The Impact of Social Media Language on the Development of Pragmatic Competence among Young Adult English Learners in Libya

الملخص

This study explores the effect of social media language on the building of pragmatic competence among young adult Libyan learners of English. Since social media has become increasingly ubiquitous in day-to-day communication, learners are exposed to informal, context-dependent forms of language that may have effects on their pragmatic knowledge in social and academic contexts. With a mixed-methods design, the research combines quantitative social media utilization and pragmatic capability surveys and qualitative in depth interviews questioning learners' attitudes. Preliminary results indicate correlations between social media utilization and increased pragmatic strategy awareness, e.g., politeness and conversational implicature. Transference of social media language to the academic learning context remains contentious. The implications of the research are far-reaching and concern language teaching methodology, in which there is a need to incorporate social media language awareness into the study curriculum so that pragmatic competence can be enhanced more effectively. The research contributes to applied linguistics in consideration of online communication trends and their influence on second language acquisition.