dc.description.abstract | This thesis examines the role of computer-mediated communication (CMC) in Namibians in Germany, a Facebook group consisting of Namibians of both German descent and non-German descent, living in Germany and elsewhere in the diaspora. Whereas in homogenous German-Namibian groups, CMC has a specific role of fostering group cohesion in the diaspora through the usage of Namdeutsch, a Namibian variety of German, heterogenous communities have a different relationship to German, in part because of German-speaking Namibians’ vastly different social positions and ties to colonial history than those of indigenous Namibians. Furthermore, social media are undergoing rapid changes, complicating the hitherto established concept of networked multilingualism and changing how CMC is used at all.
Keeping these factors in mind, this thesis uses a section of a currently-in-development corpus based on Namibians in Germany, consisting of all posts and comments from April 2019 until March 2025, supplemented with selected entries from the rest of the group’s existence, to analyse the role of German within this heterogenous group. The posts and comments are analysed using a combination of descriptive statistics and a qualitative analysis focussing on instances of conversational code-switching and Namibia-specific language practices.
Results show that group members use Namibia-specific language practices both different from and similar to those their homogenously German-speaking counterparts use, and that their use of the platform has changed notably in the past six years. Activity has decreased, there is less conversation and less straying from a monolingual English norm. Group members use conversational code-switching as well as emojis, videos and other non-textual media to establish their identities as Namibians in the diaspora. Unlike in the German-Namibian diaspora, where German often marks a specific diasporic identity, in this group it plays no clear role in establishing an in-group identity, and, unlike in earlier years within the group, is not used in particularly playful or creative ways, but rather functions as one of several available linguistic resources employed situationally. | |