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16 - World Englishes in Cyberspace

from Part III - Linguistics and World Englishes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2019

By
Christian Mair
Edited by
Daniel Schreier ,
Marianne Hundt  and
Edgar W. Schneider
Daniel Schreier
Affiliation:
Universität Zürich
Marianne Hundt
Affiliation:
Universität Zürich
Edgar W. Schneider
Affiliation:
Universität Regensburg, Germany
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Summary

The New Englishes, including many nonstandard varieties, have developed a massive presence in cyberspace, which – as a result – is establishing itself as a sociolinguistic domain in its own right. This domain is partly autonomous and innovative in the way in which speakers respond to the demands and opportunities of the new medium but nevertheless remains connected to the sociolinguistic norms that regulate offline language use in the global “English Language Complex.” From a World Englishes perspective, the specific challenges presented by computer-mediated communication (CMC) are (1) the unprecedented levels of linguistic, textual, and discursive mobility that the new technologies have made possible and (2) the hybrid and multilingual practices that they have encouraged. This new mobility is demonstrated in case studies involving English-lexifier pidgins and creoles from West Africa and the Caribbean and Spanish-English code-switching. The notion of languagescape(s) is proposed to account for the new transnational contacts and connections among standard and nonstandard Englishes that have emerged in the wake of the Digital Revolution.

Keywords

Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC)World Language SystemCyberspaceGlobalizationNigerian PidginJamaican CreoleLanguagescape
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of World Englishes , pp. 360 - 383
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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