With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, new words appeared in English. EFL learners need to learn the new words. Learners depend on many strategies to help them learn new terms. Investigating this topic is significant because it will contribute to the knowledge of teaching and learning new words that appeared rapidly and suddenly. This study aims to investigate the acquisition of word-formation processes related to COVID-19 terms. The research seeks to answer two questions: (1) Are Saudi female EFL learners familiar with English word-formation processes? (2) Do word-formation processes aid Saudi female EFL students in learning COVID-19 pandemic terms? The study used a quantitative method. The data was collected from 71 Saudi female students via a multiple-choice electronic questionnaire. The results revealed that the percentages of incorrect responses were higher than the percentages of correct ones, thus suggesting that the students were not familiar with word-formation processes. The findings showed that they had similar results in words formed via compounding and blending, indicating they failed to distinguish between the two processes. The findings show that the Saudi female students did not prefer to use a word-formation process over the other. Further, results showed that even though some of the common COVID-19 terms frequently were used on a daily basis, the students failed to predict and use the correct word-formation processes for those terms. The findings as a whole reveal that Saudi learners had difficulty in learning word-formation processes deriving COVID-19 terms. The study proposes some recommendations for further research.

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For this paper, we studied the use of linguistic taboo words in Saudi Arabian society. Three main taboo topics were addressed in the current study: the use of taboo words in social contexts, the use of taboo sex words, and the use of taboo swear words. A randomly chosen sample of 253 Saudi females from two different age groups participated in the study. A closed-ended multiple-choice questionnaire was used to collect the data. The findings provided considerable insights into the behavior of Saudi society. Saudi society rarely uses taboo words. The strategy people use to avoid using taboo language is euphemism; sex topics, for instance, which may be overtly discussed in some cultures, are prohibited in Saudi culture. The findings also revealed that Saudi society is too sensitive to the use of swear words because they are culturally and religiously prohibited, though they were occasionally used by younger female participants. In general, this study showed that although the Saudi society is a conservative society, the younger generations of Saudi females are moving slowly toward making linguistic changes in society.

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With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, new words appeared in English. EFL learners need to learn the new words. Learners depend on many strategies to help them learn new terms. Investigating this topic is significant because it will contribute to the knowledge of teaching and learning new words that appeared rapidly and suddenly. This study aims to investigate the acquisition of word-formation processes related to COVID-19 terms. The research seeks to answer two questions: (1) Are Saudi female EFL learners familiar with English word-formation processes? (2) Do word-formation processes aid Saudi female EFL students in learning COVID-19 pandemic terms? The study used a quantitative method. The data was collected from 71 Saudi female students via a multiple-choice electronic questionnaire. The results revealed that the percentages of incorrect responses were higher than the percentages of correct ones, thus suggesting that the students were not familiar with word-formation processes. The findings showed that they had similar results in words formed via compounding and blending, indicating they failed to distinguish between the two processes. The findings show that the Saudi female students did not prefer to use a word-formation process over the other. Further, results showed that even though some of the common COVID-19 terms frequently were used on a daily basis, the students failed to predict and use the correct word-formation processes for those terms. The findings as a whole reveal that Saudi learners had difficulty in learning word-formation processes deriving COVID-19 terms. The study proposes some recommendations for further research.