When Social Media Reshapes Academic English: Digital Register Drift and Hybrid Communication among Vietnamese EFL Students

Abstract

In the era of digital communication, social media has increasingly transformed how English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students communicate, interact, and construct linguistic identities. While previous studies have primarily focused on the effects of social media on language learning outcomes, relatively limited attention has been devoted to its influence on stylistic norms, academic discourse practices, and register control. This study investigates how social media-mediated communication contributes to digital register drift and hybrid communication among Vietnamese EFL students.

Employing a sequential explanatory mixed-methods design, the study integrates quantitative and qualitative data collected from 90 undergraduate students at the Faculty of Foreign Languages, Trade Union University. The dataset includes questionnaire responses, semi-structured interviews, and discourse samples extracted from students’ online interactions across multiple social media platforms. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and comparative tests, while qualitative data were examined through thematic, discourse, and multimodal analysis.

The findings reveal that social media functions as a digital discourse ecology that reshapes communicative norms and accelerates stylistic hybridization. Students increasingly combine academic English with informal digital expressions, emojis, abbreviations, conversationalized syntax, and code-switching practices. The study further identifies a process of digital register drift in which increased communicative fluency and interactional confidence coexist with weakened grammatical precision, reduced stylistic consistency, and declining academic register control.

The study contributes theoretically by introducing the concepts of digital stylistic hybridization and academic register drift to explain the transformation of English communication in digitally mediated environments. Pedagogically, the findings highlight the need for EFL education to integrate digital stylistic competence, register awareness, and multimodal communication training into contemporary language instruction.