인도어의 대전환: 인터넷 공간에서의 다언어 현상 분석

Abstract

Recently, the Modi government has implemented a policy of forcing Hindi in the name of Hindu nationalism and encouraged the use of Hindi, rather than English, on social media and homepages of public institutions. Nonetheless, multilingualism is prominent in India's Internet space. Therefore, in this paper, I will analyze the multilingual preferences in today's rapidly growing Internet space in India and studied the language transition taking place in India, a multilingual country. In particular, the language status in the Internet environment, which is rapidly emerging as a new medium, will become an important social indicator. The analysis was conducted based on the languages ​​supported by the most accessed sites in India. First, we were able to confirm that the supported languages ​​differ depending on the nature of the site, and the cause was found in the social context. First, the user base has diversified. Recently, as the Internet infrastructure has expanded in India and smartphones have become widespread, the user base has expanded to rural areas, small cities, and women, and the use of regional languages ​​has increased rather than English, which had been the dominant language of the Internet. And with the emergence of social media for expressing oneself on the Internet, two-way communication has become important, and content centered on mother tongues, i.e. regional languages, rather than English, has increased. Lastly, we were able to confirm that regional languages ​​are being supported at the corporate level as the Internet space grows into a new market. Through this paper, it was able to confirm that, unlike the political context, regional languages, in addition to Hindi, are established as languages ​​for communication in India's Internet space, and that we are entering a pluralistic society where regional languages ​​coexist.