A corpus-based study of linguistic practices of mobile instant messaging in WhatsApp and WeChat communications by bilinguals from the mainland and Hong Kong

Abstract

This research is a corpus study on literacy practices in WeChat and WhatsApp communications. This research focuses on the identification and the comparison of the similarities and differences of linguistic features found in the texts in WeChat and WhatsApp communications produced by native Putonghua speakers with English as their second language and native Cantonese speakers with English as their second language. This research is done within the theoretical framework of New Literacy Studies and contributions of different factors in social and cultural contexts to the literacy practices in WeChat and WhatsApp communications are investigated.

Some linguistic features found in previous literature are retained and various approaches of the use of homophones, romanization, mode-mixing and code-mixing are thoroughly identified and categorized in recent WeChat and WhatsApp communications in this research. The incentives and reasons behind the development of the same linguistic features of the two groups of bilinguals are found to be different and some linguistic features are specific to the bilinguals from the Mainland and Hong Kong respectively.

The investigation of the similarities and differences of literacy practices reveals the influences of the interaction of different spoken dialects, the popularity of the mass media and the Netspeak used in social media on the development of specific linguistic features of the two groups of bilinguals. Other factors, including one's linguistic knowledge and cultural background formed in specific social and cultural contexts, the language policy of an education system of a country, occasional time constraint, technical constraints like the limitations of the inputting system, and situational social factors such as different social situations that the users are situated in, are found to have contrinutions to the development of different distinctive literacy practices.