Cover not available
Article published In:
Polymedia in Interaction
Edited by Jannis Androutsopoulos
[Pragmatics and Society 12:5] 2021
► pp. 725–755

Polymedia repertoires of networked individuals

A day-in-the-life approach

| The Open University
| Queen Mary University of London

This article introduces the concept of the polymedia repertoire to explore how social meaning is indexed through the interplay of communicative resources at different levels of expression (from choice of media to individual signs) in digitally mediated interactions. The multi-layered polymedia repertoire highlights how people move fluidly between media platforms, semiotic modes and linguistic resources in the course of their everyday interactions, and enables us to locate digital communications within individuals’ wider practices. The potential of our theoretical contribution is illustrated through analysis of mobile phone messaging between participants in a large multi-sited ethnography of the communicative practices of multilingual migrants working in linguistically diverse UK city neighbourhoods. Our analysis of mobile messaging exchanges in a day-in-the-life of these networked individuals reveals the importance of device attention in shaping interpersonal interactions, as well as the complex ways in which choices at different levels of a polymedia repertoire are structured by social relationships, communicative purpose and (dis)identification processes.

Keywords: blended linguistic ethnography, device attention, mobile messaging, polymedia, repertoire
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Polymedia
  • 3.Communicative repertoire
  • 4.The polymedia repertoire
  • 5.Data, context and methodology
  • 6.A day-in-the-life analysis of the polymedia repertoire
    • 6.1A day in Edyta’s life
    • 6.2A day in Joe’s life
  • 7.Discussion and conclusion
  • Note
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 7 February 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.20051.tag
References
Adami, Elisabetta
2014 “Retwitting, reposting, repinning; reshaping identities online: towards a social semiotic multimodal analysis of digital remediation.” LEA – Lingue e Letterature d’Oriente e d’Occidente 31: 223–243.Google Scholar
Agha, Asif
2007 Language and Social Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Androutsopoulos, Jannis
2008 “Potentials and limitations of discourse-centred online ethnography.” Language@Internet 51, article 9.Google Scholar
2015 “Networked multilingualism: some language practices on Facebook and their implications.” International Journal of Bilingualism 19 (2): 185–205. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2021 “Investigating digital language/media practices, awareness, and pedagogy: introduction.” Linguistics and Education 621: 1–4. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Artamonova, Olga, and Jannis Androutsopoulos
2019 “Smartphone-based language practices among refugees: mediational repertoires in two families.” Journal for Media Linguistics 21: 60–89.Google Scholar
Bell, Allan
1984 “Language style as audience design.” Language in Society 131: 145–204. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Blackledge, Adrian, and Angela Creese
2018 “Interaction ritual and the body in a city meat market.” Social Semiotics 30 (1): 1–24. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Blackledge, Adrian, Angela Creese, and Rachel Hu
2017 “Translanguaging, volleyball and social life.” Working Papers in Translanguaging and Translation (WP19).Google Scholar
Blommaert, Jan
2010 Sociolinguistics of Globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Blommaert, Jan, and Ad Backus
2013 “Superdiverse repertoires and the individual.” In Multilingualism and Multimodality: Current Challenges for Educational Studies, ed. by Ingrid de Saint-Georges and Jean-Jacques Weber, 11–32. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Boczkowski, Pablo J., Mora Matassi and Eugenia Mitchelstein
2018 “How young users deal with multiple platforms: the role of meaning-making in social media repertoires.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 231: 245–259. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bolter, Jay D., and Richard Grusin
2000 Remediation: Understanding New Media. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Bou-Franch, Patricia, Nuria Lorenzo-Dus, and Pilar Garcés-Conejos Blitvich
2012 “Social interaction in YouTube text-based polylogues: a study of coherence.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 171: 501–521. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
boyd, danah
2008 “Taken out of context: American teen sociality in networked publics.” Unpublished PhD thesis, University of California, Berkeley.
Busch, Florian
2018 “Digital writing practices and media ideologies of German adolescents.” The Mouth: Critical Studies on Language, Culture and Society 31: 85–103.Google Scholar
Canagarajah, Suresh
2021 “Materialising semiotic repertoires: challenges in the interactional analysis of multilingual communication.” International Journal of Multilingualism 18 (2): 206–225. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cohen, Leor
2015 “World attending in interaction: multitasking, spatializing, narrativizing with mobile devices and Tinder.” Discourse, Context & Media 91: 46–54. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Creese, Angela, and Adrian Blackledge
2019 “Translanguaging and public service encounters: language learning in the library.” The Modern Language Journal 103 (4): 800–814. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Djonov, Emilia, and Theo van Leeuwen
2017 “The power of semiotic software: a critical multimodal perspective.” In The Routledge Handbook of Critical Discourse Studies, ed. by John Flowerdew and John E. Richardson, 566–581. Abingdon: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2018 “Social media as semiotic technology and social practice: the case of ResearchGate’s design and its potential to transform social practice.” Social Semiotics 28 (5): 641–664. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dovchin, Sender, Alastair Pennycook, and Shaila Sultana
2018 Popular Culture, Voice and Linguistic Diversity: Young Adults On- and Offline. London: Palgrave. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fraiberg, Steven
2013 “Reassembling technical communication: a framework for studying multilingual and multimodal practices in global contexts.” Technical Communication Quarterly 22 (1): 10–27. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gee, James
2004 Situated Language and Learning: A Critique of Traditional Schooling. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Georgakopoulou, Alexandra
2017 “ ‘Friendly’ comments: interactional displays of alignment on Facebook and YouTube.” In Social Media Discourse, (Dis)identifications and Diversities, ed. by Sirpa Leppänen, Elina Westinen and Samu Kytola, 179–207. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Georgalou, Mariza
2017 Discourse and Identity on Facebook. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Gershon, Ilana
2010 “Media ideologies. An introduction.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 20 (2): 283–293. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goffman, Erving
1982 “The interaction order: American Sociological Association, 1982 Presidential Address.” American Sociological Review 48 (1): 1–17. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gumperz, John
1982 Discourse Strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Harwitt, Eric
2017 “WeChat: social and political development of China’s dominant messaging app.” Chinese Journal of Communication 10 (3): 312–327. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hine, Christine
2000 Virtual Ethnography. London: Sage. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hymes, Dell
1966 “Two types of linguistic relativity”. In Sociolinguistics, ed. by William Bright, 114–158. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Iedema, Rick
2001 “Resemiotization.” Semiotica 137 (1–4) 23–39. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ito, Mizuko, Sonja Baumer, Matteo Bittanti, danah boyd, Rachel Cody, Becky Herr Stephenson, Heather A. Horst, Patricia G. Lange, Dilan Mahendran, Katynka Z. Martínez, C. J. Pascoe, Dan Perkel, Laura Robinson, Christo Sims and Lisa Tripp
2010 Hanging Out, Messing Around and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Jones, Rodney H.
2013 “Rhythm and timing in a chat room interaction”. In The Pragmatics of Computer-Mediated Communication, ed. by Susan C. Herring, Dieter Stein, and Tuija Virtanen, 489–514. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
König, Katharina
2019 “Sequential patterns in SMS and Whats­App dialogues: practices for coordinating actions and managing topics.” Discourse & Communication 13 (6): 612–629. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kusters, Annelies, Massimiliano Spotti, Ruth Swanwick, and Elina Tapio
2017 “Beyond languages, beyond modalities: transforming the study of semiotic repertoires.” International Journal of Multilingualism 14 (3), 219–232. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lee, Carmen
2007 “Affordances and text-making practices in online instant messaging.” Written Communication 24 (3): 223–249. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2014 “Language choice and self-presentation in social media: the case of university students in Hong Kong.” In The Language of Social Media: Identity and Community on the Internet, ed. by Philip Seargeant and Caroline Tagg, 91–111. London: Palgrave. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2018 “Introduction: discourse of social tagging.” Discourse, Context & Media 221: 1–3. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Leppänen, Sirpa, Samu Kytölä, Henna Jousmäki, Saija Peuronen and Elina Westinen
2014 “Entextualisation and resemiotization as resources for identification in social media.” In The Language of Social Media: Identity and Community on the Internet, ed. by Philip Seargeant and Caroline Tagg, 112–136. London: Palgrave. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lexander, Kristin V. and Jannis Androutsopoulos
2021 “Working with mediagrams: a methodology for collaborative research on mediational repertoires in multilingual families.” Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 42 (1): 1–18. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ling, Richard and Birgitte Yttri
2002 “Hyper-coordination via mobile phones in Norway.” In Perpetual Contact: Mobile Communication, Private Talk, Public Performance, ed. by James Katz and Mark Aakhus, 139–169. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lyons, Agnieszka
2018 “Multimodal expression in written digital discourse: the case of kineticons.” Journal of Pragmatics 1311: 18–29. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Madianou, Mirca
2014 “Smartphones as polymedia.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 191: 667–680. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2015 “Polymedia and ethnography: understanding the social in social media.” Social Media + Society, April-June, 1–3. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Madianou, Mirca, and Daniel Miller
2012 “Polymedia: towards a new theory of digital media in interpersonal communication.” International Journal of Cultural Studies 16 (2): 167–187.Google Scholar
Markham, Annette
2004 “Internet communication as a tool for qualitative research.” In Qualitative Research: Theory, Method and Practice, ed. by David Silverman, 95–124. 2nd edn. London: Sage. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mavers, Diane
2007 “Semiotic resourcefulness: a young child’s email exchange as design.” Journal of Early Childhood Literacy 7 (2): 155–176. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Miller, Daniel
2016 Social Media in an English Village. London: UCL Press.Google Scholar
Miller, Daniel, and Jolynna Sinanan
2014 Webcam. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Nordquist, Brice
2017 Literacy and Mobility: Complexity, Uncertainty, and Agency at the Nexus of High School and College. New York: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Papacharissi, Zizi
2010 (Ed.). A Networked Self: Identity, Community, and Culture on Social Network Sites. New York: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pennycook, Alastair
2018 “Posthumanist applied linguistics.” Applied Linguistics 39 (4): 445–461. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pennycook, Alastair, and Emi Otsuji
2015 Metrolingualism: Language in the City. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Richardson, Ingrid, and Larissa Hjorth
2017 “Mobile media, domestic play and haptic ethnography.” New Media & Society 19 (10) 1653–1667. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rymes, Betty
2010 “Classroom discourse analysis: A focus on communicative repertoires.” In Sociolinguistics and Language Education, ed. by Nancy Hornberger and Sandra L. McKay, 528–546. Buffalo, N.Y.: Multilingual Matters. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2014 “Marking communicative repertoire through metacommentary.” In Heteroglossia as Practice and Pedagogy, ed. by Adrian Blackledge and Angela Creese, 301–316. New York: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Scollon, Ron
2001 Mediated Discourse: The Nexus of Practice. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Spilioti, Tereza
2019 “From transliteration to trans-scripting: creativity and multilingual writing on the internet.” Discourse, Context & Media 291: 100294. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Su, Hua
2016 “Constant connection as the media condition of love: where bonds become bondage.” Media, Culture & Society 38 (2): 232–247. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tagg, Caroline
2012 Discourse of Text Messaging. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Tagg, Caroline, and Rachel Hu
2017 “Sharing as a conversational turn in digital interaction.” Working Papers in Translanguaging and Translation (WP29).Google Scholar
Tagg, Caroline, Agnieszka Lyons, Rachel Hu, and Frances Rock
2017 “The ethics of digital ethnography in a team project.” Applied Linguistics Review 8 (2–3): 271–292. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Thurlow, Crispin
2017 “ ‘Forget about the words’? Tracking the language, media, semiotic ideologies of digital discourse: the case of sexting.” Discourse, Context & Media 10–19. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Varis, Piia
2016 “Digital ethnography.” In The Routledge Handbook of Language and Digital Communication, ed. by Alexandra Georgakopoulou and Tereza Spilioti, 55–68. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Zhu Hua, Li Wei, and Agnieszka Lyons
2015 “Language, business and superdiversity in London: translanguaging business.” Working Papers in Translanguaging and Translation (WP5).Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 6 other publications

Androutsopoulos, Jannis
2023. Commentary: Face-work in the digital ecology. Journal of Pragmatics 204 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Eliniongoze Kimambo, Gerald
2024. Analysing persuasion strategies in online advertising for third-hand cars in Tanzania: translanguaging in the virtual linguistic landscape. International Journal of Multilingualism ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Jontes, Dejan, Tanja Oblak Črnič & Breda Luthar
2023. Conceptualising Liveness and Visibility in the News Repertoires of Adolescents in a Polymedia Environment. Media and Communication 11:4 DOI logo
Li, Songqing
2023. Digital remediation and visual manipulation: Blogs as breathing spaces for Chinese tattoo wearers and enthusiasts. Digital Scholarship in the Humanities 38:3 ► pp. 1145 ff. DOI logo
Møller, Janus Spindler
2023. ‘One is allowed to show the reality’: The creation of panoptic structures in social media communication. Language in Society ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Spitzmüller, Jürgen & Michaela Pfadenhauer
2024. Der ‚digital-öffentliche Raum‘ als kommunikative Figuration und vergemeinschaftungsideologische Imagination. Zeitschrift für germanistische Linguistik 52:1 ► pp. 14 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 5 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.