Heteroglossic and multimodal resources in use : participation across spaces of identification in a Christian lifestyle sports community

Abstract

This dissertation examines how members of one particular youth community, Christian lifestyle sports enthusiasts in Finland, use language and other semiotic resources to construct participation in their community of practice (CoP). The CoP is organized around the late-modern activity culture of lifestyle sports. The participants also share the Christian faith and in their snowboarding camps organize Bible study sessions and engage in prayer and worship. The theoretical and methodological framework incorporates sociolinguistics, social semiotics, discourse studies and connective ethnography, including the exploration of both the digital and physical spaces of the community. The dissertation comprises four articles that include micro-level examinations of the community members’ situated uses of heteroglossic and multimodal resources, and thus attention to a diversity of socially meaningful language forms and modes. The data for these studies were gathered during the years 2006-2014, each data set representing a different communicative context. Specifically, I analyzed discursive social positioning of self and other in interviews, linguistic and discursive heteroglossia in computer-mediated communication and in spoken interaction, and mediated performance in online videos. This research shows that participation in this CoP is constructed in shared activities simultaneously with the negotiation of social categories and relations. Hence, participation is defined by a sense of groupness which makes the community distinct from other groups but nevertheless connected to global cultures, practices and styles. The CoP members also articulate an understanding of their joint enterprise, the community’s Christian mission, amidst many transcultural flows. Heteroglossic and multimodal resources are employed for negotiating solidarity, constructing expertise (especially in terms of terminologies, products and video-making practices), and interpreting and recontextualizing the Bible and other semiotic material connected to Christianity within the lifestyle sports culture. These findings point to shared translocal actions and practices by which the community members deal with positions, voices and social relations in highly reflexive, strategic and creative ways that enable them to engage in processes of (dis)identification in their own spaces at the intersection of youth culture, religion and lifestyle sports.