C Sa Ksé Bon!: Discursive circulation of a mock language slogan in the heteroglossic construction of Franco-Portuguese “community”

We examine the emergence and viral circulation of a mock language slogan, “ C sa ksé bon / That’s what’s good,” among young people of Portuguese origin living in France. The slogan reprises in stylized fashion the imagined, stigmatized French speech of first-generation Portuguese immigrant figures, which is heteroglossically represented in youthful French texting language. We trace the slogan’s de- and recontextualizations in the early 2010s across widely disseminated videos and cinema, as well as its uptake in online comments and spontaneous Facebook comments. Participants use the slogan to signal positive and/or ironic assessments of “Portuguese” entities, and newly rebranded Franco-Portuguese identities, simultaneously nodding to previously stigmatizing images, and reincorporating them into modern youthful ones. The article contributes to research on the heteroglossia of mock language and the construction of “communities” via discourse circulation, as well as research on the images and the (in)visibility of the Portuguese in France.