On the basis of a two-year longitudinal study, the present paper explores code-mixing processes in naturally occurring Virtual English as a Lingua Franca (VELF) exchanges on a private Facebook group. It is suggested that code-mixing may be triggered either by the VELF users' L1s or the habitat factor, and that the hybrid forms so produced may, over time, become part of the linguistic repertoire VELF users share, thus sustaining mutual understanding.
The compression of time and space which characterizes our globalized world increasingly brings people with different linguacultural backgrounds into both offline and online contact via ELF. However, disembodied, Virtual English as a Lingua Franca (VELF) exchanges have not yet received enough scholarly attention. On the basis of a two-year longitudinal study, the present paper investigates the communicative routines of a multicultural hybrid community of students who live together in the same student dormitory in Vienna. This community is 'hybrid' because interactions are not solely carried out face-to-face but also on the Facebook group specifically created by these students to discuss their own everyday life problems. Furthermore, their VELF exchanges are often enhanced from linguistic resources other than English ones. Consequently, their English is 'a hybrid, a composite kind of English, [whereby] elements of the other language(s) are adjusted to suit the virtual encoding rules of English' (Seidlhofer, 2011: 112). The code-mixing processes which underlie hybrid word formation are often triggered by the VELF users' L1s or by the habitat factor (Pölzl & Seidlhofer 2006). Interestingly, the observation of the data collected for the aims of this study shows that, as a consequence of accommodation processes, hybrid forms may become part of the linguistic repertoire MHC members share and be employed to sustain mutual understanding. Therefore, linguistic hybridity seems to be what makes ELF a 'free language', one that is "'locally colored' and variable according to local context" (Pölzl & Seidlhofer 2006: 154).
Pölzl, Ulrike; Seidlhofer, Barbara. 2006. "In and on their own terms: the "habitat factor" in English as a lingua franca interactions". International Journal of the Sociology of Language 177, 151-176.
Seidlhofer, Barbara. 2011. Understanding English as a Lingua Franca. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
