Multilingua

Introduction

Najma Al Zidjaly*

Society in digital contexts: New modes

of identity and community construction

https://doi.org/10.1515/multi-2018-0042

Keywords: sociolinguistics, digital discourse, intercultural communication,

social media, local and global, identity and community construction

1 What this special issue is about

This thematic volume of sociolinguistic research focuses on identity and com-

munity constru ction at the interface of the l ocal and the global, e xamining

these phenomena using varied research methods and through the lenses of

diverse analytical and theoretical perspectives. The papers highlight the intri-

cacies inherent in identity and communi ty construction in digitized contexts

through the exploration of linguistic and semiotic resources, languages, and

understudied cultural contexts as varied as the use of emojis to defy bias

against femal e gamers online, initiation of repair on expert-authored blogs

on weight loss, negotiation of language ideologies on Ukrainian Twitter, and

the construction of political dissent on Arabic Syrian Facebook. The volume

satisfies four additional aims: I t (a) considers the local and global to be

interconnected and mutually influencing, (b) conceptualizes and examines

language as one of numerous semiotic resources, (c) explores online interac-

tion as linked to interaction offline, and (d) acknowledges human agency and

creativity. Collectively, the studies add to the ongoing quest for new ways to

use and investigate language i n society by examining the ways society man-

ifests itself creatively in various languages and across globalized mediums.

*Corresponding author: Najma Al Zidjaly, The Department of English Language and Literature,

College of Arts & Social Sciences, Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Oman,

E-mail: [email protected]

1 I am indebted to Jan Blommaert for coming up with the original special issue title “Society in

Language,” as opposed to the traditional ideology “Language in Society.” The former stresses

the need to upend sociolinguistic theory as we know and practice it. I later changed the title to

Multilingua 2019; 38(4): 357–375

The vol ume also emphasizes the need to continue to develop sociolinguistic

theory and methodol ogy in the context of contemporary communication prac-

tices. In doing so, the studies expand current discussions on the place of

sociolinguistics and social media research in an increasingly globalized and

digitized world. The remainder of this introduction contextualizes the studies

by providing a synopsis of key factors in the study of the sociolinguistics of

social media.

2 New directions in sociolinguistics

Calls for new directions in sociolinguistics abound, precipitated by rapid globali-

zation (Bell 2016; Blommaert 2003, Blommaert 2010, Blommaert 2011, Blommaert

2016, Blommaert 2017a, and Blommaert 2018a; Coupland 2003, Coupland 2016;

Park and Lo 2012; Rampton 1996, Rampton 1998) and technological revolution—

particularly the spread of social media use across contexts and cultures

(Androutsopoulos 2006, Androutsopoulos 2013; Barton and Lee 2013; Bou-Franch

and Blitvich 2018; Georgakopoulou 2006; Georgakopoulou and Spilioti 2016; Lee

2017; Pennycook 2018). The sociolinguistics of globalization has, in particular,

highlighted global identity construction in the context of multilingualism (e.g.

Heller 2007; Park and Lo 2012) and language ideology, chiefly English as a global

phenomenon (e.g. Rubdy and Alsagoff 2014). Despite the surge of research on

social media from a discursive perspective (e.g. Herring 2004, Herring 2013a, and

Herring 2013b), sociolinguistic examinations of identity construction conducted

online apropos globalization have been notably absent, as pointed out by

Androutsopoulos (2013) and Thurlow and Mroczek (2011). This is in spite the fact

that language is simultaneously both a local and a global construct (Al Zidjaly

2006; Erickson 2004).

Notwithstanding the paucity of linguistic research on global

and local identity construction online, the consensus among sociolinguists is that

the digital turn has created emergent identities and practices that merit linguistic

investigation using new research and methodology toolkits.

“Society in Digital Contexts” to account for the multimodality of human interaction, aptly

exemplified in the special issue.

2 Erickson (2004) explains that talk/interaction is both local and global because talk itself takes

place in real time among real social actors to satisfy immediate goals. At the same time, all

interactions are also global, as they are always occasioned by processes that occur outside the

immediate context.

3 I take the position that the lines between online and offline are porous, as argued by Barton

and Lee (2013), Blommaert (2017a) and Locher et al. (2015), as people are “always on” and their

358 Najma Al Zidjaly

“New directions” for sociolinguistics is not an uncommon theme. The field

of sociolinguistics has been built upon revisiting and readapting sociolinguistic

concepts to match social reality. From the onset of the field, and through

building on social and literary theorists (e.g. Bakhtin 1981; Goffman 1971), key

sociolinguists (e.g. Hymes 1996; Ochs 1996; Silverstein 1976) had to upend

traditional ideas about language, communication, and social groups to create

a theory of language in society (Blommaert and Rampton 2011) wherein estab-

lished concepts about identity and social integration are revisited. (Examples

of such ongoing activity of sociolinguistics include: Barton and Lee 2013; Bell

1984; Blommaert 2003, Blommaert 2005; Coupland 1998, Coupland 2013, and

Coupland 2016; Danesi 2015; Erickson 2004; Georgakopoulou 2007; Park and Lo

2012; Pennycook 2007, Pennycook 2018; Piller 2011, Piller 2016; Rampton 1996;

Scollon 2001).

The need to keep ‘the theory’ in dialogue with ever shifting social

realities has intensified with the onset of globalization and technological

advancement.

An additional factor that has necessitated the reconceptualiza-

tion of sociolinguistic concepts and methodologies has to do with the creativity

and agency of social actors across the globe (especially in non-Western contexts)

who have used and adapted social media platforms for their own strategic

social, personal, and cultural purposes, thus, not only creating novel forms of

interaction and integration but also new means to form communities.

Social

agency, however, has largely remained backgrounded as a key factor in rede-

signing a new theory of sociolinguistics capable of keeping alive the complex-

ities inherent in communication—digital or otherwise (see Al Zidjaly 2014a, Al

Zidjaly 2015, and Al Zidjaly 2019a for a discussion on social agency, activism,

and linguistic research).

Blommaert (2016), a key leader in the new directions of sociolinguistics,

divides recent movements towards a new theory of sociolinguistics into two

daily interactions are inextricably intertwined with new communication technologies (Baron

2008).

4 Other examples of sociolinguists building theory include Gumperz’s (1982) theory of con-

versational inference, Tannen’s (2001) work on the ambiguity and polysemy of linguistic

strategies, Bucholtz and Hall’s (2005) sociocultural linguistic approach to identity, Locher and

Watts’ (2005) theorization of face and politeness as relational work, Du Bois’ (2007) stance

triangle, and Al Zidjaly’s (2009, 2015) theorizing of agency (I am indebted to Cynthia Gordon for

these specific examples).

5 Revisiting theories as a result of globalization and technological advances has been an

activity in other fields as well (including disability studies), not just sociolinguistics (see

Watson and Roulstone 2014).

6 See, for example, the use of social media in the Arab world (Al Zidjaly 2012, Al Zidjaly 2014a,

Al Zidjaly 2014b, and Al Zidjaly 2017; Al Zidjaly and Gordon 2012).

Society in digital contexts 359

periods. The first period, which Blommaert declares as largely accomplished,

concerns a move from relative stability to mobility. In this move, superdiversity

as an outcome of mobility (Blommaert and Rampton 2011; De Fina et al. 2017;

Vertovec 2007) has succeeded in reconceptualizing key sociolinguistic concepts

(e.g. multilingualism) by painting a more complex and dynamic view of social

reality (e.g. the shift from code-switching to translanguaging). A second move,

still in its infancy, concerns a shift from mobility to complexity (Blommaert 2016;

Blommaert and De Fina 2015; Pennycook 2018). This shift aims to capture the

intricacies of social organization and allows scholars to better theorize the

murky and largely challenging concept of context (Cicourel 1964; Duranti and

Goodwin 1992; Scollon 2001). The move to complexity goes one step further than

the earlier move to mobility by “reimagining the sociolinguistic phenomena and

processes we intend to study” through acquiring a new “set of images and

metaphors that appear to offer more and better analytical opportunities because

they correspond better to the phenomena and processes we observe”

(Blommaert 2016: 248–249). In short, a new research toolkit to capture identity

in interaction is needed, as “the traditional vocabulary of linguistic analysis is

no longer sufficient” (Blommaert and Rampton 2011: 9).

What is entailed in such research is a foregrounding of the inherent com-

plexity in social (inter)actions through detailed analyses of case studies from

across cultures, languages, and mediums. Such studies may include ethnogra-

phy (with a focus on action Blommaert 2018e, this volume), as suggested by

researchers of the sociolinguistics of globalization (e.g. Blommaert 2018b;

Blommaert and Rampton 2011; Rampton 2006); multi-methods, as suggested

by scholars of new media sociolinguistics

(e.g. Androutsopoulos 2008;

KhosraviNik 2016); integrative research frameworks (e.g. mediated discourse

analysis Scollon 2001 and nexus analysis Scollon and Scollon 2004), as sug-

gested by discourse analysists (e.g. Al Zidjaly 2019a; Georgakopoulou 2006).

this reimagination, the researcher’s task is to highlight the inherent multimod-

ality of human interaction (Norris 2011; Scollon and LeVine 2004; van Leeuwen

2004) and complexity through unfolding “the complex and multifiliar features

and their various different origins that are contained in synchronized moments

7 According to Pennycook (2018), complexity entails the question of how much inclusion is too

much. He thus raises the question of the cost of including everything in our theories and

research projects.

8 In this volume I use computer-mediated discourse analysis (Herring 2004) interchangeably with

internet linguistic research (Crystal 2011; Herring and Androutsopoulos 2018) and new media

sociolinguistics (Thurlow and Mroczek 2011) to refer to research that analyzes digital discourse.

9 For more new methods and approaches to digital discourse, see Blommaert (2018a, 2018b,

2018c, 2018d, 2018e), Bou-Franch and Blitvich (2018), Gee (2014), and Pennycook (2018).

360 Najma Al Zidjaly

of understanding” (Blommaert 2016: 252). This is a vision that extends the

contribution of many sociolinguistic scholars who have addressed the issue of

complexity through their work (e.g. Erickson 2004; Pennycook 2007, Pennycook

2018; Piller 2016; Scollon and Scollon 2004; Tannen 2001) by providing a critical,

qualitative, and bottom-up approach that contributes to social theory in general

(not just sociolinguistics) with the aim to upend the existing “authoritative

discourses” (Bakhtin 1981) of sociolinguistics and transforming them into

“internally persuasive discourses” that are continuously negotiated.

3 Social media: Complex identity

construction sites

No medi a highlight the complex ity of contemporary social and interactive

landscapes better than social media, as they illuminate ongoing identity con-

struction across contexts and scenes. Social media not only provide sites where

the local and the global encounter one another, but they also offer contexts

wherein semiotic resources co-exist—often, but not always, easily accessible

and used in the creation of communication characterized by seemingly endless

forms and functions. To understand the relationship between social media

andidentityconstructioninglobalized contexts, I provide below a synopsis

of three key concepts: globalization, identity, and community.

3.1 Globalization

Drawing upon Appadurai (1996) and Castells (1996), Blommaert (2010: 13) defines

globalization as referring to “the intensified flows of capital, goods, people,

images and discourses around the globe, driven by technological innovations

mainly in the field of media and information and communication technology,

and resulting in new patterns of global activity, community organization and

culture.” The concept of globalization is non-linear and multifaceted (Coupland

2013), transforming the world into a complex place. As a result, Barton and Lee

(2013) argue that when talking about language, the relation between the local and

the global is best understood in terms of glocalization, defined by Koutsogiannis

and Mitsiopoulou (2007: 143) as the “dynamic negotiation between the global and

the local, with the local appropriating elements of the global that it finds useful,

at the same time employing strategies to retain its identity.” To date, the focus in

sociolinguistics has been on research that either globalizes the local (i.e. English

Society in digital contexts 361

as a global language e.g. Rubdy and Alsagoff 2014) or foregrounds local appro-

priation of the global (e.g. localizing YouTube among Germans Androutsopoulos

2013 or localizing American hip hop music Pennycook 2007). Globalization, how-

ever, is a two-way medium (Barton and Hamilton 2005). Additionally, while the

relationship between language and global identity construction has been studied

extensively to date (see Barton and Lee 2013 for an overview), its examination

in relation to new media has been largely backgrounded, as noted by

Androutsopoulos (2013). This is where this special issue comes in.

What is needed are more case studies (and in due time more interdisciplinary

research) that transcend binary theorization (i.e. globalising the local or localizing

the global) by examining what people actually do at the interface of the local and

the global in terms of the multimodal strategies used and for what ends.

The

interface of the local and the global has been referred to as translocality, a concept

similar to the theorization of glocalization that has been argued to be key in

examining how the local and global intersect specifically in multi-semiotic digital

environments (Kytölä 2016).

A recent example of research I have conducted in this spirit considers how

citizens in Oman use emojis on WhatsApp to mitigate face threatening acts of

dissidence in their Islamic Arabic cultural context, which highlights placidity

and uniformity. Citizens simultaneously localize a global semiotic resource and

globalize a local issue (i.e. government corruption), thereby constructing a new

‘hybrid’ identity: A placid Omani dissident that the Omani government is heeded

to notice (see Al Zidjaly 2017). An additional example involves my documenting

of complex identity work by an online community of anonymous former or “ex-”

Muslims on Arabic Twitter (note that for political and religious reasons the

identity of ex-Muslims cannot for the time being exist outside of social

media).

Through creating tweets that draw upon various discourses, actions

10 van Leeuwen and Suleiman (2013) have made a similar argument.

11 The interface of the local and the global also points to Inda and Rosaldo’s (2008: 11–12) idea

that “globalization implies a heightened entanglement of the global and local such that, while

everyone might continue to live local lives, their phenomenal worlds have to some extent

become global as distant events come to have an impact on local spaces, and local develop-

ments come to have global repercussions.”

12 I refer to the actions I captured on Arabic Twitter as involving complex identity work

because I found it difficult to insightfully interpret and analyze the tweets shared on this

community of ex-Muslims and capture their immediate and yet to be realized effects on identity

without drawing on a plethora of methodological frameworks, pushing theorizing on social

identities into new, multimodal territories, and taking into consideration smaller and larger

scale discourses and practices about Islam, Muslim countries, and globalization. Of particular

362 Najma Al Zidjaly

and linguistic and multimodal strategies, I demonstrate how a group of Arabs

with no offline legitimacy manages to not only create an active ‘light’ commu-

nity online but also to contribute to convincing hundreds of other Muslims (by

their own admission on #whyIleftIslam) to renounce Islam, an act punishable by

death in Islamic countries, and an act destined to change the very fabric of Arab

societies ingrained in religion (see Al Zidjaly 2019a, Al Zidjaly 2019b for details).

Therefore, Coupland (2013, 2016) rightly argues that social analysis needs to be

framed in relation to an increasingly globalized society. I add to this the

proposal (following Blommaert 2016, Blommaert 2017a, and Blommaert 2018a)

that linguistic research needs to explore identity construction at the nexus of the

local and the global, regardless of how fleeting, malleable, and seemingly

inconsequential such actions and identities might seem (i.e. regardless of their

lightness).

3.2 Identity

Like globalization, identity is also demanding and multi-layered (Coupland 2016),

best examined, sociolinguists have demonstrated, within a social constructivist

approach (e.g. Bucholtz and Hall 2005; De Fina et al. 2006). Thus, Lee (2017: 55)

notes that identities are “always open to reappropriation, recontextualization, and

transformation” and that they require constant revisiting in light of technological

advances and the resulting and interconnected social dynamics—such as in the

present era of ubiquitous social media use across the globe. As globalization

intensifies identity construction processes, Blommaert (2005: 207) argues that

identity is best conceived as “particular forms of semiotic potential, organized

in a repertoire.” Analytically, conceiving of identity in terms of participants’

access to a range of mobile resources that potentially could be drawn upon to

enact (or perform, per Goffman 1959) certain kinds of identities (Rampton 1999,

Rampton 2001) highlights human agency, creativity, and unpredictability. In line

with the second move of sociolinguistics from mobility to complexity, Blommaert

(2015a, 2015b) additionally suggests conceiving of identities as chronotopes

interest were those discourses occurring in the Arabian Gulf, the cradle of Islam. That is, to

create (and capture) cultural revolution, the members of the ex-Muslim community, their

followers, and I as a researcher had to negotiate all types of higher and lower level actions

and discourses (Lemke 2000; Norris 2011) to incite (and sociolinguistically capture the impetus

of) cultural revolution (see Al Zidjaly 2019a, Al Zidjaly 2019b for details).

Society in digital contexts 363

(Blommaert and De Fina 2015) especially in digitized contexts.

The Bakhtinian

idea of chronotope (literally meaning time/place Bakhtin 1981) invokes orders of

indexicality framed in terms of time and place (Blommaert 2005; Blommaert and

De Fina 2015). This complex view of identity construction, constrained by access

to resource mobility and framed chronotopically, eradicates simplistic and

dichotomist views of identity construction (as local/global) and foregrounds a

view of identity as complex interactive negotiations that merit various levels of

contextualization.

It also opens up a space to examine light identities—ludic,

loosely-formed, ephemeral formations enabled by social media that, according to

Blommaert (2016, 2017b, 2018a), are key to social organization (in contrast to the

oft sociolinguistically foregrounded thick identities [e.g. nationality, race]).

That identities are complex is not new to sociolin guistic s (see Bucho ltz and

Hall 2005; P iller 2016; Schiffrin 2000); but what is new is the need to keep the

theory and methodology up with the heightened degree of complexity and

diversity exemplified in iden tity construction in increasingly digitized and

translocalized contexts.

3.3 Community

A major challenge to sociolinguistics, according to Coupland (2016: 32), is the

concept of ‘community,’ which Herring (2004) calls ‘inherently abstract,’ origin-

ally theorized as “local, face-to-face mutual engagement [in speech communities,

in social networks, or in communities of practices].” Efforts, however, have been

established to properly retheorize the traditional concept of community within

sociolinguistic research in light of globalization (see e.g. Coupland 2010; Rampton

1998, Rampton 1999, and Rampton 2006). Rheingold (1993) coined the term

‘virtual community’ to conceptualize digitally mediated affiliations, in particular.

From its inception, Herring (2004) argues, the term attracted both attention (as a

tool to understand how the Internet facilitates relationship creation e.g.

Zappavigna 2011, Zappavigna 2012) and philosophical and methodological criti-

cism. Early research on online discourse highlights the properties of virtual

communities (i.e. what makes online different than offline communities Herring

13 Norris (2011: 30) uses the term “identity elements” to capture the chronotropic aspect of

identity. In her words, “identity is embedded and (co)produced in the social-time-place of a

particular social actor together with other social actors, together with and within the historical

time, together with cultural tools, and together with and within the environment.”

14 For more on the complexity of identity construction, see Piller (2016) and Seargeant and

Tagg (2014).

364 Najma Al Zidjaly

1999). Herring and Androutsopoulos (2018) argue that as the lines between online

and offline blurred, researchers from the second wave of linguistic Internet studies

moved from examining discourse on virtual communities as standalone to exam-

ining how social actors mediate online/offline social realities (e.g. Jones 2009).

Recent research has further moved from examining self-presentations and mem-

ber profiles online (Page 2010) to investigating the micro-discursive features and

interactive patterns used by participants to form communities (e.g. Baym 1995,

Baym 2015; Gordon 2015; Graham 2007, Graham 2018; Seargeant and Tagg 2014;

Vasquez 2014).

These examinations have highlighted the inadequacy of the term ‘virtua l

community’ in capturing the kind of simultaneously fleeting and unbounded,

yet real and somehow identifiable communities created based on choice,

access, shared interest, and/or goals, with percolating effects to offline

realities (what is referred to i n the papers presented in this collection as light

identities follow ing Blommaert 2017b, Blommaert 2018a). As a result, a

plethora of new terms have been proposed with varying degrees of success,

such as: affinity groups (Gee 2 005; Gee and Hayes 201 1), imag ined soli dari ty

(Kramsche and Boner 2 013), ambient affiliation (Zappavigna 2011, Zappavigna

2012), communities of knowledge or chronotopes “in which specific identity

resources can be formed, learned and policed” (Bl ommaert 2017b: 123), and

light communities (Blommaert 2017b, Blommaert 2018a; Blommaert and Varis

2015). Collectively, research indicates that the numerous factors characterising

digital communication—including absence of physical space and ease of anon-

ymity, the agency of social actors, the abundance of multimodal resources with

various degrees of accessibility, and the blurring of online/offline social reali-

ties—give way to a s urplus of n ew forms of social integ ration, the kind socio-

linguists never had to deal with before, resulting in new challenges for

language in society research that merit immediate and adequate identification,

examination, and sociolinguistic theorization.

4 Society in language: An overview of studies

Sociolinguistics as we know it is metamorphosing in favor of critical constructivism,

complexity, fluidity, transience, and multiple forms of semiosis (Bell 2016;

15 These new kinds of uses and challenges have led some scholars (e.g. Rymes and Leone 2014)

to create the subfield of citizen sociolinguistics.

Society in digital contexts 365

Blommaert 2016; Pennycook 2018). This shift requires a sociolinguistic reimagina-

tion built upon bottom-up critical and qualitative research that engages with an

updated agenda of new media sociolinguistic research that highlights the integra-

tion of research methods (e.g. multimodality, ethnography and discourse analysis),

ethics, and ideologies. The shift further necessitates examining interaction in the

context of ‘light’ groups, so-called ludic communities of knowledge, which have

traditionally been dismissed within mainstream empirical and theoretical socio-

logical literature. In contrast, this issue deliberately considers light groups and

participants’ identity construction behavior, as, per Blommaert, they inform our

understanding of contemporary social reality and, I argue, current debates in new

media sociolinguistics.

4.1 The question of revisiting linguistic concepts

Cynthia Gordon’ssociolinguistictakeon“Other-Initiated Repair and

Community-Building in Health and Weight loss Blogs” highlights the n eed to

test and, in time, retheorize established linguistic strategies in light of new

forms of interaction. This necessity was emphasized by Blommaert (2018c) in

his argument for the validity of retheorizing context as chronotopes. Whereas

context seems ever-problematic , repair, a communicative sub-process key to

the organization of human interaction (Schegloff et al. 1977), has been gener-

ally conceptualized as formulaic, interactive, and limited in function (i.e.

mainly connection or disconnection).

In this one of very few examinations

of repair on social media (and the first in blogs), Gordon presents a deeper,

more complex look into the mechanisms of other-initiated repair in anonymous

user comments, theorizing repair as a light practice which highlights cultural

expectations while creating fleeting moments of community-building. The

analysis also identifies a new type of repair—that of images—which cements

the postulation by S chegloff (2007) that any aspect of turn can be repaired and

demonstrates th e multimodality of repai r made vi sible by soc ial media users.

The detailed analysis of the workings of repair maintains the need to transcend

comparative approaches (e.g. online verses offline differences in use) to

contextual approaches that consider the nature and goal of c ommunities in

examining semiotic resources.

16 Few exceptions exist, including Meredith and Stokoe (2014).

366 Najma Al Zidjaly

4.2 The question of political activism and ethics

Francesco Sinatora’s examination of “Chronotopes, Entextualization and Syrian

Political Activism on Facebook” engages in two firsts: It is the first sociolinguistic

documentation of Syrian Arabic dissident identity (on Facebook) and it is one of

the first qualitative, critical, mixed methods studies that in my opinion compli-

cates the debate on the relationship between social media and activism (whether

social media lead to social change Al Zidjaly 2014a or slacktivism Morozov 2011).

This debate gripped both academia and the public on Twitter in 2018 preceding

the mid-term American elections. The Syrian Arab Spring example demonstrates

the chronotopic constraints of such connections by larger discourses of politics

and economics (Al Zidjaly 2018). As a documentation of political dissent in a

region that lacks freedom of expression, the paper, most importantly, touches

upon the question of academic ethics and ideologies, a main objective of the third

wave of new media sociolinguistics (Georgakopoulou and Spilioti 2016). As

researchers of Arabic political activism, Francesco and I have had many a great

discussion about the dangers of using the real names of his research partici-

pants.

This second study is thus unique in its examination of chronotopes in the

context of political activism, contribution to sociolinguistics, and the raising

of concerns (albeit indirectly) that all academics, especially those involved in

activism research, must heed.

4.3 The question of user comments and grassroots

movements

Alla Tovares’ account of “Negotiating “Thick” Identities Through “Light”

Practices: YouTube Metalinguistic Comments About Language in Ukraine”

demonstrates the shift in new media sociolinguistic research from examining

self-presentations online to examining users’ metalinguistic comments, which

the author aptly theorizes as light practices that can create digital inclusion or

exclusion from particular language ideologies and social groups.

This study

also is one of the few extant sociolinguistic examinations of balancing

17 See Al Zidjaly (2019a) to learn more about the dangers of conducting activism research in

religiously and politically volatile Arabic contexts. It should be noted that Alla Tovares and

Cynthia Gordon were also part of the discussion on the ethicality of using names and usernames

in our academic research.

18 Refer to Al Zidjaly (2010) and Seargeant and Tagg (2014) to find more about this shift in

sociolinguistics from the examination of self presentations to user comments.

Society in digital contexts 367

translocality and audience design (i.e. harmonizing between local attitudes and

global themes in an understudied online space). It additionally is an empower-

ing documentation (akin to Francesco Sinatora’s study on Syrian activism), as

the study contributes to debates on social media and inclusion by presenting a

bottom-up critical example of how inclusion/exclusion is realized through

Bakhtin’s (1981) “heteroglossia with awareness.” This study further is a distinc-

tive examination of surzhyk, a complex nonstandard Russian-Ukrainian mixed

variety that reflects the intricacies of language ideologies among Ukrainians.

Through “engaging with policing, reifying, and contesting the existing language

ideologies in Ukraine,” Tovares argues, “YouTube commenters’ voices help

create a foundation for grassroots ideological and political mobilization that

privileges complexity over homogeneity.” This is an example of Ukrainian

society (and a grassroots movement) revealing itself through language.

4.4 The question of semiotics and digital inclusion

The discourse on social media and inclusion is further discussed by Sage Graham in

“A Wink and a Nod: The Role of Emojis in Forming Digital Communities,” which is a

prime example of the second move in sociolinguistics from mobility to complexity.

This is a multifaceted examination of the role of emojis—a main, intricate, and ever-

changing feature of digital interaction—in managing gender bias and forming

digital, ludic communities. Accordingly, this study is a quintessential demonstra-

tion of the exceptional wave of research featured in this volume that transcends

simplistic, binary conceptualizations of semiotic resources (e.g. emoji as phatic and

emotive communicative tools) and contextualizes them instead as multifaceted,

interactive, and mitigative of the local and the global, creating immediate, gen-

dered, and cultural inclusion in a relatively hostile digital platform facing women.

In this way, the study contributes to debates on digital discourse and margin-

alization (in particular as apropos to women and gaming). Hitherto, these debates

have argued for a direct link (Salter & Blodgett 2017: 75); in contrast, this paper

demonstrates how such inclusion is realized though an interplay between emojis

and language. The findings paint a complex view of emojis as tools for forming,

defining, and reinforcing global norms of communities, demonstrating, as a result,

how society (with all its biases, norms of interaction, and community-building

challenges) is revealed through the lens of emojis in interaction with language.

Jan Blommaert brings the volume to an end in an intriguing, thought-

provoking epilogue wherein he discusses the papers in light of current discourses,

his own ground-breaking research, and future directions of a new reimagined

sociolinguistics.

368 Najma Al Zidjaly

5 Concluding remarks

By situating itself at the interface of the sociolinguistics of globalization and new

media, this special issue contributes to productive discourses on a new theoriza-

tion of sociolinguistics more attuned to reality and contributes to an ongoing and

increasing need for innovative sociolinguistic theorizing and methodologizing in

the age of globalization and digitization of communication. A new direction for

sociolinguistics necessitates, as Blommaert argues in the epilogue, a re-imagining

of both our social world and the lenses through which it is experienced, with a

focus on social action. This reimagination, I argue, further necessitates highlight-

ing under-represented contexts and cultures, often utilizing interdisciplinary and

multimodal work. This is especially true in contexts that lack access to voice and

opportunities, as it is in such contexts that the intricacies of social realities are

revealed and our research tools are tested. As online and offline realities are not

only intertwined, but they feed into each other and lead at times to historical

change (see Aarsand 2008; Al Zidjaly 2019a, Al Zidjaly 2019b), the new socio-

linguistic reimagination (and the new wave of new media sociolinguistics)

I further argue necessitates examining how online activities trickle into and trans-

form social realities and vice versa, because what happens online is changing the

very fabric of many societies. And it is imperative for sociolinguistics to capture

these changes in infancy if it intends to remain relevant.

Acknowledgements: Special thanks to the contributors in this project who

participated in both the conference I chaired in Oman and the special issue. I

will forever be indebted to Jan Blommaert for his plenary speeches in Oman, for

writing up the epilogue to this volume, and for challenging us to revisit socio-

linguistic research and methods. I finally thank Ingrid Piller for the opportunity

she presented us to publish in Multilingua.

Note

All the contributors in this special issue took part in the international conference

I organized and chaired in Oman (with Jan Blommaert as Plenary Speaker):

Third International Conference on Language, Linguistics, Literature and

Translation: Connecting the Dots in a Glocalized World. The conference took

place on November 3–5, 2016 and was hosted by the Department of English

Language and Literature (College of Arts and Social Sciences) at Sultan Qaboos

University, Muscat, Oman.

Society in digital contexts 369

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