Reified languages and scripts versus real literacy values and practices: insights from research with young bilinguals in an Islamic state

Abstract

The main focus of this article is on the multilingual literacy practices and values of English‐educated university students (aged 14–20) in Brunei Darussalam, Southeast Asia. Multilingual literacy is used as a lens to examine the impact of globalization on the communicative practices of these young people and to investigate the specific ways in which they are engaging with the new technoscapes of the twenty‐first century. The article draws on several research projects carried out between 2001 and 2007 and on case studies of 23 students. The different data sources include literacy diaries, samples of texts produced by the young people, narratives about their literacy histories and diary‐based interviews. The article gives an account of the ways in which these young, cosmopolitan Bruneians positioned themselves vis‐à‐vis the reified language and literacy values encountered in the institutional and ‘regulated’ spaces of their lives and it provides insights into the ways in which they articulated both local and globalised identities through their digital and multilingual literacy practices, in ‘unregulated spaces’, such as on the internet or in SMS messaging with members of their peer group. The article contributes to the growing body of research on digital literacy in multilingual settings and to the debate, within the New Literacy Studies, about how the link between local and global should be conceptualised.