Indianization of English: An interface between English Language and Social Media

Abstract

A writer and a feminist, Rita Mae Brown states Language is the road map of the culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going. Language is the reflection of culture. Culture has its roots in the changing society and thereby changing the language. With the change of mediums and media of communication, Indian languages also changed radically. It has widely touched upon every domain where the modes of communication have been changed. Undoubtedly it has become faster, quicker and more handy and easy to handle. Data transportation became so easy than ever before. However like every coin have two sides, this also has another side. To call it as the dark side would be unwise and skeptical on the other hand not accepting the change would be hurdlesum. Language is the medium to express our feelings, expressions and ideas subtly and evocatively. The selection of words, choice of appropriate facial and gesture expressions, the tone all matters in communicating. With the social media like Whatsapp and other mediums, it has become more rigid, monotonous, and colde.g wishing someone on Birthday on Whatsapp has become merely a formality than cordiality. The present generation is using social media to make them better understood. In a country like India which is linguistically and culturally very rich and varied , an extensive study can be undertaken to understand the changing nature of language and the factors responsible for this change.

 Though the roots of English Language lies in British and American English but today every Indian is using English with a taste of Indian English.This paper attempts to highlight a few such examples where language is replaced with texting, acronyms, emojis etc. vocabulary is also getting reshaped. Through these illustrations, the shades of being Indian are noticeable. Hence Indianization of English is the focus of this paper