Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-05T18:07:26.009Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Chinese university students’ translanguaging hybrids on WeChat

Creativity nurtured language play in the context of a Chinese digital social media

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2022

Fang Qi  and
Junlong Li
Fang Qi*
Affiliation:
Shenzhen University, The School of Foreign Languages, Dept of English, Shenzhen, China
Junlong Li
Affiliation:
Shenzhen University, The School of Foreign Languages, Dept of English, Shenzhen, China
*
Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The popularity of the online social media in China promotes a dynamic digital drive for both global and glocalised communications, facilitating the emergence of more connected intercultural language practices unimaginable in the past. Social media also creates a vast community where pervasive translanguaging practices take place daily. Translanguaging hybrids coined by Chinese university students on WeChat are exactly a case in point. WeChat is a free platform launched in 2011 by Tencent. Well established in China and the world over, Tencent provides multimodal instant messaging services. Open to world cultures, these students show ingenuity in translanguaging linguistic play in their daily text messages; meanwhile, their creative coinage of translanguaging hybrids influences the entire WeChat community. Written language in the WeChat community, often amounting to a new form of speech, deserves serious scholarly inquiry.

Type
Research Article
Information
English Today , Volume 39 , Issue 4 , December 2023 , pp. 297 - 306
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Blommaert, J., Collins, J. & Slembrouck, S. 2005. ‘Spaces of Multilingualism.’ Language and Communication, 25(3), 197–216.10.1016/j.langcom.2005.05.002CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Canagarajah, S. 2013. Translingual Practice: Global Englishes and Cosmopolitan Relations. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
CIW (China Internet Watch). 2017. ‘Tencent performance highlights Q3 2017; profit grew by 69%.’ Online at https://www.chinainternetwatch.com/31054/tencent-quarterly/#ixzz50YK21yjn (Accessed July 15, 2021).Google Scholar
Cook, G. 2000. Language Play, Language Learning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Crystal, D. 1996. ‘Language play and linguistic intervention.’ Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 12(3), 328–344.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crystal, D. 1998. Language Play. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
GAPP (General Administration of Press and Publication). 2010. ‘Notice on further regulating the use of language in publication texts.’ Online at http://www.gapp.gov.cn/cms/html/21/508/201012/708310.html (Accessed July 12, 2021).Google Scholar
Gillen, J. & Merchant, G. 2013. ‘Contact calls: Twitter as a dialogic social and linguistic practice.’ Language Sciences, 35, 47–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hine, C. 2008. ‘Virtual ethnography: Modes, varieties, affordances.’ In Fielding, N. G.., Lee, R. M.. & Blank, G. (eds.), Handbook of Online Research Methods. London: Sage, pp. 257–270.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kachru, B. B. 1985. ‘The bilinguals’ creativity.’ Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 6, 20–33.10.1017/S0267190500003032CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kozinets, R. 2010. ‘Netnography: The Marketer's Secret Weapon: How social Media Understanding Drives Innovation.’ Online at https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/30166174/netnography-the-marketers-secret-weapon-netbasecom (Accessed July 12, 2021).Google Scholar
Li, W. 2011a. ‘Moment analysis and translanguaging space: Discursive construction of identities by multilingual Chinese youth in Britain.’ Journal of Pragmatics, 43(5), 1222–1235.Google Scholar
Li, W. 2011b. ‘Multilinguality, multimodality, and multicompetence: Code- and modeswitching by minority ethnic children in complementary schools.’ The Modern Language Journal, 95(3), 370–384.Google Scholar
Li, W. 2013. ‘Translanguaging identities: Creating transnational space through flexible multilingual practices amongst Chinese.’ Applied Linguistics, 34(5), 516–535.10.1093/applin/amt022CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, W. 2016. ‘New Chinglish and the post-multilingualism challenge: Translanguaging ELF in China.’ Journal of English as a Lingua Franca, 5(1), 1–25.Google Scholar
Li, W. & Zhu, H. 2019. ‘Tranßcripting: Playful subversion with Chinese characters.’ International Journal of Multilingualism, 16(2), 1–17.Google Scholar
Mao, C. 2014. ‘Friends and relaxation: Key factors of undergraduate students’ WeChat using.’ Creative Education, 5(8), 636–640.10.4236/ce.2014.58075CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Myers–Scotton, C. 1993. Duelling Languages: Grammatical Structure in Codeswitching. Oxford: Clarendon Press.10.1093/oso/9780198240594.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Riha, H. 2006. The Morphology and Semantics of Roman Letter Words in Mandarin Chinese (unpublished M.A. dissertation). Ohio State University, Ohio: USA.Google Scholar
Rivlina, A. A. 2020. ‘Bilingual language play and World Englishes.’ In Nelson, C. L.., Proshina, Z. G. & Davis, D. R. (eds.), The Handbook of World Englishes (2nd edn.) Malden, MA: Wiley–Blackwell, pp. 407–429.Google Scholar
Robinson, L. & Schulz, J. (2009). ‘New avenues for sociological inquiry: Evolving forms of ethnographic practice.’ Sociology, 43(4), 685–698.10.1177/0038038509105415CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rubdy, R. & Alsagoff, L. 2013. ‘The cultural dynamics of globalization: Problematizing hybridity.’ In Rubdy, R.. & Alsagoff, L. (eds.), The Global-Local Interface, Language Choice and Hybridity. London: Multilingual Matters, pp. 1–14.10.21832/9781783090860CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schneider, E. W. 2014. ‘New reflections on the evolutionary dynamics of World Englishes.’ World Englishes, 33(1), 9–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Statista. 2021. ‘Number of monthly active WeChat users from 2nd quarter 2011 to 3rd quarter 2020.’ Online at https://www.statista.com/statistics/255778/number-of-active-wechat-messenger-accounts/ (Accessed Jul 15, 2021).Google Scholar
Williams, C. 1994. Arfarniad o Ddulliau Dysgu ac Addysgu yng Nghyd-destun Addysg Uwchradd Ddwyieithog (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation). University of Wales Bangor, Bangor: UK.Google Scholar
Williams, C. 1996. ‘Secondary education: Teaching the bilingual situation.’ In Williams, C., Lewis, G. & Baker, C. (eds.), The Language Policy: Taking Stock: Interpreting and Appraising Gwynedd's Language Policy in Education. CAI Language Studies Centre, pp. 193–211.Google Scholar
Yan, X. 2013. ‘English ants are digging holes in the Chinese levee: Language ideological debates in the Chinese media.’ Language Problems & Language Planning, 7(1), 31–45.Google Scholar
Zhang, W. 2015. ‘Multilingual creativity on China's Internet.’ World Englishes, 34(2), 231–246.10.1111/weng.12135CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhang, Y. 2017. ‘The semiotic multifunctionality of Arabic numerals in Chinese online discourse.’ Online at https://www.languageatinternet.org/articles/2017/zhang (Accessed July 25, 2021).Google Scholar
Zuckermann, G. 2004. ‘Cultural hybridity: Multisourced neologization in reinvented languages and in languages with phono-logographic script.’ Languages in Contrast, 4(2), 281–318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar