Sociolinguistics and Superdiversity

Abstract

Abstract This chapter first takes stock of the prolific relationship of superdiversity with sociolinguistics (Blommaert and Rampton 2011; Creese and Blackledge 2018) and the advancements superdiversity has helped the field make in reshaping its conceptual wealth and methodological armour. From there, the chapter reflects on the notion of “combinatorial spaces” (Arnaut, Karrebaek, Spotti and Blommaert 2017), using it as a lens that—once appraised from an ethnographic interpretive perspective—could avoid the analysis of (im)mobility and complexity to fall into easy celebrations of individuality versus “bake and break” hybridity. Last, the chapter moves toward gaining insight into the more recent application of superdiversity and sociolinguistics within the online-offline nexus, putting it in relation to the recent re-appreciation of Durkheim’s ([1895] 1919) notion of sociation and the “social fact”. Ultimately, the chapter opens up its analysis to new forms of imaginable vocabulary that may help the sociolinguistic ethnographic analyst who wishes to dissect human beings’ creativity as flagged out in everyday communicative exchanges and sociosemiotic identity performances, while tying it down to the importance of après Durkheim’s work in furthering the understanding of the superdiverse “human in the digital.”