Identity repertoires on the Internet: Opportunities and constraints

Varis, Piia; Xuan, Weipeng; Du, Caixia

doi:10.1515/9783110239331.265

Cited by 10 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…3 The stability that characterized the established notions of language can no longer be maintained in light of the intense forms of mixing and blending occurring in superdiverse communication evironments (both in spoken and written forms of language; for the latter see e.g. Juffermans 2010 andVaris &Wang 2011), and established notions of competence are in need of revision in light of the highly unequal patterns of distribution of communicative resources resulting in the often 'truncated' and 'unfinished' character of communication (see e.g. Blommaert 2010, chapter 4;Kroon, Dong & Blommaert 2011).…”

Section: Superdiversitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Superdiverse Repertoires and the Individual

Blommaert

Backus

2013

Multilingualism and Multimodality

293

119

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Abstract:Repertoire belongs to the core vocabulary of sociolinguistics, yet very little fundamental reflection has been done on the nature and structure of repertoires. In early definitions, repertoires was seen as a triad of language resources, knowledge of language ('competence') and a community. Due to developments in the study of language competence and in the study of social organization, this triad can no longer remain intact. In a super-diversity context, mobile subjects engage with a broad variety of groups, networks and communities, and their language resources are consequently learned through a wide variety of trajectories, tactics and technologies, ranging from fully formal language learning to entirely informal 'encounters' with language. These different learning modes lead to very different degrees of knowledge of language, from very elaborate structural and pragmatic knowledge to elementary 'recognizing' languages, whereby all of these resources in a repertoire are functionally distributed in a patchwork of competences and skills. The origins of repertoires are biographical, and repertoires can in effect be seen as 'indexical biographies'. This, then, allows us to reorient the triad of repertoires away from communities towards subjectivities, and suggest that repertoire analysis can be a privileged road into understanding LateModern subjectivities.

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Section: Superdiversitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Superdiverse Repertoires and the Individual

Blommaert

Backus

2013

Multilingualism and Multimodality

293

119

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“…Velghe (2011) for example studied the instant and text messaging local practice of a South African town using 'supervernaculars', while Cavallaro and Ng (2014), and Sim (2017) viewed the social and linguistic landscape of Singapore as increasingly superdiverse. Virtual superdiverse spaces have also become the focus of much exciting new research such as that of Varis et al (2011) who studied the use of the Internet as a par excellence superdiverse milieu, as used from Beijing, China. Although, as Arnaut and Spotti (2015) argued, superdiversity could complement well the existing postcolonial sociolinguistic and anthropologic stances related to diversity, fierce criticisms of the concept have also emerged.…”

Section: Superdiversitymentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of superdiverse home country cities in helping migrants negotiate life in superdiverse host country cities

Simic

2019

Geoforum

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“…Devising and implementing Internet censorship policies have been a vigorous and sometimes aggressive way of policing and controlling online behaviors (Varis et al 2010). For instance, in addition to language rules, such as the Language Law of 2000, it is common practice to use automatic screen-masking to block 'disharmonious' language useranging from profanity to politically sensitive words or topics-by substituting with asterisks or deleting it altogether.…”

Section: Online Policing and Harmonizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Harmony as language policy in China: an Internet perspective

Wang

Juffermans

2015

Lang Policy

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This paper provides an ethnographic understanding of harmony as language policy in China, grounded in a historical analysis of 'harmony' (和 he) as a distinct traditional Chinese (Confucian) ideal that gradually finds its new expressions through the policy of Harmonious Society (和谐社会hexie shehui) in contemporary China. The paper focuses on language practices surrounding 'harmony' emerging from the Internet, a discursive space and site that is both highly diverse and heavily contested with respect to policing processes, and notably so in the context of the PRC for its stringent measurement of censorship and sensitization of language use. It is shown that although the state is arguably the strongest stakeholder in implementing the policy of harmony, the actual processes of harmonization online develop in detailed, multidirectional and unpredictable rather than abstract, linear or monofocal ways. The paper offers a descriptive analysis of the field of Internet memes that critique and subvert the policies of harmonization. This includes new meanings for words (e.g. 'harmony' as euphemism for censorship) and puns around the acoustic image of hexie and other censorable words, resulting in the circulation and bricolage of myths and songs revolving around 'river crab' (hexie) and 'grass mud horse' (caonima) as placeholders of dissent, which feed back into offline popular (and critical) culture. The paper concludes with a discussion of the politics of harmony, pointing at the increasingly polycentric realities clashing with the modernist monocentric ideal of the state project of harmony, and with arguments for an ethnographically based understanding and inspection of language policy as an instrument for shaping sociolinguistic life.

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Identity repertoires on the Internet: Opportunities and constraints

Cited by 10 publications

References 21 publications

Superdiverse Repertoires and the Individual

Superdiverse Repertoires and the Individual

The role of superdiverse home country cities in helping migrants negotiate life in superdiverse host country cities

Harmony as language policy in China: an Internet perspective

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