Inventing a Language Online: The Practice of Edutainment in English Teaching Instagram Posts

Abstract

As the use of English in digital spaces continues to grow, there is an increasing amount of research focused on how it is adapted to local contexts. Proceeding from the argument that we need to go beyond studying English in isolation to investigate how it gets localized in digital settings, the purpose of the study is to investigate Instagram English teaching posts intended for an Iranian audience. To this end, we collect and analyze a dataset of Instagram posts aimed at teaching English. The research questions center on the resources which come together in these posts. Theoretically, the analysis draws on language assemblages. The findings show that English is entangled with a range of other resources and these Instagram posts emerge as engaging in edutainment, a material activity involving three interlined semiotic processes. While these processes do involve drawing from the users' L1s, they are more complex, involving a more varied set of resources than language. The social practice of edutainment comes to the fore as central, and forms are enlisted to serve this practice.