Multilingual polymedia repertoires in context: a day-in-the-life approach

Caroline Tagg is a senior lecturer in Applied Linguistics at the Open University, UK. Her research into language and digital technologies draws on post-digital ethnography and interactional sociolinguistics to explore the embedding of digital communication practices into individuals’ wider social, economic and political lives.

Abstract

The concept of polymedia repertoires recognises the full range of semiotic and technological resources available to networked individuals in a digital world, highlighting the complex ways in which practices, media and language choices intersect (Tagg and Lyons, 2022). In this talk, I explore how multilingual polymedia repertoires are deployed in, and shaped by, the wider context of individuals' shifting physical environments and social activities. My talk focuses on an Italian Catholic woman living and working in the UK, and explores how she constructs her religious identity across physical and virtual spaces, drawing on multiple messaging apps, voice and text messages, image and text, and linguistic resources associated with English and Italian. My analysis of a 'day in the life' of this networked individual shows how language and media choices are shaped not only by addressee considerations but also by parallel activities and encounters, competing priorities, and complex polymedia ideologies.