Empowering or endangering minorities? Facebook, language, and identity in Myanmar

IF 0.9 Q3 ETHNIC STUDIES

Asian Ethnicity Pub Date : 2021-07-12 DOI:10.1080/14631369.2021.1951596

Myat The-Thitsar

引用次数: 5

Abstract

ABSTRACT Language policies play a major role in ethnic conflict because they affect the right of speakers to choose and use their preferred language(s), and help determine courses of action to maintain, assert or defend such rights. There has been insufficient analysis on the role of social media, particularly Facebook, in strengthening or undermining the survival of minority languages and collective identity in multi-ethnic countries. This paper uses Myanmar as a case study to demonstrate the extent to which Facebook language policies influence language use practices of minorities in Myanmar. While Facebook’s selection of Burmese as a ‘Facebook language’ has privileged the use of Myanmar’s majority language at the expense of its minority languages, it has simultaneously provided opportunities for ethnic minorities to preserve and promote their languages and cultures.

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授权或危害少数群体？缅甸的脸书、语言和身份

摘要语言政策在种族冲突中发挥着重要作用，因为它们影响到说话者选择和使用自己喜欢的语言的权利，并有助于确定维护、维护或捍卫这些权利的行动方案。关于社交媒体，特别是脸书在加强或破坏少数民族语言和集体认同在多民族国家的生存方面的作用，分析不足。本文以缅甸为例，展示了脸书语言政策对缅甸少数民族语言使用实践的影响程度。虽然脸书选择缅甸语作为“脸书语言”，以牺牲少数民族语言为代价，使缅甸多数民族语言的使用享有特权，但同时也为少数民族保护和推广其语言和文化提供了机会。

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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来源期刊

Asian Ethnicity PHYSIOLOGY-

CiteScore

2.80

自引率

6.20%

发文量

期刊介绍： In the twenty-first century ethnic issues have assumed importance in many parts of the world. Until recently, questions of Asian ethnicity and identity have been treated in a balkanized fashion, with anthropologists, economists, historians, political scientists, sociologists and others publishing their studies in single-discipline journals. Asian Ethnicity provides a cross-disciplinary, international venue for the publication of well-researched articles about ethnic groups and ethnic relations in the half of the world where questions of ethnicity now loom largest. Asian Ethnicity covers any time period, although the greatest focus is expected to be on the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.