Investigating Translingual Practices in e-Communities of Academic Discourse: Case study of Master 2 Linguistics Students’ Facebook Group

Abstract

Translanguaging is a common feature amongst multilingual communities, where people use multiple languages and dialects in their everyday lives. These practices can take many forms, including code-switching, borrowing, and mixing of languages and dialects. They occur in face-to-face communication as well as in virtual online interactions by means of several social media such as Facebook. This study investigates the different translingual practices amongst a Facebook group of Master 2 Linguistics students, studying at the department of English, Ibn Khaldoun University. It specifically aims to highlight which linguistic varieties and linguistic strategies are employed and whether these students abide by the linguistic formality of academic discourse when they interact, comment or post. Adopting an exploratory research design with a mixed-method approach, a corpus of screenshots of the students’ interactions and posts (n=100) was collected, categorized and analyzed. The quantitative and qualitative analysis of the corpus revealed that students mostly use Algerian Dialectal Arabic (ADA) with meager use of correct academic English in their Facebook chats even when discussing or commenting on a course. Additionally, using transliteration, code-mixing and non-verbal communication (the use of emojy) was the dominant translingual practice among those students. Although the selected Facebook group is supposed to use much more academic discourse, These group adherents were biased towards the use of informal discourse to facilitate communication and foster a sense of community by expressing themselves more fully and connect with others across linguistic and cultural boundaries.