“The Anglo-Italian ethnolect in computer-mediated cross-communication”

This paper focuses on the impact that some linguistic strategies employed by a specific ethnic group involved in Computer Mediated Discourse (CMD) may have in fostering the process of identity (de)/formation, and/or in the creation of particular speech cyber-communities such as the large Anglo-Italian community on Facebook. Earlier analyses of Anglo-Italian speech in the UK show phonological realisations, especially among the 3rd generation adolescents, highly untypical of Southern England (Guzzo 2007; 2010). These findings led us to question whether other variable features of online English in worldly contexts, such as that of Facebook groups, could reveal similar patterns in the language of Anglo-Italian community members. More specifically, can such a specific context as CMD influence the language use of the Anglophone Italians abroad? Is there a specific ethnolect Italians tend to use on the Internet in order to mould their own cyber-community and/or cyber-identity? Can we identify some specific linguistic variables in the way the cyber-participants Italianise and/or Anglicise the above-mentioned ethnolect? Our multidisciplinary study investigates a specific type of diamesic variation in its social and mediated interaction in asynchronous communication. We posit that the ethnic group involved in any CMD process is led towards the inevitable loss of a more general, (post)national identity while promoting the creation of a cyber-identity in a virtual cross-cultural setting.