A study on the use of English in students’ social forums on facebook at Thai Nguyen University of Education

ISSN: 1859-2171 TNU Journal of Science and Technology 199(06): 37 - 43 
 Email: jst@tnu.edu.vn 37 
A STUDY ON THE USE OF ENGLISH IN STUDENTS’ SOCIAL FORUMS 
ON FACEBOOK AT THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION 
Nguyen Thi Hong Minh
*
, Nguyen Thi Thu Huong, Ngo Thu Huyen 
TNU University of Education 
ABSTRACT 
Young people including students have developed their language use in social networking sites like 
Facebook in their own ways, among which the insert of English in their posts has become part of 
their communication and a quite new interesting fact. However, it seems that there have been not 
so many research working on this phenomenon. This study aims at investigating how students use 
English in their social forums on Facebook at Thai Nguyen University of Education as well as 
their viewpoints on the use of English in those networks. Moreover, it analyzes the quality of 
students’ English use and provides some further discussions which may give insights on the 
situation. Hence, the paper hopefully provokes a more systematic study on the use of English in 
Vietnamese social forums as a linguistic and social phenomenon. 
Key words: social forums on Facebook, students’ use of English, Thai Nguyen University of 
Education 
Received: 02/5/2019; Revised: 21/5/2019; Approved: 29/5/2019 
NGHIÊN CỨU VIỆC SỬ DỤNG TIẾNG ANH CỦA SINH VIÊN 
TRONG CÁC DIỄN ĐÀN XÃ HỘI TRÊN FACEBOOK 
CỦA TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC SƯ PHẠM – ĐẠI HỌC THÁI NGUYÊN 
Nguyễn Thị Hồng Minh*, Nguyễn Thị Thu Hương, Ngô Thu Huyền 
 Trường Đại học Sư phạm – ĐH Thái Nguyên 
TÓM TẮT 
Trong những năm gần đây, giới trẻ bao gồm cả sinh viên đã phát triển cách dùng ngôn ngữ trên 
các mạng xã hội như Facebook theo cách riêng của mình, trong đó, việc sử dụng tiếng Anh trong 
các đăng tải trên mạng xã hội đã trở thành một phần giao tiếp của họ và cũng là một thực tế mới 
khá thú vị. Tuy nhiên, chưa có nhiều nghiên cứu đề cập đến hiện tượng này. Bài báo này nghiên 
cứu việc sử dụng tiếng Anh của sinh viên trong các diễn đàn xã hội trên Facebook của trường Đại 
học Sư phạm – Đại học Thái Nguyên; đồng thời tìm hiểu quan điểm của sinh viên về việc tiếng 
Anh được sử dụng trên các mạng xã hội. Bên cạnh đó, nghiên cứu này cũng phân tích chất lượng 
sử dụng tiếng Anh của sinh viên và đưa ra những thảo luận có thể đem lại những cái nhìn sâu sắc 
hơn về hiện tượng này. Bài báo hi vọng sẽ khơi gợi cho những nghiên cứu có hệ thống hơn về việc 
sử dụng tiếng Anh trên các diễn đàn xã hội của Việt Nam như một hiện tượng ngôn ngữ và xã hội. 
Từ khóa: diễn đàn xã hội trên Facebook, việc sử dụng tiếng Anh của sinh viên, trường Đại học Sư 
phạm – Đại học Thái Nguyên 
Ngày nhận bài: 02/5/2019; Ngày hoàn thiện: 21/5/2019; Ngày duyệt đăng:29/5/2019 
* Corresponding author. Email: hminh8782@dhsptn.edu.vn 
DOI: https://doi.org/10.34238/tnu-jst.2019.06.977 
Nguyen Thi Hong Minh et al TNU Journal of Science and Technology 199(06): 37 - 43 
 Email: jst@tnu.edu.vn 38 
1. Introduction 
English with its global spread has been 
integrating in every aspect of life in Vietnam, 
and this integration seems stronger than ever 
with the quick growth of technology and the 
Internet. One of the obvious consequences is 
that English has influenced the mother 
language use and somehow has become a 
crucial part in the communication of the 
Vietnamese, especially the youngsters [1]. 
Since its advent in 2004, Facebook has widely 
been recognized a leading social networking 
site used by university students [2], [3], [4] 
thanks to the huge benefits that it provides the 
users. Specifically, the function of pubic 
sharing and fast connection with other people 
despite their location allows its members to 
communicate more openly and socially than 
traditional communication tools. This service 
has miraculously transformed the way 
humans interact, including the way we use the 
language for communication [5]. There has 
appeared an interesting fact that young 
people, on social forums on Facebook, 
communicate their own language: their 
mother language is simplified and foreign 
languages, especially English is inserted in 
their communication. Students on social 
forums on Facebook at Thai Nguyen 
University of Education (TNUE) also join in 
this trend. It is seen from students’ posts that 
English is widely and frequently used in their 
statuses and comments. This new interesting 
phenomenon has become part of the young’s 
language and thus should require research to 
have a more insight of it. 
2. Method 
The research was primarily designed as a 
descriptive study and therefore adopts 
a quantitative approach with the use of the 
questionnaires and corpus as research 
instruments. Questionnaires are distributed to 
426 students via Google forms to gather data 
regarding student’s experience in using 
English, students’ opinions and interest in 
using English in social forums on Facebook. 
In addition, a collection of 37,592 students’ 
statuses and comments on social forums on 
Facebook at TNUE is used for corpus 
analysis to discover how the participants use 
English in those social forums. 
3. Findings 
Results from the questionnaires have very 
much contributed to the answers of the 
questions: (i) How English is used in 
students’ social forums on Facebook and (ii) 
What is the quality of the English use in those 
forums. 
It can be seen from Table 1 that although 
there were a bigger number of students not 
using English in social forums on Facebook, 
about one third of the users have employed 
English at some level. In their posts, students 
used English words the most: 33.34% of the 
posts contained at least 1 English word; 
0.43% of the posts contained English 
sentences, and only 0.03% of them employed 
English paragraphs. 
The statuses and comments collected can be 
divided into three groups according to the 
purposes. Chart 1 shows that the first category 
was statuses for business: there were 585 
statuses (45.5%) about job employment, 
selling utensils and advertisement. English 
words and quotes are often used in those 
posts. The second group was categorized 
based on their target to the audience in the 
community occupied 22 1.8%. In these 
statuses, students propagandized for blood 
donation and TNUE flashmob dancing 
competition. The last group as the biggest was 
statuses for personal purposes: there were 678 
statuses (52.7%) in total. This result proved 
students used English a lot in their statuses, 
especially in the statuses for personal 
purposes. 
Table 1. How students use English in social forums on Facebook 
Not use English 
Use English (33.8%) 
Word level Sentence level Paragraph level 
66.20% 33,34% 0.43% 0.03% 
Nguyen Thi Hong Minh et al TNU Journal of Science and Technology 199(06): 37 - 43 
 Email: jst@tnu.edu.vn 39 
Chart 1. Statuses categories 
Table 2. Frequency and percentage distribution of students’ opinions 
about reasons for using and not using English in social forums on Facebook 
 Reasons Frequency Percentage 
Use English 
To be modern 83 19.5 
To show level of English 193 45.3 
To practice English in daily life 281 66 
To entertain 143 33.6 
Total 426 100 
Not use 
English 
Using English is annoying 123 28.9 
People make many mistake 53 12.5 
It is like people are imitating the others 144 33.8 
Not all the members of the forum know English 200 46.9 
There is no reason for not using English in social 
forums on Facebook 
178 41.8 
Total 426 100 
As displayed from Table 2, the advocates had 
their own reasons for using English in social 
forums on Facebook. Specifically, 66% of the 
respondents strongly believed that it is a good 
way to practice English in daily life. The 
students also acknowledged English use as a 
means of showing their foreign language 
proficiency (193 students, equivalent to 
45.3% thought using English illustrates their 
high level of English). Moreover, 33.6% of 
the participants declared using English in 
social forums was entertaining and gave them 
a lot of fun. This result proved that students 
enjoy using English in social forums on 
Facebook for certain reasons. 
Nevertheless, the participants did reveal some 
reasons for not using English in social forums 
on Facebook. The fact that not all members 
can understand English has prevented 46.9% 
of the students from the use of English on 
social forums. Meanwhile, 33.8% of the 
correspondents found it would be like they 
were imitating the others if they had used 
English in their statuses/comments. 28.9% of 
the students regarded English use as some 
kind of annoyance and 12.5% thought that 
people should not insert English in their 
Facebook posts due to the constant mistakes 
that they make. 
Furthermore, an analysis of the collected 
corpora allows a more insight of how students 
use English in TNUE social forums on 
Facebook. 
Nguyen Thi Hong Minh et al TNU Journal of Science and Technology 199(06): 37 - 43 
 Email: jst@tnu.edu.vn 40 
Table 3. Ten most frequently used words 
No. 
Words/phrases 
used 
Frequency 
(%) 
Forum Error category 
1 
innox/ib/inb 
(inbox) 
38.7 
TUE confession, 
TUE – Đại học Sư phạm Thái Nguyên 
vocabulary 
2 
add/ad 
(admin) 
22 TUE confession vocabulary 
3 
cmt/comnent 
(comment) 
20.8 
TUE confession, 
Anh k51 ĐHSPTN, 
TUE – Đại học Sư phạm Thái Nguyên, 
Sinh viên Ngoại ngữ 
vocabulary 
4 
fultime 
(full-time) 
8.1 TUE – Đại học Sư phạm Thái Nguyên vocabulary 
5 
partime 
(part-time) 
7.5 TUE – Đại học Sư phạm Thái Nguyên vocabulary 
6 
phan 
(fan) 
6.6 TUE confession vocabulary 
7 
okii/oke 
(okay) 
4.8 
TUE confession, 
Anh k51 ĐHSPTN, 
TUE – Đại học Sư phạm Thái Nguyên, 
Sinh viên Ngoại ngữ 
cultural 
references 
8 
cfs 
(confession) 
4.6 TUE confession vocabulary 
9 bream (?) 2.8 TUE – Đại học Sư phạm Thái Nguyên vocabulary 
10 
sharre 
(share) 
2.1 
TUE confession, 
Anh k51 ĐHSPTN, 
TUE – Đại học Sư phạm Thái Nguyên, 
Sinh viên Ngoại ngữ 
vocabulary 
It can be seen in table 3 that all of the most 
frequent words in wrong use are short and 
common words. ib/inb/inbox is in the first 
rank with 38.7%. Nearly one quarter (22%) of 
the English words used in students’ statuses 
and comments were ad/add which stand for 
admin or administrator. Cmt/comment 
referring to comment was wrongly used in 
20.8% of the posts. Other words such as full-
time, part-time, ok, share, etc. were employed 
less than 10% of the comments and statuses. 
Although these words also have Vietnamese 
equivalents, they still have been used widely 
instead of the words that have the same 
meaning in their mother tongue; 
consequently, their Vietnamese equivalents 
are somehow disregarded. This is partly due 
to the convenience in the condensed and user-
friendly English codes, such as “ad”. 
However, these words also partly indicate the 
development and the trends of the youth’s 
language nowadays. 
The errors committed in vocabulary 
competence may occur due to students’ 
carelessness while typing their comments or 
statuses (ad-add, inbox-innox, comment-
comnent, fulltime-fultime); in addition, some 
words including cmt,cfs,ib/inb, etc. is not 
considered English words in correct use, as 
these words have not appeared in any English 
dictionary. In other words, it can be said that 
students created the abbreviations themselves. 
They used the word ok in many different 
forms, and some of them committed cultural 
references competence (oki, oke, okii). 
In this study, the quality of students’ English 
use is assessed in the light of Bachman’s 
model [6]. Particularly, errors of English use 
in social forums are shown in the table below. 
Nguyen Thi Hong Minh et al TNU Journal of Science and Technology 199(06): 37 - 43 
 Email: jst@tnu.edu.vn 41 
Table 4. Quality of English use in TNUE social forums on Facebook 
Organizal competence – Grammatical competence Pragmatic competence – 
Sociolinguistic competence 
Vocabulary Morphology Syntax Cultural references 
Messager, coppy, 
wrong person 
(who is the wrong 
person in this 
story), beautifull, 
servey 
before eat-before 
eating, 2 slot – 2 
slots, some way – 
some ways, one – 
first 
I do not know the dance, for 
me to sing, I am sorry before, 
they just asking, maybe the 
same caption with me, why 
friend no tag badminton, I am 
afraid pig or fat 
dell, diss, sét– set, sợppờ rai 
– surprise, phan – fan, love 
– lớp, cook – Cúc, sờtuđần ờ 
gển- student again, where-
que 
It can be withdrawn from table 4 that the students’ mistakes in their English uses can be 
categorized in two broad groups: Grammatical competence and Pragmatic competence. In terms 
of grammatical competence, the errors that students have made belonged to 3 subgroups: 
vocabulary, morphology, and syntax. Most of the vocabulary errors were about spelling, for 
example coppy (copy), servey (survey), etc. The morphology errors are often of plural/singular, 
for example, 2 slot (2 slots). Syntax errors occured because of the students’ lack of grammar, for 
example, for me to sing (let me sing), they just asking (they were just asking). In terms of 
Pragmatic competence, the errors were only related to cultural references, for example love (lớp), 
cook (Cúc), dell, diss, etc. Despite the wrong use, these words reflect quite a innovative way of 
using English among Vietnamese young people, which has become a noticeable trend in social 
forums, media as well as daily life. 
Table 5. Code-switching between English and Vietnamese 
No Examples Forums 
Basis of inserting 
English 
1 
Em đã đi đượt muật phần bar cuộc đời 
(Em đã đi được một phần ba cuộc đời) 
TUE confession 
Pronouncing 
references 
2 
mình thin được bốc họ cho high bạn 
(mình xin được bốc họ cho hai bạn) 
TUE confession 
Pronouncing 
references 
3 
đỉnh kout 
(đỉnh cao) 
TUE confession 
Pronouncing 
references 
4 
hưởng lương theo bream lương của công ty 
(hưởng lương theo barem lương của công ty) 
TUE – Đại học Sư Phạm 
Thái Nguyên 
Code - switching 
5 
eat cái này no fat và no pig too 
(Ăn cái này không béo và cũng không ) 
TUE confession Code - switching 
6 
tán Cook thì sao 
(tán Cúc thì sao) 
TUE confession 
Pronouncing 
references 
7 
e thì cũng kute phô mai where 
(em thì cũng rất dễ thương) 
TUE confession 
Pronouncing 
references 
8 
Vào cf đi chứ 
(vào xác nhận đi chứ) 
Anh K51 ĐHSPTN Code - switching 
9 
ad cho xin cái list fan cứng để of 
(quản lý cho xin cái danh sách người hâm 
mộ nhiệt tình nhất để tổ chức buổi gặp mặt) 
TUE confession 
Code - switching 
10 
năm nay nhân vật main có ai 
(năm nay nhân vật chính có ai) 
TUE confession Code - switching 
Nguyen Thi Hong Minh et al TNU Journal of Science and Technology 199(06): 37 - 43 
 Email: jst@tnu.edu.vn 42 
As obviously shown in table 5, students 
inserted English in their posts frequently, and 
the words they used were not completely 
standardized English nor standardized 
Vietnamese. The ways of inserting English in 
those posts can be categorized in two groups. 
The first group is sentences containing 
English words that have the similar 
pronunciation with Vietnamese words. Some 
examples of this group are Mình thin đượt 
bốc họ cho high bạn, E thì cũngkute phô mai 
where, etc. (thin – xin, high – hai, where – 
que). The English words in these sentences 
are not used as English notional words but 
Vietnamese words so as to make the 
conversation become more interesting. 
However, they are still English originated; 
besides, clearly, these words require the 
knowledge of both languages from readers to 
be understood. 
The second category is sentences containing 
English notional words. Sentences for 
example Eat cái này no pig và no fat too, Ad 
cho xin cái list fan cứng để of, etc. 
demonstrate code-switching phenomenon. 
The English words in these situations were 
just used to replace Vietnamese words in 
meaning in order to make the sentences 
become shorter and funnier. Despite having 
different basis of inserting English, the 
sentences in these two groups are all 
ambiguous in meaning, and hence, 
misunderstanding may occur. 
4. Discussion 
From the data recorded through corpora, it 
can be summarized that the English words 
that students used in social forums on 
Facebook can be categorized in two ways. 
The first group of English words used in 
social forums is to replace equivalent 
Vietnamese words. Students mostly employed 
English words to replace longer Vietnamese 
words such as ad/admin for người quản lý, 
csf/confession for lời bộc bạch, fulltime for 
toàn thời gian, etc. These English words are 
shorter; therefore they are more convenient to 
use. Commenting on posts is similar with 
chatting in daily life, so people tend to use 
verbal expressions; as a result, people try to 
type as fast as they are thinking, so short 
words are necessary and thus are preferred. 
This phenomenon is called code-switching 
which to some extent is believed to help 
people in learning new words as well as 
practicing English use in daily life. It is a 
natural process where the two languages 
integrate and have mutual impacts. This 
somehow demonstrates that young people 
have acquired some certain English and have 
been accustomed to using the English in their 
communication, which can be a good signal 
for the teaching and learning of English in 
Vietnam after huge efforts of the government, 
schools, parents, teachers and students. 
However, in some cases, students use too 
many English words to replace Vietnamese 
words, which can make the conversation 
become hard for others to understand. 
Moreover, abusing code-switching too much 
might be the main reason leading to the use 
unstandardized Vietnamese language in daily 
communication. 
The second way of using English words in 
social forums is to replace Vietnamese words 
that share similarities in pronunciation. 
Students prefer words such as diss, dell to 
replace the Vietnamese words which have 
similar pronunciation but impolite in 
meaning. This is a new way of euphemism in 
Vietnam. There are also Vietnamese words 
being replaced just for entertaining. Students 
used words such as love trưởng (lớp trưởng), 
kim cook (Kim Cúc), high bạn (2 bạn), etc. to 
make the conversation become more 
interesting and funny. This way of 
euphemism is quite creative, and has just 
appeared among youngsters. Objectively 
speaking, this kind of language of the 
youngsters is like fashion trend but partly 
Nguyen Thi Hong Minh et al TNU Journal of Science and Technology 199(06): 37 - 43 
 Email: jst@tnu.edu.vn 43 
shows the characteristics, psychological 
renewal of the young. Somehow it reflects the 
youngsters’ language which has become quite 
common in their communication. In fact, this 
way of replacing words is a personal way of 
expression, but with the support of social 
forums on Facebook, it has been quickly 
spread, and become a new trend among young 
people. But like code-switching, this 
phenomenon can also make people 
misunderstand others’ ideas, and partly 
contribute to the wider use of unstandardized 
Vietnamese. This practice of euphemism in 
the mother language is a noticeable 
phenomenon that may need study and 
recommendations from educators for better 
preservation of the native language. 
Moreover, upon analyzing the corpora, it is 
realized the variety of English syntax in use is 
rather limited. The students only apply only 
two types of sentence structures: truncated 
simple sentences, for example so sad, trust 
me, etc. and simple sentences, for example 
you’re welcome, I want to kill him. These 
kinds of sentences are easy to use and 
understand, and do not required complex 
grammar. This somehow can indicate TNUE 
students’ low competence in English as well 
as their preference for straightforward and 
simple ideas. Quotes are also brought into 
students’ posts, for example In the end, we 
only regret the chances we didn’t take 
appears in posts for hiring employees. 
However, in fact this kind of posts can be 
merely copied from others’ then pasted into 
the social forums as a new post. Obviously, 
students cannot use non-literal English, which 
requires a higher proficiency to be practiced 
effectively. 
5. Conclusion 
In summary, there have been a considerable 
number of students using of English in social 
forums on Facebook at Thai Nguyen 
University of Education. However, their use of 
English is largely restricted to word level and 
demonstrates quite constant error systems. 
While the quality of students’ English use in 
social forums is still limited and does not help 
much with their learning of English, the 
frequent switches between English and 
Vietnamese languages in communication may 
present some threats to the standard and purity 
of the mother language. This may require 
further study with recommendations from 
experts for better solutions to the study of 
English and the preservation of Vietnamese as 
the native language. 
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Nguyen Thi Hong Minh et al TNU Journal of Science and Technology 199(06): 37 - 43 
 Email: jst@tnu.edu.vn 44