Code-switching Patterns in Multilingual Social Media Communities: A Comparative Analysis of Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok

Abstract

This research study examines the nature of language switching among individuals across three large social media platforms, including Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. The researchers considered 600 posts by Spanish and English, Arabic and English, and Hindi and English speakers during a 6-month period. The article employed a combination of methods to verify what people use, their reason behind language switching, frequency of language switching, and what the individual platform allows that influences the language switching. The results reveal that there are distinct differences among the sites. The distribution of switching among Twitter users, Instagram users, and Tik Tok users, respectively, is more inside, between, and between sentences, in captions and hashtags, and in spoken and visual forms. The researchers applied Social Identity Theory and Communication Accommodation Theory in order to explain the observed. They discovered that language change enables individuals to express themselves, address the appropriate audience, change the topic, and adapt to the culture of every platform. The architecture of every platform, such as character constraints, the ability to include pictures and video, and the way the algorithm displays items, makes an enormous impact on the manner in which individuals alternate languages. This research aids us in appreciating the influence of technology on use of language in the Internet. It demonstrates the way individuals retain and utilize more than one language online and create digital identities. The findings are valuable to understand how to preserve language, establish online self, and design the multilingual platforms.