English as an International Language: English/French Language Alternation in Politically Motivated CMC in Congo-Brazzaville

Autor/in	Tsoumou, Jean Mathieu
Titel	English as an International Language: English/French Language Alternation in Politically Motivated CMC in Congo-Brazzaville
Quelle	In: Journal of English as an International Language, 14 (2019) 2, S.94-117 (24 Seiten) PDF als Volltext kostenfreie Datei Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1718-2298
Schlagwörter	English (Second Language); Second Language Learning; Language Role; Language Usage; French; Sociolinguistics; Official Languages; Social Media; Computer Mediated Communication; Computational Linguistics; Presidents; Elections; Pragmatics; Humor; Motivation Techniques; Political Attitudes; Foreign Countries; Code Switching (Language); Congo + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? English as second language; English; Second Language; Englisch als Zweitsprache; Zweitsprachenerwerb; Sprachgebrauch; Französisch; Soziolinguistik; Office language; Amtssprache; Soziale Medien; Computerkonferenz; Linguistics; Computerlinguistik; President; Präsident; Election; Wahl; Pragmalinguistik; Humoristische Darstellung; Motivationsförderung; Political attitude; Politische Einstellung; Ausland; Kongo
Abstract	The world is witnessing an unprecedented growth of the English language worldwide. Now more than at any time in linguistic history people are powerlessly assisting the expansion of one global language, English, dominating other languages even in countries, such as Congo-Brazzaville, where its presence was not long ago barely observed. There has been a growing interest in studying the sociolinguistic change brought about by the lingua franca nature of English. English is increasingly used along other languages in Facebook communication. It is therefore important to thoroughly examine the main pragmatic functions of English/French alternation in a politically motivated Facebook interaction among Congolese users. In this study, a corpus of 265,147 words, including 9,330 comments were collected from October 2015 to July 2016, the time period highlighted by two major national political events, mainly the constitutional referendum (October 25, 2015) and the presidential election (March 20, 2016). The analysis revealed seven communicative functions (e.g., offering advice, astonishment, criticism, anger/cursing/insult, appraisal, hope boost and motivation, jocular mockery) trigger the use of English in politically motivated Facebook communication. The lingua franca function of the English language worldwide is on the top of the factors influencing and motivating Congolese Facebook users to resource to this language in Facebook interaction. The users tend to be driven by the mere idea that in order to put the communication on international scale, a global language is needed regardless of whether all fellow users understand it. (As Provided).
Anmerkungen	English Language Education Publishing. Site Skills Training - Clark, Centennial Road, Clark Freeport Zone, Clark, Pampanga 2023, Philippines. e-mail: asianefl@gmail.com; Web site: https://www.elejournals.com/journal-of-english-as-an-international-language/; Web site: https://www.eilj.com/
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01