Abstract
This study examines how linguistic practices of Urdu/English bilinguals influence linguistic typology particularly in terms of linguistic simplicity and complexity. The data was sampled from the Bachelor of Science students (who had Urdu as their primary language of communication and English as one of the academic languages or the most prestigious second language) of five universities located in Lahore, Pakistan. The data was primarily from their Facebook communication on the wall. The procedure for analysis was conceived within the current theoretical work on text analysis. At any given moment in time, interpersonal communication of Urdu/English bilinguals shows linguistic simplicity and complexity. The linguistic features which involve complexity are generally avoided and linguistic simplicity is emerging as the norm. The diachronic analysis of the data supports non-complexity axiom and further shows that the linguistic variations which used to occur over a period of decades are presumably spreading in a matter of years.
Highlights
Linguistic simplicity and complexity can be viewed as an outcome of contact between speakers of different languages (e.g., Trudgill 2011)
This study examines how linguistic practices of Urdu/English bilinguals influence linguistic typology in terms of linguistic simplicity and complexity
The linguistic repertoire of Urdu/English bilinguals in CMC provides an insight about simplification and complexification processes
Summary
Linguistic simplicity and complexity can be viewed as an outcome of contact between speakers of different languages (e.g., Trudgill 2011). Depending upon the topic and situation, Urdu/English bilinguals usually juxtapose their linguistic knowledge of at least two languages at word, phrase and clause level (Rafi 2013: 1272). This fact is compatible with Aure’s (1999) continuum of language alternation e.g., code-switching, language alternation and fused lects. As CMC has been increasingly becoming multilingual, researchers (e.g., Androutsopoulos 2007; Axelsson, Abelin and Schroeder 2007; Barasa 2010; Bodomo 2009; Durham 2007; Leppänen 2007; Paolillo 2007; Seargeant, Tagg and Ngampramuan 2012; Rafi 2014 and 2017; Warschauer, El Said and Zohry 2007) have explored new patterns of use and language combination in bilingual/multilingual speech communities.The linguistic repertoire of Urdu/English bilinguals involves frequent switches, linguistic reduction and neologisms. In contrast with the past studies (c.f., Trudgill, 2011 and those cited therein) which have noted striking differences in the speed of linguistic simplification and complexification at phonological, lexical, syntactical and semantic levels of different languages and dialects, the present study hypothesises that Internet communication has influenced crucially the speed of linguistic variation in the Urdu language
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