Codeswitching in Online Written Communication among Arabic English Bilinguals: A Sociolinguistic Perspective

Nada Saleh Alsamhan, F. Almutrafi
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Abstract

This study aims to investigate the sociolinguistic functions of code-switching in tweets. It also examines the potential effects of two social variables, namely gender and education, as well as whether language choice relates to topic. The study adopts Myers-Scotton’s (1993) Markedness Model and Malik’s (1994) Model to analyze the data. The findings revealed that each code choice served different functions such as avoiding a lack of facility, addressing a different audience or showing users’ religious or cultural identity. Gender of twitter users showed significant effects on language choice, i.e., females preferred posting tweets completely in their native language whereas males preferred posting codeswitched tweets. Educational level, also, revealed some effects on language choice. Namely, tweets in the native language were posted more frequently by participants with below college education, while the combination of the bilingual’s two languages was utilized more often by those with high education. As for codeswitched tweets, participants with college education showed the highest preference for this code choice. Furthermore, Twitter users switched codes based on topic, e.g., Arabic-written tweets were frequently associated with religion-related hashtags whereas English-written tweets were associated with education-related topics. Social-related topics accounted for the highest number of codeswitched tweets. Overall, this study lends evidence to the view that online communication influences the choice of the language used.
阿拉伯文英语双语者在线书面交流中的语码转换:社会语言学视角
本研究旨在探讨推文中语码转换的社会语言学功能。它还考察了两个社会变量的潜在影响,即性别和教育,以及语言选择是否与主题相关。本研究采用Myers-Scotton(1993)的标记性模型和Malik(1994)模型对数据进行分析。研究结果显示,每种选择的代码都有不同的功能,比如避免缺乏设施,针对不同的受众,或者显示用户的宗教或文化身份。twitter用户的性别对语言选择有显著影响,即女性更喜欢完全用母语发布推文,而男性更喜欢发布代码转换的推文。教育水平对语言选择也有影响。也就是说,受教育程度在大学以下的参与者更频繁地发布母语推文,而受过高等教育的参与者更频繁地使用双语两种语言的组合。至于代码转换的推文,受过大学教育的参与者对这种代码选择的偏好最高。此外,Twitter用户根据主题切换代码,例如,阿拉伯语写的推文经常与宗教相关的标签相关联,而英语写的推文则与教育相关的主题相关联。与社会相关的话题占了代码转换推文的最高数量。总的来说,这项研究为在线交流影响语言选择的观点提供了证据。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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