MORPHOLOGICAL PROCESSES IN THE LANGUAGE OF THE PARAMILITARY PERSONNEL

Abstract

The research investigates the morphological analysis of the coded language of Paramilitary formations in Nigeria, and provides insight into the unique use of the l anguage and brings out the peculiar linguistic forms generated through morphological processes that occur in their interactions in the course of discharging their statutory duties and points out the similarities and differences among the agencies. The theoretical framework adopted and used for the study is Lieb’s Theory of Process Model of Word Formation and the Theory of Speech Accommodation. The theories offer comprehensive approaches that account for all processes of word formation in unified ways. The accommodation theory attempts to explain why people adjust their style of speaking to accommodate their addresses (Crystal, 2003). There is therefore speech accommodation among military and paramilitary personnel informed by their interactions, especially at different levels – parades, briefings, their beats and duty posts, sports, departments, in the barracks and such other places. Data used for the study were collected through participant observation and unstructured interview of personnel while on duty within the office environment using random sampling method. The findings indicate that the operatives use English language for their formal conversations to communicate paramilitary ideology.  In addition, they  were  found  to  use  unique  lexical  choices  created specifically to serve the communication needs of the interlocutors. This study will be of immense benefit to Linguists in different fields of linguistics such as, documentary linguistics and corpus linguistics.