A Case Study of Turkish-English Written CodeSwitching on Twitter with Specific Reference to Language Awareness

The present study intended to examine the role of written code-switching (CS) between Turkish (L1) and English (L2) in Turkish-mediated correspondence among young social media users between the ages 18-25 on social media platform Twitter. It aimed to find out the impact of written CS on English language awareness and discuss the possible implications. The study hoped to find out the positive impacts of written CS on Twitter on individuals English language development, the development of English language awareness and the vocabulary. The study was carried out at two phases: primary data consist of text namely tweets collected from social media application Twitter and secondary data involves reports collected from online survey carried out to English Language Teaching (ELT) 1st year undergraduate students at Eastern Mediterranean University (EMU), Faculty of Education, Department of Foreign Language Education (FLE) in Northern Cyprus. The study used non-experimental, descriptive research method including observational and textual data collection methods to address the four research questions. It involved a total of 100 native Turkish Twitter user profiles, as well as, 50 1st year ELT undergraduate level students whose native language is Turkish and took the courses predetermined by the researcher (ELTE122-Structure of English, ELTE116-Writing Skills II, ELTE114-Reading Skills II, and ELTE120-Oral Communication Skills II) in the spring semester of the 2020-2021 academic year. The data analysis was performed in several steps, including the identification of code-switches, content analysis of texts, measurement of frequency, percentage calculations, and discussion of the data obtained. The observational Twitter analysis demonstrated that young Turkish social media users employ written CS frequently on certain topics for various possible reasons. In addition, the findings also showed that there is a significant trend towards the use of English words in Turkish-mediated correspondence in social media. Moreover, the analysis of the survey reports revealed that Turkish ELT students have a positive attitude towards the use of written CS in social media, and their answers argued that written CS in this medium has a positive effect on their English vocabulary development. Finally, results underlined that the use of written CS in social media increases users’ awareness of the English language in various ways.