Code-switching and Emerging Identities in an Academic Driven Social Media Class Group

Abstract

Research on code-switching particularly in academic contexts scrutinize the relation between code-switching and learner identity in sites where English is the language of wider population. Moreover, the focus is largely on emerging language learner identities in classroom-based communication. The aspiration of this study is to give precedence to the identity-related aspects of code-switching as they emerge in Turkish university students’ interactions in a language class group page in social media where English functions as the language of academic study. The article reports on findings attained from a qualitative research, English-mediated communication with a post-structural orientation to identity construction where English language learners negotiate multiple identities utilizing various discursive practices and multi-modal resources in digital spaces. A close analysis of code-switching in the corpus of social media interaction highlights that there are multifold functions of code-switching and enable users to make different aspects of their multiple identities more or less salient.

Keywords: social media, digital literacy, negotiation, code-switching, multiple identities