It has emerged that writers in online related discourses can manipulate the orthography in order to creatively resist or counter social norms (see Seargeant & Tagg 2011). In this regard, motivated by the need to fully express their emotions in the manner they deem fit, it has emerged that writers deliberately deviate from standard spellings when insulting in order to avoid censorship. In this vein, they adapt spellings of insults by working around the graphemes to counter online censorship system which would otherwise automatically delete them. Consider the data from news blogs in the table below.
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Table 4: A combination of data from different news blogs
1. These are i.d.i.o.t.s paid by Kambwili and GBM. Who told them that Kabimba makes all these decisions
alone?....
2. …you should have known that Bembas are always tribalist… you foo.l – why cry now? 3. I dont understand why these fuulz cant see between the lines.
4. just enjoy yourself – it seems it gives you pleasure that every time you read about Kabimba being condemned
you go and w.a.n.k yourself!!
5. pliz stop being malicious fcuk u.
6. …But i blame sata, the mother faka will go as Zambia's waste president in zed dust bin, boza,wenye,buhata,bufi
ulabeja, what wasted 5 years….
7. Go and f.u.c.k yoself…
8. pipo dat think HH will be president are s.t.u.p.i.d.
9. Baficolor aba…bonse Lit. 'you the dicks'' and I mean all of them, fitooole fyaabooo! Lit. 'their balls' opposition
mp`s included. Shameless matha fackers!
10. Libongani chi know chakwe Lit.'her vagina' should be arrested once there is a new govt. as she is a well known PF cadre. Nonsense. Zambia is for all Zambians, and not for PF lunatics only.
In the data above, it is evident that writers are deviating from the standard spellings in different ways in order to avoid censorship of words considered unpalatable for public consumption. From the data, one of the common ways writers are playing with orthography is to separate graphemes in words using dots, which in this case, distort the standard spelling which is sensitive to censorship but contextually still retaining the actual meaning. For example, the word idiots has been written as i.d.i.o.t.s in line 1 to refer to the Patriotic Front cadres who were purported to have been causing confusion around the city of Lusaka; the word fool has been written as foo.l in line 2 to refer to another blogger who had an opposing idea. In addition, notice that such deviations also apply to slang words such as wank written as w.a.n.k, a word used to refer to the act of masturbating but in this case used to tell off someone to go and perform the act which is a form of an insult. The word fuck has been written as f.u.c.k in line 4 and 7, respectively.
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Moreover, writers would avoid censorship through orthographic play in which one or two graphemes within a word is jumbled around in order to distort its original form but while still bearing the meaning of the word, for example, fcuk for fuck in line 5 (see Seargeant & Tagg 2011). In some other cases, writers would simply exploit the homophonic relationship between a word and its corresponding phonetic sounds as in line 3 fuulz for fools and line 6 mother faka for
mother fucker or matha fackers in line 9. Notice that the writer uses this word to insult the
president, a serious offence under the Zambian constitution and warrants a jail sentence. However, the distorted word itself may be used as a scapegoat for one to get away with although in most cases, writers on such blogs hide their real identities by adopting pseudo names which makes it difficult to track them down for prosecution. Nevertheless, even if other words could equally meet their goals, it is clear that writers are using such words for self-expression. Likewise, such words are equally being used to concurrently challenge social norms in modern societies in which insults in the public domain are socially unacceptable and at the same time they are also indexing youth identities as such are highly associated with youth urban language. Nonetheless, even if this seems localized to the Zambian scenario, the practice of orthographic play with words enlisted for censorship in social media is becoming a universal practice as this was observed in other similar discourses across the globe.
Nevertheless, in cases where online censor software has categorized insulting words from some African languages such as Bemba and Nyanja, for censorship, writers are using a similar strategy but more localized to the Zambian scenario in which they combine orthographic aspects of an African language with those of English in order to counter the system. For example in line 9 in the table above, a writer has played around with the orthography of Bemba and English to insult as in: baficolor 'the dicks' in which the morphemes ba- 'for plural' and fi- for pejorative morpheme (typically used to form insults aimed at a group of people) are from Bemba orthography while color is an adaptation of English orthography into Bemba where the writer has taken advantage of the homophonic relationship between the graphemes in this word to the sounds [kala] which is the equivalent of the graphemes in the Bemba word /bafikala/ (cf. Tagg & Seargeant 2011). Conversely, in the same line, the writer merely exaggerates the vowels of the word <fitole> to <fitooole> in order to 'conceal' the word from censorship whilst still retaining
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the meaning. It has to be pointed out that there are fewer female insults noted from the data. However, in cases were such appeared; the common one was <chinyo> which is a vulgar way of referring to the vagina. In this word, writers equally played with the orthography by either adding an extra vowel or consonant as in <chiinyo> or exploiting some English related spellings as in line 10 <chi know>. Nonetheless, even if the word <know> may not have a direct equivalence to the Bemba sounds [njo], the idea of the meaning of the insult is still retained.
Other strategies included the use of dots as in chi.ka.la or mere play with graphemes as in
chicala or chicolor. In such cases, like in the English counterparts, writers have simply played
around the graphemes by distorting the standard forms yet maintaining their meaning. Note that in most African languages, the mention of a private part is considered a 'big' insult. As pointed out above, it is evident that writers are involved in a 'silent' rebellion not only to the standard spelling norms but also to societal norms in which insults in the public domain are hardly heard unless in situations where youths are found engaging in violent or playful acts. Besides the above, the notion of standard orthography is being challenged differently. The sections that follow consider some of the ways in which writers (speakers) are challenging standard orthography of both English and African languages (see Banda 2012).