Analysis of COVID-19 Neologisms by Facebook Users: The Case of Basotho Netizens

Abstract

The Language used in every day communication has an influence on how human beings perceive the world. In these modern days, the human race has shown improvement in terms of lifestyle and culture. One of the areas where mankind has shown development and improvement is at the level of language. The changes in language result in the speakers of the language coining new words all the time to suit specific circumstances. Some of these coinages result in neologisms. Neologisms are invented every day through different word formation processes. If social media did not exist, people would not be aware of the COVID-19 neologisms. However, now that people are familiar with new words invented on social media, they spread them to other social networking sites such as WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook and others. The current study focuses on English neologisms created on Facebook due to Coronavirus pandemic. Based on the data analysis, the findings show that the types of neologisms which were used on Facebook were created through the word formation processes of blending, affixation, compounding, acronym, conversion and abbreviation. Of these processes, blending was found to be the most productive one that influences the invention of new words in the language, whereas abbreviation was found to be the lowest. The findings revealed that the rapid usage of neologisms on Facebook makes people to understand the current situation and experience of COVID-19.