INTRODUCTION

Abstract

Communicating via computers has lately come to represent a routine, ritual, and consequential activity on personal and professional levels alike. Under the umbrella term computer-mediated communication, a plethora of socio-cultural acts are performed that are agentive for identity construction. From among them, linguistic scholars have been particularly interested in how individual or group identities are negotiated through text across the fixed-fluid continuum. The main vehicle for communication in a medium that is multimodal, language is pervasively instrumental in negotiating identities in ways that are subtle, finely calibrated, and often, liminal.