One inescapable fact is that English is used a lot on the internet. As of 2010 it was the most used language online (Crystal 79). As such, many platforms, websites, and programs are more accessible to English-speaking users. Although people would often prefer to use their first language online, the unfortunate reality is that many websites and software simply are not set up to support all languages (81-82). Technology is now able to support more scripts and more platforms have made an effort to create interfaces in languages other than English. But that doesn’t change the fact that there are simply fewer resources in languages other than English when it comes to information hubs like Wikipedia, sites on specific and niche topics, and availability of academic articles and papers (85). With all this in mind, it’s fairly inevitable that English would have an influence on how other languages are used. Additionally, these imbalances of resources can play into already existing relationships between dominant and minority languages. As you might guess from all of this, how frequently a language is used offline does not always directly correlate to how often that language is used online (87).
So, with that context out of the way, let’s take a look at how power imbalances between languages might influence user’s linguistic choices online.
Linguistic Choices of Bilingual Welsh/English Teenagers
Daniel Cunliffe and his colleagues set out to examine how bilingual Welsh/English students used language online, and how those linguistic choices compared to their usage of the languages in daily life. They surveyed 200 students total, ages 13-18, and also had 64 of the students participate in more intensive focus groups (Cunliffe 342). They ensured that half of the participants spoke Welsh as their first language, and the other half spoke English as their first language (343). However, the students still viewed English as the dominant language, and many of the students struggled with their Welsh reading comprehension skills (343-344). As per the nature of the study, all of the participating students had access to broadband internet, and the majority of the students used at least one social networking site (343-344).
Audience, although not the sole factor which goes into language choice, did seem to have an effect on the students’ linguistic choices. In general, they were more likely to use Welsh if their in-person support system frequently spoke it in person, especially if they were communicating with those in-person friends online (345). But students who spoke both Welsh and English with their friends were more likely to use English online. If students are mainly communicating with friends from their in-person network, it makes sense that their linguistic habits from in-person conversations would carry over.
On the other hand, students were more likely to use English in more public online settings, like Facebook updates. Most Welsh speakers can speak English, but not all English speakers can speak Welsh, so it seems that users tended toward the language that was most likely to be understood. Some users used both Welsh and English in their posts, especially if they had separate friend groups that used Welsh or English predominantly. In these cases, the language of choice depended on which of their Facebook Friends they were writing for: their Welsh-speaking friends or their English-speaking friends (355). On the other hand, the researchers found that Welsh was rarely the only language students used on Facebook (352). This is likely due to the dominance of English; it’s unlikely that all of a student’s friends could speak Welsh.
Larger community factors also seem to play a role. The dominant language spoken in the user’s community tended to correlate with the language they most frequently used on Facebook (348). But, then again, the researchers suggested that positive attitudes around learning and speaking Welsh might push some users to try to use Welsh more (350-351).
Students’ individual confidence with writing Welsh did not appear to have a direct effect on how often they used it (351). Similarly, researchers found no direct correlation between confidence in writing English and English usage (352).
One factor that surprisingly did not appear to influence language choice was the language of the social media interface (in this case, Facebook). Although the site does support a Welsh interface, users express discomfort with it due to its use of unfamiliar words or clunky language (356). The interface did not appear to positively influence Welsh use, but the English interface did not appear to consciously discourage Welsh use (356). As such, the researchers concluded that Welsh currently has a limited use in digital contexts, but also that Facebook is still a viable context in which to use Welsh, even if English is still the more dominant language (358). The surveyed students seem open to increasing Welsh use online, saying they would use Welsh language resources if they were available (344). Continuing to build spaces where Welsh can be read and used and refining those current spaces where Welsh interfaces are still clunky may result in such interfaces having a direct correlation with Welsh language use.
Linguistic choices of Bilingual Frisian/Dutch Teenagers
Looking a bit farther afield, we see that bilingual or multilingual speakers in the Netherlands also tend to use the regional dominant language – Dutch – when communicating online. The author of a study looking at the linguistic choices of teenagers who speak both Frisian and Dutch says this isn’t surprising; linguistic power imbalances in the real world tend to carry over into digital contexts (Jongbloed-Faber 29).
Frisian is a language from the Fryslân region of the Netherlands; both it and Dutch are official languages, but Dutch tends to be more dominant (30). Frisian is also largely a spoken language, rather than a written one (30). When analyzing 6,000 tweets from 50 Frisian teens, researchers found “frequent phonetic writing as well as the incorporation of lexical and syntactic Dutchisms…in Frisian tweets” (30). Although there is Dutch influence, the researchers suggest that because writing on social media tends to be informal, teenagers feel more comfortable with using the language because they are not being held to formal written standards (30). Jongbloed-Faber and her colleagues decided to expand this research by collecting linguistic data from 2,367 multilingual students, aged 14-18 years old, about their in-person and online language use (32).
Generally speaking, the students were more proficient at understanding and speaking Frisian than they were at reading and writing in it (33). Dutch was the most common language the students used on social media, with Frisian or English being used less frequently (34). However, Frisian and English were used at different rates depending on the platform. Frisian was used more often on WhatsApp and in private Facebook messages, while English was more used on Twitter and in Facebook updates (35). This seems to indicate that Frisian tends to be used more in more private, one-on-one settings, while English is used more frequently in public settings (and, again, Dutch is used far more frequently than either Frisian or English).
The language students spoke offline did appear to impact what language they chose to use online. 87% of students who spoke Frisian as their first language used it online to some extent, although even these first language speakers used Dutch as their primary language online (35). In general, the results found that the more Dutch students used in daily life, the less Frisian they used online (35).
When they did use Frisian online, most of the participants (55%) reported using phonetic spellings; 52% of participants thought writing diacritics was too much work, and 47% didn’t know where to put diacritics (37). Although social media may not be helping these students develop the writing skills to write formal Frisian, the informal standards of social media are giving these students a place to use the language, at least to an extent. The researchers found that online Frisian use was strongly influenced by the language students used with their friends, as well as their attitude toward Frisian (37). Perhaps students who use the language informally online will gain confidence in their language, develop more positive attitudes towards it, and eventually develop stronger writing skills (or motivation to develop these skills) to be able to use Frisian in more formal or academic contexts. On the other hand, the desire to communicate with a wider audience beyond their in-person friend groups may cause students to neglect Frisian in favor of Dutch or English. Only time will tell.
Slovene-English Bloggers
For communities who don’t use English as frequently in everyday life, English may still be used in online contents. In an analysis of Slovene-English blogs, one author found that English words were used to create a feeling of trendiness or prestigiousness (Šabec 10). As expected, English loanwords were also common to fill lexical gaps for subjects related to technology and the internet (5). Users can also use English alongside Slovenian for playful functions like wordplay (6). Code-switching (switching between using English or using Slovenian) happens both between sentences and within individual sentences (8).
The most interesting impact of English on these Slovenian blogs, however, might be some changes in syntax, although these changes are fairly minor. In English, if we’re using a noun to describe another noun, the describing noun comes before the described noun – ie, ‘Post-it note’, ‘water bottle’, ‘apple pie’, However, it seems that in Slovenian the describing noun is placed after the describing noun. But some of these code-mixing bloggers have been adopting the English order, especially when one of the nouns involved is an English word or loanword (9). These changes don’t impact the meaning of the sentences, as far as I can tell, but they’re certainly nonstandard.
Some of these blogs are also using expressive features that are not specifically tied to the English language. Expressive punctuation, like ellipsis and frequent/combined use of exclamation and question marks is not tied to the English language (although it could have made its way into these blogs via exposure to English-speaking users) (7).
Šabec suggests that the mixing of Slovenian and English functions “as a social marker indicating the users’ belonging to a particular online community” (9). English is both a way to appeal to a wider online audience and a way for the users to access English’s linguistic prestige (10). Users also seem to use English when they are expressing more intimate thoughts and feelings; in this case, English may allow them to maintain a sense of distance, whereas using Slovenian might feel too vulnerable (10).
English Loanwords in Indonesian Contexts
Indonesian students, like the Solvenian bloggers, use English loanwords to discuss social media and online activities. At least, that’s what researchers found when they surveyed the Facebook and Instagram activity of 336 undergraduate students (Tarihoran 60). Interestingly, the English loanwords they found were not being used to fill lexical gaps. Many of the words – friend/unfriend, follow/unfollow, friends, followers, share, tag, wall, and so on – have native Indonesian counterparts (63). And these counterparts are not obscure – after all, following, sharing, and friends are not uncommon concepts. So why were these students using English loanwords? Was it for prestige, as seemed to be a factor for the Slovenian bloggers?
Motivations for using these loanwords were varied, but one common motivation seemed to be that using these English loanwords allowed them to specifically refer to online actions (63). This might be due to the fact that, as previously noted, many popular online platforms were initially created with English interfaces. Indonesian users were likely exposed first to the English versions of these websites and apps (or at least to English users of these sites), and adopted these English loanwords as a result. Alternatively, we could argue that there is a usefulness in being able to refer specifically to online actions without having to use more words to do it. Regardless, English clearly impacts how these users discuss their online activities.
References
Crystal, David. Internet Linguistics : A Student Guide, Taylor & Francis Group, 2011. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/smith/detail.action?docID=801579.
Cunliffe, Daniel et al. “Young Bilinguals’ Language Behaviour in Social Networking Sites: The Use of Welsh on Facebook.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, vol 18, no. 3, 2013, pp. 339–361. doi.org/10.1111/jcc4.12010.
Jongbloed-Faber, Lysbeth et al. “Language use of Frisian bilingual teenagers on social media” Treballs de Sociolingüística Catalana, no. 26, 2916, pp. 27-54. doi: 10.2436/20.2504.01.107.
Šabec, Nada. “Slovene-English Netspeak: Linguistic and socio-cultural aspects.” 2009, http://oddelki. ff. uni-mb. si/filozofija/files/Festschrift/Dunjas_festschrift/sabec. pdf.
Tarihoran, N., E. Fachriyah, Tressyalina, and I. R. Sumirat. “The Impact of Social Media on the Use of Code Mixing by Generation Z”. International Journal of Interactive Mobile Technologies (iJIM), vol. 16, no. 07, Apr. 2022, pp. 54-69, doi:10.3991/ijim.v16i07.27659.