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YEARBOOK ARTICLES
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EFFECTS OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON ENGLISH LANGUAGE

I get flabbergasted and confused these days reading many of the posts on social media and text messages
sent through cell phones because of the kind of new English words that young people write. The English
language is without doubt quite dynamic. In the last two hundred years it has lent itself to many
innova ons, as cultural, religious and situa onal codes have transformed the language and extended the
dic onary with new words and idioms.

The kind of new English language being wri en by Twi er and WhatsApp users, par cularly young people
is regre able, alarming, frightening and lamentable because they have started wri ng in irregular forms.

Wri ng or formal wri ng - tex ng and twee ng are producing a genera on of users of English (it is worse
that they are using English as a second language), who cannot write gramma cally correct sentences. If
one goes through some applica ons that some young graduates submit for job openings, one would be
shocked and scared because of the kind of grammar they write.

These new group of English users do not know the difference between a comma and a colon or between a
full stop and semi-colon. They don't even know when to use capital le ers. They have no regards for
punctua ons. They mix up tenses, bastardise verbs and adverbs, ignore punctua ons and violate all rules
of lexis and syntax. They seem to rely more on sound rather than formal meaning. My fear is that a
genera on being brought up on twi er, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp English is showing a lack of
capacity to write meaningful prose or communicate properly or even think correctly. The truth is that
many of our young people are using there sub-standard English. They use social media to write essays in
external examina ons like WASSCE and NECO and they don't see anything wrong with it. They are failing
English woefully in the above men oned examina ons and examiners are worried.

Many of the children who have become socialized or go en used to this new mode of communica on are
not always able to differen ate between correct and incorrect English and this is why parents and teachers
must be concerned. The teaching of morphology and syntax in our various schools should be as rigorous as
possible to prevent our children from using sub-standard English in their spoken and wri en English.

Teachers and parents have the responsibility to ensure that their children are able to learn the very
minimum of skills and the ability to communicate effec vely. Some people may say it does not ma er, but
my advice is that communica on in English will never be reduced to a mastery of abbrevia ons and secular
language as young people are using on the social media. The ability to write clearly or well enhances a
person's ability to think clearly and to communicate effec vely. The abuse of English language and the
ability to write well should be discouraged among young people. It is disheartening that there is
emergence of a genera on of young Nigerians who cannot spell correctly, punctuate properly or get their
tenses right because they now write social media English and depicts the same in
very serious examina ons. This brings about poor performances in external
examina ons and I'm calling on everybody to work towards helping the
students make efforts to improve their wri en English and abhor the tendency to
use social media English.

UGHAMADU EKENE – SS3D

UGHAMADU, Ekene

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