Practice-proof concepts? Rethinking linguistic borders and families in multilingual communication: Exploiting the relationship between intercomprehension and translanguaging
This contribution analyses intercomprehension practices in multilingual chat interactions. The aim is to challenge the concept of "native speakers" of a Romance Language (RL) in the literature on Intercomprehension (usually expressed through phrases such as "to speak their [own] language" or "French speakers that understand Italian speakers") in order to accommodate multilingual repertoires (reference to and use of complex linguistic constellations). This conceptual development involves likening "intercomprehension" to the concept of "trans- languaging". Furthermore, the text presents chat sequences where multilingual participants discuss "linguistic borders" and "linguistic familiarity", showing that even when individuals translanguage between RLs, ideas of "native speaker", "native language" and languages as discrete realities are still pervasive.