Relocalizing the translingual practices of young adults in Mongolia and Bangladesh

Abstract

The translingual practices of young Mongolians and Bangladeshis suggest that contrary to those popular discourses which position youth as passive recipients of global culture, these young adults are better understood as actively and powerfully engaged with popular culture productions. Drawing on the examples of casual offline conversations and online Facebook interactions of university students in Mongolia and Bangladesh, this paper shows how processes of relocalization give new meanings to the translingual practices of these students as they draw on different modalities from popular culture (film, music and so on) and different linguistic and nonlinguistic resources. This transtextual and transmodal analysis enables us to show how these young adults relocalize linguistic and cultural resources in both their on- and offline interactions.

Translocal English in the linguascape of Mongolian popular music

“…Young Mongolian artists are severely criticized for corrupting the Mongolian language and culture due to heavily borrowing from English (Dovchin ; Dovchin et al. ). It is against the background of this hegemonically dominant English language ideology, that this study examines the role of English in the popular music scene in Mongolia.…”

“…The flows of English resources in the local context are often relocalized to make new local meanings (Dovchin et al. ). English is the outcome of localization and globalization processes, where it is localized in different multiple ways in different contexts (Bolton & Kachru ).…”

“…The translocal use of English is presented here through a process of ‘relocalization’ (Dovchin et al. ), in which English is meshed and mingled with the Mongolian linguistic resources in order to make a new local meaning that makes no sense to other English speakers. For example, a term Шоудахад in line 2 is the combination between English and Mongolian, where English root word show (Mongolian Шоу ) is integrated into the Mongolian postposition ‐дахад (‘to’), creating a new meaning in Mongolian, ‘to party’.…”

“…It illustrates the intrinsic and extrinsic values of English in Mongolia, where English is assessed both as ‘instrumental’ and ‘detrimental’ (Dovchin et al. ). Not only is it very common for young Mongolians to integrate English within their daily linguistic practices, but this practice is also particularly stigmatised by the empowering linguistic ideology of ‘standardized English’ – the idolization of ‘pure’ English.…”

Translingual English, Facebook, and gay identities

“…Meanwhile, one of those ‘linguistic homonormativities’ established within the transnational gay community (Leap, ) is to use such terms as ‘honey,’ ‘darling,’ and ‘dear’ amongst themselves (Dovchin et al., ). It is thus normal for Baatar to loosely use English phrases such as ‘hon’ (‘honey’), ‘my darling,’ ‘dear,’ ‘sweetheart,’ or ‘sweetie’ extensively in his offline interactions with friends.…”