‘I’m not blue or green. I’m black’. The participatory entextualization of translingual memes and metapragmatic comments in transnational sociopolitical discourse

Abstract

This article examines sociopolitical discourse in the democratic network society of Taiwan from translingual and transnational perspectives. Ten multimodal memes from two YouTube videos and the associated metapragmatic comments were analyzed. This study combined a discourse-historical approach and translingual analyses of YouTube users’ meme-related discursive strategies, which link historical and political rhetoric to recently circulated linguistic ideologies and cultural stereotypes. This study suggests that the discursive processes of meme-making and interpreting on social media can be understood as networked publics’ performative acts in participatory entextualization with larger sociohistorical formations. The results may provide insights into the translingual practices in the specific multilingual society of Taiwan and into broader everyday democratic participation in a globalized transnational network.