The Linguistic and Non-linguistic Features in Facebook Status Updates among Malaysian Youths: A Sociolinguistic Perspective
- December 28, 2018
- Posted by: RSIS
- Category: Language and Literature
International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume II, Issue XII, December 2018 | ISSN 2454–6186
Ying Qi Wu
Ph.D. Student, Faculty of Language and Linguistics, University of Malaya, Malaysia
Abstract: – This study aims at exploring the linguistic and non-linguistic features found in the Facebook status updates among Malaysian youths. Firstly, the prevalent features of code switching, code mixing and emoticons are identifiedand the use of them among three main races in Malaysia isalso examined. Then the main purpose of this study is to find out the functions of code switching, code mixing and emoticons. For this purpose the status updates are analyzed through Appel and Muysken’s (2006) as well as Dresner and Herring’s (2010) works as analytical frameworks in this study. The results show that code switching and code mixing are frequently used by Malaysian youths in their Facebook status updates. Code switching mainly achieves the expressive and directive functions. Code mixing mainly fulfills expressive and referential functions. In addition, the emoticons are mainly functionally used as facial expression, emotion/feelings indicators and illocutionary force indicators.
Keywords: Facebook Status Updates; Code switching; Code mixing; Emoticons; Malaysian youths
I. INTRODUCTION
Technology has been intensely developed in this era of globalization thusworldwide population regard Internet as a great necessity with the advent of it (Köbler et al., 2010). Advances in Internet technologies led to the implementation of functions generating a participative human-centric virtual environment thus loads numbers of Social Network Sites (abbreviated as SNSs) have come into existence along with the rapid growth of information technology especially Internet (Barash et al., 2010). According to Boyd and Ellison (2008), the availability of the SNSsenables individuals to create their own public or semi-public online profilesso that they keep themselves updated with the latest news on entertainment, politics, and economics. Most importantly,SNSs usersare able to keep in touch with others across the world. At present, amongst the significant and well known sites that are frequently used and also become a part of life for millions of people are Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Vine, Instagram, Facebook and to name a few (ibid: 210-211).
