Browsing by Author "Mokeira, Nina Gichaba"

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    Language use in identity creation among facebook communities
    (Egerton University, 2025) Mokeira, Nina Gichaba
    This study investigated the role of social media language and identity formation dynamics within Facebook communities. Beyond being a mere communication conduit, the language activated social users’ perception, shapes their social integration, and constructs the overall identity of the community. This study sought to describe the identity constructing linguistic identity strategies and the opportunities afforded by language to sustain the social communities on Facebook. In addition, the study aimed to describe the social language pattems that Facebook community’s exhibit. This study hinges on the social identity theory of Tajfel and Turner and the Multimodal discourse analysis by Kress and van Leeuwen. From the social identity theory, social categorization, identification and comparison processes by members of the Let’s Cook Kenyan Meals (LCKM) Facebook community to form social constructs and Identity was analyzed. While the discourse analysis focused on the integration of various communication modes to form meaning. This study analyzed a purposive sample of thirty posts and thirty corrunents by participants in a Faceboak Group called LCKM, a community of practice centered around cooking. Participants discussed other issues like politics, marriage, weight loss, and education, along with the cooking and recipes. Data were captured through qualitative content analysis, where the researchers purposively selected thirty posts and thirty comments from the group’s F acebook page. The author used thematic content analysis to respond to the research objectives, organizing and analyzing the data based on the broader themes positioned around SIT and MDA. The findings indicated that Facebook users employed language to construct and signify social identities. Users culturally identified themselves by displaying various meals and concluding their posts by challenging other members to name the meals in their native language. Married users employed personal storytelling and linguistic devices, especially emojis, to express and discuss marriage and politically related issues. The posts and comments language promoted sharing and sustained a supportive community around the Facebook group. The combined linguistic and semiotic content generated by LCKM members served to validate and articulate the existing gendered social norms that structure domestic and culinary expectations. Therefore, this study holds significant sociolinguistic implications for digital communication studies, broader processes of identity creation and community building.