English as a Social Media Lingua Franca among Georgian Social Media Users

Abstract

The present article examines the status of English as a social media Lingua Franca based on Georgian social media users. The purpose of the research is to identify how dominant and frequent the usage of English is on social media in Georgia. It also includes the respondents’ attitude towards the change, their readiness to accept it and their proper understanding of the neologisms established on social media. The article also includes a diachronic overview of the dominance of different languages in the Georgian language. In order to obtain the current linguistic image on social media, descriptive research was conducted, and the data was collected and processed based on the answers on the Google form questionnaire, which included 15 questions. In the light of the descriptive study, it was apparent that the majority of the respondents (197) agree that English is the main language for communication apart from the native language.