Search

Fandom practices are often considered meaningless and unnecessary. However, the use of social media carries the potential for positive as well as negative impact on the users. Using the framework of Community of Practice, the latest theory addressing community formation and interaction, as its theoretical framework, the study explores the Twitter-based online fandom community (called stan twitter) of Korean Pop-Music (K-Pop) as a working Community of Practice (CoP). This community is a hub of non-native English language speakers, who actively communicate on this platform. This qualitative study uses semi-structured interviews and participant observations to collect data, and analyzes it using qualitative coding. The study finds that the members of K-Pop Stan Twitter form interpersonal bonds, communicate regularly, and create a close-knit community where everyone contributes in their own capacity. The study suggests that the platform in question does possess the characteristics to be considered a working CoP, with the addition of another element that makes it unique: power hierarchy among the participants of the community, which is usually the least noticed aspect in research on online platforms. Moreover, it carries implications for inculcation of various positive qualities in the users.

The recent years have observed a notable rise in online activities and interactions. One of the popular online interaction zones are fandom communities comprising fans of any artist, band, TV show, movie, book, and so on. These fans come together on various platforms to enthuse about their favorites with people who share their admiration and interests. One such platform is Twitter and the fandom community is Stan Twitter. Within those fandoms, K-Pop fandom stands out because of the density of English as a second or foreign language speakers in this community. Taking this community as its sample, this study explores the ways in which the non-native English speaking fandom members use English to communicate on this platform. Moreover, the study focuses on the interpretation and usage of meme discourse by these non-native English speaking members. The findings reveal that the fandom members learn memetic discourse by internalizing it in the form of schemas, which means that they learn the whole chunk of interaction rather than learning individual words. The study has also explored overall language-learning within this community, and has discussed the implications of fandom activities as potential learning aids.

This paper examines how the FIFA World Cup 2018 headlines generated by Russia are a means to utilize and apply soft power with the aim to restore Russia's role as one of the powerful and influential states in the global politics. Analysing the use of evaluative patterns in selected headlines, this paper scrutinizes the socio-historical influences that shape and reinforce nationalist and capitalist ideologies, and hence drive the discourse patterns within the headlines. Governed by the theories of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Appraisal Theory, the analysis revealed that the headlines were crafted to help Russia move out of global isolation. This symbolic domination was fulfilled by regaining global legitimacy while surging up nationalism and patriotism through the lexical choices applied in crafting the FIFA discourse. This study provides a model for future analyses of the socio-political and historical influences and contexts of the discourses surrounding global events like FIFA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes the role of code switching in enhancing students’ understanding and increasing their progress rate in bilingual language teaching classrooms. Students of low socioeconomic status (SES) background studying in public schools in the capital city attend English Access Microscholarship Program at a public sector university in Islamabad after school timings. The United States Consulate runs English Access Microscholarship Program in many countries around the world to provide opportunities to low SES students of learning the English language. In this case study, we observed and audio recorded six onehour lectures, interviewed twenty students and four teachers to understand their perspectives about code switching in classroom. We used Ferguson’s (2003; 2009) and Cahyani, De Courcy & Barnett’s (2016) categories of code switching as the theoretical framework to analyze the data. We coded the data with these categories along with searching for new aspects of code switching. We found that the most common reason for code switching was classroom management for maintaining the learning atmosphere. Moreover, a new category, which has not been discussed by Ferguson (2003; 2009) or Cahyani et al. (2016), labeled as ‘One-on-One Rapport Building’, is a new contribution of the study. Through code switching, the teachers were aiming to build a personal rapport with individual students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]