The Routledge Handbook of Language and Social Media around the World

by Caroline Tagg (Editor), Korina Giaxoglou (Editor), Kristin Vold Lexander (Editor)

Overview

The Routledge Handbook of Language and Social Media around the World offers a comprehensive overview of this growing area of research through a global lens, aiming to decentre existing epistemologies and produce new lines of inquiry through a wider diversity of perspectives.

With its aim of complicating and diversifying understandings of language and social media through approaches and frameworks developed both within and outside dominant North American and European traditions, the volume is organized around seven sections, each focused on a particular geocultural context. Theoretical and methodological innovations as well as case studies of language practices across Africa, the Americas, East Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Oceania, and South Asia, which explore issues of diversities inequalities, mobilities, creativities, and social justice are featured. Each section includes a brief section introduction, written by a local editor with expertise in the region who brings together contributions in each section. The sections are conceived to be in dialogue with one another, reinforcing the book’s aims of generating new conversations around the decolonisation of applied linguistics.

This volume is key reading for students and scholars interested in the study of language and social media in sociolinguistics, digital communication, applied linguistics, and anthropology.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781040424544
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	10/27/2025
Series:	Routledge Handbooks in Applied Linguistics
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	648

About the Author

Caroline Tagg is Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics and English Language at the Open University, UK.

Korina Giaxoglou is Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics and English Language at the Open University, UK.

Kristin Vold Lexander is Associate Professor in Norwegian Language at the University of Inland Norway.

Table of Contents

List of Figures

List of Tables

List of Contributors

Acknowledgements

Handbook introduction

Caroline Tagg, Korina Giaxoglou and Kristin V. Lexander

SECTION 1

Africa: African perspectives on social media practices: literacy, politics, transnationalism, and artistic creativity

Edited by Kristin V. Lexander, Adjaratou O. Sall

Editors’ introduction

1 Texting as a collaborative literacy practice influenced by socio-cultural and sociolinguistic values: a Kenyan example

Catherine Wawasi Kitetu

2 To keep from losing the way: connected migrants from sub-Saharan Africa

Sandra Bornand and Idé Hamani

3 Journalistic rap in social media: a transnational West African practice (Le rap journalistique dans les réseaux sociaux: une pratique transnationale ouest-africaine)

Moussa Diène and Mamadou Dramé

4 Political discourse and social media in Africa: online campaign, cultural politics and the #Obidient movement

Innocent Chiluwa and Tolulope D. Iredele

SECTION 2

Americas: Language and social media in the Americas: struggles over political participation and citizenship

Edited by Ignacio José Antonio López Escarcena, Rodrigo Borba

Editors’ introduction

5 Navigating pre-authorial constraints on Facebook: the “seven A’s”

Lauren Zentz

6 Language and gender in YouTube comments: the case of inclusive language (lenguaje inclusivo)

Juan Eduardo Bonnin and M. Florencia Rizzo

7 Researching the thematisation of inclusive language in social media

Germán Canale

8 Transperipheral social media literacies: affects, ambiguities, transgressions

Junot de Oliveira Maia

SECTION 3

East Asia: Creating spaces of creativity and criticality: Social media in East Asia

Edited by Yi Zhang, Sender Dovchin

Editors’ introduction

9 Celebration of language play and humour - Translanguaging and carnivalesque literacy practices in Chinese digital space

Yi Zhang

10 Instagramming the almost real: Japanese younger women and the spatiality of desire on Instagram

Judit Kroo

11 Pro- and anti-social language of Korean social networking services (SNS)

Eldin Malik, Ana Tankosić and Qian Gong

12 Linguistic ridicule and language ideologies on social media in Hong Kong

Dennis Chau

13 The construction of national identity and the role of affect in Chinese social media

Mingyi Hou, Ron Darvin and Guangxiang Liu

14 Understanding online hate speech through “grotesque realism”: Mongolia and Kazakhstan

Sender Dovchin, Juldyz Samgulova, Bridget Goodman, Stephanie Dryden and Bolormaa Shinjee

SECTION 4

Europe:

Editors’ introduction

15 Reflecting backward, reflecting forward on social media research around Europe

Maria Sindoni

16 Refugees' digital multilingual practices: insights into linguistic creativity and identity

Mohammad Ateek

17 Extremism and social media

Catherine Bouko

18 The production and politics of social media interfaces

Lara Portmann

19 Quantified stories of illness and dying on social media

Carsten Stage

SECTION 5

Middle East: Postdigital Middle East societies: interfacing online and offline dimensions of social media

Edited by Rania Magdi Fawzy and Amir H.Y. Salama

Editors’ introduction

20 The postdigital constitution of touristscapes: the Dubai travel app

Rania Magdi Fawzy and Amir H.Y. Salama

21 Digitized confessional discourse: the case of Cairo Confessions

Amany Y.A.A. Youseff

22 Diasporic identities at the online/offline juncture: insights from a postdigital ethnography of the Nubian diaspora

Rania Magdi Fawzy, Amany El Shazly, Heba Morsi and Lubna Sherif

23 The postdigital turn and multimodal hermeneutics of Saudization in online advertising discourse

Amir H.Y. Salama

SECTION 6

Oceania:

Editors’ introduction

24 Melanesia in the digital age: langauge practices in social media and their interaction with language ideology and perception

Leslie Vandeputte

25 Language contact phenomena on social media: perspectives from te Reo Māori and New Zealand English

Andreea Calude and David Tyre

26 Weaving translocal solidarity: examining the role of social media in sovereignty and demilitarization activism in Guåhan

Manuel Cruz

27 Rethinking critical digital literacies education across Oceania: Disrupting the legacies of colonialism

Fiona Willans

SECTION 7

South Asia: Social media as a space of resistance and digital linguistic citizenship in South Asia

Edited by Shaila Sultana and Obaid

Editors’ introduction

28 Language shaming on social media in Nepal

Bal Krishna Sharma and Pramod K. Sah

29 “Sickular” and “bhakt” as polarized categories: the making of a Hindutva digital sphere on Indian Twitter (X)

Rahul Sambaraju

30 Language of resistance and social justice: a case study of Pakistani digital ethnic speech communities

Muhammad Shaban Rafi and Iram Amjad

31 Reciprocity between social media discourses and social movements in Bangladesh

Al Muhmud Rumman and Shaila Sultana

32 “Listen to the lama”: analysing Bhutan’s digital media and online religious practices

Dorji Wangchuk and Todd L. Sandel

Postscript

Ana Deumert

Index