Homophonic Errors in Nigerian ESL Speakers’ WhatsApp Text Messages

Abstract

Since the advent of the social media, Nigerians have been ‘compelled’ to ‘speak more’ and ‘type more’ in the public space. Nigerians who are users of English as a Second Language engage in verbal and written communication, mostly in English, on Tiktok, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, WhatsApp and so on. The inevitability of typing messages on social media has unveiled the spelling inaccuracies of some Nigerians which, many a time, are instigated by confusion arising from the sound convergence of certain English words.  With theoretical insight drawn from Al-Khresheh’s (2016) Error Analysis Theory, the homophonic lexical items that were interchangeably employed in the written online discourse of certain Nigerian English as Second Language (ESL) speakers were examined. Thirty homophonic errors were extracted from WhatsApp. Findings revealed that 60% of the identified homophonic errors were caused by Nigerian ESL speakers’ departure from the Standard British English pronunciation of certain words. It was recommended that a dictionary be consulted by Nigerian ESL speakers to differentiate the meaning of homophonic words in order to use them in appropriate contexts.