Digital Pakistan in COVID-19: rethinking language use at social media platforms

Abstract

This study aims at exploring the multilingual practices of users in digital communication. The study utilizes “translanguaging’ as a framework to analyze and unravel these multilingual practices based on four stances of translanguaging. The data for the study are gathered through an open-ended questionnaire that seeks detailed views of respondents who are active users of Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, Instagram, and other social platforms. The study includes participants from diverse sociocultural backgrounds with the ability to have knowledge of more than one language with proficiency. The results correlate with the first two points of model, i.e., translanguaging blurs the boundaries between languages to convey meanings and introduce new concepts but deviates from the last two points. It also throws light on the impact of digital communication on local languages and presents suggestions for the preservation and promotion of local languages in the digital landscape, such as the provision of accurate translations of native languages, digital dictionaries, keyboards, and software.