English in Computer-Mediated Communication

Lauren Squires

• Publisher: De Gruyter Mouton
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9783110488432
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Langues et linguistique
• Subtopic: Linguistique

This book addresses the nature of English use within contexts of computer-mediated communication (CMC). CMC includes technologies through which not only is language transmitted, but cultures are formed, ideologies are shaped, power is contested, and sociolinguistic boundaries are crossed and blurred. The volume therefore examines the English language in particular in CMC – what it looks like, what it accomplishes, and what it means to speakers.

IIContact, Spread, and Innovation

Theresa Heyd

Global varieties of English gone digital: Orthographic and semantic variation in digital Nigerian Pidgin

Theresa Heyd, Freie Universität Berlin

1CMC and globalizing varieties: Contact, change, and spread

1.1CMC and language change

The question of whether and how computer-mediated communication (CMC) is a factor in processes of language variation and change has prompted eager debate from early on. Does the internet act as a site of language contact and spread? Can it be a motor of linguistic innovation and change, or does it merely mirror processes that are ongoing in a given language ecology? Do linguistic innovations from ‘real-life’ usage migrate into the digital domain, or is it possible that indigenously digital forms of language use spread into the non-digital realm?

Debates about language and the media are still very much ongoing, as evidenced by recent publications such as Androutsopoulos (2012) and Sayers (2014). While the approaches to the topic are still varied, the on-record nature of this discussion does indicate that mediated language has become a substantial topic in variationist approaches.

In parallel to these fundamental and more programmatic debates, the recent years have seen a constant and growing stream of research output that is centered on the analysis of computer-mediated discourse. In these approaches, the high variability of digital language use itself is taken for granted, and patterns of innovation and variation have been studied with increasing methodological and empirical sophistication. These second-generation CMC studies, following the early approaches of charting the field, are thus committed to “highlighting the social diversity of language use in CMC,” as Androutsopoulos (2006a: 421) remarks in his seminal introduction to the sociolinguistics of CMC.

Furthermore, digital language practices have become fully integrated in analyses focused on the sociolinguistics of globalization and mobility (Blommaert 2010; Coupland 2010). In these approaches, language use through digital media is simply seen as one important factor amongst others (such as global migration and the affordability of long-distance travel) that shapes our late-modern, super-diverse societies. Thus Blommaert and Rampton (2011: 3) point out that “migration movements from the 1990s onwards have coincided with the development of the internet and mobile phones, and these have affected the cultural life of diaspora communities of all kinds” – a condition that also deeply impacts the linguistic practices in such communities. This approach is well-equipped to interpret new technological realities such as ubiquitous computing through mobile devices and the gradual disappearance of the online/offline dichotomy. Thus as early as 2007, Coupland (2007: 28) notes that “the media are increasingly inside us and us in them.” These emerging new conditions are sure to have an impact on the way we think about language contact, spread and change in digital usage.

1.2CMC and Global Englishes

Over the course of the past two decades, the internet has gradually undergone a transformation from a predominantly Anglophone to a more diverse and multilingual environment (Danet and Herring 2007). This is the case on the macro level of individual languages, so that other languages besides English are gaining in relevance, but also extends to the micro level of varieties of English, so that nonstandard varieties are becoming more prominent in digital usage. Factors of globalization (e.g., the spread of digital technology and the gradual reduction of digital divides; the global migration and emergence of new diasporas; the appropriation of global practices to local communities; see Blommaert and Rampton 2011 for a summary) are instrumental in the emergence of more and more global varieties of English on the digital map. While research into the sociolinguistic ecology of CMC is still striving to catch up with these patterns of diversification, there is a growing body of research on several bundles of digital global Englishes, in particular Asian (e.g., Leimgruber 2015; Liu and Tao 2012; Seargeant and Tagg 2011), Caribbean (e.g., Deuber and Hinrichs 2007; Hinrichs 2006; Moll 2015), and African (e.g., Chiluwa 2013; Heyd and Mair 2014; Ifukor 2011) varieties.

Analyzing these and other global varieties of English grants many insights into growing linguistic diversity in general, and the language ecology of digitally mediated usage in particular. Two challenges and ongoing debates seem particularly prominent, and they set the framework for a number of chapters in this volume (see e.g., Jones, Cutler, and Coats). First is the question of nonstandard features and their social meanings. How does the nonstandard, marked nature of varietal features figure in digital usage? To what degree are they transposed to the digital environment, and how are they encoded in the digital medium? Moreover, how do such regional nonstandard features interact with the overall ‘nonstandardness’ that has been described as typical for the digital super-vernacular (Blommaert 2011), and what are the social meanings that users attribute to such features?

The second issue is more general, as it concerns the notion of mobility. Sociolinguistic theory is increasingly moving away from firm concepts of “varieties of English” that are geolocationally anchored and constrained to a specific, homogeneous speaker community (Hinrichs, this volume). Instead, we tend to think of globally available linguistic resources that are locally reproduced, for example in diasporic communities, but also by other speakers who may adopt certain features or repertoires in moves of crossing or linguistic appropriation. How do we map such deterritorialized usage in digitally mediated communication, and how does it interact with digital notions of place and space? The examination and description of such digital ethnolinguistic repertoires (Heyd and Mair 2014; Moll 2015) is an ongoing work that is likely to produce new insights into language contact, spread and change in CMC.

1.3Emerging norms in digital communities

The developments outlined above are of particular interest to sociolinguists and variationists with a specific perspective: how do nonstandard repertoires such as creoles and pidgins, urban ethnolects or local languages fare in the transition from essentially oral usage in locally anchored communities to a written environment that is technologically mediated and often involves communities that recruit a global diaspora? (Androutsopoulos 2006b; Deuber and Hinrichs 2007; Heyd and Mair 2014; Hinrichs 2006; Mair and Pfänder 2013) In particular, the question as to how previously spoken vernaculars perform as they become routinely written in the context of digital usage has been of interest, as it may provide insights into both the nonstandard varieties themselves, and the linguistic practices that are prevalent in CMC.

In earlier approaches, this interest was primarily focused on the emergence of orthographic norms in relatively homogeneous communities. For example, Deuber and Hinrichs (2007) analyzed corpora of digital Jamaican Creole and Nigerian Pidgin in terms of orthographic standardization processes and their relation to the sociolinguistic situations in the respective countries of origin. In the context of super-diverse and late-modern societies, such close-knit user communities which share a common linguistic background and profile (and thus mirror the locally anchored ‘speech communities’ of traditional sociolinguistic inquiry) are coming to seem less important, and less indicative of typical communicative settings. Instead, we find communities and platforms where local users from countries of origin interact with diasporic users of varying generations, where spouses and friends with a mere interest in a certain culture/ language may chime in, and where many users may have a super-diverse and multi-ethnic background. In such heterogeneous and polyphonous settings, the interest in orthographic variation is just as acute, but different questions need to be asked. For example, what does it mean to be an authentic user of a specific repertoire in such an environment? How do local and diasporic users tap into the linguistic resources that are in currency within a community? Which linguistic features are used to index certain personas or ethnolinguistic profiles?

2Case study: Orthographic and semantic variation in digital Nigerian Pidgin

In the study presented here, the themes outlined above are explored in a Nigeria-based discussion forum which functions as an online community for both local Nigerian users and globally spread diasporic members. This heterogeneous mix of participants creates a multilingual language ecology that includes the use of relatively Standard English varieties, indigenous languages such as Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo, and other diasporic languages such as French, Dutch or Italian. Besides these, a set of nonstandard repertoires plays an important role in the community, such as influences from African American Vernacular English, the ‘supervernacular’ (Blommaert 2011) of digital semiotic resources, and especially Nigerian Pidgin (NigP).

Within this environment, the study presented here explores the digital linguistic practices of this heterogeneous online community with regard to emerging norms, using a corpus of digital NigP. The analytical focus is on the use of the NigP function words dey and am, and how their usage aligns with the performance of identities in the community. To assess this, two different aspects of variation are analyzed here. The first concerns patterns of orthographic variation, as they are bound to appear where a traditionally spoken vernacular migrates into the digital medium. The second concerns a pattern of distribution which is tentatively described as semantic variation: namely, both lexical items are homonyms which have secondary nonstandard meanin...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of contents
• Introduction: Variation, representation, and change in English in CMC
• I Code and Variety
• II Contact, Spread, and Innovation
• III Style and Identity
• IV Mode and Medium
• Index
• Endnotes