Exploring Ghanaians’ Usage of ei, ehe, eh, and eish in Global Web-Based English Corpus

Studies have shown that speakers of New Englishes borrow interjections and other linguistic forms from their indigenous languages to express what they feel, think, want, believe or know at a particular moment. In this paper, the use and pragmatic functions of four of such local interjections, ei, ehe, eh and eish, in Ghanaian English on online platforms are examined. The data analysed were obtained from Global Web-Based English corpus (GLoWbE). The findings of the study show that these four interjections from indigenous Ghanaian languages are used in various contexts for a variety of reasons which include expressing pain, surprise, fear, concern about something, or a sudden recall of information. Also, the findings establish that the interjections may have varied spellings characterised by letter repetitions aimed at highlighting the intensity of the emotions expressed by users.