Abstract
From the perspective of New Literacy Studies, this chapter seeks to explore and understand how Catalan teenagers build and perform identity online as well as which literacy and language practices they conduct that shape, and leave visible traces of, identity. Using digital ethnography (interviews, screenshots, analysis of videos), we collected data from three teenage gamers from Catalonia who, driven by their shared interest in gaming, upload videos on YouTube. Results show varying degrees of engagement and specialization, which allow us to offer tentative definitions of the roles and functions of these teenagers on YouTube. Results also indicate participants’ norms and behaviors in choosing usernames, profile pictures and background pictures, showing varying degrees of sophistication in linguistic and multimodal practices and awareness in Catalan, Spanish and English.
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Funding
This research was supported in part by a postdoctoral grant from the autonomous government of Galicia (Xunta de Galicia, Spain) awarded to Boris Vazquez-Calvo (ED481B 2017/007). This research was also supported by the research project ForVid (Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities—National Research Agency, Spain: Video as a language learning format in and outside schools, RTI2018-100790-B-I00). There is also collaboration with the research project CDEPI (FEDER/Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities—National Research Agency, Spain: Competencia digital y e-inclusión del alumnado de educación primaria de Galicia: el papel de la escuela, la familia y el entorno próximo, EDU2015-67975-C3-1-P).
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Vazquez-Calvo, B., Elf, N., Gewerc, A. (2020). Catalan Teenagers’ Identity, Literacy and Language Practices on YouTube. In: Freiermuth, M.R., Zarrinabadi, N. (eds) Technology and the Psychology of Second Language Learners and Users. New Language Learning and Teaching Environments. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34212-8_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34212-8_10
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