Multilingual Practice In Cyberspace:A Study Of Italian

With the continuous wave of immigrants under the process of globalization,the form and the connotation of language contact and language integration have been expanded.As digital media developed,social media platform is now becoming the new discourse and communication space on the Internet,the immigrants,hence,encountering much richer multilingual contexts.Immigrant groups in social media unfold self-expression through language practices,thereby revealing their ideology,values and identity.This study focuses on the multilingual practice of the Italian-Chinese youth on Instagram,trying to figure out its manifestations,causes and influencing factors.Based on Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical theory and Bernard Spolsky’s theory of language policy,this study regards the virtual space as the front stage,the realistic space as the back stage,and the communicative actions on the social media as the performances on these stages,in this way,the research participants conducting their self-presentation and impression management through multilingual practices.The study holds that the three components of language policy in the speech community of virtual space-language practices,language ideology,language management-interact with one another.Through the qualitative research methods of online ethnography,shadowing,observation and interview,the author collects the data of language practices of the Italian-Chinese youth in the cyberspace,whose process will be observed in order to explore the influencing factors on their language choices and the process of their multicultural identity construction which reflects the social and cultural factors in the linguistic repertoire.Therefore,the triangular relationship between language,media and social context can be revealed.The results demonstrate that there are more than three language resources in the linguistic repertoire of Italian-Chinese youth during their online communication,including Italian,English and Chinese,as well as semiotic resources such as emoji.Generally,there are three types of multilingual practices: first,an English dominated multilingual practice;second,a relatively balanced one among Italian,English and Chinese;third,a multilingual practice dominated by “impure Italian”.The factors affecting the first type are mainly the media mechanism and the economic value of language,while the factors of the second and third types are mainly the emotional value and cultural value of language.The expectation of impression management through multilingual performances at the front stage to construct the multicultural identity of Italian-Chinese youth is the main reason why the participants conduct multilingual practices on social media.This study adopts the theoretical perspectives of communication,semiotics and sociolinguistics,turns the spotlight on the Italian-Chinese youth,a group less emphasized in the immigration study,and on micro language policy,which brings language policy issues into specific social contexts,this study shows certain theoretical value.Besides,as the thesis takes online ethnography as the research method to expand its application scenarios in the field of social media research,it also reveals certain practical value.