TY - JOUR
T1 - Sociolinguistics in an increasingly technologized reality
AU - Kelly-Holmes, Helen
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston.
PY - 2022/11/1
Y1 - 2022/11/1
N2 - Digital media have become a mainstream source of data for sociolinguistics, reflecting the ubiquity of such media and the centrality of their role in people's everyday speech as well as changed attitudes towards what constitutes a valid object of study in sociolinguistics. As our personal and professional reality becomes more technologized, there is, however, an urgent need to engage with a deeper understanding of the current and evolving digital economy underpinning this reality in order to assess critically the data that we now encounter. Trends such as personalization, securitization, and hierarchization, for example, mean that the sociolinguistic data we encounter are increasingly shaped by users' digital identities. In the current digital economy, language is a key tool for steering, recording, and tracking these identities, for example, in the form of algorithms; however, the sociolinguistic dimension to these processes has not yet been explored fully. As well as more integrated approaches to studying digital sociolinguistic data, our increasingly technologized reality demands that we build algorithmic reflexivity into our teaching and our research.
AB - Digital media have become a mainstream source of data for sociolinguistics, reflecting the ubiquity of such media and the centrality of their role in people's everyday speech as well as changed attitudes towards what constitutes a valid object of study in sociolinguistics. As our personal and professional reality becomes more technologized, there is, however, an urgent need to engage with a deeper understanding of the current and evolving digital economy underpinning this reality in order to assess critically the data that we now encounter. Trends such as personalization, securitization, and hierarchization, for example, mean that the sociolinguistic data we encounter are increasingly shaped by users' digital identities. In the current digital economy, language is a key tool for steering, recording, and tracking these identities, for example, in the form of algorithms; however, the sociolinguistic dimension to these processes has not yet been explored fully. As well as more integrated approaches to studying digital sociolinguistic data, our increasingly technologized reality demands that we build algorithmic reflexivity into our teaching and our research.
KW - algorithmic identity
KW - algorithmic reflexivity
KW - digital technology
KW - personalization
KW - securitization
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85183309369&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1515/soci-2022-0005
DO - 10.1515/soci-2022-0005
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85183309369
SN - 0933-1883
VL - 36
SP - 99
EP - 110
JO - Sociolinguistica
JF - Sociolinguistica
IS - 1-2
ER -