Journal articles on the topic 'Japanese language Modality'

Grammaticalization of modal markers has long been thought of in terms of change from deontic to epistemic meaning. This change, then, is typically thought of as a mapping between conceptual domains. Contrary to this perception, I argue in this paper that (1) change from deontic to epistemic (that is, the acquisition of epistemic meaning by deontic markers), although salient in many European languages, is cross-linguistically a marginal tendency, (2), the cross-linguistically most salient tendency in the development of modal markers is towards greater speaker-orientation, and (3), this change can best be explained by primarily referring to pragmatic processes, rather than conceptual processes. I substantiate my claims by analyzing the cross-linguistic modality data in Bybee et al. (1994), by providing a catalogue of etymologies of Modern Japanese modal markers, and by analyzing the polysemy and semantic change of one specific marker in Japanese language history (-be-si) in detail.

There are many grammatical category in Japanese language, one of them is grammatical category in predicate. For examples is modality. Modality has divided into many kinds, for examples is toui modality and gaigen modality. Between toui modality and gaigen modality, writer want to analyze about differences uses between nakereba naranai 「なければならない」, beki「べき」dan hazu「はず」. Article analyzes this topic because the writer want to understand about the differences using toui modality and gaigen modality. For analyze, the writer use Chibi Maruko Chan 9 and Detektif Conan jilid 7, 9, 37 and 38 that used Japanese language as an object. The used methods in this article is descriptive analytic. As a conclusion, these modality can substitute each others. This substitutin is based on the situations and context.

The Japanese language is known for its sentence-final particles (SFPs hereafter) that express modality. Although modality would seem to be inseparable from context, only a limited number of studies have explicated the nature of SFPs based on data from conversations. This paper discusses the functions of SFP kana, based on 272 occurrences of the particle from over 7 hours of recorded conversation. I propose that kana, which is commonly defined as a doubt marker, frequently functions as a mitigation marker. My investigation also explores how speakers use this function beyond the sentence level. It suggests that traditional descriptions of the syntactic environments in which SFPs occur are not always substantiated by how kana is actually used. Yet, seemingly unsystematic uses of kana are quite systematic in terms of its semantic and pragmatic aspects. These findings suggest that in studying Japanese sentence-final particles, it’s important to study naturally occurring conversations.

Japanese has many compound clause-linkage markers (hereafter “CLMs”). Some of them consist of a verbal inflectional suffix and (up to three) particles. They include eleven compound CLMs that have the Concessive conditional meaning (‘even if’) and/or the Concessive meaning (‘even though, although’). In these eleven compound CLMs, different inflectional categories of verbs (i.e. conjugational categories) combined with different particles indicate different degrees of the speaker’s belief or confidence regarding the likelihood of the existence or occurrence of a situation. That is, verbal inflectional morphology plays a crucial role in expressing modal meanings. Such a phenomenon does not seem to have been recognized for Japanese or any other language.

Abstract Drawing on Chinese-Japanese transnational and transcultural interaction in the mid-nineteenth century, this article illustrates how Sinitic brushtalk functioned as an effective modality of communication between Chinese and Japanese literati who did not have a shared spoken language. The illustrations are adapted from personal diary-like travelogues of Japanese travelers to Shanghai on board the Senzaimaru in 1862 and participants in the Japanese mission to the United States in 1860. The recollection of the brushtalkers with their Chinese interlocutors whom they met on the way, including those during their return journey from the US while calling at trading ports like Batavia and Hong Kong, provides elaborate details on how writing-mediated improvisation using brush, ink, and paper allowed Japanese travelers with literacy in Sinitic to engage in “silent conversation” with their literate Chinese counterparts. A third historical context where Sinitic brushtalk was put to meaningful use was US–Japanese negotiations during Commodore Perry’s naval expedition to Edo Bay in 1854, where Luo Sen, bilingual in Chinese (spoken Cantonese) and English, was hired to perform the role of secretary. Throughout the negotiations, Luo was able to perform his duties admirably in part by impressing the Japanese side with his fine brushtalk improvisations. While misunderstanding and miscommunication could not be entirely avoided, the article concludes that until the early 1900s writing-mediated interaction through Sinitic brushtalk in face-to-face encounters functioned adequately and effectively as a scripta franca between literate Japanese and their Chinese “silent conversation” partners both within and beyond Sinographic East Asia. Such a unique modality of communication remained vibrant until the advent of nationalism and the vernacularization of East Asian national languages at the turn of the century.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt:This work describes results of an experiment that teases out politeness marking features in JSL. The study uncovers a number of prosodic features relevant to marking politeness in JSL, and additionally, demonstrates that non-signers and signers share a visual-kinesthetic medium of communication that enables non-signers to occasionally interpret signs derived from assimilated gestures recognized either culturally in Japan or universally by users of different languages.

With the growth of textual data, techniques are necessary for their selection and organization. The organization of textual documents belonging to specialized languages relies mainly on information reflecting the subject domain, the genre of the document and its communication level. This paper aims to distinguish different levels of specialized documents: scientific documents and popular science documents. Identifying the communication level of a document requires a modality analysis that characterizes the relationship between the author and the content. In this paper, we investigate the relevancy of two modality theories defined for general language in order to characterize texts in the medical field. Furthermore, we compare these theories with respect to their multilingual adaptation working on French and Japanese. We show that the automation of both theories using specific features is possible, but because of paucity and ambiguity problems, only one is fully operational and scales efficiently.

This study examines a particular modality of audience participation in Japanese municipal council sessions. As with parliamentary debates elsewhere (Carbó 1992, Antaki & Leudar, 2001), the prescribed participation framework in a Japanese council session is highly structured so as to facilitate deliberation for the public good. Accordingly, the formal institutional rules do not assign the audience ratified speaking rights during question-answer periods. Nevertheless, audience members do insert interjectory remarks with precise timings to accomplish specific social consequences. While official records typically exclude audience voices and therefore fail to capture the relevant social consquences, the analysis of raw data brings them to light. This study investigates audience interjections in terms of their sociolinguistic characteristics, their placement in the on-going discussions, and their “covert” social consequences. The analysis shows that interjections in Japanese council sessions are tools for spontaneous politicking whereas the ostensibly deliberative proceedings are largely scripted performance.

Purpose This study tested the hypothesis that audiovisual training benefits children more than it does adults and that it improves Japanese-speaking children's English /r/−/l/ perception to a native-like level. Method Ten sessions of audiovisual English /r/−/l/ identification training were conducted for Japanese-speaking adults and children. Assessments were made of age effects on the increase in identification accuracy in three testing conditions (audiovisual, visual only, and audio only) and auditory discrimination of the primary acoustic cue (F3 frequency). Results The results showed that both adults and children increased their identification accuracy in the audiovisual condition more than in the single-modality conditions (visual only and audio only). Their improvement in the visual-only condition was larger than that in the audio-only condition. Japanese-speaking adults and children improved their primary acoustic cue (F3) sensitivity to a similar extent. In addition, their identification improvement in the audiovisual condition was positively correlated with those in the audio-only and visual-only conditions. The improvement in the audio-only condition was also positively correlated with that in the visual-only condition and with primary acoustic cue sensitivity. Conclusion It was unclear whether children had an advantage over adults in improving their identification accuracy, but both age groups improved their auditory and visual perception of the English /r/−/l/ contrast and showed additive effects in the multisensory (i.e., audiovisual) condition.

The capacity to perceive and meaningfully process foreign or second language (L2) words from the aural modality is a fundamentally important aspect of successful L2 listening. Despite this, the relationships between L2 listening and learners’ capacity to process aural input at the lexical level has received relatively little research focus. This study explores the relationships between measures of aural vocabulary, lexical segmentation and two measures of L2 listening comprehension (i.e., TOEIC & Eiken Pre-2) among a cohort of 130 tertiary level English as a foreign language (EFL) Japanese learners. Multiple regression modelling indicated that in combination, aural knowledge of vocabulary at the first 1,000-word level and lexical segmentation ability could predict 34% and 38% of total variance observed in TOEIC listening and Eiken Pre-2 listening scores respectively. The findings are used to provide some preliminary recommendations for building the capacity of EFL learners to process aural input at the lexical level.

This paper discusses textual uses of modality and mood forms in English and Japanese and claims that they all represent a shift from subjective through intersubjective to the textual. As the shift towards textual function is difficult to define in terms of either subjectification or intersubjectification, it is suggested that shift towards the textual needs to be acknowledged as equal to the shift towards the subjective and the intersubjective. These three kinds of shifts are understood as together forming the larger tendency of change labeled as ‘speech-act orientation’. Furthermore, the cases discussed in this paper provide evidence for the fact that textual functions, which have often been conceived as an intermediate stage in change towards subjective and intersubjective elements, are in fact sometimes the endpoints of grammatical change, beyond subjective and intersubjective functions.

Background. Studies have shown that the collaborative processing of feedback on a jointly produced text facilitates language learning in a traditional classroom. However, it is still unknown whether there are similar learning benefits when the feedback is provided through an online modality from an expert peer during an international virtual exchange (IVE). Purpose. The present study fills this gap in the literature by investigating Japanese learners engaged in processing written corrective feedback from expert language users in the United States. Methods. Qualitative data concerning students’ perceptions of learning outcomes were collected via retrospective interviews and narrative frames, then triangulated with their first and final drafts of written texts and analyzed using activity theory (AT). Results. Findings indicate that learning benefits accrued in areas of language skills such as vocabulary, spelling, and grammar, as well as deepening learners’ reflexive awareness of themselves as language users. Conclusion. A discussion of these findings, informed by sociocultural theory and shaped by the categories of AT, brings to light some of the interactional dynamics that contributed to the creation of these outcomes. These interactional dynamics show that the learning benefits of the activity primarily resided in the peer-to-peer interactions rather than interactions with the expert-peer.

This study aimed to describe the form of the use of auxiliary verb tenses, aspects, and capital in Japanese sentence contained in the fairy tale Kaguya Hime 「かぐや姫の物語」Takahashi Souko works, also identifying the type of verb that follows it. In collecting data, the method used is the listening method, with the basic technique being tapping technique, and the advanced technique used is the free-of-charge listening technique and the note-taking technique. For data analysis, the matching method and the distribution method were used. The equivalence method used is the translational equivalence method and the orthographic equivalence method. For the distribution method, the basic technique used is the technique for direct elements (BUL). Based on the analysis that has been done, the use of past tenses is much more common, and the use of the perfective is more dominant than the use of the imperfective aspect. Perfective and imperfective aspects are also constructed with the use of past tenses. In addition, the modality of construction with imperfective aspects is found to be more dominant in construction with present/future tenses. The results of the analysis also show that, in Japanese there is a mutually influencing relationship between tenses and aspects, and tenses and modals. Thus, in the tale Kaguya Hime by Takahashi Souko tenses are more dominant and influential, this is because Japanese is a signified language, whereas in the tale of Kaguya Hime used formal language, at the end of each sentence there is a tense marker attached to the verb predicate. The types of verbs found in the use of tenses, aspects, and modals are jidoushi ‘intransitive’¸ tadoushi ‘transitive’, shoudoushi ‘pontential’, dan fukugodoushi ‘verba majemuk’.

Background: In response to globalism, many East-Asian countries now include a Medical English course in their undergraduate medical education syllabus. The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between the related attribute factors of students' motivation to learn medical English through an online modality. Methods: Of 134 eligible fourth-year medical students who participated in an Online Medical English course at a Japanese medical school, 105 were enrolled in this single cohort study. The participants completed pre- and post-course surveys regarding their motivation during the course, including perceived academic control and task value, and their assignment scores. A structural equation model was used to examine the hypothesized relationship of constructs, based on control-value theory. Results: The model showed a good fit for the data (χ2[df=7] = 1.821, p=0.969, CFI = 1.000, RMSEA < 0.001, SRMR < 0.05, GFI = 0.993, AGFI = 0.980). The latent variables of the perceived course achievement related to the observed variables of academic control and task value scale scores, and negatively predicted willingness for self-study after course completion. In addition, the preference of English as the course language negatively predicted willingness for self-study of medical English. Conclusion: Choice of English as the language of instruction and perceived high course achievement negatively predicted students’ motivation for further English self-study after the class. The importance of incorporating the perspective of lifelong learning into the teaching of medical English was recognized.

AbstractStudies on computer-mediated communication often compare the affective affordances of different technologies with face-to-face communication. This study aimed to understand how three different computer-mediated communication modalities may affect EFL learners’ foreign language anxiety (FLA). Using a counterbalanced 3 by 3 factorial design, 30 undergraduate Japanese university students participated in this study, completing a spot-the-difference task in three different oral synchronous computer-mediated communication modes: voice, video, and virtual reality (VR). Upon completing each task, participants responded to an FLA questionnaire and answered questions regarding their learning experiences. Finally, a post-experiment questionnaire asked participants to explicitly compare their experiences of learning within each modality. Results suggest that although all three modes were successful in reducing learner FLA, no statistically significant differences were found between mean scores. However, the results of the learner perceptions questionnaire suggested that VR was the easiest environment to communicate in, was the most fun, and the most effective environment for language learning. Participant responses to an open-ended question suggested that learner dispositions to technology as well as their affective characteristics may be responsible for differing opinions regarding the affordances of VR for language learning. The study concludes with a call for more research in the area of learner affect and technology use, including studies that more effectively utilize the technological affordances of VR, and also qualitatively assess which elements of VR may affect learner FLA and motivation.

This paper provides a quantitative assessment of Shigeto Kawahara’s phonetics teaching method. A senior high school class from a liceo scientifico in Scandicci (Florence) was involved in a small language awareness program. The students were taught about basic concepts concerning sound symbolism and social meaning through two lessons differing in modality of presentation, i.e., a “standard” lesson vs. a lesson containing multiple Japanese pop examples (Kawahara method). Students attending the latter performed better in an assessment test; moreover, their response accuracy grew along with the number of Japanese pop examples used to explain the related concepts. A statistical interaction between modality of presentation and student attitude towards the Florentine speech variety used to teach during the awareness program was also retrieved: students benefited from Kawahara’s method only when they manifested a positive attitude towards the teacher’s speech variety. Overall, this paper suggests a compact experimental procedure to test for the effectiveness of specific teaching methods in linguistics and beyond. Various strategies for achieving control in teaching experiments are advanced, concerning, among other factors, the evaluation of the individual student’s involvement in acquiring new knowledge, the teacher’s demeanor, and the scoring method. Lastly, future intersections between the scholarship of teaching and learning and sociophonetics are sketched out and promoted. Insegnare il simbolismo sonoro attraverso la cultura pop giapponese. Una risposta A Kawahara (2018) L’articolo esamina quantitativamente l’efficacia del metodo di insegnamento della fonetica di Shigeto Kawahara. Una classe quinta di un liceo scientifico a Scandicci (Firenze) è stata coinvolta in un breve programma di restituzione in seguito a un esperimento linguistico. Agli studenti sono stati insegnati concetti di base relativi al fonosimbolismo e al significato sociale durante due lezioni diverse per stile di presentazione, ovvero una lezione “standard” vs. una lezione con vari esempi presi dalla cultura pop giapponese (metodo Kawahara). Gli studenti che hanno assistito a quest’ultima hanno ottenuto risultati migliori in una successiva prova di valutazione; inoltre, le loro probabilità di rispondere correttamente sono state più alte qualora i concetti fossero stati spiegati con un numero consistente di esempi giapponesi pop. I risultati hanno anche messo in luce un’interazione statistica tra il metodo di insegnamento e l’atteggiamento dimostrato dagli studenti nei confronti della varietà linguistica fiorentina usata dall’insegnante durante le lezioni: il metodo di Kawahara è stato fruttuoso soprattutto per quegli studenti con atteggiamento positivo nei confronti della varietà dell’insegnante. In generale, l’articolo propone un protocollo sperimentale compatto per esaminare l’efficacia di metodi d’insegnamento in linguistica e oltre. Vengono inoltre suggerite varie strategie per ottenere controllo sperimentale nelle ricerche didattiche (quantificazione del coinvolgimento degli studenti nell’acquisizione di nuove conoscenze; comportamento e aspetto del docente; metodo di assegnazione di punteggi). L’articolo promuove infine future possibili intersezioni disciplinari tra la ricerca sulla didattica e la sociofonetica.

Services in the hotel industry are generally formal. The asymmetric relationship between the service buyer and the service provider has implications for the hotel's procedures in providing services to guests, such as maintaining of courtecy and polite speech. Based on the results of data analysis of conversations between Japanese guests and hotel staff in Bali, several verbal politeness markers in hospitality services have been found, they are; modality (1) “ please”, (2) “would you please”, (3) "if you please", (4) “what”, (5) “is there”,(6) “do you please?”, (7) prefix o or go + guest object, like oheya (your room), (8) the greeting word "Okyaku sama" which means "Mr/Madam/Miss", (9) expressions in hotel services, such as (a) greeting, (b) offering help, (c) inviting, (d) apologizing, (e) thanking, (f) requesting, (g) giving advice, (h ) give attention. (i) excuse me, (j) wish good things to guests. All of them are performented in keigo (honorific language) so that based on the concept of politeness, these expressions are relatively safe, do not threaten the faces of guests or hotel staff.

Imperative sentences are sentences that contain imperative intonation and generally contain the meaning of commands or prohibitions; in writing is marked by (.) and (!). The construction of imperative sentences of invitation in Japanese and Indonesian is done by using a constructive research. Contrastive research prioritizes concrete facts regarding the search for differences one by one which has the specificity of language so that it is more inclined towards differences. This study aims to describe the construction of imperative sentences of invitation in Japanese and Indonesian. The approach taken in this study uses a qualitative descriptive approach using the referential method. The data collection in this study used the deep listening method related to the use of written language, because the data in the form of invitation as a modality were taken from written data sources in the form of novels. The written data obtained by the read method was captured by a note-taking technique by being recorded on a data card. The data in the form of sentences containing imperatives, both in terms of structure and markers and their contents are classified into several types of imperative sentences. Furthermore, the basic analysis technique used is a technique for direct elements, namely dividing the elements in the form of imperative sentences. The results showed that the construction of the imperative form of solicitation sentences in Japanese consisted of the invitation form shiyou with the construction variants 'affirmative form of desire verb -masu + shiyou' and 'isshoni + affirmative form of desire verb -masu + shiyou'; shiyouka invitation form with the construction of 'isshoni + affirmative form of desire verb –masu + shiyou ka'; and, the form of shinaika's invitation with construction variants 'Interrogative form + Shinaika' and 'Particle mo + KK wishes in the form of a dictionary + Interrogative form + Shinaika'. On the other hand, in Indonesian, the construction of the imperative form of an invitation sentence in Indonesian consists of the form of an invitation form ‘Mari’ with the construction variants of 'Mari + active verb' and 'Mari + causative verb'; the form of ‘Marilah’ with the construction of 'Marilah + Active Verb'; the form of an invitation ‘Ayo’ with the construction variants of 'Ayo + Active Verb' and 'Ayo + Causative Verb'; and, form ‘Ayolah’ with the construction 'Ayolah + Active verb'.

Abstract In Western societies, speaking is construed as an interactive social activity while writing is widely perceived as a solo or private endeavor. Such a functional dichotomy did not apply to the “Sinographic Cosmopolis” in premodern East Asia, however. Based on selected documented examples of writing-mediated cross-border communication spanning over a thousand years from the Sui dynasty to the late Ming dynasty, this paper demonstrates that Hanzi 漢字, a morphographic, non-phonographic script, was commonly used by literati of classical Chinese or Literary Sinitic to engage in “silent conversation” as a substitute for speech. Except for a “drifting” record co-constructed by Korean maritime officials and Chinese “boat people,” all the other examples featured Chinese–Japanese interaction. While synchronous cross-border communication in written Chinese has been reported in scholarly works in East Asian studies (published more commonly in East Asian languages than in English or other Western languages), to our knowledge no attempt has been made to examine such writing-mediated interaction from a linguistic or discourse-pragmatic point of view. Writing-mediated interaction enacted through Sinitic brushtalk (漢文筆談) is compatible with transactional and interactional language functions as in speech. In premodern and early modern East Asia, it was most commonly conducted using brush, ink, and paper, but it could also take place using a pointed object and a flat surface covered with a fluid substance like sand, finger-drawing using water or tea on a table, and so forth. Such an interactional pattern appears to be unparalleled in other regional lingua francas written with a phonographic script such as Latin and Arabic. To facilitate research into the extent to which this interactional pattern is script-specific to morphographic sinograms, a “morphographic hypothesis” is proposed. The theoretical significance of writing-mediated interaction as a third or even fourth known modality of synchronous communication—after speech and (tactile) sign language—will be briefly discussed.

Jan Banning’s “Comfort Women” Portraits: the Analysis of Gaze using Visual Grammar Methods. Jan Banning is a Dutch photographer who created works of Indonesian Comfort Women portraits. The term of Comfort Women that leads to victim who were experienced sexual violence during the Japanese colonialism. This term is better known in Indonesia as jugun ianfu. Jan, as the creator of the works, describes the women by focusing on their faces. 4 out of 18 photos were recorded and chosen for further analysis – especially on the eyes gaze. This research aims to analyze further on the meaning of their eyes gaze and the surroundings as the form of people’s expressions. This expression can be analyzed by using visual grammatical methods therefore it will reveal a meaning which wants to be conveyed by the subject-’comfort women’. In using this method, interpersonal metafunction is used as an effort to show the interpersonal relationship. Interpersonal metafunction is then divided into two discussions which are representation-interaction and modality aspects. The discussion of these aspects have a similar pattern between one photo and another. Even so, the similarity of existing patterns cannot influence the meaning from the subject themself, because those meanings can also be generated from the visual signs that are created. The results of the study showed the interaction, proximity of the subject to the observer. ABSTRAKJan Banning adalah seorang fotografer asal Belanda yang menciptakan karya berupa foto potret dengan tema comfort women di Indonesia. Comfortwomen memiliki pengertian yang mengarah kepada istilah perempuan yang mengalami kekerasan seksual pada masa penjajahan Jepang, istilah ini di Indonesia lebih dikenal dengan sebutan jugun ianfu. Adapun pengertian fotografi potret merupakan sebuah bentuk visual yang mendeskripsikan potret seseorang. Jan selaku pencipta karya mendeskripsikan potret jugun ianfu tersebut dengan memfokuskannya pada area wajah. Sebanyak 4 dari 18 foto yang dibukukan oleh Jan telah dipilih untuk dianalisis lebih lanjut mengenai wajah khususnya tatapan mata. Di mana tatapan mata dan sekelilingnya adalah bentuk pengekspresian dari diri seseorang. Ekspresi ini dapat dianalisis dengan menggunakan metode gramatika visual sehingga terungkapnya sebuah makna atau pesan interaktif yang ingin disampaikan oleh subjek jugun ianfu. Dalam penggunaan metode gramatika visual tersebut, metafungsi interpersonal pun digunakan sebagai bentuk upaya untuk menunjukkan hubungan interpersonal. Metafungsi interpersonal kemudian dibagi menjadi dua bahasan, yaitu aspek representasi-interaksi dan aspek modalitas. Bahasan di dalamnya memiliki pola yang serupa antara foto satu dengan foto yang lainnya. Meski begitu, kesamaan pola yang ada tidak dapat mempengaruhi makna atau pesan dari subjek itu sendiri, karena makna atau pesan juga dapat dihasilkan dari adanya tanda-tanda visual yang tercipta.

Abstract The Japanese noun tsumori is used as the so-called formal noun and the head of syntactic nominalization. Its main meaning of ‘aim, intention’ is expressed through the basic sentence pattern of (suru) tsumori da. The modal meanings of this noun reveal close connections with the pragmatics of linguistic politeness and manifestation of attitudes in interpersonal communication. The article deals with the main sentential patterns and functions from the comparative perspective.

Further discussion of the author's ideas, as well as their confrontation with similar and different concepts of consciousness, have been given in the Introduction. Then the physical and, in lesser degree, also mathematical aspects of open systems, in particular of human person, are sketched in Sec. 2. The quantum concept of the decoherence time is treated as a model for a finite life-time of any composed physical and biological system. In Sec. 3 the role of languages of many types in living and non-living systems is briefly considered, as well as the importance of modality for sentence predicates. In Sec. 4, the structure of the cerebral neocortex and its speech centers is briefly described from the point of view of the mechanism of thinking and the consciousness. The concepts of laterality and dominance (left or right hemispheres of the brain) and their dependence on the type of culture and education are shown on the example of the differences between the Japanese and Western perception of languages (discoveries of Liberman and Tsunoda). In Secs. 5 and 6 the experimental evidence for the connection of consciousness with the speech centers are presented and some questions are posed.

Abstract Native deaf signers express epistemic modality by different means: mental-state words, clause-internal particles, signs indicating hypothesis, and nonmanually. The data for this study come from two unrelated sign languages, Danish Sign Language and Japanese Sign Language. In dialogues the signers use both calques of majority-language words and signs that appear to have emerged in the sign languages only. Based on the multifunctionality of some word forms, the origin of the epistemic modal particles may be traced back to tags, interjections, and lexical signs, a route motivated by interaction and also found in unrelated spoken languages. Furthermore, in both sign languages, the first-person pronoun can be used, without a verb, as an epistemic “anchor” of a proposition, a construction that seems specific to languages in the gestural-visual modality. Another modality-specific feature is the possibility of transferring the expression of a marker of epistemic uncertainty from one articulator to another.

The dynamic nature of cortical activation changes during language acquisition, including second-language learning, has not been fully elucidated. In this study, we administered two sets of reading and listening tests (Pre and Post) to participants who had begun to learn Japanese abroad. The two sets were separated by an interval of about 2 months of Japanese language training. We compared the results of longitudinal functional MRI experiments between the two time-points and obtained the following major findings. First, the left-dominant language areas, as well as bilateral visual and auditory areas, were activated, demonstrating the synergistic effects of multiple modalities. There was also significant activation in the bilateral hippocampi, indicating the expected involvement of memory-related processes. Second, consistent with the behavioral improvements from Pre to Post, the brain activations decreased in the left inferior and middle frontal gyri during the listening tests, as well as in the visual areas (the bilateral inferior and superior parietal lobules, and left inferior and middle occipital gyri) during the reading tests, while activations in the right superior and middle temporal gyri increased during the listening tests. These modality-dependent activation changes could not be explained by domain-general cognitive factors, such as habituation or familiarization, because we used completely different test sets for Pre and Post. Third, the posterior hippocampus showed a main effect of the hemisphere, whereas the anterior hippocampus showed a significant main effect of the event (i.e., specific to first listening events), reflecting initial encoding of auditory information alone. In summary, activation changes from Pre to Post indicate functional changes in modality-dependent networks over a short period of staying abroad, which would enable effective acquisition of a second language.

AbstractThis paper investigates sex-related euphemisms in four Asia sign languages, namely, Hong Kong Sign Language (HKSL), Jakarta Sign Language (JakSL) (Indonesia), Sri Lankan Sign Language (SLSL) and Japanese Sign Language (JSL). It aims at finding out if direct visual reference to sex-related body parts or concepts is taboo to Deaf signers and if this is the case, what strategies they adopt to form the corresponding euphemistic expressions. It will be argued that even though Deaf signers are used to the visual explicitness of the signing modality, the highly iconic nature of certain sex-related signs can still be offensive at times, thus giving rise to euphemistic expressions. While certain euphemistic strategies by the Deaf signers target at toning down the degree of visual iconicity originally associated with the taboo signs, most of the remaining strategies show striking resemblance to those used in spoken languages, suggesting the universality of these verbal politeness strategies across language modalities.

Abstract The typology of subject omission in simple declarative sentences ranges from languages that simply do not allow it like English and French to languages that allow it as long as a minimum degree of topicality is guaranteed like Chinese and Japanese. In between there are various languages in which subject omission is licensed, for example by rich agreement like in Italian and Spanish, or by a particular set of grammatical features like first and second person in Finnish, or tense like in Hebrew. In other languages subject omission is only limited to expletive sentences like in German. This rich typology observed in spoken languages is also attested across sign languages, with one important exception: there is no known sign language disallowing subject omission categorically. The goals of this paper are twofold: first, we apply syntactic and semantic tests to assess the boundaries of subject omission in French Sign Language and characterize it within the typology; second, we discuss in light of some particular aspects of grammars in the visual modality this apparent anomaly of sign languages.

AbstractThis paper presents results of the effect of different translation modalities on users when working with the Microsoft Word user interface. An experimental study was set up with 84 Japanese, German, Spanish, and English native speakers working with Microsoft Word in three modalities: the published translated version, a machine translated (MT) version (with unedited MT strings incorporated into the MS Word interface) and the published English version. An eye-tracker measured the cognitive load and usability according to the ISO/TR 16982 guidelines: i.e., effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction followed by retrospective think-aloud protocol. The results show that the users’ effectiveness (number of tasks completed) does not significantly differ due to the translation modality. However, their efficiency (time for task completion) and self-reported satisfaction are significantly higher when working with the released product as opposed to the unedited MT version, especially when participants are less experienced. The eye-tracking results show that users experience a higher cognitive load when working with MT and with the human-translated versions as opposed to the English original. The results suggest that language and translation modality play a significant role in the usability of software products whether users complete the given tasks or not and even if they are unaware that MT was used to translate the interface.

Abstract Extending the paradigm in L1 acquisition, scholars have begun to investigate whether participants’ domain-general ability to represent, encode, and integrate spectral and temporal dimensions of sounds (i.e., auditory processing) could be a potential determinant of the outcomes of post-pubertal L2 speech learning. The current study set out to test the hypothesis that auditory processing makes a unique contribution to L2 speech acquisition, for 70 Japanese classroom learners of English with different levels of L2 proficiency when biographical backgrounds (length of instruction and immersion) and memory abilities (working, declarative, and procedural memory) are controlled for. Auditory processing loaded onto modality-general capacities to represent and incorporate anchor stimuli (relative to target stimuli) into long-term memory in an implicit fashion, but dissociated from explicit abilities to remember, associate, and elaborate sensory information. Auditory processing explained a small-to-medium amount of variance in L2 speech learning, even after the other potentially confounding variables were statistically factored out.

AbstractRecent discoveries of semantic compositionality in Japanese tits have enlivened the discussions on the presence of this phenomenon in wild animal communication. Data on semantic compositionality in wild apes are lacking, even though language experiments with captive apes have demonstrated they are capable of semantic compositionality. In this paper, I revisit the study by Boesch (Hum. Evol. 6:81–89, 1991) who investigated drumming sequences by an alpha male in a chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) community in the Taï National Park, Côte d’Ivoire. A reanalysis of the data reveals that the alpha male produced semantically compositional combined messages of travel direction change and resting period initiation. Unlike the Japanese tits, the elements of the compositional expression were not simply juxtaposed but displayed structural reduction, while one of the two elements in the expression coded the meanings of both elements. These processes show relative resemblance to blending and fusion in human languages. Also unlike the tits, the elements of the compositional expression did not have a fixed order, although there was a fixed distribution of drumming events across the trees used for drumming. Because the elements of the expression appear to carry verb-like meanings, the compositional expression also resembles simple verb-verb constructions and short paratactic combinations of two clauses found across languages. In conclusion, the reanalysis suggests that semantic compositionality and phenomena resembling paratactic combinations of two clauses might have been present in the communication of the last common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans, not necessarily in the vocal modality.

AbstractThis study investigated the difference in the McGurk effect between own-race-face and other-race-face stimuli among Japanese infants from 5 to 9 months of age. The McGurk effect results from infants using information from a speaker’s face in audiovisual speech integration. We hypothesized that the McGurk effect varies with the speaker’s race because of the other-race effect, which indicates an advantage for own-race faces in our face processing system. Experiment 1 demonstrated the other-race effect on audiovisual speech integration such that the infants ages 5–6 months and 8–9 months are likely to perceive the McGurk effect when observing an own-race-face speaker, but not when observing an other-race-face speaker. Experiment 2 found the other-race effect on audiovisual speech integration regardless of irrelevant speech identity cues. Experiment 3 confirmed the infants’ ability to differentiate two auditory syllables. These results showed that infants are likely to integrate voice with an own-race-face, but not with an other-race-face. This implies the role of experiences with own-race-faces in the development of audiovisual speech integration. Our findings also contribute to the discussion of whether perceptual narrowing is a modality-general, pan-sensory process.

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What strikes me about the habits of the people who spend so much time on the Net—well, it’s so new that we don't know what will come next—is in fact precisely how niche in character it is. You ask people what nets they are on, and they’re all so specialised! The Argentines on the Argentine Net and so forth. And it’s particularly the Argentines who are not in Argentina. (Anderson, in Gower, par. 5) The preceding quotation, taken from his 1996 interview with Eric Gower, sees Benedict Anderson reflecting on the formation of imagined, transnational communities on the Internet. Anderson is, of course, famous for his work on how nationalism, as an “imagined community,” gets constructed through the shared consumption of print media (6-7, 26-27); although its readers will never all see each other face to face, people consuming a newspaper or novel in a shared language perceive themselves as members of a collective. In this more recent interview, Anderson recognised the specific groupings of people in online communities: Argentines who find themselves outside of Argentina link up online in an imagined diaspora community. Over the course of the last decade and a half since Anderson spoke about Argentinian migrants and diaspora communities, we have witnessed an exponential growth of new forms of digital communication, including social networking sites (e.g. Facebook), Weblogs, micro-blogging (e.g. Twitter), and video-sharing sites (e.g. YouTube). Alongside these new means of communication, our current epoch of globalisation is also characterised by migration flows across, and between, all continents. In his book Modernity at Large, Arjun Appadurai recognised that “the twin forces of mass migration and electronic mediation” have altered the ways the imagination operates. Furthermore, these two pillars, human motion and digital mediation, are in constant “flux” (44). The circulation of people and digitally mediatised content proceeds across and beyond boundaries of the nation-state and provides ground for alternative community and identity formations. Appadurai’s intervention has resulted in increasing awareness of local, transnational, and global networking flows of people, ideas, and culturally hybrid artefacts. In this article, we analyse the various innovative tactics taken up by migrant youth to imagine digital diasporas. Inspired by scholars such as Appadurai, Avtar Brah and Paul Gilroy, we tease out—from a postcolonial perspective—how digital diasporas have evolved over time from a more traditional understanding as constituted either by a vertical relationship to a distant homeland or a horizontal connection to the scattered transnational community (see Safran, Cohen) to move towards a notion of “hypertextual diaspora.” With hypertextual diaspora, these central axes which constitute the understanding of diaspora are reshuffled in favour of more rhizomatic formations where affiliations, locations, and spaces are constantly destabilised and renegotiated. Needless to say, diasporas are not homogeneous and resist generalisation, but in this article we highlight common ways in which young migrant Internet users renew the practices around diaspora connections. Drawing from research on various migrant populations around the globe, we distinguish three common strategies: (1) the forging of transnational public spheres, based on maintaining virtual social relations by people scattered across the globe; (2) new forms of digital diasporic youth branding; and (3) the cultural production of innovative hypertexts in the context of more rhizomatic digital diaspora formations. Before turning to discuss these three strategies, the potential of a postcolonial framework to recognise multiple intersections of diaspora and digital mediation is elaborated. Hypertext as a Postcolonial Figuration Postcolonial scholars, Appadurai, Gilroy, and Brah among others, have been attentive to diasporic experiences, but they have paid little attention to the specificity of digitally mediated diaspora experiences. As Maria Fernández observes, postcolonial studies have been “notoriously absent from electronic media practice, theory, and criticism” (59). Our exploration of what happens when diasporic youth go online is a first step towards addressing this gap. Conceptually, this is clearly an urgent need since diasporas and the digital inform each other in the most profound and dynamic of ways: “the Internet virtually recreates all those sites which have metaphorically been eroded by living in the diaspora” (Ponzanesi, “Diasporic Narratives” 396). Writings on the Internet tend to favour either the “gold-rush” mentality, seeing the Web as a great equaliser and bringer of neoliberal progress for all, or the more pessimistic/technophobic approach, claiming that technologically determined spaces are exclusionary, white by default, masculine-oriented, and heteronormative (Everett 30, Van Doorn and Van Zoonen 261). For example, the recent study by Ito et al. shows that young people are not interested in merely performing a fiction in a parallel online world; rather, the Internet gets embedded in their everyday reality (Ito et al. 19-24). Real-life commercial incentives, power hierarchies, and hegemonies also get extended to the digital realm (Schäfer 167-74). Online interaction remains pre-structured, based on programmers’ decisions and value-laden algorithms: “people do not need a passport to travel in cyberspace but they certainly do need to play by the rules in order to function electronically” (Ponzanesi, “Diasporic Narratives” 405). We began our article with a statement by Benedict Anderson, stressing how people in the Argentinian diaspora find their space on the Internet. Online avenues increasingly allow users to traverse and add hyperlinks to their personal websites in the forms of profile pages, the publishing of preferences, and possibilities of participating in and affiliating with interest-based communities. Online journals, social networking sites, streaming audio/video pages, and online forums are all dynamic hypertexts based on Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) coding. HTML is the protocol of documents that refer to each other, constituting the backbone of the Web; every text that you find on the Internet is connected to a web of other texts through hyperlinks. These links are in essence at equal distance from each other. As well as being a technological device, hypertext is also a metaphor to think with. Figuratively speaking, hypertext can be understood as a non-hierarchical and a-centred modality. Hypertext incorporates multiplicity; different pathways are possible simultaneously, as it has “multiple entryways and exits” and it “connects any point to any other point” (Landow 58-61). Feminist theorist Donna Haraway recognised the dynamic character of hypertext: “the metaphor of hypertext insists on making connections as practice.” However, she adds, “the trope does not suggest which connections make sense for which purposes and which patches we might want to follow or avoid.” We can begin to see the value of approaching the Internet from the perspective of hypertext to make an “inquiry into which connections matter, why, and for whom” (128-30). Postcolonial scholar Jaishree K. Odin theorised how hypertextual webs might benefit subjects “living at the borders.” She describes how subaltern subjects, by weaving their own hypertextual path, can express their multivocality and negotiate cultural differences. She connects the figure of hypertext with that of the postcolonial: The hypertextual and the postcolonial are thus part of the changing topology that maps the constantly shifting, interpenetrating, and folding relations that bodies and texts experience in information culture. Both discourses are characterised by multivocality, multilinearity, openendedness, active encounter, and traversal. (599) These conceptions of cyberspace and its hypertextual foundations coalesce with understandings of “in-between”, “third”, and “diaspora media space” as set out by postcolonial theorists such as Bhabha and Brah. Bhabha elaborates on diaspora as a space where different experiences can be articulated: “These ‘in-between’ spaces provide the terrain for elaborating strategies of selfhood—singular or communal—that initiate new signs of identity, and innovative sites of collaboration, and contestation (4). (Dis-)located between the local and the global, Brah adds: “diaspora space is the point at which boundaries of inclusion and exclusion, of belonging and otherness, of ‘us’ and ‘them,’ are contested” (205). As youths who were born in the diaspora have begun to manifest themselves online, digital diasporas have evolved from transnational public spheres to differential hypertexts. First, we describe how transnational public spheres form one dimension of the mediation of diasporic experiences. Subsequently, we focus on diasporic forms of youth branding and hypertext aesthetics to show how digitally mediated practices can go beyond and transgress traditional formations of diasporas as vertically connected to a homeland and horizontally distributed in the creation of transnational public spheres. Digital Diasporas as Diasporic Public Spheres Mass migration and digital mediation have led to a situation where relationships are maintained over large geographical distances, beyond national boundaries. The Internet is used to create transnational imagined audiences formed by dispersed people, which Appadurai describes as “diasporic public spheres”. He observes that, as digital media “increasingly link producers and audiences across national boundaries, and as these audiences themselves start new conversations between those who move and those who stay, we find a growing number of diasporic public spheres” (22). Media and communication researchers have paid a lot of attention to this transnational dimension of the networking of dispersed people (see Brinkerhoff, Alonso and Oiarzabal). We focus here on three examples from three different continents. Most famously, media ethnographers Daniel Miller and Don Slater focused on the Trinidadian diaspora. They describe how “de Rumshop Lime”, a collective online chat room, is used by young people at home and abroad to “lime”, meaning to chat and hang out. Describing the users of the chat, “the webmaster [a Trini living away] proudly proclaimed them to have come from 40 different countries” (though massively dominated by North America) (88). Writing about people in the Greek diaspora, communication researcher Myria Georgiou traced how its mediation evolved from letters, word of mouth, and bulletins to satellite television, telephone, and the Internet (147). From the introduction of the Web, globally dispersed people went online to get in contact with each other. Meanwhile, feminist film scholar Anna Everett draws on the case of Naijanet, the virtual community of “Nigerians Living Abroad”. She shows how Nigerians living in the diaspora from the 1990s onwards connected in global transnational communities, forging “new black public spheres” (35). These studies point at how diasporic people have turned to the Internet to establish and maintain social relations, give and receive support, and share general concerns. Establishing transnational communicative networks allows users to imagine shared audiences of fellow diasporians. Diasporic imagination, however, goes beyond singular notions of this more traditional idea of the transnational public sphere, as it “has nowadays acquired a great figurative flexibility which mostly refers to practices of transgression and hybridisation” (Ponzanesi, “Diasporic Subjects” 208). Below we recognise another dimension of digital diasporas: the articulation of diasporic attachment for branding oneself. Mocro and Nikkei: Diasporic Attachments as a Way to Brand Oneself In this section, we consider how hybrid cultural practices are carried out over geographical distances. Across spaces on the Web, young migrants express new forms of belonging in their dealing with the oppositional motivations of continuity and change. The generational specificity of this experience can be drawn out on the basis of the distinction between “roots” and “routes” made by Paul Gilroy. In his seminal book The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness, Gilroy writes about black populations on both sides of the Atlantic. The double consciousness of migrant subjects is reflected by affiliating roots and routes as part of a complex cultural identification (19 and 190). As two sides of the same coin, roots refer to the stable and continuing elements of identities, while routes refer to disruption and change. Gilroy criticises those who are “more interested in the relationship of identity to roots and rootedness than in seeing identity as a process of movement and mediation which is more appropriately approached via the homonym routes” (19). He stresses the importance of not just focusing on one of either roots or routes but argues for an examination of their interplay. Forming a response to discrimination and exclusion, young migrants in online networks turn to more positive experiences such as identification with one’s heritage inspired by generational specific cultural affiliations. Here, we focus on two examples that cross two continents, showing routed online attachments to “be(com)ing Mocro”, and “be(coming) Nikkei”. Figure 1. “Leipe Mocro Flavour” music video (Ali B) The first example, being and becoming “Mocro”, refers to a local, bi-national consciousness. The term Mocro originated on the streets of the Netherlands during the late 1990s and is now commonly understood as a Dutch honorary nickname for youths with Moroccan roots living in the Netherlands and Belgium. A 2003 song, Leipe mocro flavour (“Crazy Mocro Flavour”) by Moroccan-Dutch rapper Ali B, familiarised a larger group of people with the label (see Figure 1). Ali B’s song is exemplary for a wider community of youngsters who have come to identify themselves as Mocros. One example is the Marokkanen met Brainz – Hyves (Mo), a community page within the Dutch social networking site Hyves. On this page, 2,200 youths who identify as Mocro get together to push against common stereotypes of Moroccan-Dutch boys as troublemakers and thieves and Islamic Moroccan-Dutch girls as veiled carriers of backward traditions (Leurs, forthcoming). Its description reads, “I assume that this Hyves will be the largest [Mocro community]. Because logically Moroccans have brains” (our translation): What can you find here? Discussions about politics, religion, current affairs, history, love and relationships. News about Moroccan/Arabic Parties. And whatever you want to tell others. Use your brains. Second, “Nikkei” directs our attention to Japanese migrants and their descendants. The Discover Nikkei website, set up by the Japanese American National Museum, provides a revealing description of being and becoming Nikkei: As Nikkei communities form in Japan and throughout the world, the process of community formation reveals the ongoing fluidity of Nikkei populations, the evasive nature of Nikkei identity, and the transnational dimensions of their community formations and what it means to be Nikkei. (Japanese American National Museum) This site was set up by the Japanese American National Museum for Nikkei in the global diaspora to connect and share stories. Nikkei youths of course also connect elsewhere. In her ethnographic online study, Shana Aoyama found that the social networking site Hi5 is taken up in Peru by young people of Japanese heritage as an avenue for identity exploration. She found group confirmation based on the performance of Nikkei-ness, as well as expressions of individuality. She writes, “instead of heading in one specific direction, the Internet use of Nikkei creates a starburst shape of identity construction and negotiation” (119). Mocro-ness and Nikkei-ness are common collective identification markers that are not just straightforward nationalisms. They refer back to different homelands, while simultaneously they also clearly mark one’s situation of being routed outside of this homeland. Mocro stems from postcolonial migratory flows from the Global South to the West. Nikkei-ness relates to the interesting case of the Japanese diaspora, which is little accounted for, although there are many Japanese communities present in North and South America from before the Second World War. The context of Peru is revealing, as it was the first South American country to accept Japanese migrants. It now hosts the second largest South American Japanese diaspora after Brazil (Lama), and Peru’s former president, Alberto Fujimoro, is also of Japanese origin. We can see how the importance of the nation-state gets blurred as diasporic youth, through cultural hybridisation of youth culture and ethnic ties, initiates subcultures and offers resistance to mainstream western cultural forms. Digital spaces are used to exert youthful diaspora branding. Networked branding includes expressing cultural identities that are communal and individual but also both local and global, illustrative of how “by virtue of being global the Internet can gift people back their sense of themselves as special and particular” (Miller and Slater 115). In the next section, we set out how youthful diaspora branding is part of a larger, more rhizomatic formation of multivocal hypertext aesthetics. Hypertext Aesthetics In this section, we set out how an in-between, or “liminal”, position, in postcolonial theory terms, can be a source of differential and multivocal cultural production. Appadurai, Bhabha, and Gilroy recognise that liminal positions increasingly leave their mark on the global and local flows of cultural objects, such as food, cinema, music, and fashion. Here, our focus is on how migrant youths turn to hypertextual forms of cultural production for a differential expression of digital diasporas. Hypertexts are textual fields made up of hyperlinks. Odin states that travelling through cyberspace by clicking and forging hypertext links is a form of multivocal digital diaspora aesthetics: The perpetual negotiation of difference that the border subject engages in creates a new space that demands its own aesthetic. This new aesthetic, which I term “hypertext” or “postcolonial,” represents the need to switch from the linear, univocal, closed, authoritative aesthetic involving passive encounters characterising the performance of the same to that of non-linear, multivocal, open, non-hierarchical aesthetic involving active encounters that are marked by repetition of the same with and in difference. (Cited in Landow 356-7) On their profile pages, migrant youth digitally author themselves in distinct ways by linking up to various sites. They craft their personal hypertext. These hypertexts display multivocal diaspora aesthetics which are personal and specific; they display personal intersections of affiliations that are not easily generalisable. In several Dutch-language online spaces, subjects from Dutch-Moroccan backgrounds have taken up the label Mocro as an identity marker. Across social networking sites such as Hyves and Facebook, the term gets included in nicknames and community pages. Think of nicknames such as “My own Mocro styly”, “Mocro-licious”, “Mocro-chick”. The term Mocro itself is often already multilayered, as it is often combined with age, gender, sexual preference, religion, sport, music, and generationally specific cultural affiliations. Furthermore, youths connect to a variety of groups ranging from feminist interests (“Women in Charge”), Dutch nationalism (“I Love Holland”), ethnic affiliations (“The Moroccan Kitchen”) to clothing (the brand H&M), and global junk food (McDonalds). These diverse affiliations—that are advertised online simultaneously—add nuance to the typical, one-dimensional stereotype about migrant youth, integration, and Islam in the context of Europe and Netherlands (Leurs, forthcoming). On the online social networking site Hi5, Nikkei youths in Peru, just like any other teenagers, express their individuality by decorating their personal profile page with texts, audio, photos, and videos. Besides personal information such as age, gender, and school information, Aoyama found that “a starburst” of diverse affiliations is published, including those that signal Japanese-ness such as the Hello Kitty brand, anime videos, Kanji writing, kimonos, and celebrities. Also Nikkei hyperlink to elements that can be identified as “Latino” and “Chino” (Chinese) (104-10). Furthermore, users can show their multiple affiliations by joining different “groups” (after which a hyperlink to the group community appears on the profile page). Aoyama writes “these groups stretch across a large and varied scope of topics, including that of national, racial/ethnic, and cultural identities” (2). These examples illustrate how digital diasporas encompass personalised multivocal hypertexts. With the widely accepted adagio “you are what you link” (Adamic and Adar), hypertextual webs can be understood as productions that reveal how diasporic youths choose to express themselves as individuals through complex sets of non-homogeneous identifications. Migrant youth connects to ethnic origin and global networks in eclectic and creative ways. The concept of “digital diaspora” therefore encapsulates both material and virtual (dis)connections that are identifiable through common traits, strategies, and aesthetics. Yet these hypertextual connections are also highly personalised and unique, offering a testimony to the fluid negotiations and intersections between the local and the global, the rooted and the diasporic. Conclusions In this article, we have argued that migrant youths render digital diasporas more complex by including branding and hypertextual aesthetics in transnational public spheres. Digital diasporas may no longer be understood simply in terms of their vertical relations to a homeland or place of origin or as horizontally connected to a clearly marked transnational community; rather, they must also be seen as engaging in rhizomatic digital practices, which reshuffle traditional understandings of origin and belonging. Contemporary youthful digital diasporas are therefore far more complex in their engagement with digital media than most existing theory allows: connections are hybridised, and affiliations are turned into practices of diasporic branding and becoming. There is a generational specificity to multivocal diaspora aesthetics; this specificity lies in the ways migrant youths show communal recognition and express their individuality through hypertext which combines affiliation to their national/ethnic “roots” with an embrace of other youth subcultures, many of them transnational. 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