ANALYSING LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF CYBERBULLYING: MERCY CHINWO AND NATASHA AKPOTI UDUAGHAN.

ABSTRACT This study delves into the reality of cyberbullying through its specific linguistic representations in the Nigerian socio-digital space, exemplified through Facebook attacks on two prominent Nigerian individuals: Gospel Artiste Mercy Chinwo and Senator Natasha Akpoti. Methodologically, the study is grounded in a Critical Discourse Analysis paradigm, specifically Teun van Dijk's Sociocognitive Approach, and is constructed on the basis of a purposively selected corpus of Facebook posts and comments. The research illustrates that cyberbullying is practiced as a repertoire of deliberate linguistic tactics like sarcasm, aggressive moral condemnation, gender abuse, ridiculing appearance, and cultural stereotyping. The tactics are securely embedded in and justified through shared social knowledge and prejudices, reflecting broader ideological frames such as patriarchy, moral conservatism, and political bias. The study discovers that this talk is a form of "symbolic violence" which operates through re-shaping mental schemata and offering selective accounts to the public, thus turning transient attacks into long-term reputational damage. This work adds to scholarship by illustrating how online abuse is a cognitively transmitted and socially legitimised practice and highlighting the importance of further developing public literacy about the constructive potential of language on the Internet and demanding digital platforms to play a more active role in breaking circuits that maximise harm.