Plurilingual Social Networks and the Creation of Hybrid Cultural Spaces

Abstract

Although plurilingualism is a well-established topic in the international literature, especially in situations of transnational mobility, we still know little about the learning and appropriation of non-standard forms of English by young Brazilians online. Unlike the instrumental uses that predominate in formal English language teaching, digital literacy practices often focus on identity construction and expression, posing questions of race, gender, sexuality, and social status. Based on a digital ethnography of a Facebook page focused on American black popular culture, we analyze the linguistic resources and cultural references drawn upon by participants. The research seeks to understand the perspectives and online practices of young Brazilians, mobilizing theoretical resources from New Literacy Studies to understand the processes of discursive construction and resignification. The results show the importance of virtual spaces for the affirmation of subaltern identities, and at the same time the spatial restriction of some discursive expressions of identity, isolated from other educational and social environments in which the participants circulate. The article concludes by considering the implications for the democratization of foreign language learning in Brazil.

Recontextualising race, politics and inequality in transnational knowledge circulation: Biographical resignifications

“…The key here is juxtaposition, integration, and living with tension. (The New London Group, 1996: 87) I found the idea of semiotic boundary-crossing, hybridity and instability useful, particularly for examining online communities and practices (Windle and Ferreira, 2019); however, there appears to be a flattening out of time and space in the strong version of globalisation underpinning this vision of fluidity and convergence. Turns of phrase used in the text, such as 'our society' or 'the new environment of literacy education' are repeated in Brazilian entextualisations of multiliteracies, even though these terms index quite different contexts.…”

Ideologies about English as the language of science in Brazil

“…Thus, the Brazilians positioned as deprived of (standardized) English are in fact a group of Brazilians belonging in a social space with specific marks of gender, race, and social class – indexes that are nevertheless erased in ideologies oriented to a reduced stretch of language fit for science. Windle and Ferreira (2019) also question this image of homogeneity by arguing that some Brazilian youths in the peripheries (that is, mostly Afro‐Brazilians and poor young people) have learned English by combining schooling, socialization in digital networks, and engagement in literacy practices such as watching movies and reading books. However, the hybrid forms that they have produced – that is, their translanguaging – are fundamental, for instance, for their socialization on Facebook groups that discuss cultural expressions of the African diaspora such as hip hop, yet these forms are not generally seen as ‘language’.…”

Trans/plurilingual Pedagogies: A Multiethnography

“…Pluri-oriented theories and pedagogies have been front and centre in language (teacher) education during the seismic multi / plural shifts over the past decades (Kubota, 2016;. 6 Most recently, trans / plurilingual approaches, as the pedagogical soups du jour, have been generating extensive attention within English language teaching (ELT) and teacher education in Canada (e.g., Heng Hartse et al, 2018;Marshall et al, 2018;Payant & Galante, 2022) as well as globally (e.g., Cenoz & Gorter, 2020;Piccardo et al, 2021;Sun, 2022) including in Brazil (Rocha, 2019;Rocha & Maciel, 2015;Windle, 2019). This empirical and conceptual work, drawing on translingual and plurilingual theory, integrates sociolinguistic realities of language use, challenging entrenched monolingual theories and practices in language education, viewing additional languages as resources rather than problems.…”