Code-Selection and the Construction of Youth Identities in Mauritius: Performing Multilingualism in the Virtual Domain

Abstract

According to statistics published in 2015, the number of internet subscriptions in Mauritius has reached an all-time high figure of 66.6 per 100 inhabitants (Statistics Mauritius, 2015).This was accompanied by a corresponding increase in the international internet bandwidth available to each citizen.Indeed, while in 2014, users could avail themselves of only 13, 535 bits per second, in 2015, this figure had risen to a more heartening 16, 870 bits per second (ibid.).The above figures are compelling: they indicate that the gradual democratisation of access to the internet has been complemented by a rise in its connection strength resulting in faster and more efficient data transfer.In fact, Statistics Mauritius also points out that this increase in subscriptions as well as the accompanying growth in connection speed can be attributed to the large number of mobile phone users who use the wireless adaptors of their devices to interact with their friends and acquaintances through applications such as WhatsApp, Viber and Facebook (ibid.).Given the multilingual nature of Mauritius, it is to be expected that interactions taking place on such applications will also allow for the co-occurrence of a multiplicity of languages.Indeed, while study of language alternation sequences in multilingual conversations has tended to restrict itself mainly to face-to-face interactions, with the growing popularity of the internet and the evolving rules of e-language (Crystal, 2004), an increasing number of researchers have shifted their theoretical lens to bi-and multilingual speech communities worldwide as they seek to adjust to what used to be an essentially English-dominant electronic medium.Danet and Herring (2007) provide support to the above shift in theoretical focus as they quote figures from the 2004 edition of the Computer Industry Almanac which asserts that 20% out of the roughly one billion users connected to the 1 Tejshree Auckle, Department of English Studies, University of Mauritius, t.auckle@uom.ac.mu 2 Un résumé traduit est proposé à la fin de l'article.

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