Topic

Effects of Bilingualism on users of Social Media in De La Salle University- Dasmarinas

I.

Research Problem
As we observed in our society today, bilingualism tends to be a norm. You can

encounter people using two different languages in the field of education, law,
philosophy, medicine etc. It is also often observed as you go along to online social
networking sites most especially facebook and twitter.
A case study conducted by MTS Allstream, one of Canada's leading national
communication solutions companies, way back year 2009, and they found out that
bilingualism in the use of social media greatly affect their marketing skills. They served a
lot of people who uses the English and French languages. They can easily code-switch
as they were knowledgeable with the said languages.

POTENTIAL POLICY CONTRIBUTION

I chose this problem/topic as I know that people nowadays, especially the youths,
are being most affected of this, as they use different languages when conversing with
others online. It is also observed among the trait of being conyo on the way they use
bilingualism. And as I observed, in our context, this could give a variety of impacts either
positive or negative because they showed that they cant stick to one language as they
talk to others.
RESEARCH QUESTION
1. What are the common languages that the students usually use when they are
using social media accounts like facebook or twitter?
2. How can they manipulate the said languages as regards to social media?
3. What are the effects of using two different languages or bilingualism on social
networking sites?
LITERATURE REVIEW

As to talk about bilingualism, theres one company in Canada that practiced the
effectivity of it to promote their goals with regards to the growth of the said company.
Serving customers in multiple languages has long been the practice in Canada,
where both English and French are the official languages (David, 2009). Thus, at MTS
Allstream, fully bilingual websites have been the norm since the mid 1990s. This
includes the company's external-facing website as well as its intranet.
As one of Canada's leading national communication solutions companies, MTS
Allstream is constantly looking to forge a closer link between the company and its
customers -- and eventually inject customer perspectives very early in the product
development lifestyle. Additionally, following the 2004 merger between MTS and
Allstream, the company has looked to open up information sharing and break down
departmental silos.
So, as you observed from the goal of the said company, they really want to be
closed enough to their customers so with that, they used variety of languages to make
their customer feel that they are belong to the community that the said company has.
To accomplish these goals, MTS Allstream established a presence on a number
of external social media sites, as well as built new internal mechanisms to increase
collaboration across the company. However, the addition of the social media
components created a new set of questions for MTS Allstream regarding the translation
and implementation of generated content. MTS Allstream uses Vignette Content
Management from Open Text, which enables the company to easily propagate
translated material between sites. However, the company learned that the need for
translation is not always a hard rule; rather, it's often a very fluid process.
Getting closer to customers' hearts and minds
Imagine being able to address a group of customers with the questions: "What
are the five biggest problems you're facing today? And what if you had a technology that
could do this, this, and this?" Having answers to those questions would identify your

value proposition well in advance of a product release, strengthen your marketing

strategy, and create additional customer advocates.
With the aim to inject customer perspectives early in the product development
lifecycle, MTS Allstream set up Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube accounts with oversight
from a social media working group. A cross-functional committee representing all three
sides of MTS Allstream -- corporate, enterprise, and consumer -- established legal
terms and conditions of use, a language policy, and the appropriate security measures.
This team also addressed the issues of whether to create a single profile/username to
represent the company or propagate several different personas. Ultimately, the decision
was made to keep it simple and stick with a single account for each channel, rather than
immediately jumping in and populating the channels with multiple personas.
Because MTS Allstream's different customer segments interact using different
social media tools, the company handed over control of these channels to different
business groups. After the committee set up initial ground rules to accommodate these
dynamics, it turned the social media accounts over to the marketing departments of
each division to determine how to engage with their particular constituencies.
In all cases, though, MTS Allstream's external social media tools are available in
English only. For instance, translating every tweet into French would be both time
consuming and a potential turn-off for the company's followers, who would receive an
extra, redundant post. Deciding on a single language enabled the MTS Allstream to
deliver a single company voice that could be maintained with efficiency and an
appropriate number of touch points to the company's followers.
To end this up, this research will help us to know the effects of bilingualism on the
users of social media here in our country that has a wide difference on the context of
the above mentioned company. Now, we will be looking forward on how bilingualism can
affect a particular person who is not working in a company or a costumer of something
but as a normal student who also normally use social media accounts.

Prepared by:
Tabajunda, Dastin M.
BSE 41