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Key research themes
1. How do youth language practices reflect and negotiate identity and sociopolitical dynamics in urban multilingual contexts?
This theme investigates how youths in diverse urban settings creatively manipulate language to construct identities, assert belonging, and negotiate socio-political realities. It highlights the role of youth language practices as dynamic performances situated within local and global influences, encompassing phenomena like translanguaging, stylistic innovation, resistance to dominant norms, and the fluid blending of languages. This focus is vital to understand language's role in urban youth cultures, socio-political resistance, and identity construction, particularly in contexts affected by globalization, migration, and postcolonial legacies.
Key finding: This paper provides empirical ethnographic evidence from Addis Ababa and Kinshasa/Goma demonstrating how African youth engage in translanguaging, language crossing, borrowing, and bricolage in their language practices. It... Read more
Key finding: The research synthesizes structural and sociolinguistic analyses of Kiezdeutsch as an urban contact dialect emerging among multiethnic youth in Germany's urban neighborhoods. It demonstrates that Kiezdeutsch functions as a... Read more
Key finding: This chapter reveals how Ugandan youth tactically manipulate colonial and neo-colonial educational and linguistic norms through language use in sports education contexts. It highlights youth linguistic manipulation as a form... Read more
Key finding: Drawing on collaborative community research, this study documents how Indigenous youth in Maningrida engage in 'linguistic urbanisation' by creatively mixing multiple traditional languages with English, Kriol, and sign... Read more
Key finding: The monograph extensively documents the sociolinguistic evolution of Tsotsitaal, illustrating its origins within South African gang culture and its transformation into a broader urban youth language marker. It provides... Read more
2. What are the structural and morphosyntactic characteristics of youth languages, particularly in African Bantu contexts, and how do these reflect language change mechanisms?
This theme focuses on the linguistic structure of youth languages, especially morphosyntactic features and changes within Bantu and related African languages. It explores processes such as grammaticalization, microvariation, relexification, and morphosyntactic innovation that underpin youth language evolution. Understanding these structural phenomena elucidates how youth language practices contribute to language change beyond phonological and lexical levels, revealing subtle linguistic dynamics embedded in socially motivated language variation and language contact.
Key finding: This paper offers fine-grained microvariationist analysis of morphosyntactic changes in two Lingala youth language varieties (Lingala ya Bayankee and Langila). It traces grammaticalization of the near future prefix ké and... Read more
Key finding: This special issue introduction synthesizes recent scholarship investigating morphosyntactic microvariation in African youth languages, particularly Bantu languages. It argues for systematic structural study of youth... Read more
Key finding: Alongside ethnographic description, this article details linguistic manipulations such as translanguaging, borrowing, and language crossing which have morphosyntactic consequences in African youth languages. It illustrates... Read more
3. How do digital communication and global cultural flows influence contemporary youth language use and language change?
This theme addresses the impact of digital media, social networking, and globalization on youth language, focusing on how they facilitate the rapid spread of linguistic innovations and cross-cultural influences. It encompasses studies of language use in digital text messaging, social media, and music genres (e.g., trap music), investigating new vocabulary, stylistic trends, and youth engagement in citizen science linguistic projects. Understanding these drivers is essential to map the accelerating dynamics of youth language evolution in the 21st century.
Key finding: This study implements a novel remote citizen sociolinguistic methodology engaging Estonian teenagers to compile a systematic corpus of spoken language and text messaging during the COVID-19 pandemic. It underscores the role... Read more
Key finding: The paper documents the lexical characteristics of Italian trap music lyrics produced by Gen Z artists, revealing incorporation of traditional jargon, innovative slang, digital language forms, and multiple foreign languages... Read more
Key finding: This research identifies significant lexical borrowing from English into Polish youth language, particularly in words associated with computer games and social media. Through analysis of the Polish Youth Word of the Year 2022... Read more
Key finding: Utilizing comparable corpora from two periods (2003-07 and 2016-19), this corpus-based longitudinal study empirically demonstrates rapid change in Spanish youth language, focusing on intensifiers and vocatives. Results... Read more