Abstract:

This paper examines the linguistic features of spelling and pronunciation of Nigerian tertiary institution aspirants' facebook group posts. The features of the spelling and pronunciation are analysed based on phonetic spellings, colloquial spellings, prosodic spellings, and homophone spellings. It uses Herring's (2004) theoretical framework. The data were gathered from different facebook groups of different tertiary institutions (Polytechnics and Universities). The findings showed that the aspirants used different styles of spellings and pronunciation, which could not be found in their mother tongue (MT) or English Language. And the causes of nonstandard spellings and pronunciation are mother tongue interference, aspirant's individualistic style of writing variation and creativity, which feature under phonetic spellings, colloquial spellings (phaeresis, syncope, apocope, acronyms), prosodic spellings, absence/presence of contraction, epenthesis (prosthesis), homophone spellings, phonological spellings, and metathesis.