Facebook (FB) is one of the social networks that allow its users to interact freely by posting short messages, pictures and videos. FB has a forum where people write and post their opinions, pictures and videos to see their friends' reactions. FB also allows anonymity thus giving users the freedom to use a language of their choice without restrictions. Given the fact that FB is an informal context, users employ certain patterns of language in their interactions. This paper endeavors to examine the manner in which these patterns of language are used on FB with special focus on Kiswahili language. Kiswahili is now an official language in Kenya and there is a paradigm shift concerning patterns of texts that are sent on FB interaction. The objective of the study was to analyze the linguistic features used in selected social interactions on FB (SSIFB). The units of analysis in this study were texts that were sent as reactions to the news and pictures that were posted on the FB forums such as those collected from pages like Citizen TV Kenya, KTN Kenya and Mpasho News. The data of this study was analyzed qualitatively by coding every text based on its content. The study employed the use of Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) as proposed by Hiltz and Turoff (1978) to interpret and give inferences about the texts that were sent. The study revealed that FB users used the language of their choice creatively to communicate. Various linguistic features were used to communicate intended messages.

The study examined elements of hybridity in Meja Mwangi's Little White Man, a text set in colonial Kenya. In particular, the study was interested in the writer's juxtaposition of the world of the child characters with that of the adult characters and the hybrid syncretic crossings reflected therein, against the backdrop of colonialism. The postcolonial theory was useful in the analysis of the selected text. The findings reveal that the text reflects both cultural and character hybridity. For the child characters, hybridity is a site for social reconstruction from which they emerge wiser and more enlightened through social interaction and practical experience of each other's world. The adult world on the contrary, stands in total contrast to the children's world. It is characterized by suspicion, insecurity, tension, contempt, violence and racial prejudice. It largely revolves around the interplay of power relations with the colonial settler at the top and the natives at the bottom. At interpersonal level, the adults always impose their will on the children. In effect, colonization is depicted at two levels in that, the Africans are colonized by the whites and secondly, the children are colonized by the adults who deny them the freedom to pursue their personal interest. It is notable however, that even under such strict conditions; the children always maneuver their way around the adults so as to pursue their own interests. This they do through being noncommittal, giving excuses and vague responses as in the case of Kariuki, the protagonist.

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