Analysis of word formation on Slang words used in Social Network Twitter

ABSTRACT

Language and words are important things that cannot be separated from human life, since it is the only way to transfer the information from the speaker to the listener. Words develop along with human life development as we know many new words appear recently. One of most develop language is slang, since we can add some new slang words and there is no exact regulation of making slang words, and it is acceptable as long as whom we talk to understand what we meant.

The purpose of this research is to understand the word formation process of slang words used in one of most popular social network among the youngsters twitter based on George Yule‟s and Katamba‟s theories, also how the slang words are used in twitter. This research is conducted as seeing phenomenon of „excluding and including‟ people from youngsters “world” in twitter by creating their “world” trough the words they used.

This research uses descriptive qualitative method because it basically aims at describing the data in the form of words, utterances or sentences. The researcher tries to understand the phenomena of words formation processes of slang words that by youngsters, here are Justin Bieber and Rihanna in their tweets. Moreover in this research, the researcher analyzed the data descriptively in order to give more detail explanation of word formation on slang words also the usage of slang words based on morphological point of view.

The result of this research shows that most of the word formation process of slang words used in tweet are multiple processes, especially formed by both clipping and suffixes. Since youngster are often cutting or shortening the word then attached it with any kinds of suffixes, which mostly are diminutives, those do not change the meaning and class of words. It seems that multiple process is most productive way to create slang words, especially in twitter. The reason behind the usage of slang words also become one of the important aspects to be traced since it influences the way of slang words are used to avoid misunderstanding and know to apply it in the right person, time and context.