the word “what”, “r” stands for the word “are” “u” also stands for the word “you” and “sayn” stands for the word “saying”).

2.4 Speed-writing Usually in Smartphones where Characters are Formed by the Combination of Informal Spelling with Letter Omission.

tnx 4 d msg.

Complete absence of capitalization

It is also another orthographical feature of CMC to intentionally write everything in lower case, in this case, even the personal pronoun (I) is written in small letters.

Example:

 She said that i must be crazy

The main objectives of this paper on the discourse analysis on Facebook (a platform for online social media) are to identify the abbreviations used by the students in writing on Facebook and to determine these functions.

3.0 Theoretical Framework 

LJUNG’s THEORY

Ljung’s theory (2003) includes words and symbols that are used a lot in the media such as facebook.

Taking from Bauer (1983, 1985, 1988) who defines acronyms and abbreviations as a “product of irregular word formation”. Ljung (2003), states that there are two main types of word formations. One type is called regular word formation, which concerns the process of adding variations to words in order to create words that belong to another grammatical category, for example through adding a suffix to a noun and thereby creating an adverb or adjective; and the other type is called irregular word formation, which makes new words and enriches the vocabulary and the language use. Bauer, (1988) defines acronyms as “words shaped from the primary letters in a name, title or phrase”. Acronyms should be distinguished from abbreviations because acronyms are pronounced as new words, and not just an order of letters. Whereas, abbreviations are thread of letters, which are spelled with capital letters. Acronyms: “have to be pronounceable” and it can only comprise letter sequences acceptable in usual English words” (Ljung, 2003, p. 158). Acronyms and abbreviations may be combined, that is one part is pronounced as an actual word and the other part, the letter is pronounced. For example, words like ‘CD ROM’ and ‘E-mail’ are examples of this category (Ljung, 2003, p. 157). Abbreviations and acronyms are also used to produce titles for diverse organizations inside the facebook (Ljung, 2003, p. 157).

3.0 Methodology

Quantitative research design is used to carry out this study as it proves to be the most result yielding and reliable research design in carrying out a discourse analysis. The data for the study was collected from participants through Facebook using random sampling for the population, where the Facebook users from different areas were selected for the study. Total number of the posts collected from the Facebook status was twenty-eight (28). Other data were collected from the secondary sources such as journal articles and books and they were mainly used for the interpretation of the meaning of some part of the data which the researchers are limited to know, and also for the review of the relevant literature. Ten (10) participants were used to carry out this study. Each of the participants is an active Facebook user. Their age grades range from 20 to 26years. 

3.1 Data Collection and Analysis

Below is the data collected from Facebook and the focus is on Abbreviation.

1. TABLE OF FREQUENCY

ORTHOGRAPHICAL CATEGORY			FREQUENCY
Ljung (2003) defines abbreviations as a “string of letters, most of which are spelled with capital letters”			The use of abbreviations within the Facebook speech community is more common among members who knew each other personally or members belonging to a given group within the speech community.
S/No.	EXAMPLES	FORMS AND EXPRESSIONS	COMMUNICATIVE FUNCTIONS
1.	DHIMS	Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared	Use to show that something is scary as the movie
2.	NSFW	Not Safe For Work	Use to show that a post is uncensored
3.	BTS	Be there Soon	Use for IM to show that a speaker
4.	WTF	What The Fuck	Use to show anger or surprise
5.	IAWTR	I Agree With This Reclog	Use to show approval for a reclogging
6.	IAWTC	I Agree With This Comment	Use to Show approval for a post
7.	LMAO	Laugh My Ass Out	Use to express humor of laughing
8.	TFW	That Feel When	Use to say about a very funny of odd day or time you came across
9.	MC	Movie Clip	Use to tell someone about a movie
10.	FFS	For Fuck’s Sake	Use in place of “for goodness sake” to show dismay.
11.	OMG	Oh My God	Use to show great shock in something
12.	IDK	I Don’t Know	Use a speaker to show they have no clue about something
13.	IDC	I Don’t Care	Indicates that the speaker has no interest or emotional on something
14.	SMH	Shake my head	Use to show disapproval or disappointment
15.	TL;DR	Too Long Don’t Read	To warn someone on a long post
16.	GPOY	Gratuitous picture of Yourself	Usually included in tags to show selfie of oneself
17.	ATM	At The Moment	Use to refer to a present time
18.	TBH	To Be Honest	Use to emphasize the Sincerity of a statement
19.	FML	Fuck My Life	Use to show that a speaker has a very bad day
20.	OTP (I)	One True Pairing	Use to pair two people in a romantic relationship
21.	OTP (II)	On The Phone	An act of having a conversation through telephone
22.	LOL	Laugh Out Loud	To laugh excessively
23.	WTH	What The Hell	To show anger or surprise
24.	BF	Boyfriend	A term for female’s partner
25.	JFC	Jesus Fucking Chris	Use as an exclamation to show that something surprised the speaker

3.2 Data Analysis

From the table, it can be shown that it conforms to the Principle of Least Effort proposed by the Harvard linguist George Kingsley Zipf in Marcel C & André G. H. (1949) as the phrases that have been reduced is those that are being used frequently. The phrases are not the technical ones except for IAWTR which is related to blogging; the users who are not familiarized with a blog may not understand this abbreviation. These abbreviations are practically reduced forms of spoken language in which there are no differences when they are used in written form semantically. However, it is interesting to see whether abbreviations such as LOL and LMAO will be pronounced in a conversation as ‘hashtag’, a feature in Tweeter which is getting used more frequently in spoken language.

References

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Bauer, L. (1988). Number agreement with collective nouns in New Zealand English. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 8(2), 247-259.

Crystal, D. (2006). Language and the Internet. 2^nd ed. Cambridge University Press

Danesi, M. (2016). Language, society and new media: sociolinguistics today. Routledge

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Ljung, M. (2003). Making words in English. Lund: Studentlitteratur.

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White, J. Forthcoming (2012). Standardization of reduced forms in English in an academic the community of practice‖. Forthcoming.

Yus, F. (2011). Cyberpragmatics: internet-mediated communication in context. John Benjamin