[1] Language Center, University of Ghana, Legon, Accra, Ghana ORCID: 0000-0001-7233-0242, rthompson@ug.edu.gh
[2] Department of English, University of Ghana, Legon, Accra, Ghana ORCID: 0000-0001-9956-5885, janderson@ug.edu.gh
[3] Department of English and Communication, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong ORCID: 0000-0002-4720-0662, janderson@ug.edu.gh
Abstract
This study presents a qualitative analysis of the interjection hmm in written online discourse among Ghanaians. Using the theory of pragmatic borrowing, the study focuses on the orthography, positions, collocational patterns, and discourse-pragmatic functions of the interjection. The data analyzed were obtained from Twitter (X). The results show that in online discourse, hmm can be lengthened to show the intensity of one’s emotion or reaction. The interjection can begin and end a post or be in the middle of a post. Also, it can co-occur with other interjections, pragmatic markers, and specific reference terms. Hmm functions as a verbal token of silence, and a user who opts for it may avoid face- threatening acts and avert trouble. It may also be used in various contexts to express a range of emotions, such as disappointment, pain/grief, and pity. The study supports the observation that social media interactions share some similarities with face-to-face interactions.
Keywords: online discourse, social media, silence, emotion, Ghana
References
Abrefa, K. B., & Sanusi, I. O. (2021). On the focus strategies in Akan. Journal of Linguistics and Foreign Languages, 2(2), 36–52.
Adika, G. S. K. (2012). English in Ghana: Growth, tensions, and trends. International Journal of Language, Translation and Intercultural Communication, 1, 151–166.
Agyekum, K. (2002). The communicative role of silence in Akan. Pragmatics: Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA), 12(1), 31–51.
Alieva, G. N., Zerbaliyeva, N. F., & Alistanova, F. F. (2014). Interjections in Russian oral speech of Dagestan people. Язык. Словесность. Культура, 3, 24–35.
Ameka, F. K. (1991). Ewe: Its grammatical constructions and illocutionary devices (PhD Dissertation). Australian National University.
Ameka, F. K. (1992). Introduction to interjections: The universal yet neglected part of speech. Journal of Pragmatics, 18(2/3), 101–118.
Amuzu, E. K., Kuwornu, A. A., & Opoku-Fofie, S. (2018). Awww, we r sorry wai: Pragmatic functions of L1 discourse markers in Ghanaians’ English-based WhatsApp conversations. Contemporary Journal of African Studies, 5(2), 60–86.
Andersen, G. (2014). Pragmatic borrowing. Journal of pragmatics, 67, 17-33.
Anderson, J. A., Agbaglo, E., & Thompson, R. G. A. (2024). Exploring Ghanaians’ usage of ei, ehe, eh, eish in Global Web-Based English Corpus. Corpus Pragmatics, 8, 131–148.
Androutsopoulos, J. (2006). Introduction: Sociolinguistics and computer‐mediated communication. Journal of sociolinguistics, 10(4), 419-438.
Anthony, L. (2014). AntConc (Version 3.4.4w) [Computer software]. Waseda University. Retrieved from http://www.antlab.sci.waseda.ac.jp/
Bieswanger, M. (2013). Micro-linguistic structural features of computer-mediated communication. In S. Herring, D. Stein, & T. Virtanen (Eds.), Pragmatics of computer-mediated communication (pp. 463–488). Walter de Gruyter.
Bolander, B., & Locher, M. A. (2014). Doing sociolinguistic research on computer-mediated data: A review of four methodological issues. Discourse, Context & Media, 3, 14–26.
Bruns, A., Highfield, T., & Burgess, J. (2013). The Arab Spring and social media audiences: English and Arabic Twitter users and their networks. American Behavioral Scientist, 57(7), 871–898.
Byrd, S. (2012). Calunga and the legacy of an African language in Brazil. UNM Press.
Chu, H. (2006). Interactional modification in text-based chats between Korean and Japanese students. English Language & Literature Teaching, 12(1), 1–18.
Darics, E. (2013). Non-verbal signalling in digital discourse: The case of letter repetition. Discourse, Context & Media, 2(3), 141–148.
Darics, E. (2020). E-leadership or how to be boss in instant messaging? The role of nonverbal communication. International Journal of Business Communication, 57(1), 3–29.
Davis, J. L., Love, T. P., & Killen, G. (2018). Seriously funny: The political work of humor on social media. New Media & Society, 20(10), 3898–3916.
Decker, K. (2005). The Song of Kriol: A Grammar of the Kriol Language of Belize. Belize: Belize Kriol Project.
Diemer, S. (2013). The return of the prefix? New verb-particle combinations in blogs. In H. Hasselgård, J. Ebeling, & S. Oksefjell (Eds.), Corpus Perspectives on Patterns of Lexis (pp. 23–244). John Benjamins.
Dressler, W. U., & Merlini Barbaresi, L. (2001). Morphopragmatics of diminutives and augmentatives: On the priority of pragmatics over semantics. In I. Kenesei & R. M. Harnish (Eds.), Perspectives on semantics, pragmatics, and discourse (pp. 43–58). John Benjamins.
Drzazga, A. M. (2021). The English interjection Oh. Linguistica Silesiana, 42, 239–259.
Goddard, C. (2014). Interjections and emotion (with special reference to surprise and disgust). Emotion Review, 6(1), 53–63.
Govindan, V., & Balakrishnan, V. (2022). A machine learning approach in analysing the effect of hyperboles using negative sentiment tweets for sarcasm detection. Journal of King Saud University-Computer and Information Sciences, 34(8), 5110–5120.
High, A. C., Ruppel, E. K., McEwan, B., & Caughlin, J. P. (2023). Computer-mediated communication and well-being in the age of social media: A systematic review. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 40(2), 420–458.
Hışmanoğlu, M. (2010). Interjections in English: Neglected but important aspect of foreign language learning and teaching. Journal of Theory & Practice in Education, 6(1), 17–35.
Honkanen, M., & Müller, J. (2021). Interjections and emojis in Nigerian online communication. World Englishes, 40, 611–630.
Houphouet, E. E., Amfo, N. A. A., Dordoye, E. K., & Thompson, R. (2018). Interactions in psychiatric care consultation in Akan-speaking communities. Communication & Medicine, 15(1), 40–52.
Kalman, Y., & Gergle, D. (2014). Letter repetitions in computer-mediated communication: A unique link between spoken and online language. Computers in Human Behavior, 34, 187–193.
Kambon, O. B., & Adjei, G. K. (2017). Singing truth to power and the disempowered: The case of Lucky Mensah and his song Nkratoɔ. In A. Olukotun & S. A. Omotoso (Eds.), Political Communication in Africa (pp. 133–158). Springer.
Knudsen, B., Creemers, A., & Meyer, A. S. (2020). Forgotten little words: How backchannels and particles may facilitate speech planning in conversation. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 593671.
Levisen, C. (2019). Laughter interjections: Contributions to a lexical anthropology of humour (with special reference to Danish). Scandinavian Studies in Language, 10(1), 110–130.
Lockyer, D. (2014). The emotive meanings and functions of English diminutive interjections in Twitter posts. SKASE Journal of Theoretical Linguistics, 11(2), 68–90. 165 Matthes, J.,
Heiss, R., & van Scharrel, H. (2023). The distraction effect. Political and entertainment-oriented content on social media, political participation, interest, and knowledge. Computers in Human Behavior, 142, 107644
Myers, G. (2010). The discourse of blogs and wikis. Continuum.
Palacio, M. A., & Gustilo, L. (2016). A pragmatic analysis of discourse particles in Filipino. Computer Mediated Communication, 16(3), 1–19.
Peterson, A. T. (2023). Asynchrony and promotive interaction in online cooperative learning. International Journal of Educational Research Open, 5, 100300.
Puschmann, C., & Burgess, J. (2013). The politics of Twitter data. In K. Weller, A. Bruns, J. Burgess, M. Mahrt, & C. Puschmann (Eds.), Twitter and society (pp. 43–54). New York, NY: Peter Lang.
Schandorf, M. (2019). Digital discourse. In Communication as Gesture: Media(tion), Meaning, & Movement (pp. 17–58). Emerald Publishing Limited.
Schultze, B., & Tabakowska, E. (2004). Interjections as a translation problem. In H. Kittel, A. P. Frank, N. Greiner, T. Hermans, W. Koller, J. Lambert, & F. Paul (Eds.), Ein internationales Handbuch zur Übersetzungsforschung (pp. 555–562). De Gruyter Mouton.
Shannon, T. F. (2018). Analyzing formulaic expressions in German. IJGLSA, 23(1), 157–216.
Sheehan, B., Jin, H. S., Martin, B., & Kim, H. J. (2024). Wow! Interjections improve chatbot performance: the mediating role of anthropomorphism and perceived listening. Communication Research, 51(7), 891–917.
Taavitsainen, I. (1995). Interjections in Early Modern English: From imitation of spoken to conventions of written language. In A. H. Jucker (Ed.), Historical Pragmatics: Pragmatic Developments in the History of English (pp. 439–465). John Benjamins.
Taavitsainen, I. (1998). Emphatic language and romantic prose: Changing functions of interjections in a so- ciocultural perspective. European Journal of English Studies, 2(2), 195–214.
Thompson, R. (2019). Tweaa! – A Ghanaian interjection of contempt in online political comments. Ampersands, 6, 1–7.
Thompson, R. G. A., & Agyekum, K. (2025). Ghanaian English characteristics in apology reactions. In I. Kecskes, A. Buregeya, A. Odebunmi, F. O. Unuabonah, K. Agyekum, & H. Dinh (Eds.), Pragmatics of African varieties of English (pp. 193–213). Walter de Gruyter.
Thompson, R. G. A., Nutor, J. J., & Johnson, J. K. (2021). Communicating awareness about COVID-19 through songs: An example from Ghana. Frontiers in Public Health, 8, 1–12.
Tilley, L., & Woodthorpe, K. (2011). Is it the end of anonymity as we know it? A critical examination of the ethical principle of anonymity in the context of 21st-century demands on the qualitative researcher. Qualitative Research, 11, 197–212.
Unuabonah, F. O., & Daniel, F. O. (2020). Haba! Bilingual interjections in Nigerian English: A corpus-based study. Journal of Pragmatics, 163, 66–77.
Unuabonah, F. O. (2020). So you know ehn … The use of bilingual interjections in Nigerian English. Intercultural Pragmatics, 17(2), 151–176.
van de Geest, S. (2009). Anyway! Lorry inscriptions in Ghana. In J. B. Gewald, S. Luning, & K. van Wal- raven (Eds.), The speed of change: Motor vehicles and people in Africa 1890–2000 (pp. 253–293). Brill Publishers.
Yankah, K. (2012). The proverb in the context of Akan rhetoric. Diasporic Africa Press.
Yankah, K. (2015). 9/11 and the painful death of an Asante king: National tragedies in comparative per- spective. In D. R. Peterson, K. Gavua, & C. Rassool (Eds.), The politics of heritage in Africa: Economies, histories, and infrastructures (pp. 176–190). Cambridge University Press.
Zhang, X., Zhu, S., & Liang, W. (2012). Detecting spam and promoting campaigns in the Twitter social network. IEEE 12th International Conference on Data Mining, 12, 1194–1199.