Computer-Generated Linguistics Countering Linguicides: Users’ Use and Interpretation of WhatsApp Emojis in isiNdebele
摘要
Against the background that more than 230 languages worldwide have become extinct and a further 3 000 are on the verge of extinction, the chapter seeks to join the bandwagon of scholarship which aims at resuscitating and revitalising endangered African languages. Precisely, the chapter aims to examine how digitised language, in the form of WhatsApp emojis, frees isiNdebele from the shackles of a linguicide bent at subjugating it. Drawing from Reception theory and Social Constructionism as theoretical lenses, the chapter answers two questions which are; how WhatsApp users interpret WhatsApp emojis in isiNdebele; and how are emojis used to revitalise Ndebelehood. Empirical data were drawn from digital ethnography in purposively selected WhatsApp group and in-depth interviews with 15 purposively selected members of the WhatsApp group. The chapter unravels that computational linguistics in the form of emojis can be interpreted and appropriated meaning in isiNdebele thereby helping challenge the subjugation of the language and Ndebelehood. Thus, the importance of this study is situated in that it spectacles the role of WhatsApp emojis in the revitalisation of indigenous and minoritised languages and ethnicities in the Fourth Industrialisation.