CODE-SWITCHING IN PAKISTANI BEAUTY AND LIFESTYLE YOUTUBE VLOGS: A SOCIOLINGUISTIC ANALYSIS

Abstract

In Pakistan, among digital media platforms youtube is famous for sharing creative digital content, especially Vlogs for sharing personal experiences with the world. These experiences involve the unique practices of code-switching and code-mixing between different languages like Urdu, English, Punjabi and other regional languages. This study investigates Urdu-English code-switching in the beauty and lifestyle Vlogs of Pakistani youtube content creators i.e. Nadia Hussain Khan and Fatima Irfan Sheikh to know the communicative and social function of code-switching. The Vlogs are selected randomly and their verbal content is transcribed for further analysis. The study has adopted the theoretical framework of the Interactional Sociolinguistic Model by Gumperz (1982) to examine the communicative and social reasons behind this phenomenon. The results show that the code-switching is not a random practice, but a deliberate approach in such Vlogs where Urdu language is utilized to build cultural identity and emotional connection and English in building technical knowledge, professionalism, and compatibility within the discourse of global beauty. The study concludes, that code-switching is important for Pakistani beauty Vloggers to balance the local and global identity at the same time, contributing to the emerging field of digital sociolinguistics.