English and Khowar: The study of Social Media Linguistic Practices of Khowar Speakers

Abstract

Khowar is a language that belongs to Dardic group. It is spoken in different parts of Pakistan predominantly in Chitral where it is considered as lingua franca of the area. In the recent era, technology has become advanced and people have started to use different social mediums like Facebook to get in contact with their counterparts. As the social media networks are linguistically diverse so speakers choose a specific language for interaction. Among these languages, English is considered as the dominant language which has influenced the linguistic practices of the speakers. This study explores the linguistic practices of Khowar speakers on Facebook. To explore the linguistic practices of the speakers twenty participants are selected among which ten are males and ten are females. The posts and comments on the Facebook of the speakers have been analyzed to explore the similarities and differences in the linguistic practices of the speakers.