Digital language practices in superdiversity: Introduction

This article introduces a special issue on digital language practices in superdiversity that brings together research at the intersection of two emerging areas of scholarship in sociocultural linguistics, digital communication and superdiversity. It explores this relationship from two angles: the role of digital language practices in contexts of societal superdiversity, and the relevance of superdiversity as a theoretical perspective for the study of digital language practices. This introduction first outlines the concept of superdiversity and the way digital media and communication technologies are conceptualized in literature on superdiversity and relevant earlier scholarship. It then turns to the reception of superdiversity in sociolinguistics and the role of digital language and literacy in this discussion and outlines a number of research perspectives on digital language practices in superdiversity. The detailed empirical analyses of the nine papers in the issue show that digital language practices in settings of superdiversity extend and complicate the semiotic resources available to people or their performance of identities and social relationships.