Tweaa! – A Ghanaian interjection of “contempt” in online political comments

Abstract

This study examines the use of tweaa [tɕʏɪaa], an Akan emotive interjection that expresses “contempt” for a person, in the Corpus of GhanaWeb Comments in Ghana's 2016 Election (CGCGE16). CGCGE16 comprises reader comments posted in the build-up to Ghana's presidential elections in December 2016 on www.ghanaweb.com, a news website that guarantees freedom of speech and ensures citizen participation in online sociopolitical discussions. The study employs the semantic explication method of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach to unpack the meaning of tweaa to give a fuller understanding of its rhetorical power in online political discourse. It points out that tweaa is derogatory and expresses lack of respect for the user's target, thus, according to traditional Ghanaian values, its use is unacceptable, especially during asymmetrical interactions. Citizens, however, hide behind the shield of anonymity online platforms guarantee, and their ability to circumvent traditional gatekeepers of acceptable speech forms during online discourse, and freely use tweaa to vent their feelings against authority figures.