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This commentary considers how the special issue 'Mobilising Language, Gender and Sexuality Studies' contributes to recent developments in theories that demonstrate the importance of taking a posthumanist approach to sociolinguistics research. While the papers in the special issue show how mobile communities, including migrants, asylum seekers, sex workers and domestic workers, make sense of and participate in different activities in the world, this commentary shows that people in these communities also make sense of themselves with reference to different spaces – both real and imaginary, and both near and distant. Teasing out these aspects, the commentary suggests keeping research about posthumanism, the Global South and alternative ways of doing sociolinguistics at the core of the exploration of the complexities inherent in language practices, gender, sexuality, and individual and collective mobility, migration and resistance.

Based on the data drawn from an intensive ethnographic study on young adults in Bangladesh conducted in the virtual space, specifically Facebook (FB) and analysis of those data through a transglossic framework, the paper shows that the meaning-making processes in lingua franca (LF) encounters can be appropriately deciphered when their language is considered in terms of translocalisation, transculturation, transmodality, and transtextualisation. The data also demonstrate that the young adults deliberately flout the linguistic features of English with their Bangladeshi counterparts, while they prefer to approximate a native form of English with other native and non-native speakers of English. Even though their English is variable and emergent in the potential LF context of the virtual space, their conscious choice of approximating a near-native form indicates that they are keenly aware of the ideologies related to ELF and associated with ELF identity attributes. The paper confirms the necessity of reconceptualisation of ELF, considering the idiosyncrasies of young adults' language practices; and identifies the paradoxes of sociolinguistic profiling of South Asian speakers, based on dichotomous and binary phenomena, such as ELF and non-ELF speakers, EFL (English as a Foreign Language) vs. ESL (English as a Second Language) speakers, or members of the Inner Circle vs. Outer Circle.

This book analyses the language practices of young adults in Mongolia and Bangladesh in online and offline environments. Focusing on the diverse linguistic and cultural resources these young people draw on in their interactions, the authors draw attention to the creative and innovative nature of their transglossic practices. Situated on the Asian periphery, these young adults roam widely in their use of popular culture, media voices and linguistic resources. This innovative and topical book will appeal to students and scholars of sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, cultural studies and linguistic anthropology.

This book analyses the language practices of young adults in Mongolia and Bangladesh in online and offline environments. Focusing on the diverse linguistic and cultural resources these young people draw on in their interactions, the authors bring to our attention the creative and innovative nature of their transglossic practices. Situated on the Asian periphery, these young adults roam widely in their use of popular culture, media voices and linguistic resources. This innovative and topical book will appeal to students and scholars of sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, cultural studies and linguistic anthropology