BILINGUAL UNDERGRADUATES' USE OF ELECTRONIC MESSAGING: A LINGUISTIC AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION
- Project Research
- 1-5 Chapters
- Qualitative
- Content
- Abstract : Available
- Table of Content: Available
- Reference Style: APA
- Recommended for : Student Researchers
- NGN 3000
INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
Around the world, practically every facet of human existence is being disrupted by the proliferation of contemporary technologies, in especially the new media with its various forms of electronic communication (Derk, Bos, & von Grumbkow, 2021). In the past ten years, significant strides have been made in the fields of science and technology, particularly in the area of technology that is dependent on microchips. Examples of this type of technology include computers, lasers, the internet, satellites, videophones, and so on. These strides have helped advance the frontiers of globalisation, which Nigeria is not isolated from (Gunraj, Drumm-Hewitt, Dashow, Upadhyay, & Klin, 2022). Even in developing countries, which are struggling with substantial language challenges as a result of socio-cultural and linguistic diversities, the impact of these new emerging technologies may be seen and is having a significant impact (Derk, Bos, & von Grumbkow, 2021). This new style of communication seems to have attracted a huge customer base consisting of younger people who are better able to adjust to new circumstances. The younger generations of today are growing up in a society that is dominated by the ever-changing dynamics of electronic messaging. This has an effect not only on their manner of communication but also on their writing, and it also makes their lives more complicated (Gunraj, Drumm-Hewitt, Dashow, Upadhyay, & Klin, 2022).
Various names have been given to the complex situation in which young people are struggling to find direction in their lives or simply to survive and improve their living conditions as well as develop and improve their identities. In this situation, the young people simply want to survive and improve their living conditions as well as develop and improve their identities (Heidari, & Alibabaee, 2022). Others prefer the terms techno-culture or techcapitalism, global media culture, or simply globalisation to refer to the dialectic process in which the global and the local exist as 'combined and mutually supporting principles.' This is referred to by some as the information age, while others prefer the terms techno-culture or techcapitalism. The concept that underpins each of these terms is that information and communications technologies are playing an increasingly significant part not only in the lives of young people but also in society as a whole (Derk, Bos, & von Grumbkow, 2021).
Therefore, the invention of electronic messaging was a response to social needs, the primary focus of which is on simple and prompt communication. Because it offers a typical method of communication, it is possibly the most popular among young people. This is the reason for this (Heidari, & Alibabaee, 2022). They have become skilled at coordinating and, more accurately, co-micromanaging interaction through the use of mobile phones and the internet. The rise of electronic mail as a distinct form of written communication; In a study with French speaking adolescents, Olga et al made the observation that "Adolescents seem to have largely appropriated these new communication tools, including electronic mail." In the study "Teens and technology," which was carried out by the New Internet and American Life Project on 1100 young people, "electronic mail ranked on top and was used by 89% of online teens" (Derk, Bos, & von Grumbkow, 2021). This can be interpreted to mean that the use of electronic messaging provides young people with a source of interaction that does not need to be supervised or moderated by adults, unlike the use of conventional landline telephones. The young people of Nigeria, as members of the international community, have helped to popularise the use of texting for social purposes, and they have developed a linguistic and manual dexterity in the composition of messages as a result of this (Derk, Bos, & von Grumbkow, 2021).
Those components of Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) text-based communication that are done through Social Network Sites (SNS) and Short Message Service (SMS) are the two aspects that the younger generation use for the goal of engaging in communication that is both speedy and simple (Gunraj, Drumm-Hewitt, Dashow, Upadhyay, & Klin, 2022).
They are able to accomplish this through the utilisation of special language characteristics that are derived from their dual linguistic inclinations (bilingualism).
Facebook, ICQ, Myspace, and Skype are all examples of social networking sites. According to Lee, C., who quotes Kats et al., Social Networking Sites (SNS) have ushered in an age of 'perpetual contact.'
While text messaging gives Nigerian teenagers the option to send and receive messages while they are on the move, social networking sites are becoming an increasingly vital communication channel that facilitate social ties among Nigerian adolescents. Awonusi argues in his paper titled "Little Englishes and the Law of Energetics," A sociolinguistic study of SMS text Messages as register and discourse in Nigerian English, that senders of text-messages face the problem of being constrained by time, money, and space. Awonusi's paper is titled "A sociolinguistic study of SMS text Messages as register and discourse in Nigerian English" (Gunraj, Drumm-Hewitt, Dashow, Upadhyay, & Klin, 2022). Text users, in response to the limitation, come up with a variety of linguistic methods to communicate in a manner that is both comprehensive and succinct, thereby relying on the law of energy efficiency (Derk, Bos, & von Grumbkow, 2021).
The incorporation of internet services into mobile phones has made it much more convenient for students to communicate via their mobile phones. Utilizing sociolinguistic theories, the purpose of this research is to investigate the linguistic characteristics of text-based computer-mediated communication among Nigerian undergraduates; the study will, among other things, investigate the degree to which undergraduates accommodate their fellow undergraduates in their SMS and Facebook communications (Gunraj, Drumm-Hewitt, Dashow, Upadhyay, & Klin, 2022). In conclusion, given that advancements in technology have made it possible for young people to text and access Facebook through their mobile phones, the mobile phone will henceforth be used in this study to refer to the two affordances of the computer-mediated modes of communication, namely: short message service (SMS) and Facebook (Derk, Bos, & von Grumbkow, 2021).
1.2STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Many of the SMS text messages are couched in racy, semi-formal or informal telegraphic styles occasioned by the constraints of time and space as well as economic (monetary) considerations. Also, the use of languages in electronic messaging is quite obscure due to the use of peculiar bilingual abbreviations, phonetic representation, clippings, alpha numerals, Nigerian English, Pidgin English and indigenous languages which could be interpreted differently. These pose a problem of misinterpretation and misunderstanding hence, there is need to study specifically the linguistic features of electronic messaging as well the ability of undergraduates to accommodate their undergraduates by their language style.
1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
This research is based on the linguistic features inherent in Facebook (a social network site) and SMS which are specific to University of Lagos undergraduates. This study sets out to undertake critical examination of the linguistic features of the two chosen modes of computer mediated communication namely; SMS and Facebook. The objectives of this study are:
(1) to classify the degree of convergence in the SMS and SNS of undergraduates;
(2) to describe how undergraduates employ code-switching to accommodate their undergraduates in SMS and SNS;
(3) to identify how native languages affect the accommodative ability of undergraduates in SMS and SNS;
(4) to point out the type of code-switching employed by undergraduates in SMS and SNS;
(5) to classify the extent to which divergence is employed in SMS and SNS;
(6) to substantiate that undergraduates employ accommodation in SMS and Facebook.
1.4SCOPE OF THE STUDY
This study will be restricted to two modes of computer mediated communication SMS and Facebook in mobile phones or computer. The restriction to the two is imperative because it has been discovered that the University of Lagos students are often involved in SMS. Also, Facebook, which students mainly access for socialization reasons, has become a substantial communication pattern among them. Ten SMS messages and ten Facebook Messages extracted randomly from undergraduates of University of Lagos will be used as data for this study. In doing this Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT) proposed by Howard Giles will be used as theoretical framework and the researcher will limit herself to the two major variables of CAT-convergence and divergence.
1.5 DEFINITION OF TERMS
To achieve the objectives of the study, we have attempted simple exposition of some relevant concepts.
1.5.1 SMS
The SMS is a contraction for Short Messages Service. It has become a very familiar and widely used form of communication. An online source revealed that “short message services (SMS), what Alabi V. rightly referred to as “the written language of GSM” (1994), is a communication protocol allowing the interchange of short text messages between mobile telephone devices”. Students make maximum use of SMS to communicate written codes from one person to another. In SMS brevity is the tool to comprehensiveness and comprehending information since it allows a limit of 160 characters per SMS.
1.5.2 SNS
The abbreviation SNS simply means Social Network Sites. It is an online service, platform, or site that focuses on building and reflecting of social networks or social relationsamong people, who, for example, share interests and/or activities and people with similar or somewhat similar interests, backgrounds and/or activities make their own communities. A social network service consists of a representation of each user (often a profile), his/her social links, and a variety of additional services. Most social network services are web-based and provide means for users to interact over the Internet, such as e-mail and instant messaging. Social networking sites allow users to share ideas, activities, events, and interests within their individual networks.
1.5.3 Facebook
Facebook is one of the many emerging social network sites which students have discovered as another means of communicating. It has been defined in different ways by different people:
Facebook is a social networking website that is operated and privately owned by facebook, inc. Since September 2006, anyone over the age of 13 with e-mail address can become a facebook user (except countries where it is banned) (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/facebook)
According to Wikipedia encyclopedia facebook has recorded “500 million active users in July 2010” (enwikipedia.org/wikilfacebook). As a social network site, facebook has “implanted a wide variety of technical features” its “backbone consists of visible profiles that display an articulated list of friends who are also users of the same system”.
1.5.4 Computer Mediated Communication
Computer mediated communication (CMC) “is human to human communication using networked computer environments to facilitate interaction”. (Pearson et al 336). CMC differs from other types of electronic communication in the sense that communication is transactional. “Both people involved in the CMC event are responsible for simultaneously sending and receiving messages.”(Pearson et al 337). However, it uses electronic channels to facilitate communication.
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