The Language of Pakistani TikTok Stars: Discourse Analysis of Youth Identity and Digital Fame

Abstract

The aim of this research is to analyze the linguistic and discursive activities of Pakistani TikTok influencers to gain insights into how the youth construct and negotiate the concepts of identity and digital celebrity vis-a-vis social media. Using discourse analysis and sociolinguistics, the study investigates a purposive sample of TikTok videos, captions, and comments from 18 to 30 year-old popular content creators. Emphasis was placed on the participants’ language use, code-switching from Urdu to English and other local vernaculars, laughter, gender expression, and branding. The outcomes of the study suggest that the identities of youths undergo continuous transformation through the intricate interplay of local cultural elements and global digital phenomena, where language serves as one of the instruments to construct solicited authenticity, relatability, and social capital. Another finding illustrated in the study is that digital fame is profoundly associated with an individual's class, aesthetic preferences, and visibility through algorithms. Discussing Pakistani TikTok stars in the context of contemporary youth culture and media convergence allows us to better understand the discourse of Pakistanis in context of the growing digital discourse studies and study how language, identity, and technology interact in South Asia.