DIGITAL TRANSLANGUAGING PRACTICES OF A MULTILINGUAL INDONESIAN UNIVERSITY STUDENT

Social media, which have emerged as a result of globalization, provide a space for people with different linguistic and cultural backgrounds to communicate. Social media then can be seen as a space to communicate in diverse languages and to express one’s self. The use of different languages as an integrated system by an individual is also known as translanguaging (García, 2009; Wei, 2018). The aims of this study are: (1) to explore the translanguaging practices of an Indonesian multilingual university student on Twitter by identifying the linguistic features she employed to communicate with others and (2) to understand the reasons for her translanguaging practices. Drawing on the theory of translanguaging proposed by Garcia (2009) and Wei (2018), the data analysis reveals that the practice of translanguaging can be found at different linguistic features categories: words, phrases, clauses and sentences. Through an interview session with the participant, it is revealed that the translanguage practice relates to a number of reasons: (1) her linguistic and cultural backgrounds, (2) her exposure to different languages, (3) her familiarity with the language register, (4) her emotions, and (5) her familiarity with the audience. This research is expected to provide a deeper insight into the influence of globalization at the individual level