Language Hybridity Among Nepali Twitter Users: Trend and Possible Implications
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NELTA Language hybridity among Nepali Twitter users: Trend and possible implications Ganga Laxmi Bhandari Tribhuvan University, Nepal Abstract In Nepal, Twitter has recently been one of the fastest means of communication and information sharing app. This social networking site is used to express ideas, communicate messages, dispute opinions and expression of others and vent frustrations. What is striking is the use of hybridity or bilingualism in tweets in which Nepali and English are used freely and almost inseparably not just in chitchats but also in communicating information of public importance. Curious to see if such hybridity has the potential to contribute to changing perspectives on teaching and learning English, a brief study was undertaken in November-December 2018 as well as in June 2019. The study included selection of random tweets within the specific period of time and their analysis in terms of the currency and diversity of opinions expressed. The results show that hybridity is popular among Nepali tweeters not just in casual expressions, but also in serious communications, such as in formal complaints/notices, advertisements and commentaries on issues of public concern. The result also indicates that the ELT community cannot remain aloof of the language pattern Key words: Hybridity, Bilingual/Multilingual turn, Virtual learning, Internet linguistics Introduction taken over the physical space of social engagement, communication and critical Social networking sites, such as discussion. Among social networking Facebook and Twitter, consume much of sites, Twitter, also known as a micro- our time these days. Most of the people blogging site, allows the users to post are found busy with their mobile sets, messages and interact with other users checking messages from friends and through posts, not exceeding 280 colleagues, reading news from around characters, known as “tweets”. Invented the world and even academic materials, in March 2006 in California, USA, the such as research articles and books. Twitter is used by over 330 million These virtual networking sites have people in the world, including celebrities, religious leaders and political leaders, as Journal of NELTA, Vol 24 No. 1-2, November 2019 149 NELTA of the first quarter of 2019 (Clement broken all boundaries of geopolitics, 2019). Around 6,000 tweets are posted ideologies and cultures that used to every second and 500 million every day divide and differentiate people, and has (Cooper 2019) provided opportunities for virtual connection, interaction, information Crystal (2011, p.52) demonstrates that storage and sharing. Twitter has been the main platform to generate Internet ‘linguistics’ by As interconnectedness grows and people introducing a linguistic variety that “no start to use the space provided by the other use of language” does. Twitter Internet, they are influenced by the technology “combines identity and experiences, ideas, worldviews and message in the tweets” and “displays cultural practices of the member of the messages with the kind of internal Internet community. They go global structure” that cannot be seen in a rising above the confines of their culture, standard formulation (ibid). social worldview and even ideological orientation. The Internet has thus Curious to see more about the nature of triggered a rapid shift from ‘uni-’ to hybridity in the tweets and their possible ‘multi-’ among its users at the least and implications for English language established “superdiversity” by bringing learning and teaching, a mini research together multiple nationalities, was undertaken as a part of MPhil study ethnicities, languages, religions and so in November and December 2018 and on (Blommaert & Rampton, 2011). The followed it up in June 2019. This piece is convergence of multiplicities can be seen the outcome of the study.In this article, in personal posts, such as blogs, photos, hybridity has been defined as the posts and tweets on Facebook and mixture or mingling of English and Twitter, the most popular social media Nepali language (words) in tweets. and networking sites. These posts and expressions follow a particular style of composition and expression; thereby Background giving rise to a new branch of linguistics, which Crystal (2011) calls “Internet We are no more in a monolingual world Linguistics,” which is completely (Edwards, 2010). Today, linguistic different from standard or mainstream diversity is celebrated as “key linguistics syntactically, semantically and determinants of wealth creation, social even orthographically. transformation and human development” (UNESCO, 2015). In The Internet has now been what Ivkovic Nepal, the internet has been an engine and Lotherington (2009) call as “the to promote such diversity over a decade virtual linguistic landscape,” which now. With the onslaught of cable and operates much in the same way as in the fiber networks and the availability of physical linguistic landscape engaging mobile-based internet, people from multiple language users of multiple different parts of Nepal and different socio-economic background with walks of life are connected daily different level of technological knowhow (Neupane, 2018). The Internet has 150 Journal of NELTA, Vol 24 No. 1-2, November 2019 NELTA in constructing a language influenced by called variously as E-learning and the ideas, word views and artistic posts distance learning, is increasing day by of other language users. The Internet has, day (Parajuli 2019). thus, been a platform of ‘super-diversity’ where people of different ethnicities, Twitter has not been used as a teaching- geographies, cultures, ideologies and so learning tool in Nepal yet. However, it on interact and counteract (Vertovec is important to see how Nepali tweeters 2019).The Internet has been a super- participate in the virtual communication diverse universe in the virtual world, and whether it has any pedagogical with Twitter being as one of the virtual implications. communication tools. Nepal entered this virtual world in 1993, Objectives when the Internet was introduced as a The objective of the study was to see the joint venture of “the Royal Nepal trend and pattern of hybridity among Academy of Science and Technology Nepali tweeters and its potential (RONAST) and a private company, contribution to changing perspectives on Mercantile Office Systems (MOS)” teaching and learning English. Central to (Montgomery, 2002). Initially, the the objective was to gauge whether Internet was only for the use of hybridity was just a casual phenomenon, RONAST. A year later, in 1994, the restricted to a particular group of users Internet was available commercially. and to specific genres or themes of Now, according to Internet World Stats communications, or it was a mainstream (2019), 16 million Nepali people, 54 phenomenon to communicate issues of percent of the total population, use the everyday importance. Internet. In 2000, only 50,000 Nepali people had access to the Internet. In 19 years, the number of the users has risen Research paradigm and 324 times. The data suggest that the methodology Internet users have significantly increased over the years in Nepal. So has The study has followed the been the number of users of online interpretative/constructivist paradigm platforms, including Twitter. to analyse and interpret the data. The paradigm is chosen because of its Since the end of the 1990s, Internet was philosophical postulation that reality – also used as teaching and learning tool or truth or meaning – is constructed by in Nepal as part of online and distance individuals based on their interaction education. In 2016/2017, Nepal was one with the issue at hand (Gray 2004, p.17). of the 15 countries doing comparatively In natural sciences, reality/truth is well in E-learning, with more than 15% expected to exist ‘out there’ for a of the learning market occupied by online researcher to be discovered. In social education (Shakya, Sharma and Thapa, sciences, however, reality/truth should 2017, p. 12). Despite challenges, be explored, unpacked, constructed and attraction towards online learning, also Journal of NELTA, Vol 24 No. 1-2, November 2019 151 NELTA interpreted “through the perceptions and Data collection procedure experiences of the participants,” whether Data for this study was collected twice. it is in the physical world or in a virtual First, it was collected over a period of setting (Thanh and Thanh, 2015, p.24). seven days between 30 November and 5 To paraphrase Thanh and Thanh (2015) December 2018. Each day, roughly one in the context of the study, every tweet hour was spent to read random tweets has its essence and meaning, and it to see the currency of hybridity – or should be taken as a serious source of linguistic diversity or multilingual data. practice, which are used interchangeably in the article. Multilingual posts were The study builds on a qualitative documented through screenshot. Each research design, a design that allows the day some four to five posts were, thus, study of the “meaning of people’s lives, collected. Second, in the third week of under real-world conditions” which are June 2019, six months after the first lot free of “the confines of a laboratory or of data collection, two days were spent, any laboratory-like setting” (Yin 2011, one hour per day each evening, to review p.8). In addition, qualitative research hybrid tweets. The intention now was to “can represent the meanings given to see if the pattern of hybridity was still on, and, if it was,