What is Chatroom

The main preoccupation of this paper is the examination of language used in computer-mediated discourse and the extent to which it mirrors the society and how far women are involved or still discriminated against in Nigerian social world. To achieve this purpose, Discourse Analysis and Hymes’ Ethnography of s.p.e.a.k.i.n.g theory is adopted due to its adequate provision for various variables in communication. Corpus from “NaijaWorld” chat forum was used. From the analysis, it is realised that online language is used for many purposes. In addition, the norms of a chatroom and the Nigerian sociolinguistic variables converge to influence the participants. Some modifications to Nigerian social status-quo were discovered, that is, man-the-norm syndrome is being eroded in Nigerian social life with some recognition accorded the rights of women.