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Googlish as a resource for networked multilingualism
Author(s) -
Lee Carmen
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
world englishes
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.6
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1467-971X
pISSN - 0883-2919
DOI - 10.1111/weng.12448
Subject(s) - lyrics , multilingualism , resource (disambiguation) , world wide web , computer science , linguistics , sociology , media studies , literature , art , computer network , philosophy
This paper discusses the ways in which incomprehensible English resulting from failed Google Translation, or ‘Googlish,’ has become an important networked resource for creators and viewers of parody videos on YouTube. This paper analyzes playful Googlish talk in a YouTube series called Google Translate Sings (GTS). In the series, the creator performs songs with lyrics that have been translated back and forth between English and several other languages using Google Translate, leading to accidental humor. Understanding YouTube as texts (Benson, 2015), this study demonstrates how what seems to be nonsensical English is given new textual identities by global web users.