Abstract:
This study interrogates the use of language by students at tertiary. It focuses
on students’ interactions with one another outside classroom setting. The
study hypothesizes that the language used by university students display
richness and yet complexity of human language. In focus groups, third year
students were requested to give words which according to them have acquired
new meanings on campus as compared to their common use anywhere else.
Thus, such words should be believed to have their ‘campus’ meaning versus
their ‘home’ meaning on the basis that their campus meanings might only be
understood amongst university students while at the same time would be
given a different meaning when used outside the university. Content analysis
was done drawing on the underpinnings of communicative competence and
componential theory of creativity frameworks. Data yielded significant
patterns of language use including polysemy, among tertiary students;
therefore, the study concludes that students’ exploitation of language is
attributive of their communicative competence and creativity.
