Bridging Languages in Social Networks: How Multilingual Users of Twitter Connect Language Communities?

摘要

Multilingual users of social media and social networkingsites are invisible —even unconscious— translators. Theirlanguage skills and multicultural background could helpdiminish the segmentation of information spheres online byconnecting different language communities. Focusing onthe microblogging site Twitter, this study aims at definingand classifying language bridges by looking at thelanguages and structure of the social networks ofmultilingual individuals. The social network analysisunveils four types of structures, one of which is defined as alanguage bridge. The next step of this work in progressaims at providing quantitative measures of thisphenomenon, which has not been yet properly described orunderstood.