Resumen:
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Today, there are 3.77 billion internet users, 2.80 billion social media users, 4.92 billion mobile users and 2.56 billion mobile social media users worldwide (Kemp, 2017). How can someone differentiate oneself from this huge pack and stand out or do the opposite, show that they belong to a specific community? Without a doubt, the use of language in computer mediated communication (CMC) has an important effect on online self-presentation. When people speak, they do not only exchange information but also give information about themselves and how they relate to the world (Northrup, 2013). Is the way teenagers and middle-aged adults, and women and men use language in social networking sites to project their online global and local identities same or different? This research has attempted to answer these questions for native speakers of Turkish. It is evident that language plays an essential role in online identity presentation in CMC. Prior studies have noted the importance of language in CMC and the electronic revolution (Crystal, 2006)with the information and communication technologies but little importance has been given to the Turkish language in CMC. This study attempts to fill in this gap in literature by analysing Turkish people’s posts in Twitter. English is used as an international and global language and it has become the preferred language of online communication (Rosenhouse & Kowner, 2008). Currently, English is the most commonly taught second language in Turkey (Bayyurt, 2006; 2012) and connects Turkey to the outside world. In this research, the use of English by Turkish native people in CMC explored, with a focus on language contact phenomena. Words taken from English and used in Turkish language are taken as lexical borrowings and English phrases used in Turkish posts are analysed as code-switches. Until now, little importance has been given to the use of English by Turkish people. To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine Turkish people lexical borrowing from English, types of lexical borrowings; cultural and core borrowings, borrowing lexical items; nouns, verbs and other items, code-switching to English, types of code-switching: inter-sentential code-switching and intra-sentential code-switching, and the contents of the posts in which Turkish people prefer using English instead of Turkish with respect to two variables: age and gender...
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