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Report
2019
The contentsof this report are the intellectualpropertyof theauthors.Nopart of this reportmaybe circulatedor reproducedwithout explicitpermissionfromtheauthors,or fromtheSchoolofArts,LanguagesandCulturesattheUniversityofManchester,OxfordRoad,ManchesterM139PL,UnitedKingdom.
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OnlineandofflineuseofPunjabiinManchester
LucyAppleby
PavondeepLallie
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1 IntroductionandLiteratureReview
In this studywe investigate howManchester speakers of Punjabi use language on socialmedianetworksFacebookandTwitter,aimingtocompareandcontrastonlineandofflinelanguageusewithbothquantitativeandqualitativeresearch.AfterhavingstudiedPaolillo(1996) we gained the impression that Punjabimight bemore popular offline due to theproblemsithasfacedonlinepreviously–theromanisationofthescriptmeantthatusewasdiscouraged and continues to be used minimally, however computers are now able toprocess non-Roman scripts (Lee, 2011). The online Punjabi community largely consists ofexpatriateswhonowresideinEnglishspeakingcountries,explainingwhythereislittleuseof Punjabi in Paolillo’s study (1996) and why it seems marginalised despite its current92,725,700 speakers (Ethnologue, 2019).Another reasonhighlighted to justify the lackofPunjabi spoken online is the second and third generation immigrantswho are not fluent(Paolillo, 1996) and thus follow the original lingua franca of the internet – English (Lee,2011).Wewillfurtherexploretheproblemsofthisaswerevealandevaluateourfindings.
The internet is a catalyst for human communication and creates variousopportunities for online users to connect and share information (Reershemius, 2017),allowingjustasmuchopportunityforpeopletospeakonanonlineplatformasinreallife.Thispapertakesalookintohowthisworksforinternetusersandtowhatextenttheyfulfilthismodernopportunity,helpingustounderstandthepossiblereasonsforthepopularity,orlackthereof,ofPunjabionline.Understandingthattrendsappearonline(Durham,2003),itispredictablethatyoungerusersmightbeswayedtouseEnglishinadditiontonothavingfullunderstandingofPunjabiforeaseofcommunication.Leppänen&Peuronen(2012)haveprovided information that demonstrates the use of code-switching in youth culture asopposedtoanoldergenerationduetotheinformalityandlanguageproficiency,relatingtothefindingsthatclaimonlinecodeswitchingandofflinecode-switchingareresemblantofone another (Androutsopoulos, 2007). We will try to get an insight into how an onlinepersona differs to unfiltered reality using their personal motivations and opinions.2 ResearchQuestions
OurstudyfocusesontheuseofPunjabiandhowManchesterbasedspeakerschoosetousethisonlineincontrasttootherknownlanguages.Wechosetodistributeourquestionnaireamongstthegeneralpublic,ofwhichsomeparticipantsweknewpersonally,howevermostresponseswerecollectedbyaddingthelinktoapublicpostfromourpersonalsocialmediapagesandreceivinganonymousresponses.Theaimofthequestionnaireistoconceptualiselanguageusebasedondomain,context,choiceandlinguisticskill–thequestionsreflectourintentionsandarepurposefullyveryopen toallow forpersonalandspecificanswers.Theaim of the researchwas to determinewhat languages people used online and offline. Ifthese differed, then we wanted to know why they chose to interchange between theselanguages.AnotherconceptwewantedtoconsiderwasifspeakersofPunjabiwereabletocommunicatewithpeoplewhoknewlanguagessuchasHindiandUrdu.Finally,wewanted
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to discoverwhether religion had an effect on individuals’ language choices andwhat thecircumstancesmightbeifthisisso.
3 Methodology
The researchplanproposed initiallyhasbeen improved toprovidemuchmoredetail andincludespecificationsthatwere incompleteormissingentirelybeforehand.Ofcourse,thestudy focuses on Punjabi, however we have accepted that there are multiple similarlanguagesthatwemustfactor intotheresearchandthatwemustfindoutaboutthroughourparticipants.WehaveallowedthequestionstobefairlyopenandaskaboutotherIndo-Europeanlanguages,scripts,domainsandcontextswhichcreateopportunityforvarietyanddiscussion.
UsingSurveyhero.comwecreatedaquestionnairewhichcompromisedofquestionsthatourresearchisbasedonandwillbeanalysedlater.Thesequestionsweredesignedforustobeabletocollectbothqualitativeandquantitativedata.Aftercirculatingthis,wewereabletoseeeachindividualsurveyandtheanswersgivenbyeachparticipant,someofwhichhadbeenleftblankorhadgivenyesandnoanswersforanopenquestion,thereforethesehave been disregarded. The way in which our data has been collected allows for us todisplayquantitativeresultsthroughgraphs,chartsandtableswhilestillprovidingqualitativereasoningandcreatinglinksbetweenthetwo.
Interviewswerecarriedoutwithcertainpeoplewhoagreedtothisandwerefamiliarwithus–webelievethatthisslightlymorepersonalinteractionisanimportantfactorinourinvestigation,especiallywiththesmallsampleofdatahavingbeencollected.Itallowsustoaskfurtherquestionstogetadetailedinsightonhowaparticularindividualcommunicatesonandoffline.
In instances where participants were addressed directly, proof of agreement wastakenandprovidedinthispaper.Participantswhosimplycompletedthequestionnairehaveconsentedbywillinglyandexplicitlypartaking.FortheparticipantcontactedthroughprivatemessageonTwitterorFacebook,ouraimswereexplainedtothemandweaddressedwaysinwhichtheycouldhelpus.Thescreenshotofthisprivatemessageisgivenintheappendix.4 Findings
TheInterview
We conducted an interviewwith someonewepersonally knew to get a better insight onhow people behave online and the reasons for this behaviour. The individual weinterviewed was a 19-year-old university student from London who currently lives inManchester. Some of the key aspects that we found were that she did not use Punjabipersonallyonlineonanysocialmedia,eventhoughshehasalargeIndianfollowing,sothismight have been expected as opposed to if she had a predominantly English following.
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However, she did claim to use Punjabi onWhatsApp, a messaging application, with hergrandparents. This should be pointed out after declaring that she does not use Punjabielsewhereonline,asthenotionthatsheonlyusesittocommunicatewithhergrandparentsindicates the nature of the switch in language. The significance ofWhatsApp within ourstudywillbediscussed later.Anotheressential finding inthis interviewwasthatsheusedRomanised letters to write Punjabi words, possibly relating to the fact that her use ofPunjabi is generally restricted and providing evidence for the findings of (Paolilli, 1996)where keyboard limitations inevitably led to language limitations. This being said, herknowledgeinanyrelatedlanguageswasverylimitedandstruggledtounderstandlanguageslikeHindiandUrdu–twoHindustanilanguageswhichalsobelongtotheIndo-Aryanfamily(Ethnologue, 2019). A lack of knowledge of languages that surround Punjabi, whilst nothindering the user’s knowledge of Punjabi, will not help in progressing linguistically andcould factor intowhy a user less likely to knowother related languagesmight feelmorecomfortableusingEnglish.Itwasalsoveryinterestingthattheuserwhenbeinginterviewedwas asked if she used Punjabi on other platforms chose to use the word bibi whenanswering. The word bibi meaning ‘grandma’ in Punjabi. The individual conducting theinterviewwasofIndianethnicityandalsospokePunjabi.
TheSurvey
Overninepeoplewillinglytookthissurvey.Oncewehadreachedthepointwherenomoresurveys should be taken in order to complete the paper, the data was cleaned up andresulted in the current nine responses – two of whichwere completed upon request bypeopleweknewpersonally and seven frompeopleonlinewhoanonymously yetwillinglytook part. They provided a detailed insight into what languages they know and to whatextent,anaccountofwhereandwhentheyuse these languages,and thereasonsbehindtheir language choices. The first few data points we collected were gender (figure 1),religion(figure2),age(figure3),andethnicity(figure4).
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As displayed, we receivedmostly female contributors overall, however the small samplemightbeanunclearrepresentationofthisratioandwouldhavetobestudiedona largerscale to get a better representation of this. It was found that Sikh is themost commonreligion inourdata setwithotherAsian religionsmakingup the remaining22% from thesample.Avastmajorityofparticipants,surprisingly,werefromayoungergenerationwithjustone50-years-oldansweringthesurvey.The finalpieceofbackground informationweaskedfrommemberswhotookthesurveywasethnicity–100%ofthesamplewerefromanAsianbackgroundand67%explicitlyconfirmedtheywereIndian.
Whenaskedtheirmothertonguelanguage,responsesforEnglishandPunjabiwereequal,withjustonedifferinglanguage,Hindi.8outof9peopleknewanotherlanguageaswellastheirmothertongueandtheproficiencytheyholdisdemonstratedinfigure5.33%of participants only had knowledge of English and Punjabi,with the other 67%having atleast basic knowledge of Urdu and/or Hindi. Unique findings in this section include onepersonwhohadatleastbasicknowledgeineverylanguagelisted,andanotherwhotickedboxesforonlyPunjabiandEnglishbuthadfluentunderstandingofMalayalam.
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Nowthatwehaveanunderstandingofeachperson’slinguisticknowledgeandabilityandhavealsobeengivenageneralideaofcommonpatternsamongstPunjabispeakers,thedetailsoflanguageusewillbeexploredanddescribed.
Eachparticipantwasmultilingualanddeclaredthatineverydaylife,withfriendsorineducationoremployment,theywouldtendtouseEnglishbecauseoftheethnicvarianceandgeneraluseofEnglisharoundthem.Alternatively,itwouldseemthatmostusePunjabiat home, with friends of the same ethnicity or with certain family members, specificallyparentsandgrandparents–theoldergenerations.SomerecognisedtheadvantageofbeingabletospeakPunjabiwithotheruniversitystudentsyetindicatedthattheywouldonlyuseEnglisharoundthosewhodidn’tunderstandPunjabi,toensureeveryonefeltcomfortable.
The response in figure6 is taken fromthesurveyand illustrates thenatureof theanswerswereceivedforthisparticularquestion.
Figure 5
Figure 6
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Importantly, everyone who completed the survey used a Facebook or Twitteraccount – it would have been impossible for them to participate without doing so. Theusageofthesesocialmediaaccounts(figure7)varied,with78%onlyusingoneplatformorthe other. Contrastingly, the language use online did not vary,with 100% of participantsusing English most when posting. Similarly to earlier reasoning, results presented thatEnglish is the easiest way to go about posting online as it is more understood by theirfollowersandfriends.Whenaskedaboutlanguageswitches,56%deniedanyswitcheswiththe remaining 44% admitting that language switches might happen in order to createcomediceffect,otherwisePunjabionlinemightnotattractasmuchattentionasanEnglishpostwould.
Religion was a significant factor in this study, and it is interesting to see how it affectslanguageuse.56%respondedthatreligiondidnotaffecttheirlanguagechoice,howeverthesmaller percentage said it did – a religious setting wouldmean they spoke Punjabi overEnglishduetothenatureofthesurroundingsandhowtheyhavelearnedtobehaveinthesesituations.5 DiscussionTheInterview
In the intervew we learned that this individual never used Punjabi on social media. HerreasoningbehindthiswasbecausesheknewthatallherfollowerswerenativespeakersofEnglish and that everyone she follows tweets in English, despite having more Indianfollowers.TheorginallinguafrancaoftheinternetwasintendedtobeEnglish(Lee,2011),and seeing that the majority of the people she was interacting with were speaking and
Figure 7
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communicatingwitheachotherinEnglishpossiblymeantthatshefeltobliged.Wefindthatpeopleseekoutgroupsofpeopleonlinethatarelikethemselves–theinternetandsocialmediahavemadeitextremelyeasytodoso(Mitra,2010).Withthisparticularindividualwesee that her interactions are influenced by those she follows. In previous research it hasbeenatrendthatpeoplewhohavethesamemothertonguestillchoosetocommunicateinEnglishonline(Lee,2011).
AnotherkeypointshemadewasthatsheusedRomanisedscripttotypeoutPunjabion WhatsApp. As we will see, after the survey and this interview, this seemed to be acommontrendbetweenoursample.MostofthemusedWhatsApptotalktotheirfamilies,all using Romanised Punjabi.We are aware the the older generation are becomingmoretechnologicallyaware(Mitra,2010),howevernewersocialmedialikeTwitterandFacebooktendtobefarfromtheirgrasp.MessagingappssuchasWhatsAppareverysimpleandeasytousehencewhyitissopopularamongoldergenerationsforkeepingincontactwiththeirfamilies. Themain reason this individual usedRomanisedPunjabiwasbecause shedidn’tknowhowtowriteandreadPunjabiherselfbutduetoherspeechbeingfluentitmeantthatshecouldphoneticallywritePunjabi.Translationsoftwaremakes itable to translatea fullweb page into a desired langauge – however the translation is doneword forword andsometimesresultsinthetranslationnotbeingcoherent(Mitra,2010).ThisthereforeleadstoindividualschoosingtoexclusivelyusingEnglishasitiseasier,whichwascorroberatedbythisinterview.
TheSurvey
Most of the people who completed the survey had at least basic knowledge in otherlanguages.LanguagessuchasHindiandUrduwerethemostpopularamongstthedata,andwiththesebeingsimilartoPunjabiitiseasytounderstandwhy(Ethnologue,2019).Asoursurvey showed, most of the people understood a sister language. The scripts of theselanguages,however,arenotthesame–i.e.someonewhomayunderstandHindiwhenitisspoken may not be able to read written script. Using Romanised Hindi and Urdu wouldmeanthatanindvidualwouldbeabletoreaditandunderstanditliketheywouldPunjabi.There is an online communitywho speak different languages but are able to understandeach otherwith the help of Roman characters. Phones, nowadaysmainly used for socialmedia,comepre-setwithanEnglishkeyboardwhichalso limits indiviuals tousingEnlgishcharacters when communicating with one another online (Paolilli, 1996). Almost allindividuals who used Punjabi online used Romanised English. This further supports thefindings of Paolilli (1996): technological limitations can affect the way that peoplecommunicateontechnologicaldevices.
Another common trend between these individuals was that they all tend to usePunjabi online less because they get less interaction from their followers. They prefer tospeak in English so that their followers understand, thus getting the highest level ofinteraction. Social media allows people to find others who have similarities, therefore
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creating online communities (Mitra, 2010). This survey supports that people online aretrying to create communities online, through making their content inclusive, whereeveryonecanunderstandtheirposts.Gaininglikesisalsosomethingusersprioritisehighly.Thesepeoplearecravinginteractionandwanttoreachabroaderaudience,increasingtheirexposure online. Previous research has shown that there is ‘constant competition’ online(Mitra, 2010). This survey has shown that people are trying to get more likes and arethereforemakinglanguagechoicesthatwillreachmorepeople.
Mostofthepeoplewhotookthesurveysaidthatreligiondidn’thaveaneffectontheirlanguagechoicesyetbeingSikhautomaticallymeantthattheirreligionexposedthemtomorePunjabi.Acommontrendisthatmostofthepeoplehadforgottenhowtoreadandwriteastheygotolder.ThisthenmeantthatwhentheywantedtocommunicateinPunjabitheywoulduseEnglishorthography. Their speech remained fluenthowever their readingandwritingskillswerecompromised.TheseindividualsallliveinanEnglishspeakingcountryand are second or third generation immigrantswhich has had an adverse effect on theirlanguage. This further supports the ideasofPaolilli (1996) that language tends todieoutwhen people move to English speaking countries, which then results in the furthergenerationshavingalimitedunderstandingintheirmothertongues.
ItwascommontoseeresponseswherepeopleusedPunjabiinaSikhtemple.ThisisduetooldergenerationsbeinglessfluentinEnglishcomparedtoyoungergenerations.Thenatureofthislanguageuseexplainswhyindivualstendtohavemorefluencyintheirspeechcomparedtoreadingandwriting.Eventhoughreligondidn’taffectlangaugechoices,whichwasouroriginalquestion,wefindthatreligionhashelpmaintainfluencyinPunjabiinsomeof the indviduals. Maintaining fluency in speech means that when they do want tocommunicateusingPunjabionline itwouldsimplybeacaseofusingRomanorthography.Paolilli(1996)revealedthattechonologicallimtationsmeantthatpeoplehadnochoicebutto use Romanised characters. Our research shows that lack of literacy skills in PunjabipushespeopletouseRomanisedPunjabiratherthanissuessuchasnothavingaccesstoakeyboardwithPunjabiscript.
Onetrendthatwefound inboththe interviewandthesurvey is thatmostpeoplewantedtouseEnglishasitwasanelementofinclusivity.Thisappliesonlineandoffline.Theintervieweedeclared she ‘didn’twantnon-Punjabi speaking friends to feel like theywereleftouttheconversation’andonesurveyresponseread‘Idon’twantmyEnglish-speakingfriendstofeel leftout’.Thispattern,onlineandoffline,showsthatpeoplemakelanguagechoices to accommodate for other people. Even though these individuals are free to usetheir own language around friendswho also speak Punjabi, they still choose to speak inEnglishoutofcompassion.Thisrelatestothefindingsthatclaimonlinecodeswitchingandoffline code-switching are resemblant of one another (Androutsopoulos, 2007) as peoplearetryingtomaintaininclusivityonandoffline.
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6 Appendix
Survey
Survey responses
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7 Bibliography
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