Internet and Web 2.0 remains to be one of the most common and overly used products of the industrialized generation. Additionally, social media has been regarded as one important aspect of life in the modern day world. This is because it helps people get access to news and information. Business individuals use it as platform for business promotions through advertising, connecting to prospective customers and further executing online sales. Facebook for instance as suggested by Kwan and Skoric, (2013) has offered a platform for a number of studies including researches conducted to evaluate the extent of cyber-bullying among internet users. Language has been an essential aid to the language since the beginning of time. It is also common knowledge that modern-day communication still depends heavily on the understanding of language. This is enough reason to justify the idea of engaging translators in cases where certain people tend to understand a different language. Notably, the people of Puerto Rico Island have had access and use of social media and it is most probable that they have been using their Puerto Rican Spanish language on social media especially on Facebook to interact with other people and to execute their businesses in the global world.
There have been a lot of issues raised on the nature of the language used by the people of Puerto Rico Island and whether the American colonization had any impact on their Spanish language. Scholars have also wondered what the Puerto Ricans perceive of the other languages and the state of that perception in the modern day world. Additionally has been the issue of the use of Puerto Rican Spanish and its growth among the people of the island. All these questions and controversies are set to be answered by an insightful look by this paper into the history of the island of Puerto Rico, the colonization by the Spanish and the American people and how being under these two foreign rules impacted on their language and the way they use this language in schools and most importantly in the modern day social media platforms.
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This paper shall discuss the details under language used by the Island Puerto Ricans on social media platforms especially Facebook which happens to be among the social media site with the highest number of users. This paper focuses on the background of the Puerto Rican Spanish as a language and the history of the Puerto Ricans. Secondly, the paper gets to discuss the overall incorporation of language into social media by host companies such as Facebook and the level of growth that language has reached as far as social media use is concerned. Further to that, the paper looks into the use of Puerto Rican Spanish language on Facebook and other social media networks in a bid to find out the extent the language as taken. This particular topic is of importance to the users of social media both with and without the understanding of the language. It gives these users the liberty to reach Puerto Rican Spanish speakers based on the availability of translation provided by social media sites.
The History and Background of Puerto Rican Spanish
Lipski, (1994) describes the Puerto Rican Spanish to be the most studied language and spoken by the smallest territory with Spanish speakers in Latin America. Puerto Rico happens to have been controlled by the United States for a very long time, yet their Puerto Rican Spanish Language did not become victimized by the US English. Puerto Rico Island is located at the point where the Caribbean Sea connects with the Atlantic Ocean with a population of about 3.5 million people. There are up to 4 million other Puerto Ricans who are found within the United States mainland. The Island of Puerto Rico had been colonized by Spain for over four centuries until the war between Spain and America in 1898 which led to Spain ceding the island to the United States. The United States made the English language a co-official language in the Island of Puerto Rico. In the initial days into the colonization of the island, the United States appointed rulers who demanded that English be used as the mode of instruction from the colonial administration to their Subjects; the Puerto Ricans. Later on, Puerto Rico attained self-governance and elected their ruler in the mid-20th century. This brought about a swift change in the language of instruction which was promptly changed by the new governor to Puerto Rican Spanish. The Public Schools in the island started using their own Puerto Rican Spanish for teaching and examining all subjects, and this pushed English to be taught as an optional subject to the Puerto Ricans.
The island of Puerto Rico has a healthy education sector since they also have a string of numerous successful private institutions of learning. Ladd and Rivera-Batiz, (2006) suggested that most Puerto Rican parents in the middle and upper class prefer to pay for the education expense of their children hence explaining the reason behind the robustness of the private schools' sector. The need to access more English teaching among parents in Puerto Rico can be said to be one of the main reasons why parents prefer to take their children to private institutions of learning over public institutions. According to a number of studies and researches, the period between 2009 and 2010 saw a 4.7% increase in enrollment to private schools and subsequent drop in students’ enrolment in public schools during the same period. Schmidt, (2014) believes that in as much as Puerto Rican Spanish remains the most common language of the island, the language of English is still honored by the people.
Puerto Rico counts among the societies which use the English language as a second language. However, Puerto Rico comprises of people speaking a single language. The English language is used in Puerto Rico informal setups that include media advertisements, some school activities as well as the socializing aspect of school going children. All this implies that the English language has also received a substantial piece of Puerto Rican hearts majorly among teenagers and school going children. Nevertheless, the Spanish Puerto Rican language still remains the dominant language among the people of Puerto Rican Island.
It is very important to note that despite the over a century of United States Colonization of the island, the people of Puerto Rico have kept their local Puerto Rican Spanish as the dominant language in the island. However, the English language has held a high place to the extent that the federal court system of Puerto Rico uses the English language. Mazak, (2012) suggests that even specialists such as physicians, accountants, engineers and veterinary doctors among others tend to use the English language more than the local Puerto Rican Spanish.
Social Media versus Language
The largest social media network (Facebook) with the highest number of users was started exactly ten years ago, and since then more such sites have been developed. Over 2 billion people use Facebook and other social networking sites on a daily basis, and more than amuses is that the figure also keeps growing day by day. We have come to a point where entry into social media is a rite of passage and mothers of newborn babies open Facebook accounts for their young babies, administer them until they have come of age. Additionally, Facebook and other social media platforms are used by business organizations to make announcements to their clients and employees. Others use it to make sales to customers while others who are majorly teenagers also use it for socializing and getting to meet new friends.
It is worth noting that social media have made huge impacts on people’s lives including the language used by the people. Social media use and the internet, in general, has expanded the users’ contact with other languages as well as increased their understanding of more than one language (Garcia, 2009). Further to that, Garcia, (2009) notes the fact that English remains to be the most common language used by the majority of internet users, nevertheless, the changes brought about by web 2.0 has given users the chance to use other additional languages besides English. The Internet has given users the liberty to choose from a variety of languages to use. Facebook, for instance, is giving its subscribers the option to get a translation of information to the desired language making communication very easy in the platforms of social media.
According to Caroll and Mari, (2017), Facebook reached Puerto Rico in its initial years of launching and stood to be the website at the top position as far as access by the people of Puerto Rico. There are statistical researches that have approximated the number of Puerto Ricans on Facebook to stand at about 35 percent of the whole population of Puerto Rican speaking persons. These researches have however acknowledged the difficulty in measuring the exact duration spent by the said users on free social media websites. All the same, the available data seems enough to give details to researchers and scholars on the manner in which Puerto Rican Spanish language has been used by these people while they interact in the social media platforms such as Facebook.
Carroll, (2008), in her analysis on the use of Puerto Rican Spanish language on the internet and social media, focused her study specifically on the use of the language in MySpace, another social media platform. Caroll, (2008) did an online analysis of a number of sample profiles at MySpace and selected 3 of those samples for a case study which aimed at investigating the use of Puerto Rican Spanish language by the users. The study found out the level of use of the language on social media which was regarded as in high level. While interacting with people who understand the Puerto Rican Spanish Language, the users tend to speak in their language. The same manner the people of Puerto Rico have maintained the use of their local dialect even after over a hundred years of United States colonization of them is the same way the Puerto Ricans use the Spanish Puerto Rican language even on social media platforms. However, they also use English equally but tend to regard it as a second language among themselves. The availability of language translators within social media platforms such as Facebook has even made it interesting for Puerto Ricans to use their language and get to learn English from social media interactions.
Conclusion
In Summary, the people of Puerto Rico can be said to love and treasure the Puerto Rican Spanish language and use it extensively in schools and communication both in social media and on major platforms of mainstream media. It is however notable that the American colonization had some impacts on them and the current generation seems to prefer the English language over Puerto Rican Spanish.
References
Carroll, K. S. (2008). Puerto Rican language use on MySpace. Com. CENTRO: Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies , 20 (1).
Carroll, K. S., & Mari, V. Z. (2017). Puerto Rican language use on Facebook. CENTRO: Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies , 29 (2), 38-62.
Garcia, O. (2009). Bilingual Education in the 21st Century: A Global Perspective. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell
Kwan, G. C. E., & Skoric, M. M. (2013). Facebook bullying: An extension of battles in school. Computers in human behavior , 29 (1), 16-25.
Ladd, H. F., & Rivera-Batiz, F. L. (2006). Education and economic development. The economy of Puerto Rico: restoring growth , 189-238.
Lipski, J. M. (1994). Latin American Spanish (pp. 1-392). London: Longman.
Schmidt, J. R. (2014). The politics of English in Puerto Rico's public schools. Boulder, CO: First Forum Press.
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