Abstract

Drawing on the notion of translanguaging, we show how Facebook actors enact and sustain the use of a variety of Zambia’s indigenous languages alongside the English language. We conceive of Facebook as an online semiotic/linguistic landscape that occasions opportunities for language display through status updates and subsequent comments that draw on English and selected Zambian indigenous languages (Tonga, Bemba, and Nyanja) in the most unpredictable ways. Thus, we argue that translanguaging privileges the visibilisation of multilingualism and multisemiotic modes which help bring to the fore the multiple multilingual identities acted out by the social actors in the process of meaning-making. We argue that translanguaging as a language practice broadens the semiotic resources from which online actors draw without regard for watchful adherence to the socially and politically defined boundaries of the named languages. We insist that meaning on Facebook should be seen from individual positionality anchored on the linguistic freedoms, which eventually enable the social actors to deploy a range of multisemiotic modes.

摘要

利用跨语言的概念，我们展示了 Facebook 参与者如何制定和维持使用各种赞比亚本土语言以及英语。我们将 Facebook 视为一个在线符号/语言景观，通过状态更新和随后的评论以最不可预测的方式利用英语和选定的赞比亚土著语言（汤加、本巴语和 Nyanja）提供语言展示机会。因此，我们认为跨语言赋予多语言和多符号模式的可视化特权，这有助于突出社会行为者在意义创造过程中表现出的多种多语言身份。我们认为，跨语言作为一种语言实践拓宽了网络行为者从中汲取的符号学资源，而不考虑对命名语言的社会和政治定义的边界的密切关注。我们坚持认为，Facebook 的意义应该从以语言自由为基础的个人定位来看待，这最终使社会参与者能够部署一系列多符号模式。