BETWEEN LINGUISTIC APPRECIATION AND APPROPRIATION: MULTILINGUALISM, SELF-AUTHORIZATION, AND MINORITY IDENTITY IN A GLOBALIZED DIGITAL CONTEXT

Authors: Marwa Khairallah & Romdhane Khemakhem

ABSTRACT

Contemporary globalization and intensified migration have produced dense sites of language contact and multilingual interaction, reshaping how cultural difference is negotiated in everyday and digital communication. In such contexts, language functions not only as a tool of communication but also as a symbolic resource through which race, gender, and minority identities are constructed, authorized, and contested. This article examines how Sub-Saharan African refugees and asylum seekers (SSARAS) in Tunisia navigate multilingual environments and xenophobic discourses within digitally mediated public spheres, focusing on the sociolinguistic dynamics of identity, belonging, and power. Drawing on Social Identity Theory and the Spiral of Silence Theory, the study conceptualizes social media as a globalized contact zone where multilingual practices, code-switching, and linguistic hybridity become central to processes of self-authorization and collective visibility. Within these spaces, two countervailing discourses for engaging with cultural difference emerge: linguistic appreciation, which frames multilingualism and cultural borrowing as inclusive, relational, and identity-affirming; and linguistic appropriation, which problematizes the unequal, racialized extraction of linguistic and cultural resources from marginalized groups. These competing discourses shape how minority speakers evaluate their own participation in public discourse and how their voices are legitimized or silenced. Using a quantitative analytical approach, the research investigates how perceptions of opinion climate, emotional alignment, and influencer-mediated discourse affect willingness to speak out and engage in collective expression. The findings demonstrate that multilingualism operates simultaneously as a resource for empowerment and a site of symbolic vulnerability, where hybrid linguistic practices may invite appreciation or trigger accusations of inauthenticity, appropriation, or deviance. By centering language contact and multilingual negotiation, this study contributes to sociolinguistic and cultural studies scholarship by illustrating how digital communication under globalization becomes a critical arena for the authorization, contestation, and reconfiguration of minority identities.

Keywords: Language contact, Multilingualism, Linguistic appropriation and appreciation, Self-authorization, Cultural hybridity, Minority identity negotiation

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