Projecting social and discursive identities through code-switching on facebook: the case of Greek Cypriots

Sophocleous, A. and Themistocleous, C. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0657-1376 (2014) Projecting social and discursive identities through code-switching on facebook: the case of Greek Cypriots. Language@Internet, 11. article 5. ISSN 1860-2029

Abstract/Summary

Two varieties of Greek are spoken on the island of Cyprus: the local dialect, namely the Greek-Cypriot Dialect (GCD), and Standard Modern Greek (SMG). English is also influential, as Cyprus was an English colony until 1960. The dialect is rarely employed for everyday written purposes; however, it is now evident in computer-mediated communication (CMC). As a contribution to the field of code-switching in writing, this study examines how Greek-Cypriot internet users employ GCD, SMG, and English in their Facebook interactions. In particular, we investigate how identities (discursive and social) are performed and indexed through the linguistic choices of Greek-Cypriot internet users. The findings indicate that switches to GCD add a humorous tone and express solidarity and informality. SMG is mostly used for ‘official’ statements, and it is preferred by mature internet users, while English is used with expressions of affect and evaluative comments.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/45496
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Interdisciplinary Research Centres (IDRCs) > Centre for Literacy and Multilingualism (CeLM) Arts, Humanities and Social Science > School of Literature and Languages > English Language and Applied Linguistics
Publisher	Dept. of English Language and Linguistics, Heinrich-Heine University
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