Abstract:
This study investigated the influence of social media language on academic writings of
students of Swedru School of Business. It sought to find out if students‟ use of social
media language had transcended into their academic writings and what opinions are
about permitting the social media language in academic writing. The research drew
inspiration from the Bandura‟s Social Learning theory (1997) and Corder‟s Error
Analysis Theory (1974). Corder‟s Error Analysis Theory (1974) was employed. Data
was collected through the use of two questionnaires, one for teachers and one for
students. Also, students‟ deviations or errors were collected from their compositions.
Data was analyzed qualitatively using the mean and standard deviation values
represented in pie charts, bar charts and lines respectively. The findings revealed that
though the use of social media language is prevalent among senior high school
students on social media, it has not transcended into their academic writings. It
therefore had no influence on students‟ writings. Though the students committed
grammatical, spelling and sentence construction errors, those could not be attributed to
their use of social media language. The research concluded that the use of social media
language does not pose a major threat to students‟ formal writings. The researcher
recommends that teachers should create opportunities for students to write more
essays, so as to help them overcome their identified errors
Description:
A dissertation in the Department of Applied Linguistics, Faculty of Foreign
Languages Education and Communication, submitted to the School of Graduate
Studies in partial fulfilment
of the requirements for the award of degree of
Master of Education
(Teaching English as a Second Language)
In the University of Education
