Translingual English, Facebook, and gay identities

Abstract

This paper discusses the role of English in ‘enacting one's sexuality’ or ‘gendered identities’ in the Facebook practices of gay Mongolian men. Drawing on digital ethnographic studies, the study aims to illustrate how the role of English needs to be understood from the sophisticated complexities of ‘translingual English’ authored by Facebook users. It presents how Mongolian Facebook users are frequently involved with translingual English practices through their extensive relocalization of variable resources, including English, Mongolian, and other forms of codes, modes, styles, repertoires, and genres. The study also demonstrates how translingual English users deploy Facebook as a highly potent site and formula for the construction and performance of their ‘sexuality.’

Monglish in post‐communist Mongolia

“…Digital ethnography (DE) is a research approach to investigate the digital context and culture, which captures the nature of communicative practices of Internet users (Dovchin, 2019; Pink, 2016). The approach illustrates how the global community, different cultures, and languages influence and change people's online communicative repertoire (Varis, 2014).…”

“…However, other Western and Asian languages – notably, German, French, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese – have also become a part of the complex sociolinguistic reality as reflected in the daily lives of social media users in Mongolia. New social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram have been able to capture this transition, wherein these different languages are mixed continuously and interlaced with the Mongolian language (Dovchin, 2019; Dovchin et al., 2018).…”

“…Instagram have been able to capture this transition, wherein these different languages are mixed continuously and interlaced with the Mongolian language (Dovchin, 2019;Dovchin et al, 2018). Despite its relatively small population (about three million), Internet World Statistics (2020) reported that there are currently more than two million Internet users in Mongolia and approximately two million Facebook users.…”