The impact of new technologies on language change in a Malaysian context

A social network called Facebook has become a powerful and essential tool for communication. This study explored how language was used in Facebook and how its popularity online has the potentiality of affecting the languages of choice in a multilingual context. It also examined the languages that are at risk and the extent to which language change can potentially occur in Facebook. In addition, it addressed how users in Malaysia perceive language change from a sociolinguistic viewpoint. Two primary languages are in contact which are Bahasa, Malaysia (BM-the National Language) and English. The findings revealed the frequent use of the vernacular forms of Bahasa Malaysia interspersed with those of Malaysian variety of English that leads to variations that are unique to Facebook. The Malaysian English reflects features of indigenization and nativization that clearly distinguish it as a variety of English. There were objects, new concepts and new activities that may require new terms and frequent used of syntactic structures which were reduced to simpler grammatical forms, and language contact that may induce speakers to adopt forms and usages from other languages. Consequently, the areas of language that are affected are in phonology (pronunciation), morphology (word formation), semantics (meaning) and structure (grammar).