Audience and the Use of Minority Languages on Twitter

Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, 9

Volume

Vol. 9 No. 1 (2015): Ninth International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media

Poster Papers

On Twitter, many users tweet in more than one language. In this study, we examine the use of two Dutch minority languages. Users can engage with different audiences and by analyzing different types of tweets, we find that characteristics of the audience influence whether a minority language is used. Furthermore, while most tweets are written in Dutch, in conversations users often switch to the minority language.

10.1609/icwsm.v9i1.14648