Jannis Androutsopoulos

Networked multilingualism: Some language practices on Facebook and their implications

Integrating research on multilingualism and computer-mediated communication, this paper proposes the term ‘networked multilingualism’ and presents findings from a case study to explore its implications for the theorising of multilingualism. Networked multilingualism is a cover term for multilingual practices that are shaped by two interrelated processes: being networked, i.e. digitally connected to other individuals and groups, and being in the network, i.e. embedded in the global mediascape of the web. It encompasses everything language users do with the entire range of linguistic resources within three sets of constraints: mediation of written language by digital technologies, access to network resources, and orientation to networked audiences. The empirical part of the paper discusses the Facebook language practices of a small group of Greek-background secondary school students in a German city. Data collection follows an online ethnography approach, which combines systematic observation of online activities, collection and linguistic analysis of screen data, and data elicited through direct contact with users. Focusing on four weeks of discourse on profile walls, the analysis examines the participants’ linguistic repertoires, their language choices for genres of self-presentation and dialogic exchange, and the performance of multilingual talk online. The findings suggest that the students’ networked multilingual practices are individualised, genre-shaped, and based on wide and stratified repertoires.

Introduction: Language and society in cinematic discourse

Based on a thematic panel at Sociolinguistics Symposium 18 in Southampton (2010), this double special issue of Multilingua explores cinematic discourse as an under-examined field of sociolinguistic inquiry. Drawing on film and television data from various countries and languages, the seven articles that follow ask how cinematic discourse represents linguistic heterogeneity, what conceptual and analytical tools in sociolinguistics are adequate to its study, and how this might challenge and further sociolinguistic theory. It would be inaccurate to speak of a neglect of media in current sociolinguistics. An increasing number of scholars are turning to objects of study that are usually thought of as the ‘territory’ of disciplines such as literary, film and media studies. ‘Postvariationist’ sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, social semiotics and critical discourse studies all contribute to this turn, and media data have been pivotal for the theorising of notions such as stylisation, linguistic flows or performativity within the discipline (e.g. Coupland 2007; Pennycook 2007; Alim et al. 2009). We think that cinematic discourse ought to figure large at this intersection due to its popularity as a site of sociolinguistic representation and its complexity as a multimodal semiotic artefact. However, we feel that film has not yet found due attention as a sociolinguistic site of inquiry, though of course important predecessors do exist. The contributors to this issue are spread around the world in terms of their academic homes and objects of study. They examine American films (Bleichenbacher, Higgins & Furukawa, Petrucci) and television series (Bednarek) as well as European productions from Cyprus, France and Germany (Tsiplakou & Ioannidou, Planchenault, Androutsopoulos). Ranging from comedy and drama to post-modern satire, these films and series tell stories of everyday life and intercultural encounters in urban or rural settings. They stage style-shifting and code-switching between a number of dialects and languages, including varieties of English (Hawai’i English, African-American Vernacular English); French (Parler banlieue and Patois), German (‘Interlanguage German’); Greek (Cypriot-Greek dialect); Hawaiian and Hawai’i Creole; and Turkish. The

Mediatization and sociolinguistic change

This volume brings together a range of approaches to the role of media in processes of sociolinguistic change. Its 17 chapters and five section commentaries examine the impact of mediatization on language use and ideologies from five complementary perspectives: media influence on linguistic structure, media engagement in interaction, change in mass and new media language, language-ideological change, and the role of media for minority languages.

Repertoires, Characters and Scenes: Sociolinguistic Difference in Turkish-German Comedy.

This paper examines representations of sociolinguistic difference in a German ‘ethnic comedy’ as a means to contribute to a framework for the sociolinguistic study of film. Three levels of analysis of sociolinguistic difference in film are distinguished: repertoire analysis reconstructs the entirety of codes used in a film and their assignment to characters; character analysis looks at how different ways of speaking contribute to characterisation; scene analysis examines how choices of and encounters between different codes within a scene may draw on language-ideological assumptions to contribute to the dramatic development of film narrative, and how relationships or changes in footing among characters are indexed by stylistic variation. This framework is applied to the analysis of ‘Superseks’, a comedy set in the urban milieu of Hamburg’s Turkish community. The findings suggest that the characters’ linguistic repertoires differ by their narrative importance, gender and generation. In scenes with bilingual dialogue, code choice and code-switching are found to contextualise conflictual relations among major characters. Superseks relies heavily on stereotypical assumptions about language and ethnicity, class, gender and generation, by which stereotypical relations between sociolinguistic difference and narrative evaluation or importance are sustained.

Die Erfindung ›des‹ Ethnolekts

The paper takes a critical look at the discourse processes that lead to the language-ideological formation of ›the ethnolect‹ as a distinct variety of German. Theoretically situated at the interface between language-ideology research and critical discourse studies, it offers qualitative analyses of selected discourse data from 1995 to 2010. The paper discusses the following suggestions: Perceptions of a distinct variety among immigrantbackground young people emerge in a circulation process among a range of institutional discourses, including academia, popular culture, journalism, and language teaching; these share a number of discursive procedures and language-ideological assumptions regarding ›the ethnolect‹, which are recontextualised according to the formation rules of each discourse. Linguists played a pivotal role in that process, both in academic publications and as ›language experts‹ quoted in the media. In particular, they introduce a number of descriptive procedures on which the production of knowledge on ethnolects is based: labelling, classification, normative comparison, feature selection, and interpretive binarisms; these also occur across media and language teaching discourse in recontextualised ways. Homogenism and standardism serve as language-ideological pillars on which ›the‹ ethnolect can be imagined as a ›deviation‹ from standard language. Its use in the iconisation of ›problem‹ immigrant youth and its metaphorical conceptualisation in terms of military aggression are particular to media discourse. Finally, the label ethnolect is indifferent to the ethnicity of its purported speakers, but primarily indexes their difference, i. e. heteroethnic relation to the imagined majority group.

Multimodal – intertextuell – heteroglossisch: Sprach-Gestalten in „Web 2.0“-Umgebungen

Web-Umgebungen wie virtuelle soziale Netzwerke und Videoportale sind von Tendenzen der Partizipation, Konvergenz und Multimedialitat gekennzeichnet. Diese bedeuten eine Herausforderung fur sprachanalytische Zugange, die digitale Kommunikationsformen separat voneinander untersuchen und auf mikrolinguistische Phanomene bei nur geringer Beachtung ihrer komplexen soziomedialen Rahmenbedingungen abheben. Im Beitrag wird ein bildschirm-basierter Ansatz entworfen, der Web-Umgebungen als semiotische Raume begreift, die von Nutzern in ihren spezifischen soziokulturellen Umstanden und vor der Folie technologischer Potenziale und Grenzen aufgefullt und ausgestaltet werden. Sprache ist eine wesentliche, aber nicht die einzige Ressource dieses digitalen kommunikativen Handelns, und ihre Verwendung ist in der Spannung zwischen technologischer Vorpragung und situierter Medienaneignung zu untersuchen. Im Kern des Ansatzes liegt die Unterscheidung von zwei analytischen Dimensionen. Die erste unterscheidet vier Leistungen von Sprache in Web-Umgebungen: Organisation, Selbstdarstellung, Spektakel und Interaktion. Die zweite erfasst drei fur Web 2.0 charakteristische Prozesse der Sprach- und Textgestaltung: Multimodalitat, Intertextualitat und Heteroglossie. Wie diese beiden Kategorienbundel eine Grundlage fur weiterfuhrende Fragestellungen bilden konnen, wird am Beispiel des Dialektgebrauchs auf einer Videoplattform diskutiert.