Research in computer mediated communication and sociolinguistics, have increasingly highlighted the concept of establishing an "online identity" through specific language use. However, while emojis or common netspeak abbreviations are often the focus of research concerned with cyber language, no studies have considered the function…

The world is witnessing an unprecedented growth of the English language worldwide. Now more than at any time in linguistic history people are powerlessly assisting the expansion of one global language, English, dominating other languages even in countries, such as Congo-Brazzaville, where its presence was not long ago barely observed. There has…

Creativity is commonly assessed using divergent thinking tasks, which measure the fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration of participant output on a variety of different tasks. This study assesses the degree to which creativity can be identified based on linguistic features of participants' language while completing collaborative…

In this study, we explore how Aboriginal multilingual speakers use technology-enhanced environments, specifically Facebook, for their translanguaging practices. Using data collected from Facebook posts written by seven Aboriginal youth over a period of 18 months, we investigate how the participants move between Aboriginal English (AE) and Standard…

"Second-language Discourse in the Digital World" illustrates a new, practice-driven approach to technology in second-language (L2) learning that begins with what L2 users do when they connect with others online. With its rich set of examples from a number of different languages and a variety of digital platforms, in and beyond the…

This paper uses Language Management Theory (Nekvapil and Sherman, "Language management in contact situations. Perspectives from three continents". Peter Lang, Frankfurt/Main, 2009) to investigate Facebook pages as a site and instrument of behavior-toward-language, focusing specifically on the use of humor. The language in question is…

In view of the growing body of research on humor and language play in computer-mediated communication (CMC) which--more than any other medium--has been associated with goofing off, joking, and other nonserious communication, this paper compares spontaneous foreign language play (L2 play) in text-only synchronous computer-mediated versus…

This article explores variation in the use of the pronouns "nous" and "on" for first-person plural reference in a substantial corpus of French-language Internet chat discourse. The results indicate that "on" is nearly categorically preferred to "nous," which is in line with previous research on informal spoken French. A qualitative analysis of…

Concentrating on the unintentionally dominant group, the author considers how Walter Ong demonstrates that novice writers have a narrow concept of audience that is really a narcissistic fiction projected as an ideal reader (1975). Given this, writing instructors can work to broaden their students' sense of audience to consider readers who are not…