Code-Switching Practices in Digital Communication: A Case Study of EFL Learners in Southwest Papua, Indonesia
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1608.06Keywords:
code-switching, digital multilingualism, translanguaging, social media communicationAbstract
This study investigates the digital code-switching practices of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners at Universitas Muhammadiyah Sorong, Indonesia, across three prominent social media platforms: WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook. Using a qualitative case study approach, the research draws on naturally occurring digital interactions and semi-structured interviews with eight purposively selected participants. Through an interactive analytical framework, the study identifies systematic patterns of inter-sentential and intra-sentential code-switching that function as intentional communicative strategies rather than indicators of linguistic inadequacy. The students employ code-switching to convey emotions, construct personal and social identities, enhance narrative expression, and manage audience relationships within digital environments. English commonly indexes prestige, global orientation, and emotional emphasis, whereas Indonesian maintains cultural resonance and interpersonal closeness. These practices reflect a translanguaging process shaped by the affordances of social media platforms and the multilingual ecology of Eastern Indonesia. The study contributes to ongoing discussions on digital multilingualism by emphasizing code-switching as an essential element of digital literacy and intercultural communicative competence.
References
Alazemi, A. F. T., Gheisari, A., & Patra, I. (2023). The consequences of task-supported language teaching via social media on academic engagement, emotion regulation, willingness to communicate, and academic well-being from the lens of positive psychology. Asian-Pacific Journal of Second and Foreign Language Education, 8(1), Article 47. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40862-023-00220-6
Althobaiti, H., & Alsaawi, A. (2025). Code-switching in rural areas: The case of Ad Dahinah public schools from the perspective of sociocultural theory. Forum for Linguistic Studies, 7(2), 32–46. https://doi.org/10.30564/fls.v7i2.8022
Chakrani, B., Ziad, A., & Lachkar, A. (2025). Paradoxes of language policy in Morocco: Deconstructing the ideology of language alternation and the resurgence of French in STEM instruction. Languages, 10(6), 135. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages10060135
Daoud, S., Guba, M. N. A., Hussein, E., & Skaik, H. (2024). Attitudes toward code-switching among bilingual Jordanians: A comparative study. Linguistics Vanguard, 10(1), 397–407.
Dean, M. C., & Porter, B. (2025). Sentiment analysis of Russian-language social media posts discussing the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Armed Forces & Society, 51(4), 1027–1050.
Didi-Ogren, H. H. (2020). Sociocultural linguistic approaches to code-switching in Japanese women’s talk in interaction: Region, gender, and language. Multilingua, 39(6), 685–720.
Dux, R. (2020). Code-switching and loan translation in German-American: A cognitive-constructional account. Belgian Journal of Linguistics, 34(1), 52–65.
Elhambakhsh, S. E. (2025). Evaluating ChatGPT-3’s efficacy in solving coding tasks: Implications for academic integrity in English language assessments. Language Testing in Asia, 15(1), 1–23.
Fetahi, E., Susuri, A., Hamiti, M., Kastrati, Z., Canhasi, E., & Misini, A. (2025). Enhancing social media hate speech detection in low-resource languages using transformers and explainable AI. Social Network Analysis and Mining, 15(1), 82. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13278-025-01497-w
Gan, Q. (2024). Different registers, different grammars in second language production? The dative alternation in spoken and written Chinese learner English. Lingua, 309, 103790. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2024.103790
Gross, M. C., López González, A. C., Girardin, M. G., & Almeida, A. M. (2022). Code-switching by Spanish–English bilingual children in a code-switching conversation sample: Roles of language proficiency, interlocutor behavior, and parent-reported code-switching experience. Languages, 7(4), 246. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages7040246
Han, X., Li, W., & Filippi, R. (2022). The effects of habitual code-switching in bilingual language production on cognitive control. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 25(5), 869–889.
Hiaeshutter-Rice, D., & Hawkins, I. (2022). The language of extremism on social media: An examination of posts, comments, and themes on Reddit. Frontiers in Political Science, 4, 805008. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpos.2022.805008
Ibrahim, I., Saputra, D., & Hardianti, R. (2024). Vitality of Moi language: A case study of Moi tribes in Southwest Papua, Indonesia. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 14(12), 3906–3915.
Kakati, P., & Dandotiya, D. (2024). Automatic detection of hate speech in code-mixed Indian languages in Twitter social media interaction using DConvBLSTM-MuRIL ensemble method. Social Network Analysis and Mining, 14(1), 108. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13278-024-01264-3
Lappeman, J., Mathebula, A., Brien, J., & Jay, S. (2024). Investigating the experiences of cultural code-switching among Black middle-class professionals in South Africa. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 55(8), 886–899.
Lundtofte, T. E., & Grønning, A. (2025). Making sense of digital communication between students, parents, teachers and school leaders in Danish state schools. Global Studies of Childhood, 15(3), 243–256.
Martínez, L. M., & Guinot, L. S. (2025). Translating code-switching and L3. Stieg Larsson's Män som hatar kvinnor in German, French, Italian, Portuguese, English, Catalan and Spanish. Onomázein, 68, 48–64.
Muftah, M. (2024). Impact of social media on learning English language during the COVID-19 pandemic. PSU Research Review, 8(1), 211–226.
Mustafayeva, L. A., Akbarova, S. A., Gurbanova, G. K., Abdullayev, A. A., Muradova, G. H., Ahmadova, V. S., Aliyeva, K. R., Aghamirza, D. H., Hajiyeva, A. F., Aynur, G., & Nazirzada, L. N. (2025). Code-switching in multilingual societies: Significance, patterns, functions, and sociolinguistic implications. Forum for Linguistic Studies, 7(7), 194–207. https://doi.org/10.30564/fls.v7i7.10294
Namaziandost, E., Heydarnejad, T., & Goodarzi, A. (2025). Unboxing the gifts of WhatsApp in language learning: Magnifying the impacts on English achievement, academic engagement, foreign language anxiety, and learner autonomy. Smart Learning Environments, 12(1), 28. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40561-025-00383-4
Nejadghanbar, H., Song, J., & Hu, G. (2024). English language teachers' emotional vulnerability in the era of self‐branding on social media. TESOL Quarterly, 58(4), 1734–1760.
Nistor, A., & Zadobrischi, E. (2022). The influence of fake news on social media: Analysis and verification of web content during the COVID-19 pandemic by advanced machine learning methods and natural language processing. Sustainability, 14(17), 10466. https://doi.org/10.3390/su141710466
Pratginestós, C., & Masats, D. (2024). Exploring language alternation and participation in an ‘in-between learning scenario’: A case study of a WhatsApp chat with secondary students of English. Classroom Discourse, 15(3), 273–292.
Riyanto, R. E., Dwisusilo, S. M., Rahman, S. B. A., & Afdholy, N. (2023). Tengger communities’ creativity and language preservation in text-speak on the WhatsApp social media platform. International Journal of Anthropology, 38(3–4), 263–279.
Rosyidha, A., Rohmah, N., Panjaitan, L. L., Tongken, M. S. L., Setyoningrum, S. F., & Winanto, A. R. (2025). Multilingual instructional strategies for energy education: A study on code-switching and code-mixing. In E3S Web of Conferences (Vol. 650, Article 01004). EDP Sciences.
Rustan, E., & Ajiegoena, A. M. (2023). Code-mixing and second language acquisition on social media by digital native Indonesian children. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 13(1), 217–226. https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1301.25
Sablina, L. (2023). The role of social media in facilitating minority mobilisation: The Russian‐language pro‐war movement in Germany amid the invasion of Ukraine. Nations and Nationalism, 29(4), 1422–1438.
Smith, G., Licata, G., & Rustagi, I. (2025). Empowering product teams to advance inclusive language and mitigate hateful speech on social media products. Business and Professional Communication Quarterly, 88(4), 808–834.
Song, B., & Xiong, D. (2023). A comparative study of the effects of social media and language learning apps on learners’ vocabulary performance. Asia Pacific Education Review, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12564-023-09871-z
Tjaden, J., Seuthe, M., & Weinert, S. (2024). Recruiting refugees to reduce labour shortages in health care professions: Experimental evidence on the potential of foreign-language outreach on social media. Human Resources for Health, 22(1), 48. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12960-024-00933-w
Treffers-Daller, J., Majid, S., Thai, Y. N., & Flynn, N. (2022). Explaining the diversity in Malay-English code-switching patterns: The contribution of typological similarity and bilingual optimization strategies. Languages, 7(4), 299. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages7040299
Utegenova, A., Kurmanova, B. Z., Abdullina, N. U., Koshimova, B., Otarova, A., Zhetkizgenova, A., Batinova, A. S., & Muratbek, B. K. (2024). Code-switching in a multilingual classroom in Kazakhstan: A university students’ perspective. Forum for Linguistic Studies, 6(6), 371–380. https://doi.org/10.30564/fls.v6i6.7338
Wang, H., & Patterson, M. M. (2025). Academic resilience in learning English as a foreign language: Relations to classroom climate and beliefs about language learning. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 87, 101517. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.stueduc.2025.101517
Wang, J. (2024). Language practices of Chinese doctoral students studying abroad on social media: A translanguaging perspective. Linguistics Vanguard, 10(1), 699–709.
Wang, W. (2025). Insertional code-switching as interactional resource in Mandarin–English bilingual conversation. International Journal of Bilingualism, 29(4), 883–902.
Wang, Y.-L., Liu, C.-C., Kuo, C.-C., & Hou, H.-T. (2025). Intergenerational collaborative dynamics in digital game design learning: A sequential analysis of communication patterns. Acta Psychologica, 261, Article 105763. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2025.105763
Yousif, A. S. A. (2025). Multilingualism in the digital age: Code-switching and translanguaging online. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 15(4), 1217–1225.
Zhang, H., Liu, H., Zhang, Y., & He, H. (2025). How will I evaluate others? The influence of “Versailles Literature” language style on social media on consumer attitudes towards evaluating green consumption behavior. Behavioral Sciences, 15(7), 968. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs15070968
