This paper uncovers L1 Chinese speakers' online intercultural communication where they deploy English as a lingua franca and other spatial repertoires to co-construct translanguaging practices with their interlocutors and present three-fold identities--translingual, L1 Chinese, and legitimate users of English, leading to the argument that…

Language contact is traditionally associated with language communities having a long and close association with a second language--through an existing official language, or extensive use of the language spoken by past colonial rulers, or both. Japan neither falls directly into these categories, nor is it considered a country with a strong…