Morphological analysis of the language of the netizens in social media [manuscript] / Jan Adams D. Magtanong.

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This study investigated the morphological and semantical differences of internet slang and the English language. The researcher employed descriptive method of research and it used convenient sampling technique. Screenshot Assistant served as the main software tool for the data gathering. Social media posts in Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter from 50 accounts for the past three years were subjected for analysis. A total of 385 posts from 50 accounts were analyzed. Out of these 385 texts, 438 words were classified as internet slang. The framework of Matthews (1991) was utilized to explore the corpus based on their etymology and identify the meaning associated with these words. In light of the findings of the study, the researcher concluded that four out of the five word formation processes of Matthews (1991) exist in internet slang. These are affixation, modification, conversion, and subtraction. On the other hand, reduplication was not seen. Three more word formation processes that are not present in the framework of Matthews (1991) were revealed: borrowing, natural linguistic progression, and word postering. Social media gives language researchers a generous corpus for language investigation. Semantically speaking, words used online acquire new meanings when stated in a different context. There is also a noticeable alteration in terms of the words' morphological structure. These changes later on go beyond the virtual world and thrive in verbal discourse. With this being said, how potent the power the social media have over the changes of a certain language is quite immeasurable. Not only that it proved its benefits on making communication convenient, but also it has been playing an active role in the progression of a certain language. Instead of restricting the learners to participate in the discourse on the internet so as to avoid its negative effects as claimed by other researchers, it is tactical to incorporate social media in the discussion and activities inside the classroom.