Abstract
ABSTRACT This article advances thinking around the semiotic repertoire by exploring how resources are negotiated in the course of interactions mediated by mobile messaging apps, and how this process of co-constructing repertoires is shaped by the affordances and constraints of the virtual spaces in which these interactions take place. Drawing on micro-analysis of ethnographic data from a large funded project, we focus on the closed online networks of two women of Polish origin living and working in the UK, looking specifically at their uses of mobile messaging apps including WhatsApp and Viber. We show how resources come into being through talk and how emergent semiotic repertoires take shape in processes of repertoire assemblage. In particular, we explore the ways in which technological affordances and pre-programmed signs are harnessed and exploited by mobile interlocutors for making meaning in the course of an immediate interaction, often with longer term impact within a network’s emergent repertoire. The study highlights the importance of a dynamic conceptualisation of the semiotic repertoire.
Highlights
This article advances thinking around the semiotic repertoire by exploring how resources are negotiated in the course of interactions mediated by mobile messaging apps, and how this process of repertoire assemblage is shaped by the affordances and constraints of the virtual spaces in which these interactions take place
We focus on the closed online networks of two women from Poland living and working in the UK, looking at their use of mobile messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Viber for one-to-one chats and private groups
Through moment-by-moment analysis of the process of repertoire assemblage, we explore the ways in which interlocutors collaborate in – or challenge – the co-construction and curation of semiotic repertoires and the potential longer-term impact of this process on their practices
Summary
This article advances thinking around the semiotic repertoire by exploring how resources are negotiated in the course of interactions mediated by mobile messaging apps, and how this process of repertoire assemblage is shaped by the affordances and constraints of the virtual spaces in which these interactions take place. We focus on the closed online networks of two women from Poland living and working in the UK, looking at their use of mobile messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Viber for one-to-one chats and private groups In these online spaces, interlocutors draw on pre-programmed signs made available through the app (Androutsopoulos, 2019) and on elements of their physical contexts brought into interactions through such functionalities as images and locating devices (Lyons & Ounoughi, 2020). How repertoires are deployed in digital interactions can only be understood in relation to an individual’s wider social networks and identity performances across offline and online spaces From this perspective, digital media users are seen to draw creatively on a broad range of available graphic resources to position themselves in relation to their interlocutors and fulfil pragmatic functions associated with the use of bodily and gestural resources in face-to-face interactions (Georgakopoulou, 1997; McSweeney, 2018). Our focus was not on understanding people’s online practices through insights gathered in offline contexts, but rather to understand individuals’ (networked) practices across the many social spaces they inhabit, including online ones; that is, to understand digital practices as part of networked individuals’ lived experiences across contexts (cf Bagga-Gupta et al, 2019)
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