Using Content Analysis to Explore AmaXhosa Language Identities in Social Media Texts

Abstract

In the age of increasing digital participation, the  role of social media in shaping and revealing  identity has become an important area of scholarly inquiry. This article explores the viability  of content analysis as a method for inferring  identity markers of amaXhosa in multilingual  online discourse, focusing on isiXhosa- and  English-dominant YouTube comments. Draw ing on the theoretical framework of performativity, the study examines how amaXhosa construct and express cultural and linguistic identities through language use in digital spaces shaped by English dominance. A curated selection of 80 YouTube videos related to isiXhosa  culture, interviews, and pranks was analysed. Comments were mined using the YouTube API,  and the South African Language Identification Tool (SA-LID) was applied for language cate gorisation. By grounding its approach in local language use and identity, the study contributes to African sociolinguistics and the broader field of African Digital Humanities, demonstrating how social media data can inform context identity research in multilingual societies.