Scrolling in English: Linguistic Trends in Pakistani TikTok Captions

Abstract

This study explores the role of English in TikTok captions in Pakistan, emphasising how only English captions function as a tool for global visibility, identity construction, and audience engagement and reach, based on previous sociolinguistic work this study interrogates why creators cannot maximise both global status and local inclusion at the same time with captions. Data were collected from 130 TikTok posts that contained captions in English-only and 90 mixed-language captions with attention to digital sociolinguistic, code switching, and qualitative discourse analysis. The finding reveals that English in captions performs several communicative functions: it enhances branding and monetisation across local and global audiences, it reflects a symbol of prestige and modernity, and enables natural English acquisition, but at the same time it risks excluding a large part of their local audience who do not understand English fully and it seems like the creator is being artificial. The study concludes, that the role of English in TikTok captions plays a dual role, on one hand they give creators global reach, prestige, and a modern image, but looking from another angle, they risk leaving out local audiences who feel closer to Urdu or mixed captions. This shows how language selection reflects the creator’s ability to balance identity with audience connection.

Keywords: English captions, TikTok, communicative functions, identity construction