{"title":"Empowering or endangering minorities? Facebook, language, and identity in Myanmar","authors":"Myat The-Thitsar","doi":"10.1080/14631369.2021.1951596","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Language policies play a major role in ethnic conflict because they affect the right of speakers to choose and use their preferred language(s), and help determine courses of action to maintain, assert or defend such rights. There has been insufficient analysis on the role of social media, particularly Facebook, in strengthening or undermining the survival of minority languages and collective identity in multi-ethnic countries. This paper uses Myanmar as a case study to demonstrate the extent to which Facebook language policies influence language use practices of minorities in Myanmar. While Facebook’s selection of Burmese as a ‘Facebook language’ has privileged the use of Myanmar’s majority language at the expense of its minority languages, it has simultaneously provided opportunities for ethnic minorities to preserve and promote their languages and cultures.","PeriodicalId":45296,"journal":{"name":"Asian Ethnicity","volume":"23 1","pages":"718 - 740"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9000,"publicationDate":"2021-07-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/14631369.2021.1951596","citationCount":"5","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Asian Ethnicity","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14631369.2021.1951596","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"ETHNIC STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 5
Abstract
ABSTRACT Language policies play a major role in ethnic conflict because they affect the right of speakers to choose and use their preferred language(s), and help determine courses of action to maintain, assert or defend such rights. There has been insufficient analysis on the role of social media, particularly Facebook, in strengthening or undermining the survival of minority languages and collective identity in multi-ethnic countries. This paper uses Myanmar as a case study to demonstrate the extent to which Facebook language policies influence language use practices of minorities in Myanmar. While Facebook’s selection of Burmese as a ‘Facebook language’ has privileged the use of Myanmar’s majority language at the expense of its minority languages, it has simultaneously provided opportunities for ethnic minorities to preserve and promote their languages and cultures.
期刊介绍：
In the twenty-first century ethnic issues have assumed importance in many parts of the world. Until recently, questions of Asian ethnicity and identity have been treated in a balkanized fashion, with anthropologists, economists, historians, political scientists, sociologists and others publishing their studies in single-discipline journals. Asian Ethnicity provides a cross-disciplinary, international venue for the publication of well-researched articles about ethnic groups and ethnic relations in the half of the world where questions of ethnicity now loom largest. Asian Ethnicity covers any time period, although the greatest focus is expected to be on the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
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