A Quantitative and Qualitative Investigation of Multilingualism in

Status Updates on Facebook

A comparative study of 17- to 18-year-old Flemish adolescents with an ASO and a TSO background

Saar Himpe

2013 - 2014

University of Ghent Faculty of Arts and Philosophy

English Studies

Promotor: Prof. Dr. Stef Slembrouck

Masterproef neergelegd tot het behalen van de graad

Master of Arts in de Taal- en Letterkunde: Engels - Spaans

To my grandmothers;

Oma Maya, for being an inspiration

Oma, for your kindness and support

Acknowledgements

In a way, I knew from the moment I first set foot in De Blandijn, I would be

writing the acknowledgements for my master thesis four years later, thus finishing my

studies at the Faculty of Arts. What I could not have imagined, however, was the series

of wonderful experiences and memories I would have collected in the process. In this

regard, I want to seize the opportunity to express my gratitude towards several people.

Firstly, I would like to thank my promoter Professor Dr. Stef Slembrouck who

introduced me to Sociolinguistics, encouraged my research and allowed me to grow. I

am also very grateful towards the school board, teachers and students of De Bron Tielt,

VTI Tielt and KA Sint-Niklaas for their time and willingness to participate.

A special thanks goes out to my family without whom I would not be who I am today. I

would also like to express my deepest appreciation for my parents’ support, the

sacrifices they made on my behalf, their patience and unconditional support. I also like

to thank Sarah for offering me personal and mathematical assistance. At the end, I

would like to express my gratitude for my girlfriend Marie who always embraced and

supported my determinedness and who, together with many others, presented me with

the appropriate distractions from time to time.

Table of Contents

1 INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................... 1

2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK .................................................................... 3

2.1 MULTILINGUALISM AND CODE MIXING ............................................................ 3

2.1.1 Multilingualism ...................................................................................................... 3

2.1.2 Code Mixing .......................................................................................................... 4

2.2 SOCIAL NETWORK SITES .................................................................................. 12

2.2.1 Social Network: Definition ................................................................................... 12

2.2.2 Social Network Sites: Definition .......................................................................... 15

2.2.3 Statistics ............................................................................................................... 17

2.2.4 Communication ................................................................................................... 18

2.2.5 Previous Research ................................................................................................. 19

2.3 LANGUAGE TENDENCIES .................................................................................. 20

2.3.1 Adolescence and Identity ...................................................................................... 20

2.3.2 Digital Networked Writing .................................................................................. 22

2.3.3 English ................................................................................................................. 26

3 METHODOLOGY ........................................................................................ 29

3.1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................ 29

3.2 PARTICIPANTS ................................................................................................... 29

3.3 QUESTIONNAIRE ............................................................................................... 31

3.4 CORPUS ............................................................................................................. 32

3.4.1 Status Updates ..................................................................................................... 32

3.4.2 Content ................................................................................................................ 33

4 RESULTS & DISCUSSION ........................................................................... 36

4.1 QUESTIONNAIRE ............................................................................................... 36

4.1.1 ASO ..................................................................................................................... 36

4.1.2 TSO ..................................................................................................................... 42

4.1.3 Comparison .......................................................................................................... 47

4.2 CORPUS ............................................................................................................. 51

4.2.1 Quantitative ........................................................................................................ 51

4.2.2 Qualitative ........................................................................................................... 56

5 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................. 82

6 BIBLIOGRAPHY .......................................................................................... 84

7 APPENDIX ................................................................................................... 88

7.1 QUESTIONNAIRE ............................................................................................... 88

7.1.1 Dutch ................................................................................................................... 88

7.1.2 English ................................................................................................................. 88

7.2 RESULTS QUESTIONNAIRE ................................................................................ 90

7.2.1 ASO ..................................................................................................................... 92

7.2.2 TSO ..................................................................................................................... 96

Word count: 30.100 (including transcriptions, graphs and tables)

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1 Introduction

With an ever-expanding user-base of approximately 1.31 billion people worldwide

(Statisticbrain.com, 2014), Facebook is the most popular social network site available at this

moment in time. Everyday millions of people share their experiences, thoughts and ideas with

their network of friends, family and colleagues. Consequently, this enormous online

community results in an extensive source of linguistic data (Boyd and Ellison, 2008). More than

ever before people write themselves into being, for example, via cell phone messages, chat

services or other social media sites. Inevitably, this evolution has an impact on language

behaviour. For this reason, research into the language behaviour of Facebook users is not only

very interesting but also prolific from a linguistic perspective. Also from a sociological and

psychological point of view, social network analysis can shed light on current trends and

evolutions, e.g. regarding the creation and maintenance of social identity and social networks.

As the rise of the computer-era has increased international contact, the roles, standing

and functions of a range of languages has undergone, and is undergoing, transformations

(Baker and Jones, 1998). Parallel with this increase of transnational exchange, the usage of

English has spread rapidly via modern media. Basically the Internet’s primary service is to

connect people all over the world. Thus, the Internet indirectly promotes one language for the

efficient fulfilment of communicative purposes between users with different language

backgrounds. Conversely, this situation has triggered considerable interest by scholars in the

features of multilingualism. As Lebert (1999) remarks, “a common language is great but in no

way replaces (the) need” (13) for sustaining multilingual behaviour. In other words,

paradoxically, the Internet occasions the promotion of one language for communication, on

the one side, whereas it also seems to support the continuance and usefulness of

multilingualism on the other (Lebert, 1999). The mere existence of this paradox suggests that

language behaviour in online environments is not only a complex reality but also an interesting

topic for academic considerations. Combining this with the importance of Facebook in the

daily lives of millions of people, the topic of this dissertation is not only new but also relevant

for linguistic, sociological, psychological and pedagogical considerations.

The primary objective of this research is multilingual behaviour of Flemish 17- to 18-

year-old adolescents on Facebook. More specifically, the envisaged research tries to tackle the

quantitative and, even more importantly, the qualitative aspect of multilingualism in status

updates. This objective results in three primary questions. The first question deals with

quantity; how many status updates are posted, and how many languages are used in the process?

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From a qualitative perspective, in the tradition of Fishman (1964), an analysis of the data will

try and resolve whether there is a correlation between the topic of the status update and

language choice. Then, the third issue that is attended to concerns the opposition of the

collected data from two different spaces of practice delineated on the basis of educational

backgrounds, i.e. ASO and TSO.

In order to attain answers to these questions, two strategies are installed. Firstly, the

participants get distributed a questionnaire that is designed to gather background information

on their perception and usage of English and social network sites (SNSs). A second strategy

comprises the collection of Facebook data from the participant’s own message board, i.e. “wall”.

Then, by analysing the collected data, it will be possible to construct an insightful image of

these adolescents and their multilingual behaviour with regard to their status updates.

In this master dissertation, I will, firstly, elaborate on some relevant theoretical aspects

with respect to the envisaged research. This will be followed by a presentation of the

methodology applied during the onset and development of the study. The next chapter will

then present all the results of both the survey and the corpus accompanied by a systematic

discussion. Lastly, I will draw some conclusions and present some guidelines for further

research.

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2 Theoretical Framework

2.1 Multilingualism and Code Mixing

2.1.1 Multilingualism

Contrary to what is often believed, most of world’s citizens are bi- or multilingual (LSA,

2012), which is no different for the adolescents who in this research. In this respect, three

elements of multilingualism will shortly be presented as a means of introducing the concept in

the light of the research at hand. Firstly, bilingualism and multilingualism will defined

individually. This is then followed by the introduction of English’ status as Lingua Franca and

its relation to multilingualism.

2.1.1.1 Bilingualism or Multi l ingualism

Some scholars make a distinction between bilingualism and multilingualism by saying

that bilingualism refers to “the possession of two languages” (17), whereas multilinguals are

considered to have “varying degrees of proficiency in three, four or even more languages” (17)

(Baker and Jones, 1998). Conversely, other academics use the term bilingualism to refer to a

general concept that includes multilingualism. Nevertheless, how both concepts are exactly

defined is still a desideratum of research (Li Wei, 2007). Given the nature of the envisaged

research and its participant group, no explicit distinction between both concepts will be made.

Nevertheless, considering Flemish school regulations, which oblige the teaching of French,

German and English in secondary school, Flemish adolescents may be considered to be

multilingual speakers. On top of that, lingual capacities of Flemish adolescents are not

necessarily restricted to these three languages due to social circumstances and/or educational

preferences. Despite all other assumptions, multilingualism should not inevitably imply a full

competence in all of these different languages (Blommaert et al., 2005). In sum, it can be said

that the adolescents who participate in this research are all multilingual speakers, however, with

varying degrees of proficiency in a varying numbers of languages.

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2.1.1.2 English as a Lingua Franca

Originally the Arabic term lisan-al-farang, currently known as lingua franca, was used to

describe a kind of intermediary language used by Arabians who during their travels came into

contact with Western Europeans (House, 2003). Throughout the course of history, the

denotation of the term extended as it later on referred to a rather stable language variety

specifically used for commercial purposes with only unimportant individual variation. As

House (2003) points out, the features of today’s most renowned lingua franca English make it

instantaneously clear that the old definition no longer applies, i.e. considering that English is

largely characterized by its enormous flexibility and its applicability in a wide range of domains.

English is not only used in corporate, legislative, scientific, technological, legal and academic

domains, but most and foremost in the public domain of media. The latter includes thriving

areas such as the Internet, advertising, popular youth culture as well as entertainment (James,

2000). As well as for James’ (2000) discussion on the status of English as a European Lingua

Franca, the relevant starting line for this specific research is the “ad hoc ecologies of

spontaneously created natural conversation” (25) that do not primarily necessitate the exclusive

usage of a normative variety of English.

2.1.2 Code Mixing

In the tradition of Fishman, it has been established that a diverse range of factors

determines what language a multilingual speaker will use in a particular situation, cfrs. “who

speaks what language to whom and when?” (Fishman, 1965: 55). These factors include the

identity of the interlocutor, the topic and the setting of the conversation and the relationship

between both speech participants (Li Wei, 2007). However, seeking an explanation for

multilingual behaviour becomes even more complex when dealing with language practices in

which speakers choose to change (switch/alternate) between two different languages (codes)

within one conversational turn (Li Wei, 2007; Auer, 2013). This practice is most commonly

known as code switching, a phenomenon that has solicited considerable academic interest in

the past couple of decades. However, code switching was not always considered a scientifically

interesting topic. Whereas it was at first considered “a somewhat peculiar … act” (Luckmann

1983:97 in Auer, 2013: 1), it has now gained importance as a means for exploring some

principal linguistic topics; going from Universal Grammar to the creation and maintenance of

social identity via communicative performances (Auer, 2013).

The aspect of code switching, as mentioned above, is an indispensable part of

multilingualism as a whole. Regarding the basic procedure, some things can be said. Firstly,

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when it comes to bilingual code switching, the languages involved do not restrict themselves to

the exact same roles (Li Wei, 2007). While one language procures the grammatical framework

(base or matrix language), the other lends lexical items to fill in that specific framework (source

language) (Myers-Scotton, 1993). In this respect, not all forms of code switching can be

perceived as mere combination of two codes, but it can also be an integration of the sets of

grammatical rules of the languages involved (Li Wei, 2007). Important in this regard is what

scholars have coined bilingual competence, i.e. “the capacity to coordinate two or more languages

in accordance with the grammatical constraints of both or all languages” (Li Wei 2007: 15),

which is an important notion as it defies the traditional hypothesis that a bilingual is a blend of

two monolinguals in one (Grosjean, 1985 in Li Wei, 2007).

2.1.2.1 Typology

Although the short definition of code switching presented previously is one commonly

used to introduce people to the topic, it does not offer a thorough working definition for

scholars who dive into the matter. Therefore, the following sub-section will present some more

profound considerations in order to find a cover term which will cover the diversity of data

found in the corpus that resulted from the envisaged research.

Real life data shows that not all examples of intra-sentential code mixing show the

exact same pattern (Muysken, 1994; 2004). In fact, Muysken (1994; 2004) distinguishes three

basic sub-processes, which are “constrained by different structural conditions, and are operant

to a different extent and in different ways in specific bilingual settings” (3), consequentially

resulting in numerous possible mixed patterns (Muysken, 2004). The first sub-process is that of

insertion, i.e. when individual or combined lexical items that originate from one language are

inserted into the structure of another. This theory is associated with that of Myers-Scotton

(1993), which perceives the insertion process as one of borrowing, i.e. the foreign words or

constituents are borrowed from a source language and then inserted into the structure of the

so-called matrix language. The second process is that of alternation, associated with Poplack

(1980), which indicates that a speaker within one conversational episode alternates between the

structures of different languages. In other words, code alternation covers all instances in which

there is a definite switch from one language to another. A third process covers the act of

incorporating “material from different lexical inventories into a shared grammatical structure”

(Muysken, 2004: 3) and is, thus, called congruent lexicalization. Put differently, congruent

lexicalization can only occur in the cases where both languages have a similar grammatical

structure that will allow the embedding of lexical elements of either language.

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As Muysken differentiates between insertion and alternation, this distinction is also

seen in Auer’s work (1995), but under the opposing terms code switching and transfer

(Muytens, 2004). Other scholars have applied the term mixing to indicate intra-clausal changes,

as opposed to switching which then indicates inter-clausal variations (Muytens, 2004).

Considering all these opposing theories, it is important to delineate a theoretical frame in order

to classify the data retrieved from the participants. Henceforth, the term code mixing will be used

to refer to all types of language change, instead of the term code switching which lacks neutrality

or the term code alternation, which has a restricted scope. More specifically, regarding the cover

term code switching, Muytens (2004) points out that it is somewhat problematic for two reasons.

Firstly, the term already hints too much towards a form of alternation, which makes the term

itself less neutral. Secondly, and consequentially, the term code switching distances itself from

borrowing and insertion processes, rendering the term inadequate to cover all aspects of code

mixing. On the other hand, term code alteration is not fit either as Auer (2007) believes the

process of code alternation “is not simply the alternating use of two or more languages within

an interactional encounter, but that it is necessary that the appropriate recipients of the

resulting complex sign are in a position to interpret this juxtaposition as such” (Auer: 2007:

124). Thus Auer claims that if the juxtaposition of two different codes is not interpreted as

such, the process of alternation does not result in additional meaning. Obviously, although this

may be true, the line between what may be considered different codes can be very vague.

Consequentially, for practical reasons, this explicit distinction will not be made in the analyses

of the data. So taken all these issues into consideration, the term code mixing will hereon forth

be applied to cover the general process of two codes being used during the course of a

conversational episode.

2.1.2.2 Language Choice

In theory, every multilingual speaker has to choose the language(s) in which he wishes to

communicate. Although this may look like a straightforward selection process, reality displays a

complex web of language choices. In this respect some important theories will be introduced in

relation to the research at hand, i.e. Fishman’s “who speaks what language to whom”, Myers-

Scotton’s Markedness Model, Bell’s audience design and Auer’s conversational analytic

viewpoint.

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2.1.2.2.1 Fishman

“Who speaks what language to whom and when” is probably one of the most well-

known one-liners when it comes to the topic of code mixing. Fishman’s article of the same

name (1964) was primarily “limited to a formal consideration of several descriptive and analytic

variables which may contribute to an understanding of who speaks what language to whom and

when” (Li Wei, 2007: 89), however, in situations considered to be characterized by a general

and fairly stable level of multilingualism. Therefore, he particularly focuses on multilingual

practices within the confines of one group, rather than looking at multilingualism between

different social groups. As a consequence of this implementation of boundaries, variables such

as the proficiency of the mother tongue or other languages could be disregarded. Nevertheless,

in Fishman’s words, language choice is not “a random matter of momentary inclination”

(Fishman, 2007: 55), but there are several regulating determinants. He lists three factors that

should help clarify language choices made in individual face-to-face interactions. According to

Fishman once these individual choices are described, researchers can approach broader factors

that play on a more extensive group level or even a cultural level.

Group membership is the first factor listed by Fishman in order to explain language choice in face-

to-face encounters. Actually, there are two main ways to divide group associations, i.e.

objectively and subjectively. Firstly, groups can be factually formed on the basis of sociological

and physiological measures, such as gender, ethnicity, age, religion, etc. Secondly, and most

commonly, language choice within particular groups is based on socio-psychological criteria,

also referred to as reference group membership. More specifically, the latter implicates that a

speaker adapts his speech in order to adhere to a particular group.

The situation of the communicative act is a second explicatory factor. In order to clarify the

meaning of situation, Fishman considers the concept situational styles which implement the

following continua; intimacy versus distance, formality versus informality, solidarity versus non-

solidarity, status (or power), equality versus inequality, etc. In other words, interlocutors

perceive language varieties, and mainly in juxtaposition with other languages, to be

characterized by particular range of features. Consequentially, rendering some language

varieties more adequate and appropriate with respect to the setting.

The topic of conversation is the third and most controlling factor. The discourse subject helps

explain why two multilingual speakers would choose to converse in language A while they are

both proficient in B, or even when the situation and/or group membership would suggest an

inclination towards language B. The fact that language B facilitates or enhances an adequate

treatment of certain topics, clarifies the underlying motivation for topical guidelines. As this

8

factor is one of the most important regulators of language choice, the subject matter of each

status update is analysed throughout the research. By doing so, I am hoping to come to a better

understanding of the language choices made by the adolescent writers of the data.

2.1.2.2.2 Markedness Model (Myers-Scotton)

When trying to attain a better understanding of the social rights and obligations that

form the basis of code mixing, scholar Carol Myers-Scotton (1998) introduced the Markedness

Model (MM) of conversational code switching. Basically, the model assumes that for their own

lingual behaviour, speakers draw upon existing associations within the community. This

relation is set between a linguistic variety, on the one side, and “who speaks what language to

whom and when” (Fisher, 1965 in Myers-Scotton, 1998: 18) on the other. More specifically, her

theory is based on the assumption that when there is a connection between both social rights

and obligations and the social setting, language use in those situations is unmarked (Li Wei,

2007). In other words, when social conventions and social situations collide, changes in

language variation are not considered as deviant. Despite her theory being composed to

account for offline settings, it can also be applied to language practices in online social

networks. As communication on these sites takes place on a global network, i.e. the Internet,

dominated by the English language, the supposed right to switch to this lingua franca in this

particular environment is highly increased. In addition, and more specifically, researchers

found that the speech of Flemish youth is characterized by a fair amount of English (Kestemont

et. al, 2012; De Decker and Vandekerckhove, 2012; 2013). Taking all this into consideration,

using English could be considered less deviant language behaviour, thus suggesting that the

usage of English among Flemish adolescent Facebook users is less marked.

2.1.2.2.3 Audience Design (Bell)

Besides speakers looking at their addressees for adopting their lingual design, Allan

Bell (1984 in Myers-Scotton 1998) adds that the principal motivation for language choice is

based on the specific social group associated with the particular language variety, also known as

“audience design” (Bell 1984 in Mesthrie et al. 2012). Bell adds that topic and setting, which he

calls “nonaudience factors” (1984: 145), derive their effects via their connection to the

addressee. In a reformulation of his theory in 2001, Bell emphasized even more the need for

speakers to really position themselves relative to the associated social groups, leading to even

more complex communicative choices (Bell 2001 in Mesthrie et al. 2012). Besides audience

design, Bell (1984) also introduces the complementary concept of referee design, which

implicates a direction and style-shift not towards a particular addressee but towards an absent

9

reference group, e.g. as in mass communication. In this respect online platforms

unquestionably serve as interesting communities of practice. In theory, the construction of a

social network on Facebook does not have any geographical or national limitations, i.e. a

network can be established between Facebook users all around the world. Therefore, it is

possible that users take into account the language profiles of their friends, regardless of whether

they are considered the audience (audience design) or the referees (referee design). For example,

when a user updates his status, he might be pushed to do so in a foreign language as to reach

particular people within his network or to address an even wider range of people. However,

other incentives can also be found, such as sociological or psychological motivations (like being

trendy or cool) or even linguistic ones (as it sounds better or as to attain ironical effects).

Considering all of the above, this perfectly illustrates those so-called more complex

communicative choices that form the basis of all (online) lingual behaviour.

2.1.2.2.4 Conversation Analysis (Auer)

The Markedness Model and the concept of audience and referee design implicate that

language choices are driven by individual cognitive calculations about the potential/prospective

effects of selecting one variety over another for a specific utterance. Nevertheless the amount of

possible choices is not boundless as “the goal of speakers is to enhance rewards and minimize

costs” (19), meaning that the goal is to optimize language practices by weighing the social

benefits against the relative costs made by code mixing between language varieties. However

these aforementioned scholars have proposed some valuable and interesting ideas about the

underlying motivations for code mixing, it is doubtful that their theories will be able to cover

all instances of code mixing practices. In this respect, Auer states that there is no “algorithm

available by which participants can calculate the meaning of code switching on the basis of

markedness relations and rights-and-obligation sets” (Auer, 2003: 405), therefore partially

countering models that claim to explain every possible instance of code mixing.

As opposed to Myers-Scotton’s model, Auer departs from a conversational analytic

point of view when approaching code mixing and language choice (Li Wei, 2007). Through his

conversation analytical framework, scholars should be able to explain why interactants code

mix; either to achieve discourse objectives or to organize social relations (Li Wei, 2007). In

addition, Auer (1995) states that, regardless of the multilingual community at hand, both micro

and macro aspects of code alternation (in his definition, cfr. supra), as well as their

interdependence should be taken into consideration for analysis. Another important notion in

Auer’s academic approach is the importance of sequence, which means he attributes a lot of

value to the surrounding context in which an utterance is embedded, i.e. what precedes and

10

what follows the utterance. In the light of the research at hand, status updates have a fairly

specific standing when it comes to sequencing, i.e. status updates are intrinsically nondialogic.

On the one hand, status updates by Facebook users are actually no response to any preceding

sequence. On the other hand, although many status updates sometimes elicit a response from a

reader, this does not necessarily implicate that status update loses its monologic standing.

Consequentially, these issues make it fairly difficult to analyse status updates within a

conversational analytic framework, as the conversational aspect of SUs is dubious.

2.1.2.3 Code Mixing and Identity

“Language alternation can be void of identity-relevant meaning in some contexts, and

yet in others extremely rich in identity-work it accomplishes” (409), with these words Auer

(2003) indicates that code alternation (in his definition, cfr. supra) is a potentially powerful tool

for identity creation. One of the main dissatisfactions regarding the topic of social identity

regards variationist sociolinguistic models that correlate linguistic heterogeneity to

conventionalized social categories based on one’s ethnicity or socioeconomic position (Auer,

2003). Consequentially, Auer suggests social identity as an intermediary notion between

language and social standing for two reasons. On the one hand, speakers can engage with

particular conversational styles or language varieties in order to connect and self-identity with a

specific group. Conversely, social groups “can be regarded as constituting members’ knowledge

and perception of social structures” (Antaki and Widdicombe, 1998 in Auer, 2003: 404),

meaning that membership categories pave the way for a social stratification. Consequentially,

Auer (2003) proposes a focus “on the interactional exchanges in which a sociolinguistic style

(…) is employed to claim/ascribe membership in a particular group” (404) instead of defining a

strict correlation between social structure and particular linguistic variables. Linking this to the

research at hand, I will not pretend to expose an exhaustive list of norms and rules regarding

appropriate and acceptable language behaviour for each observed network. Nevertheless, it is

possible to deduct some non-exclusive tendencies from the naturalistic data.

The most straightforward explanation for the co-occurrence of more than one speech

variety in one conversational episode would be to consider the language capacities of

monoliguals and those of bilinguals as a Membership Categorization Device (MCD) (Auer,

2013). However, naturally, being multi- or monolingual is no exclusive requirement for

belonging to a particular social group. Consequentially, Auer argues that code mixing goes

beyond mere linguistic facts, as it also functions as a symbol for social identity. An interesting

concept in this respect, but also in the light of the research, is what Rampton (1995 in Auer,

2003) calls “crossing” (408). The latter refers to interactants who use a language that actually

11

does not belong to them. More specifically, the interactants are no legitimate members of the

latter group which actually owns the language. Linking this concept to the research, we could

state that the effects of globalisation in numerous domains of daily life have resulted in a

situation where English can, hypothetically, be found and used everywhere by everyone.

Combining this with the increasing importance of English as a communicative tool in Flemish

society, and even more in adolescent circles, this solicits some questions. One of them being;

can all usage of English by native Dutch speaker be considered an illegitimate claim?

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2.2 Social Network Sites

Throughout the course of history, communication channels have undergone a

considerable evolution. However, one of the largest impacts on the act of communicating is

probably the commercialisation of the Internet for individual and personal usage. From 2003

onwards, Social Network Sites (SNSs), which in the beginning were mainly profile-centred

(Leenes, 2010), became a flourishing business. This is nicely illustrated by the novel term

YASNS, i.e. yet another social networking service, coined by social software analyst Clay Shirky

(2003 in Boyd and Ellison, 2008). Both the intrinsic function and the global vastness of SNSs

have resulted in immense data collections of naturalistic communication and behaviour (Boyd

and Ellison, 2008). Not surprisingly, they have sparked a lot of academic interest. Bergs (2006)

adds the importance of verbal cues in the online environments, as it is the sole resource for

social identity construction. Although the latter is true for many online social networks,

communication and identity construction on Facebook is not only based on verbal cues, but

also includes other elements such as photographs, images, link, articles, videos, etc.

In this chapter, firstly, some general theoretical aspects of social networks are discussed.

This is followed by a second section on the online aspect of social networks, i.e. social network

sites. This section is followed by a presentation of some relevant statistics that hint at the

importance of SNSs today. A third section deals with identity creation on SNS, while the

following one covers some theoretical aspects of the communication on SNSs. The final

section, then, highlights some previous, relevant research on SNSs.

2.2.1 Social Network: Definition

Numerous sociological and sociolinguistic studies conclude that particular network

relations and structures may significantly influence participants’ attitudes, including their

linguistic behaviour (Bergs, 2006). American sociologist Mark Granovetter (1973; 1982 in

Bergs, 2006) was the first one to specifically distinguish strong ties from so-called weak ties in

social networks. The former features a highly transactional content, considerable regularity, and

a high level of reciprocity, whereas the latter is characterized by the opposite (Bergs, 2006).

According to Granovetter’s theory, strong ties within “dense, multiplex networks with high

transactional content” (2) cultivate and inflict uniform norms (Bergs, 2006). Loose, uniplex

networks, on the other hand, have weaker ties, and consequentially tend to be more lenient

towards deviant behaviour. Applying Granovetter’s theory to both spaces, i.e. the ASO and

TSO space, taken into consideration for this research on multilingual behaviour on Facebook

13

by Flemish adolescents, following remarks can be made. Every individual participant has his

own personalized online network with a dimension varying from 103 to 1.065 friends. Although

these numbers vary immensely, research has shown that the majority of these Facebook friends

are already acquaintances from an offline context (see Lenhart and Madden, 2007; Boyd and

Ellison, 2008). Note that it is highly likely that in the case a user has a large network with

several hundreds of friends, a lot of these ties can be considered weak (Ellison et al., 2007).

However aside from those weak ties, each Facebook user has a core, dense, multiplex online

network with strong ties between classmates, friends and family. These strong ties, as

Granovetter points out, tend to generate unified norms about adequate behaviour on SNSs (in

Bergs, 2006). Now for this research, the entire participant group is divided into two smaller

units on the basis of their educational background, i.e. ASO and TSO, so as to look for

different norm tendencies in multilingual behaviour between these two dense, multiplex

networks. Nevertheless, it is highly likely that some network ties overlap between adolescents

from different educational tracks. These overlapping relations, however, will be considered

weak ties based on the assumption that the weight of an adolescent’s online network is

generally focused on the part which coincides with the immediate offline social network (see

Lenhart and Madden, 2007; Boyd and Ellison, 2008). However, note that this is purely

hypothetical, and that the question still remains as to what different behavioural tendencies,

and more specifically (multi)lingual trends, can be distinguished between Facebook users

enrolled in different types of secondary education.

In the past most social network research was dedicated to correlative features, Watts

(1991 in Bergs 2006), however, started focussing on interactional aspects. A distinction is made

between latent network structures as opposed to emergent network structures, which both evoke

distinct consequences on an individual’s communicative performance (Bergs, 2006). The

former are network links which are factually present, however, usually dormant, e.g.

relationships to parents. Despite being latent, they do have potential power as they can easily be

activated. Emergent network ties, on the other hand, are characterised by a dynamic evolution

of interpersonal relations, which are shaped, sustained and transformed throughout every new

communicative encounter (Watts, 1991: 204). Applying Watts’ theory to any virtual, social

network, this basic distinction can be made, i.e. latent network structures exist alongside

emergent network structures, which develop when members engage in actual communication.

Members belonging to the former group are then perceived as “eavesdroppers in the technical

discourse analytic sense” (12) or as referees (cfr. referee design by Bell, 1984), but are

nevertheless indispensable from a discourse and interactional perspective (Bergs, 2006; Bell,

1984). In other words, each social network user may behave differently according to different

14

norms or one’s own volition. However, regardless of whether a participant has uploaded a lot

or few status updates, or even none at all, all information and data, or the lack thereof, will be

incorporated in the corpus, as even the absence of status updates is significant for this linguistic

research.

Looking at phenomena of solidarity and power, these specifically develop in emergent

network structures, which implies that a central and powerful participant within the network

can theoretically regulate the topic of discourse (Bergs, 2006). In the words of Watts, power is

“the potentiality the individual possesses in a social activity and social setting for relative

freedom of thought and action” (54) whose enactment leads to the construction of one’s self-

image, or what Goffman (1955) calls face (Watts, 1991). However in reality, the control of topic

and rank involves a risk, i.e. face-work may lead to positive face, but it may as well result in

negative face or even face loss. For that reason, Bergs (2006) states that in traditional networks

with face-to-face interaction, marginal participants who form bridges to other networks will

head (linguistic) innovations rather than a participant occupying an anchor position. This

contrasts with the reality of virtual environments where exactly central members initiate

innovations in discourse (cfr. 2.3) (Eckert, 2003).

Although it is important for explaining participants’ behaviour within their network,

determining the total width of a particular network is a recurring, though challenging problem

in Social Network Analysis (SNA) (Bergs, 2006). As to avoid methodological problems

including insufficient knowledge of the entire social network, Fitzmaurice (2000) introduced

the term coalitions. Coalitions equal, in the words of Bergs (2006), “dense clusters in networks

which are intentionally formed by network actors solely for particular purposes or situations,

and which may substantially influence both their members and external participants” (Bergs,

2006: 5), implying that through a great restriction of the focus, the area of observation is

reduced to a delineated environment in which it is far easier to identify how influence is

manifested (Fitzmaurice 2000; Bergs 2006). Taking a look at Facebook, at first, it is easy to

determine the total size of the network by simply looking at the number of friends. However

when looking more closely, it is not always clear how people specifically relate to one another

and what value is attributed to this specific relationship, i.e. close friends, family or

acquaintances. In theory, with full access to each profile, specific coalitions could partially be

determined by looking at private groups and instant messages. It is possible that these private

environments (i.e. tight coalitions) may trigger distinct language behaviour in comparison to

public environments (i.e. broad coalitions). However, for the research at hand, the focus is on

language behaviour in message board posts, i.e. writings which are publically accessible and

viewable by every member of the network.

15

Another indispensable factor within social network behaviour is that of intentionality

or consciousness (Bergs, 2006: 5). In her research, Fitzmaurice (2000) focuses on the conscious

properties of networking, meaning that by aiming for a specific purpose, participants can create,

shape or abandon particular relations. Unquestionably, Bergs is right to attribute considerable

value to this idea of intentionality in the conduct on SNSs. Linking this with users’ written data

on Facebook, question is to what extent these writings are a result of conscious calculation and

contemplation. Naturally, individual differences are common, however technically, a divide

between two main sources of language utterances can be distinguished regarding message board

posts, i.e. the status updates that a user makes on his own wall and the reactions posted to these

wall posts. Hypothetically, given their monologic, performative aspect, SUs may be

characterized by a higher degree of intentionality, whereas comments may have more in

common with spontaneous conversational discourse.

2.2.2 Social Network Sites: Definition

Today the Internet harbours an immensely diverse range of SNSs. Although the core

idea remains similar, every SNS offers a unique service depending on its technological

specifications, the main focus of interest, the task requirements, and its common practices.

Boyd and Ellison (2008) list three “core web-based services” (211), which constitute the very

base of every SNS. Firstly, there is the ability to “type oneself into being” (Sundén, 2003 in

Boyd and Ellison 2008: 211), i.e. to set up a unique, personal or professional profile which can

be publically accessible or semi-publically, depending on privacy settings. A second service offers

the ability to connect with other users within the system. Finally, a third core facility lets

individuals browse through their connections and those made by others on the SNS. However,

how these connections are effectively established, varies according to the objectives and features

of each individual SNS (Boyd and Ellison, 2008). At this moment of writing, not only user-

statistics (see GWI, 2014; Apestaartjaren, 2014; Statisticbrain.com, 2014) but also the stock

market indicate that Facebook is one of the best known and most actively used sites in the

world. Given that both the site and the company keep expanding its range of functions, it is

fairly difficult to delineate the features of that SNS. Nonetheless, following Boyd and Ellison’s

theory (2008), Facebook covers all three core services, in addition to the basic function of

sharing; i.e. sharing of information, photographs, images, videos, links, articles, etc.

Boyd (2008) distinguishes two types of social network sites; on the one hand, some

SNSs facilitate the connection between strangers on the basis of shared recreational interests,

political views or particular activities, whereas most SNSs actually help maintain already

16

articulated offline social relationships. The former is also known by the name of Social

Networking Site (SNnS), whereas the latter is covered by the term Social Network Site (SNS)

(Vanwynsberghe et al., 2013). Research conducted by Lenhart and Madden (2007) shows that

from all enquired adolescents approximately 91% uses these sites in order to connect with

people with whom they already have an offline relationship. Other research which specifically

concerns Facebook, also confirms this hypothesis, i.e. users’ activity on Facebook is not focused

on networking, but rather on preserving contact with people from the offline social network

(Boyd and Ellison, 2008). For this reason, the term social network site (SNS) will be used

throughout this dissertation in order refer to the specific category of sites of which Facebook is

a case in point.

As opposed to Boyd (2008), Bergs (2006) applies a wider scope and distinguishes three

different types of social networks vis-à-vis the online and offline aspects of networks. A first type

of network is a traditional one, which is purely situated in an offline context, i.e. network ties

are created and preserved through face-to-face communication. Therefore, these offline

networks are often locally situated and limited to a short-distance. Secondly, on the complete

opposite side, there exist purely online networks with no “real-life component” (Bergs, 2006: 9).

This means that participants have no offline connection or offline contact with each other.

Mostly, these network types have no local axis and expand over a medium or even long

distance. However realistically, it is possible that people within a purely online network are

geographically located proximate to one another. Finally, a third type of network is positioned

between the previous types as it is made up of both online and offline relations, meaning that

individuals within this “mixed network” (9) know each other in both contexts, though the

intensity and frequency of contact can vary noticeably (Bergs, 2006).

Currently the enormous demand for SNSs has resulted in a considerable supply of a

very diverse range of social network sites that can fulfil different needs. Popular sites such as

Reddit establish a purely online network, whereas other popular social network applications,

such as WhatsApp and Snapchat, are primarily used to maintain a mixed network. Research

mentioned previously (cfr. Lenhart and Madden, 2007) has shown that Facebook is mostly,

however not exclusively, used to keep online contact with offline acquaintances. Although

networking with foreigners may not be the core activity, results of the study imply that still 9%

of adolescent users would establish contact with strangers on the particular SNS.

Consequentially, this suggests that the network of this 9% is not an online one, not an offline

one, or not even a mixed one. For this reason, I suggest that the social networks of these people

equal a mixed network continuum. This continuum should then cover all types of ties within one

social network; purely offline ties, solely online relations or a mixture of both. Although there

17

is no information available regarding the ties between the participants and their friends, it is safe

to assume that the personal social network of each participant is a mixed network continuum.

Moreover, it is in fact not essential to know the specifics of these ties, as the focus of this

research is not personal, private communication, but status updates which are, in theory,

addressed to each member of the network.

2.2.3 Statistics

Although few people will counter the idea, concrete statistics illustrate and solidify the

prominence of SNSs in the lives of everyone who possesses enough resources. Each quarter,

GlobalWebIndex (GWI) publishes a Social Summary reporting on the latest global trends

regarding the usage of social network platforms. Data form the fourth quarter of 2013 (cfr.

graph) shows that Facebook preserves its dominant position with an active ownership of 83%,

49% active users and a visitation frequency of 56%, the latter indicating that 56% of all users

log in on Facebook more than once a day.

Source: GWI, 2014 (in %).

When considering age brackets, GWI (2014) reports that with percentages of 45, 39 and 32,

Tumblr, Instagram and YouTube respectively are the most popular social platforms among

adolescents (16 to 24 years-old). Drawing from the same age category, this groups accounts for

26% of all active Facebook user. When specifically focussing on Facebook, diagrams show that

with 29%, 25 till 34 year-olds form the largest group of active users.

In Belgium, the amount of Facebook users is estimated at 5.6 million at the moment of

writing (Facebook, 2014). In addition, Apestraartjaren (2014), a collaboration between Linc,

Mediaraven and the University of Ghent, has published their biennial research which reveals

that 9 out of 10 teenagers between the ages of 9 and 18 are actively involved on Facebook. In

comparison to their research from 2012, this is even 10% higher. Looking at the frequency of

activity, a considerable majority of 86,2% logs in daily. Although other SNSs such as YouTube

18

(62%), Instagram (30%) and Twitter (25%) are also well-known, they are far from reaching

Facebook’s popularity level (De Standaard, 20/04/2014). Overall, these numbers clearly

underline the important role Facebook plays in the lives of Flemish adolescents, which points

out the significance of academic research into this domain.

2.2.4 Communication

When it comes to communication, opinions differ as to whether online

communication truly jeopardizes personal communication. Some believe that there is a

qualitative difference between online and offline communicative relations amongst

interlocutors. However as Bergs (2006) points out, previous research has shown that highly

transactional content, including information, support and trust, can also be transmitted via

online ties. This results in a counterargument for claiming that there is a correlation between

online and offline communication, and dense network structures and loose-knit communities,

respectively (Bergs, 2006). Additionally, it has been proposed that the Internet in combination

with “other modern electronic bidirectional media” (11) has stimulated contact and

communication, consequentially increasing network sizes (Bergs, 2006). It has been argued that

messaging via mobile phones has actually increased contact between students and teachers,

children and parents (Bergs, 2006), but also couples have been said to benefit from short

messaging (Kesseler & Bergs, 2003; Döring, 2003 in Bergs 2006). Döring (2003) even argued

that online writers tend to be more loquacious and tolerant (Bergs, 2006). Consequentially, all

these studies seem to counter the common misconception regarding the negative effect of

increased online communication and its lack of added communicative value in general.

In dealing with online communication, the concept of computer-mediated communication

(CMC) is frequently used. However as mentioned previously, Facebook mainly supports the

maintenance and solidification of offline connections. Exactly for this reason, communication

on SNSs such as Facebook results in a totally different kind of discourse in comparison to

public CMC like in online newsgroups (Ellison, 2007 in Boyd and Ellison, 2008). Another

term, introduced by Ferrara, Brunner and Whittemore (1991 in Androutsopoulos, 2011) is

interactive written discourse, which clearly emphasizes the interactional aspect of digital

communicative acts. A third term, digital networked writing (DNW), most adequately describes

the particular type of discourse analysed for the envisaged research, as it “emphasizes the

dialogical and process-oriented character of written language use through technological

networks and within social networks” (see Boyd 2011 in Androutsopoulos, 2011: 145). Because

it most adequately describes the discourse examined for the envisaged research, the term DNW

19

will be used throughout this paper. In the next chapter on Language Tendencies, subsection

2.3 deals in more detail with some theoretical aspects of the influence of SNSs on the

characteristics of DNW.

2.2.5 Previous Research

Although scientific research into this domain of online social networks is a fairly recent

phenomenon, already a certain amount of studies have been conducted within the field. In this

subsection, some relevant previous research is mentioned.

Paolillo (1999) investigates the reality of language variation on the SNS Internet Relay

Chat (IRC) and finds that the embedding of a user in a particular network influences linguistic

behaviour on both a macro (Indian languages versus English) as well as a micro level

(orthographic variables and obscenity in English) (Bergs, 2006). On the basis of his data,

Paolillo identified and observed “13 (sub)groups of speaker-addressees who were in more or less

frequent contact with each other” (7) and their relation to five linguistic variables (Bergs, 2006).

Paolillo’s research concludes that communities of practices are based on formal social network

relations resulting from a certain frequency of interaction and the usage of particular linguistic

variables functioning as social symbols (Bergs, 2006). Interestingly, Paolillo finds that some

groups act as bridges between distinct networks, meaning that the presence or absence of a

particular custom varies depending on the identity of the interlocutor (Bergs, 2006).

Also in Flanders this area of research has received increasing attention the past few

years. A social-ethnic comparative study conducted by Courtois, Vanwynsberghe and Verdegem

(2013) examined whether users from different social and ethnic backgrounds have distinctive

online behaviour. Inspired by Van Dijk’s (2005) conceptual model on the digital divide, the

researchers departed from three factors as to explain online communication; i.e. distribution to

access (quality), motivational factors and skills. On top of that, the habit strength as well as the

social relations are considered as influential factors. Results from their study suggest that

students “enrolled in vocational secondary education or dropped out with a primary degree or

less” (2013: 1) have a sharing behaviour which appears more routinized and therefore less

deliberate. An additional observation made by Courtois et al. (2013) regards the very strong

effects social influence has on social media skills as well as on what is believed to be proper

conduct on these SNSs. Consequentially, they conclude that the primary stimulus for particular

online communicative behaviour is the degree of normativity regarding that particular manner

of online behaviour.

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2.3 Language tendencies

“The end of the standard language” is a widespread observation. However, Van der

Horst (2008) counters this thesis by stating that fewer changes have occurred than people tend

to believe. According to this writer, the norm has not simply vanished, but rather a range of

diverse norms with a wider spread has emerged. These various sets of norms have resulted in

more complex ways of communication which are influenced by different variables. This chapter

deals with three intertwined topics which are relevant for this research. More specifically, this

section will deal with some recent language tendencies that are noticeable worldwide, as well as

in Flanders today. Firstly, some theoretical aspects on adolescence and its influence on youth

language are mentioned in order to come to a better understanding of the language variety used

by the participating adolescents. A second section looks at the impact of social network sites,

which is a prolific source for collecting communicative output nowadays on digital networked

writing. Thirdly, the final part deals with the influence of globalization, more specifically the

impact of world’s most renowned lingua franca, English, on the language utilised by

adolescents (2.3.1) when they make use of computer-mediated technologies (2.3.2).

2.3.1 Adolescence and Identity

Solely looking at linguistic aspects is never enough to fully understand how language

change has originated. Therefore, analysts should acknowledge the role of underlying social,

psychological, political and economical change, which motivates and supports the linguistic

transformation (Eckert, 2003; Androutsopoulos, 2011). Naturally, while studying the

distinctive, creative and flexible language spoken by adolescents, the same approach should be

applied. Specifically, this suggests attention for and awareness of the sociological and the

psychological aspects of adolescence when dealing with the analysis of adolescent speech. So,

when children move into adolescence, the process involves breaking loose from parental

control, while substituting it for a peer-based social hierarchy (Eckert, 2003). This adolescent

environment is characterized by a continuous “competition for resources, recognition and

power” (Eckert, 2003: 113) between all members connected to a particular social network,

which also functions as a central community of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 2000

in Eckert, 2003). In this respect, the key role of language within the formation and

maintenance of social groups should be highlighted. More specifically, via language certain

characteristics can be established, such as knowledge or the entitlement to it (Eckert, 2008;

Hull, 2011), the delineation of what is considered normative behaviour (Eckert, 1990; 2008) or

21

sheer play (Eckert, 2008), status (Eckert, 2008; Hull, 2011) as well as cohesion and confidence

between interlocutors (Eckert, 2008). In other words, adolescents, together with their peer

group, try to position themselves in a social landscape by distinguishing themselves from others.

Hence, language also serves a crucial stylistic function as style forms not only a primary tool “for

interpreting the landscape and for defining and claiming a place in it” (113) but also a practical

recourse as it is a “visible yet inexplicit means for constructing social meaning” (Eckert, 2008:

113).

Language is a means of establishing social identity and social meaning (cfr. supra).

However, question remains as to what particular linguistic features serve this particular

purpose. Eckert (2008) points out that some social categories are directly indexed by specific

linguistic elements. Nevertheless, more frequently they indicate particular comportments

emblematic of these categories, such as toughness or intelligent supremacy (Ochs, 1991 in

Eckert, 2008). Linking this to multilingualism, this theory suggests that the direct association of

a particular language to a particular social group can motivate the language choice. However in

most cases, code mixing will occur in order to (un)consciously accomplish other effects, such as

humour, coolness, trendiness, toughness or intelligence. Others ways for speakers to make

identity claims in spoken discourse is via handling “voice quality and prosody; segmental

phonology; morphology; syntax; discourse; lexicon; and speech acts, activities and events”

(Eckert, 2008: 113), or influence their identity via extra-linguistic aspects such as clothing,

makeup, drug use, musical preferences, actions or bodily posture (Eckert, 2008). As this

research focuses on discourse situated in the online environment of a SNS, some linguistic

elements, such as voice quality and prosody, cannot be employed in this setting. Nonetheless,

digital writers do try and compensate for this shortage (cfr. 2.3.2 Digital Networked Writing).

In addition, a SNS such as Facebook offers its users additional opportunities to shape their

social identity; verbally via status updates and extra-linguistically via images, pictures and videos.

Adolescents clearly dispose over a wide range of tools, including language, to create an

identity for themselves. However, this creational process does not imply that adolescents

actively engage in the continuous invention of different ways of conveying the exact same

message (Eckert, 2008). As adolescents find themselves in a transitional phase in life, they are

simply flexible to respond to underlying changes of their life conditions and, consequently,

initiate lasting social change (Eckert, 2008). An example of a prominent change in life

conditions of Flemish adolescents is undoubtedly the growing importance of digital media, and

the intensive communicative activity that it instigates. As today’s younger generation grows up

in a world dominated by digital media, its influence on general as well as linguistic behaviour

should not be surprising (cfr. next chapter on Digital Networked Writing).

22

2.3.2 Digital Networked Writing

Digital Networked Writing (DNW) is a relatively new domain. A considerable number

of scholars (Androutsopoulos, 2011; Kestemont et al., 2012; and others) has shown that the

rise and flourishing continuation of computer-mediated communication has greatly influenced,

and is actually still influencing, language as such. In comparison to preceding forms of

(hand)written communication, these online practices distinguish themselves by their “increased

level of immediacy” (Kestemont et al., 2012: 1569). Hence, the quantity and pace of

communicative acts has increased, which helps explain why written communication has

“become increasingly casual and reminiscent of oral communication” (1569) specifically when

it comes to “surface phenomena” (1569) such as orthographic features (Kestemont et al., 2012).

For this reason, Androutsopoulos (2011) suggests that we think of DNW as a hybrid form

containing both written and spoken language features.

After conducting a quick survey among 20 peers, answers showed that 4 participants

say to use a writing style, which includes playful punctuation and is reminiscent of oral

communication in public online discourse, whereas they all use it in private online

conversations. Androutsopoulos (2011) came to a similar conclusion after a quick survey

among 20 of his students, and, like my own short examination, found that gender is no

significant factor. According to Androutsopoulos (2011), these anecdotal tests confirm the

thesis that today’s younger generation, also considered “digital natives” (145), is subject to

popularized and mediatised etiquettes of representation and stylisation. However, when

analysing language change in digital media, analysts should not solely consider linguistic

features but also how they are embedded in broader, sociolinguistic changes (cfr. supra). In

doing so, scholars should “consider written language in its own right, deconstruct the very

notion of ‘language’ into various domains of language practice, and distinguish potential

trajectories of change within online written usage” Androutsopoulos, 2011: 145). Following

these remarks, the language used in the status updates from the corpus will be considered in it’s

own right, i.e. as flexible digital networked writings located in a publically accessible space.

Personal e-mails, public chat rooms or private (instant) messages are only some

examples of the innumerable opportunities for establishing DNW. Although these different

situations may elicit different sorts of writing styles, Androutsopoulos (2007 in

Androutsopoulos, 2011) argues that four principal conditions characterize all DNW. Firstly,

prototypical digital communication occurs in a vernacular form. This means that it is

characterized by a non-institutional manner of writing as these writings exceed professional or

scholastic control. Secondly, the focus is on establishing and maintaining interpersonal

23

relations, rather than being subject-oriented. Thirdly, this type of writing is spontaneous rather

than calculated. A fourth condition is the orientation towards the maintenance of

communicative exchange through continuous dialogue and interaction. Although the listed

features broadly account for a considerable portion of all communicative acts on SNSs,

including Facebook, I do believe that some situations are not covered by these conditions.

Firstly, not every instance of DNW is an instance of written vernacular as was clear from my

own little survey. Secondly, status updates on Facebook or tweets on Twitter, for example, are

not necessarily relationship-focus, nor are they inevitable results of spontaneous outbursts.

Further, question remains whether status updates or tweets are always oriented towards the

initiation or continuation of dialogues. While these counterarguments expose the inadequacy

of Androutsopoulos’ scheme to cover all digital networked writings, including monologic

writings such as status updates, they do highlight the immense diversity of these types of

writings.

The aspect of language variation and language change with respect to online social

networks is another important issue to tackle as its process differs from those of offline social

networks. In face-to-face communication, it is commonly accepted that local norm-enforcing

mechanisms tend to originate from close-knit networks with strong relations, and features of

standard language appear to be more common in loose-knit networks (cfr. infra). However, this

theory does not seem to apply to online social networks, as the roles are completely reversed

(Bergs, 2006). In addition to this, it is important to point out the general perception of

language variation by the main participants of online social networks, which are young

speakers/writers (Bergs, 2006). Bergs (2006) argues that while in traditional SNA linguistic

innovation is often perceived as threatening to the role of the key figure in the network,

innovation is often considered a decisive advantage for the central network member in online

communication. This theory is confirmed by Der Spiegel’s (2005 in Bergs, 2006) research on

US youth culture. The study concludes that behaviour is regularly altered and innovated by

individuals with a central position in order to “stay ahead of their followers” (Der Spiegel, 2005

in Bergs, 2006: 13). So, regarding the aspects of language change on SNSs, it can be said that

change and innovation is the norm rather than the exception, and mostly for those who occupy

a key position in the network.

Despite the lack of consensus regarding a cover term, all scholars agree on the existence

of a digital (networked)/computer-mediated/Internet language. As with offline communication,

the specific features of this particular type of language vary depending on a wide range of

factors such as the interlocutors, the topic, etc. Nevertheless, digital written language also differs

from standard normative written language on several levels, such as spelling (cfr. supra) or

24

vocabulary (cfr. infra). Regarding the latter, it is noteworthy to refer to net neologisms, a term

coined by David Crystal (2004; 2011), which covers “words that have arisen directly as a result

of the Internet” (58), such as mouseclick, double-click, webonomics, and many others.

Looking at innovation in general, Androutsopoulos (2007 in Androutsopoulos, 2011)

lists orality, economy and compensation as three dimensions that initiate the main innovations on

all levels of online written language. Naturally, the concept of orality refers to the inclusion into

written speech forms of all reminiscent aspects of spoken discourse. In 1984, Naomi Baron

already identified “a general tendency for writing to become a transcription of speech” (in

Androutsopoulos, 2011: 149) when observing computer-mediated written discourse. Secondly,

linguistic economy comprises every strategy that reduces the amount of characters required for

the rendition of a particular message in order to increase the speed of the interaction, reduce

financial costs of all kinds (e.g. ink, time, etc.) or simply to avoid surpassing size constraints.

The third category of innovation, “the semiotics of compensation” (149), is a means of

compensating for the absence of extra-linguistic cues, such as prosody, facial expressions and

bodily behaviour, in digital discourse. By incorporating these compensation devices such as

smileys, abbreviations, acronyms or iteration of letters and punctuation, writers try to

compensate for this lack of these specifically offline cues. So, it is due to the willingness of

writers to represent spoken language in writings, compensate for extra-linguistic elements and

reduce the size of the message that writers will (un)consciously innovate by going beyond

normative language norms in order to achieve these objectives (Androutsopoulos, 2011). A case

in point of such innovative custom is words like l8ter, h8ter, n00b, etc., which is also known as

“leet speak” (Androutsopoulos, 2011). Urban Dictionary (2014) defines this concept as:

“Forms of writing whereby some letters in a word are replaced by a numerical

likeness or other letters that create an identical or similar sound. This style of

writing was originally in use by hackers who were attempting to bypass word-

filtering on mail servers.”

2.3.2.1 Previous Research

The evolution of digital communication and its growing importance in everyday life

has resulted in a range of theories (cfr. supra), including a variety of misconceptions and fears as

well. One of them is the supposed negative influence of new vernacular writings styles on

normative, correct writing skills. Düscheid and Wagner’s large-scale empirical study “How

youth write” (2010 in Androutsopoulos, 2011) is one of the few that has already been dedicated

to evaluating digital versus non-digital writing. Data shows that out-of-school computer-

25

mediated writings contain non-standard features; however, these features of digital networked

writing are absent in institutional written output. Conversely when a normative writing style is

encountered in an informal digital context, this does not necessarily imply standard language in

a school environment. Thus, these results counter the presupposition that digital writing

tendencies will inevitably present themselves in the production of scholastic writings, while it

confirms the occurrence of normative writings in an online context.

Also within Belgium, there has been a recent surge in the publication of research

regarding lingual behaviour on SNSs. Kestemont et al. (2012) have set up a corpus containing

1.5 million post made by Flemish users on the chat service offered by the Belgian network site

Netlog. Not surprisingly, a series of typical characteristics of Internet language (see Baron 2013,

Crystal 2011 in Kestemont, 2012) also present themselves in the Netlog Corpus. Playing with

punctuation or whitespaces, omitting words, using abbreviations as well as acronyms, and

installing great orthographic diversity (such as character flooding and uppercase characters) are

some of the features recurrently attested for in chat conversations by Flemish adolescents.

Although chat sessions on Netlog often incorporate other text genres such as commercials,

poetry, etc., these posts are categorized as “non-chat” (1570) and are therefore not included in

the discourse analysis (Kestemont et al, 2012). Note that, contrary to Kestemont et al., these so-

called non-chat-like elements are incorporated in the corpus. In my opinion, disregarding these

clearly valuable elements in short message updates would be incorrect.

26

2.3.3 English

As society is democratizing, so is standard language becoming more democratic as strict

boundaries between the standard language and the vernaculars are becoming less defined (Van

der Horst, 2008). However, at the same time, standard Dutch (Algemeen Nederlands, also AN)

leans towards other European languages because of political and economical changes, resulting

in an increased integration of foreign vocabulary. In order to come to a better understanding of

the position of English in Flanders, the general language situation should be explained. This

starts with correcting a common international misconception of the image of a perfectly

bilingual Belgium (Goethals, 1997). Officially, Belgium is not a bilingual, but a trilingual

country as Dutch, French and German are the officially recognized national languages. Daily

contact with all of these languages is not a given, so in practice, only a minority of Belgians has

mastered these languages to an extent that they are be able to communicate effortlessly in all

languages and switch fluently between them (Goethals, 1997). Consequentially, it has been

argued that, for example, French is perceived as a foreign language for a Flemish inhabitant,

although characterized by a reduced degree of “foreign-ness” in comparison to Russian, for

example (Goethals, 1997: 106). Goethals, conversely, argues that this gradation of foreign-ness

attributed to the other official languages is a topic debate worthy. Although Goethals explicitly

uses his scale of foreign-ness to explain the standing of official languages such as French and

German in Flanders, it could also be used to account for the position of English. Whereas

Goethals says that French and German, in general, have no real operative value with respect to

day-to-day encounters in the lives of Flemish interlocutors, the same cannot be said of English.

A quick look at Flemish society shows the overwhelming presence of English, which

consequently triggers the English knowledge on a daily basis. In this respect, it could be

suggested that English has a lesser degree of foreign-ness than French and German.

Not only the overall presence of English in Flemish society via media results in an

elevated standing of the language. Also the opportunities that the global economy offers, result

in a very conscious and active striving for multilingualism as it is considered a real professional

asset (Jaspers, 2009). More specifically, being proficient in different languages increases one’s

opportunities on the Flemish job market. In addition, foreign languages are considered an

important asset worthy of public praise because they are a means of compensating Dutch’

relatively little significance when it comes to the international market and global

communication (Goethals, 1997). So in this respect, it could be suggested that foreign

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languages serve a practical purpose (i.e. communication) as well as a symbolical function (i.e.

both foreign language knowledge and usage result in public praise).

As the group that is focus on consists of adolescents between the ages of 17 and 18

with different educational backgrounds, we could want to look at their levels of proficiency and

confidence in order to compare these findings with the data collected from their message

boards. However, Belgium, nor Flanders, organizes nationalized exams which would make it

easier to compare the proficiency levels of all students. Consequentially, it is fairly difficult to

estimate the average English proficiency of the students, i.e. with a nationalized grade this

would be far easier. Nevertheless, according to Goethals (1997), the average 13-year-old Flemish

student knows about 400 English words prior to being subject to formal instruction. When

looking at an older age category, i.e. 18-year-old students leaving general secondary school,

Goethals states that Flemish pupils have a competence level which ranges from pre- to post-

intermediate. When looking at the entire Flemish society, including adults, Van Oostendorp

(2012) also confirms that the average proficiency in English is fairly high. He backs this

assumption by data from the Eurobarometer that has reported on this topic on behalf of the

European Commission. These reports says that 59% of the Belgian population claims to speak

English. However, it is highly likely that this number is “substantially higher in Flanders than it

is in the French-speaking part of Belgium” (Van Oostendorp, 2012: 253), as he links the latter

to the statistics of France (26%). So overall, this suggests that, regardless of individual

differences, all adolescents that participate in this research know English to a fairly high extent.

2.3.3.1 Previous Research

Although youth language, digital networked writing and the position of English in

Flanders are discussed separately in this chapter, in reality these factors are very much

intertwined, i.e. as teenagers’ chat language is predominantly a hybrid language variety which

encloses features of standard language, intermediate language (tussentaal in Dutch) and

vernacular, but also other foreign languages such as English are used as resources for chat

language (De Decker et al., 2013). Benny De Decker and Reinhild Vandekerckhove, therefore,

take into consideration these elements in their study on the “presence of English in a written

chat corpus produced by Flemish adolescents in their late teens whose native language is (a

variety) of Dutch” (De Decker et al., 2013: 1). On a qualitative level, they analysed the

occurrence of English lexemes and word categories, and the effect this has on the target

language (Dutch) and (g)localisation processes, i.e. how loan words are integrated into the chat

language of adolescents. Quantitatively, data show the considerable degree of integration of

English into adolescent’s informal chat language.

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However, the incorporation of loan words does not solely consist of simple copy-and-

pasting (e.g. 1), as some borrowings undergo orthographic (e.g. 2), morphologic (e.g. 3) and/or

semantic transformations (e.g. 4 and 5), like in the following examples:

! nice, mail, nickname, alright, webspace, etc.

These examples illustrate that English lexemes can be preserved in their original orthography

and incorporated in Dutch writings. Note that the orthographical forms can be characterized as

non-Dutch-like.

! celfoon, homepeetsj, naaice, naais, olraaijt, leem, meelen, etc.

(De Decker et al., 2013: 21)

In some cases the original orthography is altered, which is also called loanword integration. This

happens mostly in cases were the lexemes are used more frequently. Nevertheless, De Decker et

al. claim that the original form occurs in the majority of the cases.

! botheren, commenten, backuppen, randommen, youtuben, etc.

(De Decker et al., 2013: 24)

Their investigation indicated that borrowed verbs are most commonly conjugated via the norms

of the target language. Winter-Froemel (2008 in De Decker et al., 2008) proposes whether it is

even possible to borrow and integrate a verb without morphologically subduing it to the

syntactical rules of the target language.

! (B) is er iets epic gebeurd of hebbek ni veel gemist?:P

! ‘is er iets epic gebeurd of heb ik niet veel gemist?:P’ (De Decker et al., 2013: 26)

! tejust zo nen dude da een grietje aant checken was

! ‘daarnet zo een dude die een grietje aan het checken was’ (De Decker et al., 2013: 28)

Although borrowed words mostly maintain their original meaning, the previous examples

indicate a semantic shift away from the normative definition. Note that it is possible that this

shift has already taken place in the source language, and that the Flemish adolescents have

simply taken over the slang meaning. Conclusively, their research undoubtedly exposed the

extreme diversity of Flemish chat language by teenagers.

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3 Methodology

3.1 Introduction

As the title of this dissertation suggests, the primary concern of this research is a

quantitative and qualitative investigation of 17- to 18-year-old’s multilingual behaviour in status

updates on Facebook. On top of that, the data from two different participant groups, divided

on the basis of their educational background, are juxtaposed. Consequentially, this objective

resulted in three primary questions. The first question deals with the quantity of the status

updates themselves and the language in which they are composed. A second problem that has

to be resolved, in the tradition of Fishman (1964), is whether there is a correlation between the

topic of the status update and the language choice made. Finally, the third issue concerns a

contrast between the outcomes retrieved from the two different networks, and whether there

are different tendencies noticeable between them.

Considering the openness and the limitless variability of social networks offline and

online, the academic study concerned with this domain of language practice should be as

flexible and open when dealing with theoretical assumptions as well as methodological

guidelines (Bergs, 2006). As Bergs points out, when engaging in social network analysis (SNA),

scholars should adjust all measurements and criteria that build up the social network under

scrutiny with respect to the research question at hand, as well as regional, social, or temporal

factors. So in order to resolve these issues, a multifaceted methodological strategy has to be

constructed. In this regard, the following section will detail on the methodological aspect of the

envisaged research. Firstly, the identity of the participants is presented in order to come to a

better understanding of the social networks taken into consideration for the research. A second

part deals with the questionnaire that was presented to the adolescents as a means of acquiring

additional background information. Finally, a third part deals with the textual fragments that

were taken into consideration for the analysis.

3.2 Participants

The idea is to juxtapose the data from adolescents enrolled in regular education (ASO

from hereon forth) with those enlisted in vocational education (TSO from hereon forth).

However, opposing these two groups is not meant to divide the entire participant group on the

basis of assumed intelligence, but rather on the basis of a hypothetical difference in

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(multilingual) Facebook behaviour between different networks of adolescents, in this case based

on their educational background. In order to resolve this issue, I will turn to theoretical

presuppositions and concepts detailed in the article Spaces of Multilingualism by Blommaert,

Collins and Slembrouck (2005). Although multilingualism is most commonly considered a

competence acquired individually, Blommaert et al. argue for a revision of this perception.

More specifically, they consider multilingualism as something that “the environment, as

structured determinations and interactional emergence, enables and disables”, which,

consequentially, implies the debilitation of the individual aspect of language choice

(Blommaert, 2005: 197). In this respect, they pose the basic question of how a space manages

language practices. Following their ideas on organized communicative behaviour within the

confines of spaces that generate norms and indexical meanings, the educational background of

the participants will be used as a means of delineating the space boundaries. This means that

for this research, all participants enlisted in an ASO or a TSO institution are considered to be

part of an ASO space or a TSO space, respectively.

In total, a group of 47 adolescents with different educational backgrounds participated

in this research. The first space consists out of 25 students enlisted in De Bron, an ASO school

in Tielt. The second group consists of 22 students coming from two different schools; the first

7 students are enlisted in a technical school in Tielt, namely VTI Tielt, whereas 15 others are

enrolled in the technical department of the Koninklijk Atheneum in Sint-Niklaas.

In order to gather these participants, I contacted several schools and English teachers

with the proposition of my research. A handful replied and invited me to give a short

introduction during class hours. After a five-minute outline of my research, participants could

then confirm their willingness to participate. As they signed in, they were invited to become my

Facebook friend for the duration of the research and allowed me to anonymously analyse their

status updates. This specific connection enabled me to have all the access I needed to gather the

required data. After befriending them, I also requested the participants to take a few minutes to

complete a short questionnaire (cfr. 3.3 Questionnaire and 6 Appendix).

As the research focuses on multilingualism, it is necessary to consider the lingual

competences of the participants engaged in the research. In this respect, two things can be said.

Firstly, aside from three exceptions, none of the participants shows ascribed or early bilingualism

regarding both Dutch and English i.e. the “acquisition of bilingualism early in childhood” ((Li

Wei, 2007: 511). Secondly, when it comes to instruction all participants are multilingual, i.e.

they all receive language courses in French, English and German. Some students also know

different languages via their home situation and some even learn other FLs as an

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extracurricular activity. Consequentially, the term multilingual will be used throughout this

dissertation in order to refer to the language competences of the participants.

As mentioned earlier on, Bergs (2006) points out that the considerable importance of

delineating the aspects of a social network. In this respect, regionally, clear boundaries are

difficult to draw as Facebook makes it fairly easy to expand your network on a global scale.

However, primarily social networks are centred on the place of residence; being the city one

lives in and/or the city where one attends school. Taking into account the varying places of

residence of all participants, the main location is Flanders. To make an outlining on a

sociological level is fairly difficult as this kind of information is not directly available. Also the

period in which the participants are observed is an important variable, certainly as social

network are subject to a high degree of variability over time. Therefore, a certain time

limitation has to be set that is neither too short nor too long. So, status updates were observed

over a period of three months prior to the start of the research itself. The reason for this is

simply motivated by the necessity and volition to avoid the so-called observer paradox. This

side-effect of observation surely should not be disregarded considering the likelihood and

easiness for the participants to modify their (multi)lingual behaviour. Calculated and altered

behaviour like this may result from increased fear of writing mistakes, increased awareness of

the messages emitted, etc.

3.3 Questionnaire

As mentioned previously, a questionnaire is constructed in order to gather some

clarifying background information about the perception and usage of English and Social

Network Sites (SNSs). Accordingly, the survey constitutes of ten questions that focus on the

English language, SNSs and the relation between them both.

The first half of questions broadly covered different aspects of the English language.

The first two questions are concerned with the age at which participants started learning and

using English, respectively. Answers to these questions are supposed to give more insight into

the reality of English acquisition and usage by children in Flanders. The third question deals

with the situations that evoke the usage of English. In conversations with friends and family, ‘-during

English classes, on holiday, on the Internet (Facebook, YouTube, …) and While playing online multiplayer

games are some of the listed answer. A fourth question deals with the assessment of one’s

fluency in English; answers range from yes, very fluent to not that fluent, I make a lot of mistakes.

Note that no option was incorporated among the possible answers saying my knowledge of

English is almost non-existent, simply because of the presupposition that secondary school’s final

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requirements will result in a situation where every Flemish student knows English to a certain

degree. So although every participant knows English, this particular question is incorporated in

the survey as to observe whether or not there is a relationship between fluency and usage – in

this case – on Facebook. In order to come to a better understanding of the perception of the

English language and its position in the lives of these adolescents, the final question of the first

part is formulated as follows “What do you associate the English language with? Give three

values”. By answering the fifth question, participants have to indicate which SNSs (Facebook,

Instagram, Foursquare, Twitter, Tumblr, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Reddit and others) they

frequent. Next question simply asks which languages are used on these platforms. All languages

with a particular standing in Belgium are listed, such as Dutch/Flemish, English, French and

German. In addition, adolescents have the opportunity to add other foreign languages. The

eighth question is “Why would you choose to use a foreign language?”. Provided answers where

It has a certain appeal; it is trendy or fancy, It sounds better, I can express myself/the message better in

that specific language, Others. The results from this question are meant to come to a better

understanding of why adolescents would knowingly turn to a foreign language, which may

provide clarification of the data collected for this research. The ninth question is “Are you

afraid of making language mistakes (such as spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, using wrong

vocabulary, …?)”. Answers may explain the likeliness to express oneself in a foreign language. A

supplementary question is asked concerning the language choice made prior to filling in the

questionnaire, i.e. the participants are offered two versions of the same survey; one in English

and one Dutch. In advance, it is clearly said that both questionnaires ask the exact same

questions. Furthermore, the topic and the length and duration of the survey are mentioned

beforehand, while conversely, nothing is said about the difficulty of the questions itself. Thus,

the final question regards the motivation for the language choice made by the participant. This

additional element is meant to provide further, and in this case unconscious, understanding of

the relationship between the adolescents and English.

3.4 Corpus

3.4.1 Status Updates

Language practices on Facebook are limitless; on a daily basis millions of messages and

comments are written on walls, in private groups, on pages, etc. For reasons of practicality,

privacy and academic interest, the analysed data is restricted to status updates which are

available for the entire network. As mentioned previously, the status updates incorporated in

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the corpus are all posted over a period of 3 months and 2 weeks, more specifically between

December 1, 2013 and March 15 2014.

The primary interest of this study is the multilingual aspect of message board posts

retrieved from the profiles of the adolescent participants. As was clear from the chapter on

Multilingualism and Code Mixing, scholars are sometimes very diversified in their

considerations regarding the topic. Therefore, some important remarks should be made

regarding the methodology applied in the analysis of the corpus. In 2.1, the cover term code

mixing was chosen in order to refer to the general process of two codes being used during the

course of a conversational episode. Accordingly, every status update in which two codes are

combined is classified under the cover term code mixing regardless of the mixing being a case of

borrowing, insertion or congruent lexicalization (cfr. Muytens, 2004). The reason for this is

purely practical, i.e. the main focus is to juxtapose large blocks of language variety (English,

Dutch and a code mix of both) in order to make comparison possible. Nevertheless, for further

research, it would be a very interesting addition to this research to further categorize the

collected data along the theoretical typologies defined by scholars such as Auer, Myer-Scotton

and Muytens. Lastly, I would like to add a final remark. Possibly, one could argue that the

occurrence of status updates which are entirely written in a foreign language are also a form of

code mixing, as they are actually embedded in an online social environment composed of

Dutch-speaking participants. However, in my opinion, status updates are initially characterized

by a monologic standing, meaning they are no direct reply to a previous conversational turn nor

do they necessarily trigger a reacting turn. So in this respect, the occurrence of message board

posts which are entirely written in a foreign language are not another illustration of

conversational code mixing. In addition, this decision is supported by the practical necessity to

make a distinction between English status updates and those which are characterized by

internal code mixing.

3.4.2 Content

As this research revolves around multilingualism on Facebook, question is not only

how frequently language variation occurs, but also what elements motivate language choice and

language variation. In the questionnaire, one question (Q8) specifically asks the participants to

indicate why they would opt for a different language than Dutch to express themselves on a

SNS. However, as these outcomes result from conscious contemplation regarding the subject, it

may be interesting to look at real-life data in order to come to a better understanding of the

unconscious aspect of language choice. Already in 1964, Fishman indicated three controlling

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factors that play an important role when it comes to language choice (cfr. supra). The factor

that was highlighted is the conversational topic. Following this tradition, all status updates will

be categorized on the basis of their key content. In fact, a list of eleven categories is composed

that should be able to cover the content of all status updates.

! Information, the first category, covers all SUs that have a primary incentive to inform

people from the network. This informative function ranges from describing an activity

or a picture, to communicating planned or desired activities or wanted goods.

! Question, the second category, refers to all status updates which basically formulate a

request; for example for information, a deed, an object, etc.

! The third category is that of Command, which basically covers all message board posts

that command their readers to fulfil a particular action. The difference between

questions and demands regarding the realization of a particular action may appear

vague. However, an easy way of distinguishing the two is on the basis of punctuation

and/or the usage of an imperative.

! As the name suggests, the fourth category Quote covers all status updates that are literal

citations from what others have said. In other words, this category includes quotations

made by other people (mostly famous or notorious people), lyrics from songs, verses

from a poem, or citations from a novel.

! The fifth category, Emotion, refers to all writings that mainly serve to communicate the

writers’ emotions. These include feelings of happiness, love and bliss, as well as anger,

sadness and disappointment.

! The sixth category Opinion covers all posts which express the contemplated opinion of

the writer about occurrences, people and things.

! All status updates that communicate an evaluation of some sort are labelled under the

category Evaluation. These utterances can be reflections of activities, songs, books,

videos, etc. The boundary between this category and the one before (Opinion) may

appear to be a bit blurry. However, the category Evaluation is much more linked to the

emotions of the writer himself, i.e. how the writer evaluates the things he encounters.

Whereas opinion are much less emotional, as they are rather rational contemplations

about the things the writer encounters in his life.

! The category Wisdom includes all message board posts that cover abstract knowledge or

an insight about abstract concepts such as love, friendship, religion, etc.

! Humour refers to all status updates which are supposed to be perceived as witty and/or

funny. This includes all types of jokes, such as classic jokes, memes and sarcastic

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remarks. On top of that, the category also covers all humoristic and/or strange SUs

which are clearly not written by the user himself, but by a person who has had access to

the specific profile and consequently wrote a funny message on behalf of someone else.

! With the tenth category of Direct Address (DA) all status updates are covered which are

directed at one specific person or to a particular group of people. This could be a

declaration of love, friendship or disappointment, which is specifically directed at

someone in particular. The reason for distinguishing this particular category instead of,

for example categorizing directly addressed informative status updates as Informative, is

because of its dialogic character. More specifically, directly addressed message board

posts trigger, although to a different extent, a response from the one to whom the post

is directed.

! Sound, the eleventh category, basically covers all SUs which solely consist of an

onomatopoeic representations of sound utterances, as for example laughter or sighs.

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4 Results & Discussion

4.1 Questionnaire

As mentioned in 3 Methodology, the questionnaire was constructed as a means of

acquiring additional background information for the analysis of the collected data. Questions

try to assess each participant’s usage and perception of English and Social Network Sites. This

section will firstly present the results of each individual question collected from students from

the ASO space. Secondly, the same procedure will be respected regarding the answers retrieved

from participants from TSO space. Finally, the outcomes of both groups will be compared.

4.1.1 ASO

4.1.1.1 Question 1

When asked at what age did you start learning English, the majority of the participants

(17) answer they started learning English at an age of 12-14-years-old, which is exactly according

the standard age at which schools initiate formal English instruction. 7 students, however,

indicate that they already started learning English prior to this age rank, i.e. either before being

10-years-old (2) or between the age of ten and twelve (5). One person says to have been learning

English after the age of 14. (Graph 01, 7.2 Appendix)

Considering individual differences in language acquisition (Himpe, 2013), it is not

surprising that some Flemish children have the impression they already acquired (“learned”) a

basic knowledge of the English language simply through coming into contact with the language,

for example by watching movies or listening to music. We can conclude that for this participant

group the standard age of learning English is when it becomes an obligatory course in the

regular secondary school system; nevertheless 28% says to have started learning English prior to

the formal initiation.

4.1.1.2 Question 2

As opposed to the first question, the second one asks for the age at which the

participant started actively using English. 3 students say they already started using English prior

to the age of ten, while 6 already communicated via the English language between the ages of

10 and 12. 11 students, however, says to started actively speaking English between 12- and 14-

37

years-old. Another 5 participants only started relying on English as a communicative tool

subsequent to the age of 14. (Graph 01, 7.2 Appendix)

Analysing graph 01 from the Appendix, which displays the results of Q1 and Q2, some

interesting things can be said. Firstly, there is more diffusion when it comes to usage then when

it comes to learning. This is not surprising considering that, as mentioned before, the

government regulates language learning in Flanders, whereas the necessity or volition of actual

language usage tends to be more individual. Arguably English teachers strongly push their

students to actively participate in class by speaking English, however this may be an obligatory

requirement in classes of the third grade, it is not necessarily the case in the first grade. In

relation to this, a second deduction can be made, i.e. language learning obviously does not

automatically mean that a person feels confident enough to actively use the language. This is

clearly illustrated by the fact that only one person learned English subsequent to the age of 14,

whereas five participants stated they only started using English after reaching the age of 14,

which means that four people who say to have learned the language, waited a while before

actually applying their knowledge.

4.1.1.3 Question 3

In which situations would you actively use English? Everyone, except for one student, says to

speak English during English classes. 18 participants use English when they are on holiday,

whereas 17 participants say to use it on the Internet as well. Other situations that trigger the

usage of English language occur less frequently; 8 people use English while playing online

multiplayer games and 5 people say to use it while in a conversation with friends and family.

The participants also added two occasions which trigger the use of English; i.e. reading books

and watching movies, series and television. (Graph 03, 7.2 Appendix)

These charts clearly indicate that English is an omnipresent foreign language in the

lives of Flemish adolescents. Not only in a work-related context, i.e. a school environment in

which the participation in English during English courses is more or less obligated (cfr. supra),

but also in a context of leisure (holiday) and entertainment (internet, movies, series, television, books

and games). All this might suggest that youth nowadays is very much aware of the usability of

English as a flexible communicative tool.

4.1.1.4 Question 4

Do you consider yourself fluent in English? (active knowledge). 6 participants claim to be very

fluent. A majority of 14 students says to be more or less fluent, however, admits to making

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mistakes. On the other side, 5 people consider themselves not that fluent as they still make a

lot of mistakes. (Graph 04, 7.2 Appendix)

The graph resembles a typical Gauss-curb, which may suggest that they actually assessed

themselves truthfully in comparison to the entire ASO group. On the one hand, this is

surprising as it may be suspected that they would assess their own English proficiency quite

high, for example in comparison with less proficient adults or people from other countries. On

the other hand, students’ competences are regularly measured and graded during English

classes; therefore, these students dispose over grades and in class-experiences to evaluate their

own skills, which may explain these outcomes.

4.1.1.5 Question 5

As for Q5 What do you associate the English language with? Give three values, all possible

answers are left open. This results in a list of 75 items that immediately came to the mind of

the 17- or 18-year-olds when they thought of the English language. These 75 different

associations can be reduced to eight large categories enlisted in table 01 in the Appendix. The

first and most thought of category is English as a universal language with 25 references; ranging

from “widely spoken and understood” to “important for communication and the future”.

Second is the category English as a classy and trendy language with 14 associations; meaning it is

considered a “beautiful”, “strong” and “stylistically superior language” spoken by “interesting”

as well as “young people”. Both with 13 associations, the category Entertainment (“music”,

“movies”, “series”, “books” and “football”) and Countries such as “England” and “America” are

also closely associated with the English language. 4 Money-related associations are made, such as

“business”, “economy” and “wealth”, while 5 other items indicate the association of English

with Internet and Computers. Four people said the English language is a Difficult Language, and

one person made the association with the “metro”. (Table 01, 7.2 Appendix)

This question particularly hints at what spontaneously comes to mind when these

adolescents are confronted with the concept English. Logical would be that the results reflect the

most prominent perceptions of the English language. This is actually the case, considering that

most associations are made with the universal aspect of English, as that is probably the most

prominent feature of the language. Interestingly, however, the adolescents from the ASO space

are fairly acquainted with the stylistic beauty of the language. This suggests that these

participants are very much aware of the importance of English on a metalinguistic level, i.e. its

communicative purposes, as well as the intrinsic features of the language itself.

39

4.1.1.6 Question 6

Which social platforms do you use? shows that every participant (25) is active on Facebook.

17 of them have an account on Snapchat, whereas only 7 are active on Instagram. 7

participants have a Twitter-page, and 4 use the mobile application WhatsApp. 4 people have a

profile on Tumblr, whereas 2 people frequent Reddit. Foursquare Weheartit, Tinder and

Steam only have one person in their database that participated in this study. (Table 02, 7.2

Appendix)

The results concerning Facebook users are as expected, i.e. as only active Facebook

users participate in the research. Facebook is, however remotely, followed by the social network

application Snapchat. However, apart from those two online social networks platforms, these

17- tot 18-year-olds are, generally speaking, not very active on other SNSs. Hypothetically, this

may suggest some things about the role of SNSs in the lives of these adolescents, namely that it

is mostly used as a means of keeping into contact with one another (Facebook, Snapchat and

WhatsApp) rather than exposing one’s entire life publically on the world wide web (Instagram,

Twitter, Reddit and Tumblr). Hypothetically, this could influence the linguistic and verbal

behaviour of the users on these platforms, i.e. less expository and more fixated on keeping in

touch with others.

4.1.1.7 Question 7

Which languages do you use on these platforms? is a basic, straightforward question.

Naturally all participants (25) say to use Dutch/Flemish on SNSs. A majority of 20 participants

also affirms using English, while only 3 people would use French. Solely one person claims to

use German. (Graph 05, 7.2 Appendix)

Whether or not someone considers himself fluent in English, most people (80%) claim

to use English while being online. These are considerable numbers, which have also been noted

in other research (see also Kestemont et al., 2012; De Decker & Vandekerckhove; 2013). The

frequency with which French occurs in the discourse by Flemish adolescents, on the other

hand, is extremely low considering it is the first official foreign language for Flemish people. It

could be said that the level of French proficiency is an explicatory factor, as only a small

minority of Flemish is actually bilingual (Goethals, 1997). However, as attested earlier, the lack

of fluency regarding English usage apparently does not withhold adolescents from using it on

SNSs. Another argument could simply be that adolescents do not perceive French as an

adequate, usable or trendy language to use on a global medium like the Internet, especially not

in comparison to English. The same arguments could also be said to account for the little

40

enthusiasm for German. In sum, these results underline the importance and normality of

English usage by Flemish adolescents on online social networks.

4.1.1.8 Question 8

Why would you choose to use a foreign language? 8 people would opt for a FL in order to

add a certain appeal to their message, i.e. to improve the poetic function of the message by

making it look trendy or fancy. From the results, it appears that the most common reason

(indicated by 60% of the participants) to use a FL is to make the message sound better. Another

fairly frequent motivation is because the participants (50%) believe they can express themselves

or the message better in that specific language. The participants also add some additional

motivations. First, 7 students would use a FL in order to enable communication with people

who have a different language background. One person adds that he would use a FL out of

necessity, considering the absence of an adequate Dutch equivalent. (Table 03, 7.2 Appendix)

These results suggest that there is no sole stimulus for FL usage, but that there is a wide

variety of motivations triggering FL use on SNSs. Motivations depend on the weight of the

communicative function (i.e. to communicate with others who have a different mother tongue),

the need for the expressive function (i.e. to express oneself fully) or the importance of the

poetic function (i.e. to enrich the appeal or the sound of a certain message).

4.1.1.9 Question 9

Are you afraid of making language mistaken when using a foreign language? 16 participants

confirm their fear, whereas 9 people say they are not worried about making spelling mistakes or

grammatical errors. (Graph 06, 7.2 Appendix)

The fact that almost 65% of all participants acknowledge their fear of making mistakes

is considerable. Perhaps via their educational background, these students consider mistakes as

being unacceptable, which would mean that their perception of FL use is that it should be

flawless. Question remains, however, whether or not the fear of making mistakes actually

restrings the actual usage of the language.

4.1.1.10 Question 10

As explained in 3 Methodology, the final question of the survey was a self-reflexive one

concerning the choice made between the English and the Dutch version of the questionnaire.

Results show that 4 participants completed the English version, whereas the majority (21) chose

the Dutch version. The former were encouraged by their overall preference of English to Dutch

41

(3) in combination with the eagerness to take the opportunity to learn and practice their

knowledge of English (2). The latter group opted for the Dutch version of the questionnaire for

various reasons. Most participants (13) did so because Dutch is their mother tongue, meaning it

was simply the easiest way. 4 people were additionally motivated by time, i.e. filling in a

questionnaire in your mother tongue still is the least time consuming. 7 participants were

explicitly motivated by the fear of making spelling or translation mistakes. (Table 04, 7.2

Appendix)

These results show that English is not even near substituting Dutch as a primary

language. Although this is not surprising, it does contrast with several other findings form the

questionnaire. Firstly, 80% says to use English on SNSs, which suggest that English is seen as

an accessible communicative tool; however, taking Q10 into consideration, not necessarily as a

practical tool. On top of that, 56% and 24% of all adolescents from the ASO space claim to be

more or less fluent or even really fluent in English, respectively. These charts as well suggest

that they wouldn’t have problems with filling in the questionnaire in English. So, although

these adolescents consider themselves fairly proficient in using English as a communicative

tool, this does not necessarily imply that English is also considered an accessible practical tool.

4.1.1.11 General observation

In the previous sections deductions are drawn from the outcomes of the questionnaire.

By putting all these different findings together, a more multifaceted image can be formed.

Firstly, results show dissimilarity between learning and using of English. More specifically,

learning does not automatically result in enough confidence and/or motivation to use the

language. This is also confirmed by the fact that the majority is afraid of making language

mistakes on SNSs as well as while filling in the questionnaire. In addition, a Gauss-curb

suggests that these adolescents compare their language skills with those of their peers instead of

overestimating themselves. Nevertheless, almost everyone claims to use English while being

online, and several results have also indicated that these adolescents are clearly aware of the

flexible usability of English owing to its status as a Lingua Franca. Nevertheless, these results

show that English is not even near substituting Dutch as the preferred language for the

fulfilment of practical purposes.

42

4.1.2 TSO

4.1.2.1 Question 1

At what age did you start learning English? A small majority of 8 adolescents allocate their

first learning process of English prior to the age of 10. 3 people absorbed English between the

ages of 10 and 12, whereas 4 others say to have learned English between the ages of 12 and 14.

Another 7 students, however, received education in English subsequent to the age of 14.

(Graph 07, 7.2 Appendix)

As mentioned earlier on, individual differences regarding language acquisition is an

acknowledged reality among scholars, therefore, the diversity of answers should not be

surprising. However, notable is the polarity between the two largest groups, i.e. the fact that the

graph seems to suggest that either English is learned at a very young age or the process takes

place at an older age, leaving English learning in between these age ranks rather exceptional.

This could imply that, although diffusiveness is a reality among all human beings, the gap

between these students is more clear-cut, because of greater differences regarding regularity of

language contact, individual language aptitude, etc.

4.1.2.2 Question 2

At what age did you start using English? 6 students say to have used English before being

10-years-old, while 5 adolescent did so between the ages of 10 and 12. While having an age

between 12 and 14, 7 participants started using English. 4 people, on the other hand, started

speaking English actively after the age of 14. (Graph 08, 7.2 Appendix)

As diversity is clearly noticeable in dealing with language learning, the same is clear

from the results of language use. However, when comparing the results of Q1 and Q2, it is clear

that they do not align at all. So, this simply indicates that there are two prominent ways of

looking at language learning within this group. While some equalize a learning process with

that of acquisition, others seem to differentiate between language acquisition and language

learning.

4.1.2.3 Question 3

In which situations would you actively use English? English classes (18) and holiday settings

(17) are the most common stimulants for speaking English according to these adolescents.

Another common stimulus is the Internet, a virtual environment that motivates 14 participants

43

use their knowledge of the English language. 10 students would use English while playing

online multiplayer games, whereas 5 would do so to engage in conversations with friends and

family. 1 person also adds the usage of English in writing short messages via mobile phones.

(Graph 09, 7.2 Appendix)

This graph suggests that the usage of English is not restricted to one particular setting.

On top of that, the wide range of situations in which contact with English is established

suggests that the English is used both in an active manner (speaking and writing) as in a passive

mode (listening and reading).

4.1.2.4 Question 4

Do you consider yourself fluent in English? 7 participants believe to be fluent English

speakers and writers. Most students (12), however, consider themselves more or less fluent, and

admit to making mistakes. 3 students, on the other hand, categorize themselves as being not

that fluent and, consequentially, make a lot of mistakes. (Graph 10, 7.2 Appendix)

In all, the chart seems to suggest that the average adolescent here considers himself

rather, or even very, fluent and believes to make only few mistakes. It should not be surprising

that Flemish 17- to 18-year-olds consider themselves fairly proficient, as this has also been

confirmed by previous research (see Goethals, 2007; Van Oostendorp, 2012).

4.1.2.5 Question 5

What do you associate the English language with? Overall 66 associations were made which

could be divided into seven categories. A total of 24 elements refers to the status of English as a

universal language (11) which is “important to know” (2) in order to “communicate” (4) with

others; for example on “holiday” (4), as it is a language “understood by a lot of people” (3). 15

elements link English to Entertainment, including “movies” and “series” (9), “literature”

(including poetry) (2), “music” (3) and “games” (1). 9 elements connect English to Education;

including “school” in general (7) and English as a “difficult language to learn” (2). 7 links are

made to English-speaking Countries, more specifically to the most prominent ones, i.e. “England”

(6) and “America” (1). 7 associations are made to the category Internet (2) and Computers (5). 3

links are established with Other Languages, including “Dutch” (1), “French” (1) and “Albanian”

(1). 1 relation is made between English and the category Money, more precisely to the

“economic power” associated with the Lingua Franca. (Table 05, 7.2 Appendix)

Clearly the majority of all mentioned categories are an obvious link between the

participants and the ways through which they come into contact with the English language.

44

Considering the results from Q3, showing that the participant group frequently uses English in

a wide range of activities and situations, this reality is reconfirmed by these results.

4.1.2.6 Question 6

Which social platforms do you use? 22 students are active on Facebook. The mobile

applications Snapchat and WhatsApp are each used by 10 and 9 participants, respectively.

Whereas the SNSs that focus on photography, i.e. Tumblr and Instagram, are each frequented

by 4 students, 3 students have an account on Twitter and 2 people participate on Reddit.

Foursquare, Swapchat and Tinder, on the other hand, are each used by 1 adolescent from this

group. (Table 06, 7.2 Appendix)

The number of active enrolments on other SNSs indicates that Facebook is the most

frequently used one. Only less than half the participant group also uses other social network

platforms. The fact that the majority of this group does not feel a real necessity for other kinds

of platforms may mean nothing, or it may suggest that Facebook already fulfils all their social

network-needs, i.e. as a tool for staying in contact with people and as a tool for the construction

on an online identity.

4.1.2.7 Question 7

Which languages do you use on these platforms? Logically, all adolescents (22) indicate that

they use Dutch while being online. In addition, 15 participants say they use English as well. 1

person said to use Albanian, and another also communicates in Turkish. (Graph 11, 7.2

Appendix)

The fact that almost 70% of these adolescents uses English on SNSs aligns with the

outcome of Q4, which showed that the average adolescent form the TSO space considers

himself fairly fluent in English. The absence of French or German in the discourse of Flemish

adolescents is not surprising. However, the fact that actually no one claims to use it implies how

these languages are perceived to be as unusable to fulfil discourse objectives on SNSs.

4.1.2.8 Question 8

Why would you choose to use a foreign language? The majority of the participant group (12)

would use a foreign language because the message sounds better in that particular language. 9

people feel they can express themselves more adequately in that foreign language. 6 adolescents

would opt for a foreign language because it has a certain appeal, e.g. it comes across as more

trendy or fancy. 3 people add an additional category, as they would use a foreign language for a

45

more practical reason, i.e. to communicate with people from a different language background.

Finally, 1 person, who does not use foreign languages at all, has no idea why someone would

use another language than Dutch. (Table 07, 7.2 Appendix)

These results clearly confirm that language varieties do not only serve communicative

purposes but also add symbolic value to the utterance. Given the varied spread of answers, this

suggests that this symbolic function of a particular foreign language is likely to dependent on

personal as well as network-related or societal perception.

4.1.2.9 Question 9

Are you afraid of making language mistakes when using a foreign language? To this question,

10 people answered affirmative, while 12 others stated they have no such fear. (Graph 12, 7.2

Appendix)

These outcomes correlate with those from Q4, which indicated that the average

adolescent with a TSO background considers himself a more or less fluent user of English.

However, two questions rise from these findings. Firstly, does the lack of fear for language

mistakes equal an absence of actually making any? Secondly, regarding the adolescents who do

admit their anxiety, does their fear keep them from writing in a foreign language?

4.1.2.10 Question 10

As explained previously, the participants could choose between an English and a Dutch

version of the questionnaire. After collecting the questionnaires, all, except for one, were

Dutch versions. The one person who chose the English questionnaire said there was no specific

underlying motivation; i.e. the English document simply happened to be the first he selected. 8

people who filled in the Dutch version made the same, spontaneous selection. 8 participants

were motivated by the fact that the Dutch version would be the easiest as Dutch is their mother

tongue. One person specifically wanted to avoid mistakes; whereas 5 others were afraid they

would not understand what was requested. All the others (7) claim to have made no actual

language choice, i.e. the choice for the Dutch option was purely coincidental. (Table 08, 7.2

Appendix)

Opposing these results with those from Q4 (fluency) and Q9 (mistakes), some remarks

can be made. Most participants from this group consider themselves more or less to really

fluent by making little to no mistakes; however, half of them say to be afraid of making

language errors. Then as we look at the results from the subconscious test, we see that not the

fluency and correctness but rather the fear of making mistakes, e.g. regarding spelling or

46

translation, is confirmed. This may suggest that according to some people within this group

flawlessness and fluency are two separate values, which do not necessarily go hand in hand.

4.1.2.11 General observation

In each previous section analyses are made regarding the results from the survey. By

combining all these deductions and assumptions, a multifaceted image of the adolescents from

the TSO space may be formulated. Firstly, and most strikingly, on average these adolescents

consider themselves fairly fluent in English, which partially clarifies why almost 70 % of these

adolescents uses English on SNSs. Conversely, however, less than half of the adolescents from

this group acknowledge their fear of making language mistakes. In all, this suggests that, in

general, being fluent is not directly correlated with making no mistakes. Moreover, in the same

trend, MacIntyre et al. (1997) in their study on Biases in Self-Ratings of Second Language

Proficiency: The Role of Language Anxiety observe an intercorrelation between L2 language anxiety,

perceived and actual L2 competence, i.e. looking at actual proficiency levels indicate that

anxiety leads to underestimation of one’s own competence, and vice versa. Further, the results

from the questionnaire show that the situations and motivations that trigger English

communication is highly diversified in this particular group. Also, the associations made with

English confirm the omnipresence of the language in the lives of these adolescents.

47

4.1.3 Comparison

4.1.3.1 Question 1 and Question 2

As mentioned previously, the data from both groups have shown that the adolescents

have two different ways of looking at language learning; one being via formal instruction, the

other being via informal language acquisition. Therefore, no explicit comparison will result

from the answers collected by Q1 and Q2, as these data are simply not comparable.

Nevertheless, it is clear that the majority of the adolescents has been using and learning English

for a couple of years prior to this research.

4.1.3.2 Question 3

Comparing all results from Q3 regarding situations that trigger the usage of English,

there is actually no outstanding difference between both groups. Not surprisingly, these data

indicate that, regardless of your network, lifestyle or education, the same circumstances seem to

occur which evoke the necessity to activate one’s knowledge of English. Only pupils from the

regular school (ASO) mentioned reading books and watching movies as stimulating English

practice. However, as these were not enlisted initially, it is strongly doubtful that no one has

ever seen an English movie or series, the same goes for reading English books, which are part of

an obligatory reading list set up for each English course.

4.1.3.3 Question 4

Looking at self-proclaimed fluency, a notable difference is seen between the results

from both participant groups. In short, students from the ASO space are more equally divided

to both sides than those from the TSO space. Two things may explain the fact that more TSO

students consider themselves more or less to really fluent in comparison to ASO students.

Either students enrolled in a vocational secondary school are, in reality, more fluent than the

other group, or these outcomes are a result of perception. The latter, however, enquires more

specification. Most probably, there exist different perceptions regarding L2 fluency, e.g. some

might perceive themselves as fluent whereas others believe that fluency equals a near native-like

proficiency. Question is, however, whether self-proclaimed fluency has an influence on actual

usage, e.g. here in status updates.

48

4.1.3.4 Question 5

Comparing the categories associated with the English language both similarities as

differences become apparent. Results show that both participant groups associate English with

its status as a universal language, which is not surprising given that this is probably the most

prominent characteristic of the English languages. Another correspondence between both

groups is the prevalence of the category Entertainment. As the participant group is fully

composed of adolescents, it is a mere reality that their daily environment is filled with all sorts

of English entertainment, such as movies, music, series, advertisement, games, etc. On the

other side, some differences are observable when comparing the results of both groups. A first

and most salient difference is the category Class and Trendiness to which a considerable amount

of associations were made by adolescents from the ASO space but not by those from the TSO

space. Although this is purely hypothetical, it may be suggested that the participants from the

ASO space are more inclined to make associations on a metalinguistic level, whereas the other

participants are even more inclined to make associations based on real-life connections. This is

also illustrated by the fact that slightly more TSO students associate the English language with

its difficult learning process at school.

So, as spontaneous associations are made in relation to an individual’s personality, his

interests, his upbringing, his environment, etc., it is logical that this is reflected in this

particular question. For example, the fact that some students associate English with other

languages may suggest that these adolescents are more aware of languages being communicative

devices, for example because of their social environment. Another example is the category

Money, which is not the most obvious category for nonworking adolescents. No space

generalizations can be drawn from these results because of the limited amount of collected

data, and because a lot of the associations are highly individual. However, these results seem to

suggest that ideas and interests can vary considerably in this particular age group and that this

variation does have an influence on the perception of English.

4.1.3.5 Question 6

Relatively speaking there is no substantial difference with respect to the popularity of

particular SNSs between both groups. Each participant uses Facebook (cfr. supra), which makes

it far-out the most popular SNS among all participating adolescents, consequentially confirming

previous surveys (GWI, 2014; Apestaartjaren, 2014).

49

4.1.3.6 Question 7

When it comes to language use on SNSs, both groups are more or less equally inclined

to use English alongside Dutch (ASO: 80%; TSO: 70%). The only difference between both

groups relates to a minority of participants. Three students from the first group say to use

French on Facebook, while one student would use German. In the second group, one person

uses Albanian, whereas another student would write in Turkish on the SNSs. These specific

results cannot possibly lead to group generalizations, however, some propositions can be made

which further research could resolve. Firstly, communicating in English on SNSs seems to be a

rule rather than an exception. Secondly, although governmental school policies order all ASO

and TSO students to receive instruction in all of Belgium’s official languages, this proficiency is

not reflected in the FL use of this age group on SNSs. Confidence and/or affection towards

foreign languages may explain these exceptions. Then, looking at these other languages such as

Turkish or Albanian, usage will probably be explained by the immediate environment of a

person, i.e. family and/or close friends. In sum, both English and Dutch are the main

languages considered adequate by 17- to 18-year-olds to use for online communication.

4.1.3.7 Question 8

Comparing the collected answers of both groups, the division regarding motivations

for foreign language use is quite similar. Overall the leading motivation appears to be the fact

that a particular foreign language makes the message sound better. Another considerable

stimulus for using a foreign language is for its enhanced expressive quality. A lot of participants,

regardless of their educational background, also seem to attribute additional qualities such as

trendiness to a message written in a particular FL. Further, participants have also added the

usage of English as a means of communicating with people who have a different mother

tongue. In sum, both groups are very aware of the additional side effects that using a FL have.

4.1.3.8 Question 9

Interestingly approximately 6 out of 10 ASO students says to be afraid of making

language mistakes while using English, whereas only 5 out of 10 TSO students says to

experience this fear. Some suggestions are made in order to explain this distinction. Firstly,

TSO students may simply make fewer mistakes and are therefore more confident. A second

explanation could be that through their educational background ASO students are more

inclined to have a zero-tolerance towards writing errors and are therefore more appalling

50

towards them. A third clarification, and most probably the strongest one, is that the absence

language anxiety leads to overestimation of one’s actual language capacities, and vice versa (cfr.

infra; MacIntyre, 1997). Question remains, however, whether this fear has an influence on

actual behaviour. Is fear a reason to withhold oneself of writing in a FL or does it only

encourage someone to overlook his message before posting it.

4.1.3.9 Question 10

Clearly both groups, 84% and 95%, respectively, have a clear preference for using their

mother tongue because it is easier and quicker, and it eliminates the possibility of making

writing or translation mistakes. However, note that only in the first group there are four

participants who consciously selected the English version. So although all these results suggest

that English is an adequate tool for communication within the frame of SNSs, the final

question indicates that inside a practical frame (questionnaire), Dutch is indisputably the

primary language.

4.1.3.10 General observation

Juxtaposing the results from both groups has exposed some similarities as well as some

differences. Firstly, both groups are very aware of the additional side effects that using a FL has.

This helps explain why all adolescents perceive English, alongside Dutch, as an adequate

language for an online frame. Nevertheless, results have suggested that English is perceived

differently by both groups, i.e. participants from the ASO space are more inclined to make

associations on a metalinguistic level, whereas the other participants are even more inclined to

make associations based on real-life situations. Another contrast between both groups regards

fluency and anxiety for language errors. In this respect, MacIntyre’s (1997) research on language

anxiety may explain why, on average, adolescents from the TSO space claim to be fluent and

less concerned about making mistakes and as opposed to adolescents from the ASO space who

claim to be less fluent and more anxious. More specifically, contrasting perceived L2

competence with actual L2 competence showed that frightful students tended to underestimate

their own competences, whereas less worried students overestimated themselves. In addition, it

could be proposed that through education, some students add more value to flawlessness than

others, i.e. zero-tolerance towards mistakes triggers anxiety. Whereas, it also possible that

through personal vision, some individuals believe there is a stronger correlation between

fluency and making mistakes, e.g. some may believe that you can still be fluent whilst making

mistakes.

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4.2 Corpus

This second chapter deals with the analyses of the status updates retrieved from the

Facebook walls of each participant. Firstly, two sub-sections deal with the data collected from

the ASO space and the TSO space. For each domain, there is the quantitative analysis of the

status updates in the corpus, i.e. how much status updates are posted and in which language

variety. The second section deals with the qualitative analysis of these status updates, more

specifically regarding the content of the status updates written in English, Dutch and in a mix

of English and Dutch. Further, all the results from each individual space will be contrasted and

discussed.

4.2.1 Quantitative

4.2.1.1 ASO

In total 25 students from the ASO space have posted 65 status updates in 6 different

language variations, i.e. Dutch (31), English (14), mix of English and Dutch (17), French (1),

mix of Dutch and Japanese (1) and a mix of Dutch, English and Japanese (1). Pie chart 01

visualises this particular division of the language varieties used in all status updates from this

group. Approximately half of the SUs from this group are written entirely in Dutch, whereas

about 20% is entirely written in English. Roughly a quarter of the SUs consists of a code mix

between Dutch and English. Then, roughly 5% of the collected data are composed in other

language varieties, i.e. such as French (1.5%), a code-mix between Dutch and Japanese (1.5%)

or a code-mix between Dutch, English and Japanese (1.5%).

Pie chart 01: The division of SUs per language variety for the participants from the ASO space (in %).

47,69

21,54

26,15

1,54 1,54 1,54

Dutch

English

Code mixing: Dutch-English

French

Code mixing: Dutch - Japanese

Code mixing: Dutch - Japanse - English

52

These results simply suggest that Dutch is the preferred language for status updates,

which is not surprising considering that Dutch is the mother tongue of all these adolescents.

When we look at the position of English, however, we see that it occurs rather frequently as

well, i.e. in 21% of the cases it covers the entire status update, but it even accompanies Dutch

in 26% of the status updates. Considering that each individual has with his own capacities and

interests, it is expected that language practices will reflect that, e.g. the occurrence of Japanese is

closely linked to the popularity of anime. However, note that these results are only based on a

small group of 25 participants within one specific network, so it is likely that a larger

participant group will result in an even more diversified spectrum of language varieties.

Linking these charts to the findings of Q7, no outstanding contrasts are found, as i.e.

everyone said to use Dutch, 80% claimed to use English, while only three people claimed to use

other languages such as French or German. However, note that the other 20% who did not

indicate English may not have explicitly thought of using English via the borrowing of specific

(loan) words or particular expressions. Although these English utterances may be typical for the

speech of Flemish adolescents, they, nevertheless, belong to the English language.

Consequently, this can possibly suggest that (un)consciously, or even (un)willingly, every

adolescent inevitably uses English, either in its full form or as a part of code mixing practices.

Further research into this matter, via deep interviews or specific questionnaires, may shed more

light on the question; too what extent are adolescents aware of the fact that they are code

mixing?

4.2.1.2 TSO

All together, 22 participants belonging to the TSO space uploaded 472 status updates

over a period of three and a half months. To write all these posts, 8 different language varieties

are used, as visualised in pie chart 02. Mainly Dutch (180), English (194) and a code mix of

both (78) are used to compose these status updates. A minority of message board posts are

written in a code mix between Dutch and French (4), German (1), Spanish (1), Turkish and

Algerian (10). On top of that, some SUs solely consist of smileys and/or punctuation (4).

53

Pie chart 02: The division of status updates per language variety for the participants from the regular

education-space (in %).

By comparing these outcomes with the findings from the questionnaire, i.e. results

from contemplated language behaviour, some remarks can be made. Firstly, English status

updates occur slightly more frequently in the corpus than ones written entirely in Dutch, which

is a bit strange considering the latter is the mother tongue of all participants and would,

therefore, be expected to occur more frequently. On top of that, the answers received from Q10

show that 84% chose the Dutch version as “Dutch is still (their) mother tongue” and is,

consequentially, “easier”. Further, when answering Q5, several associations indicated that some

consider English to be a difficult language, which again contrasts with the overwhelming usage

of this “difficult” language in out-of-school-activity.

Although they account for a fairly small amount of the entire corpus, some status

updates are written in another foreign language than English. From Q7, two people said to use

Turkish or Algerian, which is probably one of the languages they use to communicate with

friends and family. Further, no participant claimed to use German, French or Spanish on

SNSs. Conversely, the corpus does comprise a few statuses written in one of these languages.

However, as these do not occur very frequently, this suggests that using these foreign languages

is rather exceptional. Subsequently, this would explain why some participants did not mention

these languages while completing the questionnaire; i.e. either some participants are not fully

aware of their own rare language behaviour or they consider it too trifle to even mention it.

Lastly, no one indicated the use of smileys or characters, which is not at all surprising, as it is

not a language variety as such. Nevertheless to cover all status updates, this category was added.

38,14

41,1

16,53

0,85 0,21

0,21 2,12 0,85 Dutch

English

Code mixing: Dutch-English

Code mixing: Dutch - French

German

Spanish

Turkish/Algeranian

Only smileys/characters

54

4.2.1.3 Comparison

As mentioned in the previous sections, the total amount of SUs for each space is 65

and 472, respectively. However, as the ASO group consists of 25 adolescents and the TSO

group includes 22 adolescents, the average amount of SUs per group is presented in order to

enable a comparison. With roughly 21 SUs to 3, the participants with a TSO background are

indisputably more regular posters. These results clearly suggest that writing SUs can be

considered normative behaviour for the students from the TSO space, whereas this is not

particularly the case for the adolescents from the other group. In addition, this obvious

difference regarding frequency may suggest that sharing behaviour is more or less space-

dependent. The assumption that students enrolled in vocational secondary schools show a

routinized sharing behaviour confirms the conclusions made by Courtois et al. (2013).

ASO TSO

Status

Updates/adolescent 2.60 21.45

Total amount of status

updates 65 472

Table 09: Status updates posted in three months time by the adolescents belonging

to the ASO space and TSO space, respectively.

Graph 12 shows the amount of Dutch, English and code mixed SUs found in the

corpus per participant group. Both groups are equally inclined to write SUs solely in Dutch.

However, the difference between both groups is found regarding the utility of English as

opposed to code mixing. Whereas the adolescents from the first group tend to use code mixing

slightly more as opposed to solely English, the adolescents from the second group clearly prefer

English. Firstly, as it is the mother tongue of each of the participants, it is not surprising that

solely Dutch is used to compose almost 50% of all writings. The fact that English is also

overwhelmingly used in order to compose an entire status update by the TSO group may

suggest two things. On the one hand, choosing English for the composition of SUs is

considered a normative language choice for adolescents belonging to this space. In addition, it

can also be proposed that the symbolic value of English is much more exploited by the second

group.

55

Graph 12: Percentage of language varieties encountered in the corpus per group (in %).

In sum, this comparison suggests that there are broadly two different normative

outlines linked to each space. On the one side, almost paradoxically, the absence of sharing is

considered normative sharing behaviour for the adolescents form the ASO space. On the

opposite side, the adolescents with a TSO background show much more routinized sharing

behaviour and seem to equally perceive the usage of either Dutch or English in SUs as

standardized writing patters.

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

ASO TSO

Code mixing Dutch - English

English

Dutch

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4.2.2 Qualitative

In order to come to a better understanding of the quantitative results displayed in the

previous section, this section will offer insight into the qualitative aspect of the status updates

written by the adolescents from the ASO space as clarified in 3 Methodology. The focus will

only be on the message board posts written in English, Dutch or in a code mix of English and

Dutch, as the posts in other language varieties are simply too scarce.

4.2.2.1 ASO

4.2.2.1.1 ENGLISH

Together all participants belonging to the ASO space posted 14 status updates entirely

composed in English. Half of these posts (7) are informative, meaning their primary function is

to transfer information from the writer towards his entire network. 2 updates are literal

quotations, 2 pots are expressions of the writers emotions, whereas 2 others express an

evaluation of some sort. From the 14 English status updates, 1 is a command directed at the

entire network.

Graph 13: Division of English status updates on the basis of content. Data produced by adolescents from

the ASO space.

As for the small amount of data, making generalizations about the division of content

is not appropriate. In order to do so, a much larger corpus, i.e. over a larger period of time or

with more participants, should be consulted. However, it may be proposed that conveying

information is one of the primary functions of English status updates written by participants

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

7

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1

2 2

0

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who are situated the ASO space. An elaboration of the other categories will be provided in

section 4.2.2.1.4 Comparison.

4.2.2.1.2 DUTCH

Together, all 25 participants located in the ASO space updated their status 31 times

during the whole period of observation. From all posts, the majority (21) have an informative

aim. Others serve a humoristic purpose (4), or pose a question (3). There is also a Dutch status

update which expresses a command (1), one other post verbalizes the writers opinion (1), and

another consists solely of an onomatopoeic representation of sound (1).

Graph 14: Division of Dutch status updates on the basis of content. Data produced by adolescents from

the ASO space.

As was the case with the English status updates, again the amount of data makes it

almost impossible to deduct general tendencies. However, noteworthy is the fact that 68% of all

Dutch status updates is dedicated to offering information, which is far-out the primary function

of all these Dutch posts. The other categories will be clarified into much more detail in section

4.2.2.1.4 Comparison.

0

5

10

15

20

25 21

3 1 0 0 1 0 0

4

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4.2.2.1.3 CODE MIXING

Everything combined, 28 adolescents of the ASO space produced 17 status updates.

Slightly more than half of the shared status updates (9) has to inform the friends from the social

network. Personal feelings are the main content of 4 status updates. The opinion of the writer

is conveyed in 2 posts, whereas 2 other statuses are directly addressed at a specific person or

group.

Graph 15: Division of status updates written in a mix of Dutch and English on the basis of content. Data

produced by adolescents from the ASO space.

As was the case with the previous two language varieties, when it comes to code mixed

status updates, the category Information is the principal one (i.e. 53%). Section 4.2.2.1.4

Comparison will offer an elaboration on the other categories. However, unfortunately, again

the small amount of data withholds us from deducting general tendencies.

4.2.2.1.4 COMPARISON

In this sub-section two graphs will be proposed to enable a comparison and facilitate

the visualisation of the qualitative findings revealed in the three previous sub-sections. The first

chart, graph 16, puts together all the results concerning status updates written in English,

Dutch or in a combination of both, whereas graph 17 is a 100% staked graph which displays

the likelihood for a certain category to be written in either one of these language varieties.

Graph 16 shows the division of all 65 status updates written by the participants form

the ASO domain. This loaded graph assists in making some general observations about the

sharing practices regarding message board updates. Firstly, the bars as well as the table

underneath confirm the importance of the informative function (61%). Unquestionably in

0

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4

6

8

10 9

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4

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comparison with other categories, this appears to be a primary commitment. Although the

limited amount of data prevents us from making stable generalizations, it may be suggested that

the informative function appears to be the main function for status updates written by

adolescent Facebook users situated in the ASO space, whereas the divisiveness of the other

categories suggests there is no actual preference there.

Graph 16: Qualitative evaluation of the content of status updates collected from the ASO space (in

absolute numbers).

Although the amount of Dutch, English and Dutch-English status updates differ from

one another, graph 17 should facilitate comparing these language varieties per category.

Graph 17: Qualitative evaluation of content: a comparison between English, Dutch and Dutch-English

status updates retrieved from the ASO space (in %).

Info. Quest. Comm. Quot. Emo. Opin. Eval. Wisd. Hum. D. A. Sound

Code mixing 9 0 0 0 4 2 0 0 0 2 0

Dutch 21 3 1 0 0 1 0 0 4 0 1

English 7 0 1 2 2 0 2 0 0 0 0

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35

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Code mixing

Dutch

English

60

The first bar, which represents the category Information, suggests that if an adolescent writes

an informative status update, roughly more than half of these writings will be in Dutch, like in

the following examples;

! “6EMT #100DAGEN (+ Picture)” (ASO space, 15/03/14)

! “tandjes! (+ Life event: had braces removed)” (ASO space, 20/01/14)

These status updates clearly have no other purpose than to inform the network about a

particular photograph, or a life event. However, not only Dutch is used to transmit

information, i.e. judging from the graph about 19% of the informative status updates is written

entirely in English;

! “(first and last name) – Exchange student (+ picture)” (ASO space, 20/01/14)

! “chilling at margi's place xoxo // greeetzzz (+ selfie)” (ASO space, 05/03/14)

The first two status updates establish almost exactly the same thing as the previous one about

“6EMT”, i.e. it functions as a description of a photograph. In addition, note that the status

update about the exchange student is a perfect illustration of language choice motivated by

solidarity with those who do not speak Dutch. The other 24% of the informative posts, then,

are written in a mixture of both Dutch and English.

! “- België - Algarije - Rusland - Zuid-Korea // Brazil here we come!” (ASO space,

6/12/13)

! “Vandaag zou je 79 jaar worden, ik mis je nog elke dag. Rest in peace "pépé pijp" † (+

picture)” (ASO space, 17/02/14)

Each of these examples actually shows that Dutch is the matrix language, but in both cases an

English expression is added. Although here we come and rest in peace are fairly well-known

expressions in Flanders, they do not belong to the Dutch language. In the next example,

however, the word noob perfectly illustrates that the thin line between borrowing and code

alternation (as defined by Auer), especially in youth speech.

! “(first name) is bronze noob XDXDXDXD” (ASO space, 26/01/14)

Originally, noob is an English word, and is at the moment of writing not officially incorporated

in any Dutch dictionary. However, it is a well-known term among teenagers, and in its

pronunciation, it is mostly adapted to the Dutch phonological system.

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In the corpus only two status updates expressed some type of command, one in English

and another in Dutch.

! “Vote !!!! Call the DJ – Red Bull MOBILE” (ASO space, 4/12/14)

! “Stem op (first name)! (+ Poster)” (ASO space, 07/02/14)

Coincidentally, both posts involve a request to vote for a particular person. Although, two

examples impede generalizations, these examples may suggest that English is also perceived

adequate to persuade Dutch-speaking people to do something.

When it comes to asking questions, all examples in the corpus indicate that Dutch is

the preferred language; the same goes for achieving humoristic ends or representing sound.

When it comes to asking questions, it is not surprising that preference goes out to the mother

tongue. As is clear from the following illustrations, the questions raised by this group via status

updates are practical and straightforward, i.e. asking for the whereabouts of a person or an

object. The importance of practicality helps explain the preference for the mother tongue, even

more specifically; it helps explain the usage of a standard variety of the language, rather than

youth speech.

! “Weet iemand waar (first name) is, we zijn ze kwijt? Ze is niet thuis komen slapen xxx”

(ASO space 9/02/14)

! “Heeft er iemand in de carlito een zwarte kostuumvest van het merk selected (per

ongeluk) meegenomen? Zou die persoon dan zo vriendelijk zijn om mij deze terug te

bezorgen // Alvast bedankt…” (ASO space, 01/01/14)

Undoubtedly, these results may vary when a larger corpus is consulted. However, these

outcomes do suggest that serious, straightforward questions are preferably posed in Dutch.

When it comes to the humoristic messages (4), again general tendencies can be deducted.

However, firstly, these results suggest the importance of Dutch as the most suitable language for

aiming at humoristic effects. Secondly, it is highly likely that all jokes collected from the

participants’ walls are no creations of these participants themselves, but rather of others who

had access to the profile and uploaded that particular status.

! “watching Pornhub ! Lekkerste woois” (ASO space, 26/01/14)

! “soms vind ik likken aan tenen leuk ☺” (ASO space, 03/02/14)

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Drawing from personal experience, these practices do occur. On top of that, considering the

importance of face-work, it may well be suggested that these two status updates, which were

posted by two girls, are not genuine, but rather a prank initiated by others.

In the corpus there is only one onomatopoeic representation of sound;

! “meeeeeeeeeeeeuuuuuh #” (ASO space, 22/02/14)

Although many sound representations such as yeah or yiiiha are originally Anglophonic, this

one is more closely linked to the mother tongue of the participant and is, therefore, categorized

as Dutch. Nonetheless, the scarcity of data prevents formulating generalities.

On the other end of the spectrum, both quotations and evaluative expression in status

updates are all entirely written in English. On the one side, the corpus covers two status

updates entirely made up by a quotation, namely;

! “We are ready for the afterglow (+ link)” (ASO space, 12/01/14)

! “We burn brighter than the sun! fun!!! (+ picture)” (ASO space, 16/03/14)

Both examples are literal citations from songs, i.e. the first one from the song Afterglow by

Wilkinson, while the second one is a quote from We are young, a song from the band Fun. In

general, it should not be surprising that citations are mainly written in English considering they

are mainly found in English; in their original English form or as an English translation of a

quote from another foreign language. On the other side, there are two evaluative posts;

! “Awesome (+ link)” (ASO space, 19/02/14)

! “Best opening in the world (+ link)” (ASO space, 05/02/14)

The fact that these evaluations are expressed in English, may be explained by English’ intrinsic

symbolic and indexical function in the eyes of Flemish adolescents, therefore upgrading the

evaluation’s style. In addition, research (Kestemont et al., 2012; De Decker and

Vandekerckhove, 2012) has shown that particular English words and expressions have found

their way into the chat language of adolescents; such as nice, cool, etc. These too are words that

express an evaluation, the same as the English words and expressions found here, i.e.

“awesome” and “best (…)”. In sum, despite the scarcity of the data, it appears that English is

believed to be an adequate language for writing evaluative status updates, i.e. both for its

symbolic power and its overall popularity and presence in youth culture.

In the corpus, those messages that belong to the category Emotion, Opinion or Direct

Address show a preference for code mixing between Dutch and English. In the status updates

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that express the writer’s emotions, English is present in every status. Either English covers the

entire status update, like in the two following examples that both articulate the love one

cherishes for another;

! “My love, my everything <3 (+ picture)” (17/03/14, ASO space)

! “There’s only, // 1 thing // 2 do // 3 words // and 4 you // I love you <3” (ASO

space, 09/02/14)

On the other hand, English can also take over only partially. The following status update

illustrates perfectly how the writer uses English to express his feelings, in this case sadness and

hopefulness, although the only Dutch word in the post assumes an informative role.

! “#Sad but // Life gets only better from now! // #toneel // #bestfriend - feeling better”

(ASO space, 06/02/14)

Of the 62 status updates, only three actually express an opinion about something that has

happened (example 1 and 2) or a societal tendency (example 3).

! “Da moe kunnen, azo rond tentienen en vuvvenviftih (+ check in)” (ASO space,

03/03/14)

! “Club brugge stelt zwaar teleur, slechtste mentaliteit ooit. No sweat, no money?” (ASO

space, 26/12/13)

! “(image: “We are here to keep you safe please continue browsing the internet”) Is

eigenlijk wel een beetje waar” (ASO space, 10/02/14)

The writer from the first Dutch post believes that being at that place at that time should be

considered acceptable. The second example displays an opinion of a disappointed football-fan.

The insertion of the English expression, clearly adds to the outspokenness of the writer’s

opinion about the unsatisfactory behaviour of the football team. The third example illustrates a

practice which actually occurs regularly on SNSs such as Facebook, i.e. that communication is

established partially or even entirely through images, which in most cases includes writings as

well. In this case, the writer’s agreement, written in Dutch, responds to the English-written

message from the image, which criticizes governmental and corporate invasion into people’s

private lives via the Internet.

Lastly, one bar has remained blank, which means that no wise status updates are found

in the corpus of the ASO space. Again, this could be purely coincidental considering the small

amount of data. However, on the other side, it may be suggested that informing one’s social

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network with one’s own ideological points of view is simply not considered standard behaviour

for this group. Scholars have yet underlined the importance of solidarity when it comes to

spaces of communicative practice. Linking this with the on-going strive for popularity, identity

and recognition by adolescents, it may be suggested that announcing certain ideologies simply

does not happen or is, at least, not considered normative behaviour.

Conclusively, status updates written by adolescents from the ASO space show diverse

language choices per content category. In sum, the most important motivation to share a

message board post is to inform the potential readers from the network. In addition, these

types of writing show most flexibility regarding language choice, i.e. English, Dutch and code

mixing are all deemed acceptable and adequate for achieving informative ends. Further, while

questions, jokes and sound are preferably written in the mother tongue, quotations and

evaluative writings are preferably written in English. Code mixing seems to be most accepted in

posts expressing emotions or opinions. The same goes for status updates that are directly

addressed to one particular person or group of people within the network.

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4.2.2.2 TSO

4.2.2.2.1 ENGLISH

Bar chart 18 displays the division of 194 status updates entirely written in English by

adolescents belonging to the TSO space. In the corpus, 43 English status updates are dedicated

to the category Information, and 43 other writings express the writers’ emotions. Humour is

present in 22 status updates, whereas the categories Wisdom and Direct Address are each

represented 20 times in the data. 17 posts articulate an opinion, while 13 are literal quotations.

An evaluation occurs in 10 sentences. 3 status updates solely represent a sound. Of all writings,

2 involve a command and 1 poses a question.

Content-wise, the chart clearly displays a varied division, i.e. roughly all categories are

represented. This may suggest that, to the adolescents with a TSO background in this research,

English is a multifunctional language as it can be applied to fulfil a wide variety of

communicative purposes. In this corpus, however, some functions occur more frequently than

others; e.g. more English status updates are posted in order to communicate information or

feelings rather than to command or ask questions to their readers. An elaboration of the other

categories will be provided in section 4.2.2.2.4 Comparison. Although the exact proportions

may vary when an even larger quantity of data is consulted, it can be proposed that, when it

comes to English status updates, the divisiveness and the importance of informative and

emotive SUs tend to be general characteristics.

Graph 18: Division of English status updates on the basis of content. Data produced by adolescents from

the TSO space (in absolute numbers).

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50 43

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43

17 10

20 22 20

3

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4.2.2.2.2 DUTCH

Chart 19 shows how the content of Dutch status updates is allocated. From the 180

Dutch status updates from the second group, a mayor part (110) deals with conveying

information. 22 statuses are directly addressed to a particular person or group. Emotions are

expressed via 13 status updates; the same amount is dedicated to the act of asking a question. 8

writings have an intrinsically humoristic aim. 4 posts are an evaluation, 4 SUs command the

reader to act, while 3 others expressed an opinion. Wisdom is expressed by 2 SUs in the entire

corpus, and there is 1 post which is an onomatopoeic representation of sound. In the corpus,

no Dutch quotations are found.

The partition of data suggests that when it comes to status updates written solely in the

mother tongue of these writers, it is highly likely that the function of this post will be to convey

information towards the entire network. Although Dutch status updates are also used to

address a particular user or group of users, this is far from a principal function. At the other

end of the spectrum, Dutch quotes never occurred. In comparison with the amount of English

citations, this is not surprising considering the slighter presence of Dutch quotation-worthy

sources, i.e. media, music, well-known people, etc. Nevertheless, section 4.2.2.2.4 Comparison

will elaborate on the other categories.

Graph 19: Division of Dutch status updates on the basis of content. Data produced by adolescents from

the TSO space (in absolute numbers).

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13 4 0

13 3 4 2 8 22

1

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4.2.2.2.3 CODE MIXING

Graph 20 shows the division of content of 78 status updates written in a code mix of

English and Dutch by Facebook users who are a part of the TSO space. Information is

transmitted in 48 status updates, consequentially making it the principal function. 8 posts are

directly addressed to another user or group of users. 7 status updates serve a humoristic

purpose, while 5 others offer an opinion of some sort. 5 questions are composed of code mixed

writings. Finally, the data also shows 2 evaluative writings and 2 commands. Note that no

quotes, nor ideological messages, nor sound representations are found in Dutch status updates.

These results seem to suggest that when two languages are mixed in order to compose a

message, the primary function will be to transmit information from the writer towards his

network. However, a more detailed outline of the other categories will be provided in section

4.2.2.2.4 Comparison.

Graph 20: Division of status updates written in a mix of Dutch with English on the basis of content. Data

produced by adolescents from the TSO space (in absolute numbers).

0 5

10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50

48

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5 2 0

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0

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4.2.2.2.4 COMPARISON

To enable a comparison and a visualisation of the qualitative results mentioned in the

three previous sub-sections, two graphs are proposed analogous with those constructed for the

comparison of the data from the ASO space. In the first graph, 21, the length of each

individual bar, regardless of the internal colours, shows the division of content irrespective of

the language variety used. The second chart, 22, visualises the absolute numbers of all the

results of the TSO space mentioned in the previous sub-sections. This 100% staked graph

displays the likelihood for a particular category to be written in Dutch, English or in a code mix

of both.

Analysing the first graph, results in several findings. Firstly, the graph clearly suggests

that the informative function is the most important one. In addition, it appears that status

updates are also easily used to express emotions. The fact that both the informative function as

well as the emotive function are widely used is not surprising, considering that the company of

Facebook encourages these kinds of writings by asking users “What are you doing?” or “How

are you feeling?”. However, the fact that feelings are not as frequently communicated like

general information is not a striking outcome either. More specifically, status updates have a

considerable influence on face-work, meaning that over-exposing your emotions may result in a

face-threatening act in the world of teenagers as it might make you look weak. A second

observation is that the category Direct Address also occurs regularly in the corpus. On the one

hand, this may be perceived as odd, given that there are many other ways to chat privately with

someone instead of using publically available status updates to do so. On the other hand, even

though status updates are, in theory, monologic, this should not prevent dialogic usage. The

latter is then clearly illustrated by the corpus. Thirdly, as opposed to these more frequently

recurring categories, commands and sound representations occur far less frequently. Regarding

the former, the importance of face-work may offer an explanation why adolescents are not eager

to impose on others. With respect to sound representations, it can be proposed that the

uncommonness of these onomatopoeic messages can be explained by its lack of a decent

informative content. Lastly, the chart shows that each category is represented in the corpus,

though with diverse levels of frequency. However, when roughly studying the length of the

coloured bars and the table, it is clear that some categories seem to prefer a particular language

variety to another. As to facilitate a comparison regarding the latter, graph 22 is suggested.

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Graph 21: Qualitative evaluation of the content of status updates collected from the TSO space (in

absolute number).

Bar chart 22 is constructed in order to visualise the question raised previously, i.e. what

is the relationship between language choice on the one side, and the content of the post on the

other? The graph consists of 100% stacked bars per category, which means it visualises the

likelihood of a status update with a particular content (category) to be written in one language

variety or another.

Graph 22: Qualitative evaluation of content: a comparison between English, Dutch and Dutch-English

status updates retrieved from the ASO space (in %).

The first three bars, in comparison to the others, indicate that English is least used in

status updates that cover information, a question or a command. The first category, i.e.

Information which is also the most recurring one in the corpus (cfr. supra), is generally

Info. Quest. Comm. Quot. Emo. Opin. Eval. Wisd. Hum. D.A. Sound

Code mixing 48 5 2 0 1 5 2 0 7 8 0

Dutch 110 13 4 0 13 3 4 2 8 22 1

English 43 1 2 13 43 17 10 20 22 20 3

0

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characterized by Dutch. In approximately 50% of the cases, these informative posts are entirely

written in the mother tongue.

! “File voor de schouwing… (+ picture)” (TSO space, 03/03/14)

! “Heel de vakantie bezig gezete aan mijn GIP, dat noemt een school dan vakantie !!”

(TSO space, 07/03/14)

Code mixing, on the other hand, can be observed in 25% of all informative SUs. The next two

examples illustrate these mixed language utterances, i.e. going from incorporating a noun (1) or

an adverb (2) to an entire expression (3) into the matrix language.

! “Heeft zich eens bezig gehouden met cadeautjes inpakken :D #Christmas” (TSO space,

23/12/13)

! “Iphone back en nummer en foto’s ook ☺!!” (TSO space, 26/02/14)

! “Om van Stekene nr Sint-Niklaas te gaan 40 min met de bus? This will be like hell!”

(TSO space, 09/02/14)

Sometimes, these are even morphosyntactically adjusted by applying the rules of the target

language to the source language. This is nicely illustrated by in the following example, i.e. the

newly invented verb ‘nolifen’ is actually a verbalization of an English pronoun ‘no life’ that can

refer to “(1) a person who has no life; (2) a geek or nerd who wastes their lives in front of a

computer” (Urban Dictionary);

! “Nolifen op Facebook” (TSO space, 29/01/14)

In the next example, the incorporation of the expression even goes one step further.

! “Lenzen op terug eff bril FUCK DA” (TSO space, 15/02/14)

In this case, the final word from the notorious expression is simply substituted by its Dutch

equivalent “da” (standard Dutch; dat).

Of all 19 statuses requesting information, again Dutch is the primary language choice. The

following examples illustrate that the variety of requested topics.

! “Iemand zin om iets te doen? (TSO space, 08/03/14)

! “Ideeën voor verkleden bij 100-dagen!!! Iemand???” (TSO space, 12/02/14)

Almost 40% of these SUs are written in a code mix of English and Dutch, like in the following

examples;

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! “Bored as fuck, iemand chat?” (TSO space, 29/01/14)

! “READY FOR THE MADNESS!!! Here I come Tomorrowland weekend 1!!! ☺ Wie

nog weekend 1 op Tomorrowland?” (TSO space, 15/02/14)

Looking at the questions composed of both Dutch and English, it appears that the mixing of

these codes has no additional contribution to the question itself, i.e. it offers no extra

clarification to make the question clearer for the reader. Further, only one questions posed in

English is found in the corpus;

! “skype anybody?” (TSO space, 10/03/14)

These results suggest that the preferred language for this group of adolescents to ask questions

is Dutch. In addition, the incorporation of English words or phrases does not seem to have a

direct effect on the question itself. It is highly likely that the importance of ‘acquiring what is

requested’ is the reason why questions are mainly posed in Dutch, i.e. Dutch makes the

question more straightforward and less ambiguous. Thus, English offers no additional benefit

with respect to achieving the main objective and is therefore rarely used.

Although only 8 commands are found in the corpus, the distribution of language choice is

more or less the same as the previous two categories, i.e. a main preference for Dutch SUs.

! “IEMAND DIE NIE WEET WA DOEN STUUR MIJ IES EEN BERICHT WANT IK

VERVEEL MIJ.” (TSO space, 25/01/14)

! “Hou maar al dien datum vrij voort feestje van het jaar ! (+ poster)” (TSO space,

14/02/14)

The next examples of commanding posts illustrate a specific type of code mixing, i.e. a

borrowing process out of necessity because no Dutch equivalent exists. Arguably, it could be

suggested that these English words do have a Dutch equivalent (leuk vinden, pagina and delen,

respectively); however, like, page and share are typical SNS-terminology and have therefore a

different significance in comparison to their Dutch translation.

! “Like de page en share met je vrienden (+ link)” (TSO space, 19/10/14)

! Like & pb omdat ik met spetterpoeop op de pot zit :D” (TSO space, 27/12/13)

Nevertheless, these English words typical of SNSs may as well be embedded in a fully English

SU, like in the following example.

! “Like like everyone <3 (+ link mission Afghanistan)” (TSO space, 27/01/14)

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It is also possible that the choice for English in this case was a conscious one, as this person

may have wanted to address all people from the network regardless of their mother tongues.

In comparison to the first three categories, the others do suggest a greater importance

of English. Some of these categories (Quote, Emotion, Wisdom and Sound) indicate that English is

the most important language for expressing a message with that particular kind of content, as

opposed to Dutch that plays a less important role, or code mixing that also appears to be

deemed less fit. Beginning with a 100% bar for the category Quote, this bar indicates that all

status updates which solely comprise of a quote are written in English. These can be the result

of copy-pasting lyrics from songs, like the following examples.

! “It feels like I'm killin myself.Just willin myself. Just to pray for some help. I'd give it all

just to have, have your eternity. Cause it's all that assures me. It's worth all that hurts

me. I'd give you my heart, And I'd let you just hold it. I'd give you my soul, But I

already sold it. On that day, That day I walked away in December. I will always

remember. I'll regret it forever.” (TSO space, 06/01/14)

! "I was laying in bed last nigt thinking and this thought just popped in my head // And

I thought, wouldn't shit just be a lot easier if you dropped dead I would feel so much

better (+ video; Eminem – So Much Better (HD & Lrycis))" (TSO space, 04/02/14)

The first quote comes from Circles, a song by Hollywood Undead. The second quote is one

from Eminem’s So Much Better. Note that in this case a video (with lyrics) is posted along with

the citation, which is not the case with the former example. In addition, citations from

(famous) people are also found in the corpus. Undoubtedly, the lingua franca English has

penetrated deeply in Flemish society via movies, music, literature and the Internet. That the

omnipresence of English also functions as a vast resource for quotations, should help explain

why only English citations are used. However, it is possible that citations written in other

languages than English could occur. Nevertheless, there are no examples thereof in the corpus,

consequentially suggesting that English is the main language for quotations, which is also

illustrated by the following two quotes from Oscar Wilde and Coco Chanel, respectively.

! “There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book.” (TSO space, 15/03/14)

! “I don’t care what you think about me. I don’t thinking about you at all – Coco

Chanel” (TSO space, 10/03/14)

Note that the second example is a known expression by the famous French couturiere.

However, although the quotation is best known in its English form, it is disputed whether or

not the original statement from Chanel was Je n'aime pas ce que vous pensez de moi. Je ne pense pas

73

à vous tous!. Even though the matter is unresolved, this illustration still indicates that the

English version of well-known quotes can be preferred over the original one. Consequentially,

this too hints at the importance, prestige and symbolic value of English in the eyes of Flemish

adolescents.

Looking at status updates expressing the emotions of the writer, again, English appears to be

the first choice (75%), like in the following examples.

! “feeling good ^^” (TSO space, 04/02/14)

! “I’m so fucking confused” (TSO space, 03/03/14)

Dutch, consequentially, covers a smaller amount of writings (23%), while only one status

update (2%) that belongs to the category Emotion includes intra-sentential code mixing between

English and Dutch.

! “zo brak als ene” (TSO space, 16/02/14)

! “heeft er de pest in vandaag” (TSO space, 15/02/14)

Two main explanations are brought up in order to explain why English is deemed a more

accessible language for formulating one’s emotions. Firstly, emotional writings can easily be face

threatening in adolescent environments where showing emotions is not always accepted. So in

this respect, using English may add some additional stylistic and symbolic value to the writing,

consequentially lowering the threat and establishing a positive face. An additional clarification

could be that the English contact established via music, movies, etc. often comes together with

the expressions of emotions via emotional storylines, expressive lyrics, etc. As a result, Flemish

adolescents unconsciously acquire a considerable amount of emotional vocabulary and

expressions, which may help explain why emotions are sometimes more easily expressed in

English than in Dutch.

Another category, which is represented majorly in English (90%), is that of Wisdom. The

following two examples are SUs that each convey an ideological message, about beauty and

inner strength respectively.

! “pretty isn’t everything (+ selfie)” (TSO space,15/02/14)

! “Don't pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to battle against the difficulties that

are coming your way … <3” (TSO space, 17/02/14)

The next status update, however, is in Dutch and deals with friendship.

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! “Een vriend is … Iemand die je de waarheid zegt en je op je fouten durft wijzen.

Iemand die je soms kwetst en er zich zelf daarna slecht bij voelt. Iemand die kwaad op

je durft te zijn, maar er steeds terug voor je is.” (TSO space, 04/02/14)

Possibly, this correlation between wisdom and English may be explained by their

complementarity. More specifically, as English can serve a symbolic function in Flemish society,

this can perfectly complement the symbolic value of wise words.

The category Sound is also principally represented in English (75%), as opposed to a minority of

Dutch (25%). Examples of Dutch-sounding onomatopoeias are the following;

! “Hahahha (+ picture)” (TSO space, 24/02/14)

! “lalala (+event)” (TSO space, 01/02/14)

The majority of sound representations in the corpus, however, originate from the English

language, as is illustrated by the following two examples.

! “Woop woop ☺ (+ event)” (TSO space, 06/02/14)

! “Ayeeee (+song)” (TSO space, 09/01/14)

Not surprisingly, mixing different codes within one sound representation does not occur in the

corpus. What is a bit surprising, however, is that more English sounds occur than Dutch ones.

However, instead of suggesting that adolescents select the English code, it is more probable that

these originally English sounds are (partially) integrated into the spontaneous repertoire of

adolescents as a result of frequent contact with the English language (cfr. movies, music, etc.).

The preference of English over Dutch or a mixture of both is also visible from the bars

representing the categories Opinion, Evaluation and Humour. According to these adolescents

one’s opinion can be adequately communicated via code mixing (20%), Dutch (12%), but most

preferably by English (68%).

! “Zo moet dat!! Wa dacht die eigenaar wel, dat die haatdragend taal kan gebruiken en

Islam belachelijk kan maken (+ picture)” (TSO space, 09/01/14)

! “U eigen status liken is als uzelf een highfive geven :D” (TSO space, 14/01/14)

! “(meme: “Why she might be upset part 1) Tis zso” (TSO space, 30/01/14)

As is clear from the examples, not all SUs that express an opinion are all as devoted to make a

particular point. While the first SU is devoted to a religious, political cause, the latter deals

with an adolescent boy’s perception of women. Although the latter may be considered a witty

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comment, the profile, including the person’s other writings, suggests that this post is to be

taken seriously.

The graph shows that when an adolescent from the TSO space writes a status covering an

evaluation of some sort, in 56% of the cases he will use English to do so. The next data, for

example, show the positive evolution of a video or a music video.

! “Beautiful (+ video)” (TSO space, 16/12/14)

! “Awesome (+ music video)” (TSO space, 28/02/14)

Although almost all English evaluations from the corpus are positive, there is one that denotes

a negative evaluation.

! “Freak :o (+ picture)” (TSO space, 08/02/14)

In 22% of the cases, language selection will result in posts which are entirely written in Dutch,

like the following examples illustrate.

! “ja beja !! (+ music video)” (TSO space, 29/01/14)

! "zottttttttttt (+ music video) (TSO space, 23/01/14)

A mixture of Dutch and English then characterizes the rest of the writings (32%).

! “Vroeger naar huis = awesome” (TSO space, 16/01/14)

! “Elke donderdag: tot 3u nr school #ilikeit” (TSO space, 30/01/14)

Conclusively, these data suggest that English is the preferred language to express an evaluation,

which turns out to be a positive one in most cases.

Of all 37 humoristic statuses, 60% is written in English, 19% in Dutch and the remaining 31%

in a mixture of Dutch and English.

! “Just woke up… still cute x (+ selfie)” (TSO space, 11/12/13)

! “Geen commentaar (+ picture with text: study; the act of texting, eating and watching

TV with an open textbook nearby) (TSO space, 12/12/13)

! “Dikkentruiendag KA 14februari, Haha dat is het elke dag ^^” (TSO space, 29/01/14)

From all the humoristic messages collected form the TSO data, there was also one that was

clearly not created by the owner of the profile himself. Considering the significance of face-

work in the (adolescent) community, it is highly likely that the following post is the result of a

joke instigated by others.

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! “hallo ik ben (own name) en ik ben homo” (TSO space, 27/12/14)

Regarding messages that are directly addressed to another person or group, there appears

to be no specific preference for one language or another. Dutch (44%) occurs slightly more

frequently than English (40%). Alternating between codes occurs in 16% of the all status

updates addressed at a particular person. The following examples illustrate the variety of SUs

written and directed towards other Facebook users from the user’s own network, i.e.

humoristic, informative or emotional (negative and positive).

! “hahaha kijkte in uw fotoalbum van 2004 en dan komde dit tegen :p (taged person)

man vanaf dit moment moogt gy mij haten voor heel u leven hahahahaha (+ Picture)”

(29/12/13, TSO space)

! “(taged person) ge vind nightcore mss brak ma das wel vetjes (+ video)” (17/02/14,

TSO space)

! “you made more the none enemy today, and only more will come, hope you’ll enjoy

the war you started” (16/02/14, TSO space)

! “You make me laugh like no one else can <3 (taged person)” (08/02/14, TSO space)

The fact that directly addressed posts are classified under a different category instead of

allocating them to all the other categories mentioned above, could explain why there is no

actual preference. Looking at the overall language preferences regardless of the topic at hand

(cfr. graph 12), the same division is noticeable. This may suggest that although these SUs are

characterized by a higher conversational (dialogic) degree, the multilingual preferences are more

or less the same as for monologic writings. Consequentially, it could be suggested that it is not

the monologic or dialogic aspect of a writing that matters in making language choices, but

rather the fact that it is publically accessible that makes the difference (cfr. small survey among

peers p. 22).

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4.2.2.3 Qualitative Comparison

Although the previously discussed results lead to interesting insights within the

confines of each space, it is also interesting to compare the findings of these two groups.

Therefore, in this section the results from both spaces will be compared in two ways, each time

with a different approach. Firstly, there is a general comparison between the two spaces with

respect to the content of their status updates. More specifically, the aim is to observe whether

or not there is a difference between both networks vis-à-vis the content-spread of all their status

updates. Then, this will be followed by an in-depth comparison between the ASO and TSO

space regarding acceptable language choices per content-category.

Pie chart 03 and 04 visualise the representation of each category in the data retrieved

from the ASO and TSO space, respectively. There are some similarities noticeable between

both groups, as well as some differences. Firstly, it is apparent that both groups exploit the

informative function of SUs. Nonetheless, the chart suggests that this particular function is

somewhat more important for the ASO group than the TSO group (60% versus 45%

respectively). Secondly, another correspondence between both groups is that the

communication of emotions is the single most important category. A third similarity concerns

the diverseness of all categories, i.e. it appears that the distribution of all categories is more or

less the same. There are, however, two noticeable exceptions, namely regarding the categories

Quote and Wisdom. As opposed to the ASO group were quotations only occur in 3% of the

data, quotes account for 11% of all TSO data. Even bigger is the contrast regarding Wisdom, as

these kinds of ideological status updates do simply not occur in the ASO data. This

dissimilarity suggests that the regular posters from the TSO space are more inclined to share

ideological, inspirational and/or poetic messages with their network. Conclusively, this

comparison suggests that both groups have a more or less equal predisposition regarding

acceptable and usable content for status updates.

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Pie chart 03: Content of the status updates Pie chart 04: Content of the status updates

from the data ASO. from the data TSO.

Table 10 presents the division of language choice per group per category, and will

therefore facilitate a comparison regarding the acceptability of particular language choices vis-à-

vis the content of the writings.

Regarding the results of the category Information, there is no significant difference

between the ASO and the TSO group. This suggests that language choices with respect to

informative SUs indicate a slight preference for Dutch. This is not exactly surprising, as the

mother tongue is simply a more straightforward, less ambiguous communicative tool.

Nonetheless, a considerable amount of statuses are also written in either English or compose of

code mixing practices between Dutch and English.

When questions are asked in status updates, both groups clearly prefer to do so in

Dutch. However, adolescents from the TSO space find it acceptable to ask questions whilst

code mixing. Questions entirely articulated in English occur rarely. Considering the supposed

seriousness that comes along with explicit questions, it is not surprising that Dutch is

considered the preferable language for these kinds of SUs.

Even though commands do not regularly occur in the corpus, they seem to suggest that

Dutch, English or a mix of Dutch and English are all acceptable language varieties when

directing an explicit command towards the entire network. Nevertheless, there is a difference

between both groups, i.e. the adolescents from the ASO space seem to prefer English or Dutch

rather than a mixture of both, whereas the other group of adolescents uses all these varieties.

Considering the limited number of commands in the corpus, it is likely that these specific

60%

5%

3%

3%

10%

5%

3% 0% 6%

3% 2%

Information

Question

Command

Quote

Emotion

Opinion

Evaluation

Wisdom

Humour

Direct Address

Sound

44%

4%

2%

3% 13%

5%

4%

5%

8%

11% 1%

Information

Question

Command

Quote

Emotion

Opinion

Evaluation

Wisdom

Humour

Direct Address

Sound

79

outcomes are partially coincidental, however, it may be suggested that all listed language

varieties are found acceptable to a different degree.

As table 10 indicates, all quotations from both groups are written in English. The

omnipresence of English in Flemish society is probably the explanation for these absolute

results. More specifically, through (digital) media and literature, English functions a rich source

for quotations. Nevertheless, it could happen that SUs are composed of citations in other

languages, but as these do not occur in the corpus, we will consider that rare.

The results of the single most occurring category Emotion show a great difference

between both groups. Whereas participants from the ASO space are more likely to code mix to

express their emotions, most of the adolescents from the TSO space opt for English entirely.

Although 33% of all emotional ASO status updates are written in Dutch, none are found

which include both English and Dutch code. This, again, contrasts with the TSO group who

seems to prefer code mixing to Dutch as a tool to express their feelings. Firstly, these opposing

results may indicate that the symbolic value of English is even more exploited by the ASO

network than it is in the TSO network. On the other hand, the notable occurrence of Dutch in

emotional writings may suggest that Dutch is a very suitable language as well. Adding this to

what was said previously on emotional SUs and face-threatening acts in adolescent

communities, two things can be said. Either Dutch has a more or less equal status regarding

symbolic value in the TSO space, or, most probably, emotional SUs are simply not considered

as face threatening in the TSO space. In all, these findings may suggest that for adolescents

located in the TSO space both English and Dutch (in their full form) are considered valuable

and adequate languages for the formulation of emotions. That these languages are valued, may

explain why code mixing in emotive status updates occurs only rarely in the TSO data.

The findings on the category Opinion, as those of Emotion, indicate a contrast between

the ASO and TSO space. The former group chiefly uses code mixing to transmit an opinion, or

in 33% of the cases turn to Dutch. The latter group, on the other hand, chiefly uses English

(68%), in addition to code mixing (23%) and Dutch (12%).

In order to express an evaluation, ASO students seem to use English exclusively. This

extreme division may be explained by the scarcity of the data, but nevertheless English seems to

hold a strong position. Teenagers belonging to the TSO space, on the other hand, use English

(62,5%), Dutch (12,5%) or a mix of both (25%) in order to express their opinions. In total, the

overall prominence of English in this category indicates that adolescents deem English perfectly

for the act of voicing an evaluation of an object, an event, or a person.

Interestingly no wise status updates are found in the data retrieved from the ASO

space. The participants situated in the TSO space, however, did upload several ideological

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writings. The majority of them (91%) are written in English, while the other 9% is written in

Dutch. These findings, again, serve as an argument for an already mentioned thesis, that

English, but also to a lesser extent Dutch, are capable to carry symbolic value. In addition to

this, the fact that no participant from the ASO space writes ideological messages may suggest

that this type of messages can be considered non-standard writing patterns for the members of

the ASO space. Conclusively, these types of writings can be considered norm-dependent, rather

than general, as is the case with informative status updates.

Regarding the category Humour, all humoristic SUs from the ASO data are written in

Dutch. Conversely, the TSO data suggests that English (59%) is most apt for humouring the

reader. Nonetheless, also a considerable amount of funny SUs written in Dutch (22%) or in a

mix of English and Dutch (19%) are found in the corpus. Although previous results have

already indicated that English serves a symbolic function in both networks, these outcomes may

suggest that the character of symbolism varies along the network. In other words, depending on

the network the symbolic value of foreign language sometimes has different impacts.

When it comes to SUs from the ASO corpus that are directly addressed at a particular

person or group of people, all of them are written in a mixture of Dutch and English. The TSO

data, however, show more diversity as all three language varieties occur, with a preference for

Dutch (44%) and English (40%). This again may suggest that English is exploited much more

consciously in the ASO space.

All status updates from the ASO corpus that solely consist of sound representations

relate to Dutch, i.e. these onomatopoeias are phonologically and orthographically situated in

the Dutch language. In the TSO corpus, however, most sound representations belong to the

English language (75%). Naturally, it is possible for sound representations to include an

internal code mix, for example, when an originally English expression is orthographically

integrated in the Dutch language. An example of such an English onomatopoeia is “yeah”, but

as this particular spelling is rare in Dutch, the expression could be altered into “jeeee”.

Unfortunately, the amount of sound representations is scarce too expose general trends.

Conclusively, in theory, every language variety can be used to express whatever content.

In reality, however, data suggests underlying tendencies. When we look at content, only minor

differences can be observed between the spread of treated categories in the data of both groups.

This could indicate that there is a general norm regarding the appropriate content for SUs in a

general adolescent space (which disregards educational background and, thus, includes both

spaces). This norm can be formulated as follows; normal writing patterns are first and foremost

considered to be informative. Nevertheless, all other kinds of content do occur; however, with a

much lesser frequency. When looking at the correlation between content and language choice,

81

different patterns between both spaces become apparent. In this respect two remarks can be

made. Firstly, adequacy and appropriateness regarding language choice in relation to a

particular content can differ considerably between networks. More specifically, only informative

status updates indicate similar outcomes regarding language partition between both spaces,

whereas all the other categories display opposing results. These differences, thus, indicate that

language choice is more or less space-dependent. In addition, although English has standing in

both spaces, the data suggests that the degree of prestige is exploited mostly in the ASO space.

Particularly in the construction of less practical SUs (i.e. quotations or formulations of

emotion), English is eagerly used. On the other hand, the norm in the TSO space seems to

comprise two elements. Firstly, there is the regularity in sharing behaviour. On top of that,

there seems to exist the unspoken trend that both English and Dutch are equally adequate to

express both practical as well as less straightforward messages.

English Dutch Code mixing

Information ASO 18,92 56,76 24,32

TSO 21,39 54,73 23,88

Question ASO 0 100 0

TSO 5,26 68,42 26,32

Command ASO 50 50 0

TSO 25 50 25

Quote ASO 100 0 0

TSO 100 0 0

Emotion ASO 33,33 0 66,67

TSO 75,44 22,81 1,75

Opinion ASO 0 33,33 66,67

TSO 68 12 20

Evaluation ASO 100 0 0

TSO 62,5 25 12,5

Wisdom ASO 0 0 0

TSO 90,91 9,09 0

Humour ASO 0 100 0

TSO 59,46 21,62 18,92

Direct Address ASO 0 0 100

TSO 40 44 16

Sound ASO 0 100 0

TSO 75 25 0

Table 10: The division of language variation per group per category (in %).

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5 Conclusion

As the title of this master dissertation suggests, the research focused on multilingualism

in status updates composed by 17- to 18-year-old Flemish adolescents with different educational

backgrounds. In order to investigate the issue, three core questions were formulated. The first

question dealt with quantity; how many status updates are uploaded by the participants, and

what language varieties are used in the process? A second investigation was concerned with the

qualitative aspect of these SUs, i.e. is there any observable correlation between the topic and

language choice. Finally, the third issue that was attended to was concerned with the opposition

of the collected data from two different spaces of practice delineated on the basis of educational

backgrounds, i.e. ASO and TSO.

To gather enough data in order to enable my search for an answer to these questions,

three schools and 47 adolescents were addressed; of which 25 belong to the ASO space and 22

to the TSO space. As they allowed me access to their Facebook profile, they also filled in a

digital questionnaire, which focused on English, SNSs and the relation between them. The

results from this short survey were primarily meant to offer some background information that

would help clarify the outcomes of the data investigation.

Regarding the quantitative analysis of the data, two different normative outlines linked

to each space are proposed. Almost paradoxically, the absence of sharing is considered

normative sharing behaviour for the adolescents form the ASO space. Whereas the adolescents

with a TSO background show much more routinized sharing behaviour and seem to perceive

the usage of either Dutch or English in SUs as equally valid writing patters. Qualitatively, we

looked at the content and at the interconnection of content and language choice. Regarding

the former, a general norm among adolescents (regardless of their educational background) was

uncovered, i.e. in most cases writings are first and foremost created to transmit information,

whereas all other types of content occur with a much lesser frequency. With respect to the

relation between content-categories and language choice, informative SUs displayed similar

patterns in both spaces, whereas all the other categories displayed considerable differences

between the ASO and TSO space. Consequentially, these differences indicate that language

choice is partially content and space dependent. Regarding the latter the following was

concluded about each individual space. On the one hand, data suggested that the symbolic

value of English is exploited the most in the ASO space, particularly in the construction of less

practical SUs such as quotations and formulations of emotion. On the other hand, the

nonexclusive norm in the TSO space has two main sides. Firstly, regular sharing patterns

83

appear to be the norm. Secondly, the data seems to suggest that both English and Dutch are

equally adequate to create practical as well as less straightforward messages. Conclusively,

although there is a significant difference regarding the amounts of shared status updates

between both groups, there are only minor differences with regard to the division of content-

categories of these status updates. Looking at the correlation between content and language

choice, again opposing results become visible; thus suggesting a general tendency regarding the

appropriateness of particular content, but with a considerable difference regarding language

choice vis-à-vis that content.

The results from this research already suggest some tendencies in the verbal behaviour

of Flemish adolescents between the ages of 17 and 18, however, as these findings help answer a

series of questions, they solicit even more questions. If more different networks are taken into

consideration (e.g. adults, special needs students, primary school children, etc., will their

behaviour align with those exposed patterns from this research or will this extended number of

networks result in a more diverse landscape of topics, language varieties and language choices?

Another matter that could result in some interesting findings is when age would be considered

as an important variable, i.e. is there any difference between Facebook users from different age

ranks (diachronologically) or do Facebook users show an evolution in their lingual behaviour in

SUs along the progression in time (chronologically). Also when looking at the data itself,

additional academic questions can be raised. In the tradition of conversational analytic research

on code mixing, it might be interesting to thoroughly analyse the data in this respect, even

possibly by interviewing the participants in order to come to an even better understanding of

the data itself. In sum, linguistic research with respect to SNSs, Facebook in particular, as it is

one of the major network sites in the world, still holds numerous scientific research

opportunities.

84

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! Van der Horst, J. Het Einde van de Standaardtaal. Een Wisseling van Europese

Taalcultuur. Amsterdam: Meulenhoff, 2008. Print.

! Watts, R. J. Power in Family Discourse. Vol. 63. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1991. Print.

DISSERTATION

! Himpe, S. (2013). Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition of English through Google and

YouTube by Flemish Children between 10 and 12. Considering the Importance of Context

and Measured Cognitive Skills (Unpublished bachelor dissertation). University of Ghent,

Ghent.

DICTIONARY

! Leet speak. 2014. In Urban dictionary. Retrieved from 16/04/14.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=leetspeak.

! No life. 2014. In Urban dictionary. Retrieved from 16/04/14.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=No+Life.

87

ELECTRONIC SOURCES

! European commission. “Belgium: Internet usage and digital skills.” Digital Agenda

Scoreboard (2013): ec.europa.eu. PDF file.

! Harden, S. “Facebook Statistics.” Statisticbrain. Statistic Brain Research Institute, publishing

as Statistic Brain, 1 January 2014.Web. 19 May 2014.

! Lebert M., Multilingualism on the Web Montreal and University of Toronto: CEVEIL and

NEF (1999). Ebook.

! Mander, J. “Global Web Index. Social Summary January 2014.” (2014):

globalwebindex.net. PDF file.

! Valdés, G. “Multilingualism.” Linguistics Society. Linguistic Society of America, 2012. Web.

25 May 2014.

! Zuckerberg, M. Facebook. Facebook Inc., 4 February 2004. Web. 24 Apr. 2014.

NEWSPAPER ARTICLE

! Louage, L. “9 op de 10 Vlaamse Jongeren hebben Facebookprofiel.” De Standaard 20 May

2014. Web.

88

7 Appendix

7.1 Questionnaire

7.1.1 Dutch

Gebruikersnaam Facebook: ……………………………………………………….…

Engels

! Op welke leeftijd begon je Engels te leren? o < 10 jaar o 10 – 12 jaar o 12 – 14 jaar o > 14 jaar

! Op welke leeftijd begon je Engels te gebruiken? o < 10 jaar o 10 – 12 jaar o 12 – 14 jaar o > 14 jaar

! In welke situaties gebruik je Engels actief? o In gesprekken met vrienden en familie o Tijdens de Engelse les o Op vakantie o Op het internet (Facebook, YouTube, …) o Tijdens het spelen van online spelletjes o Andere: …………………………….

! Vind je van jezelf dat je vloeiend bent in het Engels? (actief gebruik) o Ja, erg vloeiend o Min of meer vloeiend, af en toe maak ik toch nog fouten o Niet zo vloeiend, ik maak toch nog heel wat fouten

! Waar associeer je de Engelse taal mee? Geef drie waarden: o ……………………………. o ……………………………. o …………………………….

89

Sociale netwerk sites

! Op welke sociale netwerksites zit je: o Facebook o Instagram o Foursquare o Twitter o Tumblr o WhatsApp o Snapchat o Reddit o Andere: ….…………………

! Welke talen gebruik je op dergelijke platformen: o Nederlands/Vlaams o Engels o Frans o Duits o Andere: ……………………..

! Waarom zou je ervoor kiezen een vreemde taal te gebruiken? o Het heeft een bepaalde meerwaarde; hip, chique, intelligent, … o Het klinkt gewoon beter o Ik kan mezelf/de boodschap beter uitdrukken in die specifieke taal o Andere: ……………………...

! Ben je bang om taalfouten te maken als je een vreemde taal gebruikt? (bijvoorbeeld spellingsfouten, grammaticale fouten, verkeerd gebruik van bepaalde woorden, …)?

o Ja o Nee

Extra

! Waarom koos je voor de Nederlandstalige versie van de vragenlijst in plaats van de Engelstalige?

o ……………………………….……………………………….……………………………….……………………………….……………………………….……………………………….……………………………….…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

90

7.1.2 English

Username Facebook: ………………………………………………………….…

English

! At what age did you start learning English? o < 10 years-old o 10 – 12 years-old o 12 – 14 years-old o > 14 years-old

! At what age did you start using English? o < 10 years-old o 10 – 12 years-old o 12 – 14 years-old o > 14 years-old

! In which situations would you actively use English? o In conversations with friends and family o During English classes o On holiday o On the Internet (Facebook, YouTube, …) o While playing online multiplayer games o Others: …………………………….

! Do you consider yourself fluent in English? (active knowledge)

o Yes, very fluent o More or less fluent, sometimes I do make mistakes o Not that fluent, I make a lot of mistakes

! What do you associate the English language with? Give three values:

o ……………………………. o ……………………………. o …………………………….

91

Social network platforms

! Which social platforms do you use: o Facebook o Instagram o Foursquare o Twitter o Tumblr o WhatsApp o Snapchat o Reddit o Other: ….…………………

! Which languages do you use on these platforms:

o Dutch/Flemish o English o French o German o Other: ……………………..

! Why would you choose to use a foreign language?

o It has a certain appeal; it is trendy or fancy o It sounds better o I can express myself/the message better in that specific language o Others: ……………………...

! Are you afraid of making language mistakes when using a foreign language

(such as spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, using wrong vocabulary, …)? o Yes o No

Extra

! Why did you pick the English version of the questionnaire instead of the Dutch version?

o ……………………………….……………………………….……………………………….……………………………….……………………………….……………………………….……………………………….…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

92

7.2 Results Questionnaire

7.2.1 ASO

7.2.1.1 Question 1 and 2

Graph 01: Representation of the answers to Q1 and Q2 on language learning and language

using, respectively, given by the adolescents from the ASO space (in absolute numbers).

7.2.1.2 Question 3

Graph 02: Representation of the answers to Q3 regarding settings which motivate the active

usage of English given by the adolescents from the ASO space (in absolute numbers).

Language learning

Language using

0

5

10

15

20

< 10 years-old 10 to 12 years-old

12 - 14 years-old

> 14 years-old

2

5

17

1

3

6

11

5

Language learning

Language using

English class Holiday Internet Games Friends and family

Watching movies, etc.

Reading books

24

18 17

8

5

2 1

93

7.2.1.3 Question 4

Graph 03: Representation of the answers to Q4 regarding language fluency given by the

adolescents from the ASO space (in absolute numbers).

7.2.1.4 Question 5

Universal language 25

Class and trendiness 14

Entertainment 13

Countries 9

Internet and computer 5

Money 4

Complex language (School) 4

Other: metro 1

Table 01: Associations made by adolescents with an ASO background

regarding the English language (in absolute numbers).

Yes, very fluent More or less fluent, sometimes I do make

mistakes

Not that fluent, I make a lot of mistakes

6

14

5

94

7.2.1.5 Question 6

Facebook 25

Snapchat 17

Instagram 7

Twitter 7

WhatsApp 4

Tumblr 4

Reddit 2

Foursquare 1

Weheartit 1

Tinder 1

Steam 1

Table 02: SNSs frequented by the adolescents from the ASO

space (in absolute numbers).

7.2.1.6 Question 7

Graph 04: Representation of the answers to Q7 about FL use on SNSs given by the adolescents

from the ASO space (in absolute numbers).

Dutch/Flemish English French German

25 20

3 1

95

7.2.1.7 Question 8

!

Sounds better 15

I can express myself/the message better in that specific language 12

It has a certain appeal; it is trendy or fancy 8

Other:

communicate with people who have a different language background

7

Other: absence of a Dutch equivalent 1

Table 03: Representation of the answers to Q8 about motivations that trigger FL use given by

the adolescents from the ASO space (in absolute numbers).

7.2.1.8 Question 9

Graph 05: Representation of the answers to Q9 regarding anxiety for making language mistakes

given by the adolescents from the ASO space (in absolute numbers).

Yes No

16

9

96

7.2.1.9 Question 10

English 4 Prefer English 3

Using it to learn/practice 2

Dutch 21 Mother tongue; easier 13

Time 4

Avoid mistakes 5

Understanding 2

No reason 3

Table 04: Representation of the answers to Q10 regarding language choice vis-à-vis the

questionnaire given by the adolescents from the ASO space (in absolute numbers).

7.2.2 TSO

7.2.2.1 Question 1 and 2

Graph 06: Representation of the answers to Q1 and Q2 given by the adolescents from the TSO

space (in absolute numbers).

Learning

Using

0

2

4

6

8

< 10 years-old 10 - 12 years-old 12- 14 years-old > 14 years-old

8

3 4

7 6

5

7

4

Learning

Using

97

7.2.2.2 Question 3

Graph 07: Representation of the answers to Q3 regarding settings which motivate the active

usage of English given by the adolescents from the TSO space (in absolute numbers).

7.2.2.3 Question 4

Graph 08: Representation of the answers to Q4 regarding language fluency given by the

adolescents from the TSO space (in absolute numbers).

English classes On holiday On the Internet

Online multiplayer

games

Conversations with friends and family

Instant messaging

18 17

14

10

5

1

Yes, very fluent More or less fluent, sometimes I do make

mistakes

Not that fluent, I make a lot of mistakes

7

12

3

98

7.2.2.4 Question 5

Universal language 24

Entertainment 15

School 9

Countries 7

Internet and Computer 7

Other languages 3

Money 1

Table 05: Associations made by adolescents with a TSO background

regarding the English language (in absolute numbers).

7.2.2.5 Question 6

Facebook 22

Snapchat 10

WhatsApp 9

Twitter 4

Tumblr 4

Instagram 4

Reddit 2

Tinder 1

Swapchat 1

Foursquare 1

Table 06: SNSs frequented by the adolescents from the TSO space (in

absolute numbers).

99

7.2.2.6 Question 7

Graph 09: Representation of the answers to Q7 about FL use on SNSs given by the adolescents

from the TSO space (in absolute numbers).

7.2.2.7 Question 8

Sounds better 12

I can express myself/the message better in that specific language 9

It has a certain appeal; it is trendy or fancy 6

Other: Communicate with people who have a different language background 3

Other: no idea 1

Table 07: Representation of the answers to Q8 about motivations that trigger FL use given by

the adolescents from the TSO space (in absolute numbers).

Dutch/Flemish English Other: Albanees Other: Turkish

22

15

1 1

100

7.2.2.8 Question 9

Graph 10: Representation of the answers to Q9 regarding anxiety for making language mistakes

given by the adolescents from the TSO space (in absolute numbers).

7.2.2.9 Question 10

English 1 No reason 1

Dutch 21 Mother tongue; easier 8

No reason 7

Understanding 5

To avoid mistakes 1

Table 08: Representation of the answers to Q10 regarding language choice vis-à-vis the

questionnaire given by the adolescents from the TSO space (in absolute numbers).

Yes No

10 12