Language Learning, Maintenance, and Play Through Multimodal Literacy Practices on Facebook

• In Event: Roundtable Session 22
  In Roundtable Session: Digital and Media Contexts of Language and Literacy

Abstract

Drawing on critical sociocultural theory of literacy, this qualitative study takes place in a community center in an urban area in the western United States and considers how nine young women who have been resettled as refugees engage in multimodal literacy practices. The focus is specifically on digital multimodal literacy practices on Facebook. This study highlights how these youth use digital literacies as a way to promote language learning, maintenance, and play. As access to social media spaces, such as Facebook and YouTube becomes increasingly limited in schools and other formal learning spaces, it is important to reconsider such restrictive policies and begin to build on everyday literacies in formal educational spaces in meaningful and productive ways.

Author

• Delila Omerbasic, Tulane University