Translanguaging Practices in Indonesian Pop Songs

This paper focuses on the practice of translanguaging in Indonesian pop songs and highlights the possible reasons behind the practice. In this study, translanguaging is viewed from the context of the Indonesian singers’ linguistic repertoire, which allows varieties in the production (Canagarajah, 2013) of the songs. Three pop songs, composed by the singers themselves, are used for samples. The result indicates that translanguaging, performed using Indonesian and English, is utilized by the artists as a strategy to exercise their agency, either as Indonesian artists or as members of the global society. Translanguaging in the pop songs is not merely seen as a commercial activity, but it is also a deliberate practice which will attract the attention of the audience. The reasons behind the translanguaging practice indicate three things, namely (1) as a means to convey a cultural message, (2) as a means for meaning-making, and (3) as a means of gaining fame.

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Dynamics of meaning-making in Nepali-English bilingual interactions

Gipan ◽

10.3126/gipan.v4i0.35460 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 4 ◽

pp. 91-105

Author(s):

Julian Vasseur

Keyword(s):

Social Interactions ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Meaning Making ◽

Boarding Schools ◽

English Bilingual ◽

Mixed Language ◽

Daily Interactions ◽

Linguistic Repertoire ◽

Construct Meaning

A growing proportion of Nepali speakers settled in urban areas who were educated through English-medium boarding schools present a tendency to use numerous English expressions along with Nepali in their daily interactions. This is also the case in some specific socio-professional environments such as TV and radio entertainment broadcasts made for the latest generations. The speakers make use of a variety of discursive resources for expressive purposes. The combinatory properties of such mixed language practices allow them to construct meaning in order to fit the requirements of particularly demanding social interactions, where most speakers exhibit the knowledge of a complex linguistic repertoire. The purpose of this article is to introduce the sociolinguistic context of contemporary urban Nepalese society, based on the most recent studies which have attempted to apprehend the role of English in Nepal today. A brief analysis of several examples of interactions extracted from a media corpus is also presented to make visible the mechanisms of meaning-making in a conversation where the two participants alternate Nepali and English.

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Raced Repertoires: The Linguistic Repertoire as Multi-Semiotic and Racialized

Applied Linguistics ◽

10.1093/applin/amab018 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Marcelyn Oostendorp

Keyword(s):

South African ◽

Meaning Making ◽

Applied Linguistics ◽

Black Body ◽

Educational Context ◽

The South ◽

Linguistic Repertoire ◽

Semiotic Resources ◽

Central Argument

Abstract In this article, the central argument is that research on the semiotic repertoire should also focus on how repertoires are racialized, and race is evoked through the semiotic repertoire. The article uses data from the South African educational context to advance a position in which semiotic repertoires simultaneously give and restrict access, evoke evaluation and construct identities in particular ways because of their entanglement with (racialized) bodies. I propose that this simultaneity can be theorized by viewing the black body as ‘intercorporeal’ and ‘grotesque’ (Bakhtin 1984). By drawing on such an approach, processes of racialization are explicitly connected to how semiotic resources are evoked in discourse. This article thus theoretically contributes to the recent movements in applied linguistics that view language as embodied, re-examine repertoires, and view language as multiplex and entangled. In addition, it also offers a framing that can theoretically challenge discourses of post-racialism with its multi-layered account of how race continues to be experienced as a significant form of meaning-making.

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