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Article published In: English World-Wide
Vol. 45:3 (2024) ► pp.311–341

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Code-switching in South Asian English CMC

ORCiD logo with link | University of Münster
 | University of Münster
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Open Access publication of this article was funded through a Transformative Agreement with University of Münster.

Published online: 18 October 2024
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https://doi.org/10.1075/eww.23068.sha
Abstract
This paper analyses the use of indigenous language elements including code-switching in two contrasting genres, i.e. group chats and Twitter memes along with tweets, in the English communication of South Asian (Bangladeshi, Indian, Pakistani, and Sri Lankan) internet users. The results from group chats show that one of the most common lexical indigenous elements are tags, for example, address forms like yaar, machan, and da which all can be translated to English as ‘dude’ or ‘buddy’. The analysis of Twitter memes along with tweets shows that despite the tweet text being in English, the South Asian users tend to employ memes with indigenous text more often as compared to English memes for political satire. Overall, the study finds that code-switching and indigenous resources are used to create a sense of localness in English communication, whether it is group chats or Twitter memes and tweets.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
    • 2.1South Asian Englishes, CMC, and multilingual practices
    • 2.2Indigenous language elements, code-switching, and CMC
    • 2.3Code-switching studies on South Asian (online) Englishes
  • 3.The use of indigenous language elements including code-switching in South Asian university-student group chats
    • 3.1A scheme for categorising indigenous language elements
    • 3.2Data
    • 3.3Analysis of indigenous language elements
      • 3.3.1Lexical I (Tags)
      • 3.3.2Lexical II (Conversational routines)
      • 3.3.3Lexical III (Lexical need)
      • 3.3.4Phrasal/clausal elements (code-switching)
    • 3.4Summary of findings
  • 4.Code-switching in South Asian Twitter memes and tweets
    • 4.1Data
    • 4.2Method
    • 4.3Code-switching in political memes
    • 4.4Summary of findings
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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