The Trend of Using English in Bangladeshi Social and Electronic Media Conversations: Reasons ‘Within’ and ‘Beyond’ the Circle

Shamima Akter Shanta

Language is one of the strong driving forces in shaping the identity and culture of people of a community, therefore, issues related to language is always dealt with tact and imminence. One of the noteworthy traits of language is change and progressiveness, which is prevalent in Bangla (native language or L1 of Bangladesh) language as well. These changing trends of language include code switching/mixing tendency (Bangla, English or Hindi), violation of standard form of Bangla, transliteration of Bangla into English, use of English accent in pronouncing Bangla, deliberate attempt of young generation to use English as a fashion statement etc. This paper intends to explore the existing realities behind this linguistic changes and the impact of this changes on Bangla. To do so, examples of a few conversations from private radio & Television channels and face book pages have been provided and analyzed to give a glimpse of the current linguistic situation of Bangladesh that is evident in Bangladeshi electronic and social media conversations at present. This paper tries to illustrate the importance of a nation-wide language awareness that can make a difference in policy and practice of using language in Bangladesh emphasizing literature, culture and functions of both native (Bangla) and foreign (English) language.