RJ style of speaking: is it creating a sub-culture of Bangaldeshi youth?

Abstract

Now a days the young generation of Dhaka-the capital Bangladesh's speaks in a style which is combination of both English and Bangla accent and pronunciation. Though previously this new style was being used casually among their friends in get together, university campuses or any another places where young people gathered mostly. But today, it is being used formally in almost every gathering and the media, specially the FM radio is greatly influenced by it. It is said that, these FM channels are promoting this new style of speaking and spreading widely among the young generation. This research studies opinions and general views of the tertiary-level students from 3 public and 5 private universities of Bangladesh on this issue. it also analyses the information collected from seven RJs of four FM radio channels to achieve triangulation of results. Research findings indicate that not only the FM radio channels but also an increasing gap between English medium students versus Bengali medium students is responsible for promoting this new style. On the other hand, the young generation have a natural attraction towards new things-whether it is a new style or fashion of clothing, food or way of speaking- they try to adopt them mostly unconsciously and sometimes consciously for being a part of a particular overwhelmed popular group around them. As a result, youths, who are following the new style consciously are being the popular icon to others and the rest is also imitating their style to be just alike them. Eventually, this new style of speaking is creating a new sub culture among the youth by taking over the natural existing way of spoken language in Bangladesh.