Anupam Das, Indiana University, Bloomington
Choice between Global and Local Varieties: Codeswitching in Synchronous Chat
Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) can bring anonymous people together to form online communities according to their shared goals or interests. At the same time, spatially distributed non-anonymous members of ethnic or linguistic communities make use of CMC to maintain their in-group solidarity. In such cases, a group’s linguistic identity may act as a bonding factor. Some CMC research has shown that anonymity (or non-anonymity) can influence users’ linguistic as well as social behaviors (Joinson, 1998a). The current study investigates how situational and technological variables of CMC (Herring, 2004) influence bilingual/multilingual Bengalis’ choice of languages in synchronous chat—specifically, in dyadic instant messaging (IM) text interactions.
In so doing, the study primarily focuses on different types of borrowed English words that were eventually used as determining factors for categorizing different types of utterances in the IM interactions. The analytical approach was drawn from both sociolinguistics (Blom and Gumperz, 1972; Myers-Scotton, 1993a) and research on language choice in computer-mediated communication (Durhum, 2003; Paolillo, 1996, in press). IM transcripts from five dyadic conversations involving seven participants and their demographic information were analyzed for systematic patterns. All participants were bilingual in Bangla and English; five out of the seven participants were living outside the Bangla speech community. All of the dyads were friends.
The analysis indicates that most of the participants predominantly use Bangla (both in terms of number of words and utterances), yet their exposure to English considerably influences their language choice, resulting in codeswitching. The greater use of Bangla can be attributed to their daily correspondence with their family and friends and at the same time their highly positive linguistic attitudes towards Bangla. Nevertheless, it was also observed that those who attended English medium school in their early childhood and/or who are currently exposed to an English speech community use English more than the others. Additionally, English medium higher education and highly positive linguistic attitudes towards English were found to be potential predictors of codeswitching between Bangla and English. Finally, the findings appear to corroborate the constructs of technological determinism (Baumann, 1986) and media determinism (McLuhan, 1964), in that all participants used roman script to type their Bangla utterances, as Bangla Unicode was not easily available in any of the IM interfaces. In concluding, I consider the implications of situational and technological variables, including anonymity, for language choice in CMC.
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