An Overview of the Challenges of Social Media to Arabic Language

Abstract

We live in a world of continual variations and they determine progress and advancement of societies. One of the major forces behind the rapidly changing reality of the world today is technological advancement and proliferation in our daily lives. Digital technology has not only transformed our lives rather it has reshaped, restructured, rearranged, and recreated different discourses related to our lives. It has transformed the ways in which people used to perceive, react, and interact with each other. Human language as a means of human communication and socialization cannot maintain a strategic distance from this change. The current paper is an effort to investigate the effect of the utilization of interpersonal organizations, Facebook as model, on language practices. The study attempts to reveal the impacts brought about by the utilization of interpersonal organizations - Facebook as model- how its effect on language. The outcomes of this analysis show that the language used on Facebook is mostly based on the use of abbreviations, either in comments or in publications. The conversations depend largely on the hybrid language that combines all languages at once, and replacing some Arabic letters with numbers, symbols, and Latin letters. Emoticons are used to convey the feelings and emotions instead of language structures. Facebook as a social networking platforms has given birth to new expressions that reflect the modernity and elegance for the users.

Keyword: Arabic, social media, Arabez, chat, language, communication