Re-Envisioning Language, Literacy, and the Immigrant Subject in New Mediascapes

This article explores how networked electronic communications have given rise to new social spaces, linguistic and semiotic practices, and ways of fashioning the self beyond the national context for immigrant youths in the United States. This article presents 2 case studies of immigrant students' communicative practices on the Internet: 1 involving a diasporic chat space and another related to the creation of global anime multimedia. Analysis of discourse, interviews, and observational data show that, within these transnational social spaces, the young immigrants created new learning experiences, competences, and representations of linguistic and cultural identities in the use of language and literacy. This evidence of changing language and literacy practices in the context of globalised communications call for a re-evaluation of the predominantly monolingual, monocultural, and nation-centric views of the adaptation and educational trajectory of immigrant students.