Language Variation, Style, and the Construction of Micro-Celebrity Personas

Abstract

Traditional variationists have long shown interest in the media as an external factor that could increase linguistic exposure or influence the spread of linguistic innovations, but studies have generally reported no systematic effect of media on language variation and change (Carvalho, 2004; Stuart-Smith, 2017; Taglimonte, 2014). However, with the rise of participatory culture on social media and social phenomena such as micro-celebrities (i.e., ordinary people who have become famous by means of the Internet), studies are needed that address how variation is deployed online to create social meaning and how it can reflect and shape sociolinguistic change (Androutsopoulos, 2017; Coupland, 2017). At the same time, the growing body of sociolinguistic research on Saudi dialects has shown an ongoing shift from local to supralocal variants and predicted the emergence of a supralocal Saudi dialect (Alammar, 2017; Al-Essa, 2008; Al-Ghamdi, 2013; Al-Qahtani, 2015; Al-Rojaie, 2013; Ingham, 2009). However, no previous research has examined how these socially salient supralocal features, among other linguistic resources, are used in stylistic practices to construct social meaning.Viewing variation as a social practice and a resource for the construction of social meaning (Coupland, 2007; Eckert, 2000, 2008, 2016; Zhang, 2012, 2018) and social media as participating in this process of meaning making (Androutsopoulos, 2017; Coupland, 2017; Zhang, 2018), this study examines variation in regional dialect, language choice, and orthographic bilingualism on social media. More specifically, it studies variation in local and supralocal Najdi Arabic and English, and the combining of these resources with other linguistic and semiotic resources in the performance of a Saudi micro-celebrity’s persona as it changes over time. Adopting an online ethnographic approach to data collection and analysis (Androutsopoulos, 2008), the study employs longitudinal observations of online practices, direct contact with the participant through chatting and an interview, and a corpus of produced social media texts. The analyses include quantitative and qualitative methods. Multivariate analyses using Rbrul showed a significant shift from local to supralocal Najdi variants across time as the micro-celebrity’s interest in fame and popularity changed; however, this finding depended on the social saliency of the given linguistic feature. In contrast, topic had no apparent effect on style variation. The qualitative analysis revealed how the micro-celebrity’s style varied through the use of different combinations of linguistic and semiotic resources as her identity and interest in fame changed over time. Local dialect features and avoidance of English were used to create authenticity, humor, and intimate relationships with the audience, while the supralocal variants combined with English produced a more modern and less traditional persona. This study contributes to research on style by examining stylistic variation in a rarely discussed context (social media) by a relatively new type of subject (a micro-celebrity) in a kind of performed language on a large public platform. Additionally, it contributes to research on Arabic language variation by examining the social meaning of an emerging supralocal style.