Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
International Journal of Multilingualism, 2024 (AHCI)
This paper investigates the influence of studying abroad and cultural or political contexts on language choice in social networking sites. This is achieved by comparing the language choices of two groups of Azerbaijani university students studying in Azerbaijan and Türkiye on Twitter (n = 324, n = 122). The theoretical framework for interpreting individuals’ linguistic changes was developed based on communication accommodation theory and audience and referee design concepts. Two separate datasets were created, consisting of 165,871 tweets posted by students in Azerbaijan and 77,240 tweets posted by students in Türkiye, covering four years. These data were analysed using a mixed methods approach, combining quantitative and qualitative techniques. At first glance, comparing the quantitative findings gives the impression that studying abroad is the dominant factor influencing language choice in social media, but this is quite misleading. Qualitative analyses show that users’ socio-political and socio-cultural contexts can limit or even eliminate the impact of studying abroad. The results suggest that an increase in the collectivist communicative climate on the network is more likely to influence language preferences on Twitter than studying abroad, especially in the short term. The language preferences of both groups converged or diverged depending on the context.