Description:
The study analysed The Style of Kiswahili Slang Used on Instagram. Specifically, the
study concentrated on two objectives which were to identify instances of linguistic
manipulation in Kiswahili slangs on Instagram and to identify the linguistic reasons for
using Kiswahili slangs on Instagram. The study employed a qualitative approach and
the data was collected through textual analysis, questionnaire and Focus Group
Discussion to obtain the data and from 20 active informants who were sampled through
purposive sampling. The study employed Communication Accommodation Theory that
was developed by Giles and Ogay in 1971 and Stylistic Theory for data analysis and
presentation. The findings of the study discovered that Kiswahili slang are manipulated
through morphological, syntactic, semantic and paragmatic manipulation which creates
compounding, clipping, neologism, borrowing and loanwords, sentence, idiomatic
expresions, metaphors and abbreviations.. Moreover, the study revealed that the use of
Kiswahili slang on Instagram was influenced by word economy, for in-group
communication, for trending factor and euphemism. Slang as an informal language that
most of people often use on different circumstances it should apprehend that the use of
Kiswahili slang by instagramer users is motived by different reasons, so it is healthy to
understand all these motives and work on them. Therefore, this study proposes that
more studies should be conducted on Kiswahili slang on other other aspects of
language.