Globalization and Language Use on Social Media in Pakistan

Abstract

This article examines the written comments of Pakistani students on the official Facebook sites of the public and private sector universities in order to study their English language skills and social networking systems of students and its implications for language policy in education. The study focused on the quantitative and statistical analysis and investigated the differences of Facebook users from the public and private sector in the light of educational background, regional variation, and gender. Results of the study displayed the dominant use of English and a significant difference between public and private sector students in their preference to use English. Results also showed that there is considerable differences in men and women representation on Social Networking Sites (Facebook) in some provinces of Pakistan. Findings of the study raise the issue of language discrimination between students of public and private sector universities, in terms of access and equity of the current language policy in Pakistan to meet language demands of globalization.