Styling the periphery: Linguistic and cultural takeup in Bangladesh and Mongolia

Styling the periphery: Linguistic and culturaltakeup in Bangladesh and Mongolia1

Shaila Sultana,a,b Sender Dovchina,c andAlastair Pennycooka

a. University of Technology Sydney, Australiab. University of Dhaka, Bangladeshc. National University of Mongolia

Focusing on online interactions among young adults in Bangladesh andMongolia – two countries located politically, culturally and economicallyon the Asian periphery – this paper looks at how young adults uselinguistic and cultural resources in their online interactions as part of acomplex and emergent stylization of place. On the one hand, theyappropriate the cultural and linguistic flows according to their locationsand engage in a playful stylization and reconfiguration of what the localmeans. On the other hand, they engage in stylization and reflexivelanguage use, often involving exaggerated linguistic variation, mixing, andother semiotic resources in order to produce and perform a range of socialand cultural identities. The paper hence shows how the circulation andtakeup of popular cultural flows around Asia can involve diverse processesof linguistic and cultural stylization.

”lbqy pacau, ykc nөpbqy nakaac Apb nbdbqy akc xzpuaapn opilou xoep opoy-<ayukalei ,a Moyuoksy pakyyxyylsy oykaqy xapbkwaays өywuөөc opxbyүebqy pakyyxyyl x'k, coeksy cay xөvpөunөө lyklyqlay opoy paqyoqkuoknsu x'px'y өөpclbqy u'c'y iby' x'd vazun opyyk; ,aquaa үqkzdwsu 'k cylakuaauaap xapyykaxsu popmcoy ,okyo. ”y'xүү yapbqy ybqkv'kүqk zdwal pakyyxyyl x'k ,okoy ,ycal ,azkau yөөwbqu cayaayl opovuүq,aqlkaap xydbpuay өөpxbk; xyxavxүү ,be xүybq xydml x'y ,' u'lu''ybqu'v- coeksy ynuaap bk'pxbqk; xala; ,aqya u'kn'q. Apbqy yynuaapx'p'y x'cүүxbk; ,yq gog coeksy ypcuakyylsu өөpclbqy өdөpvөw yөxwөkl

[Bangla]

Journal of Sociolinguistics 17/5, 2013: 687–710

© 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

lacuay aibuka; ,yq x'k,'p x'd vazuyyl ym x'k, coeksy nyqksy okoy zypsyalapvaa, nөdөun'q xydbpak өөpxkөkn l''p bkp'y uapx ,aqya. [Mongolian]

KEYWORDS: Style, stylization, globalization, online environments,Bangla, Mongolian

1. INTRODUCTION: GANGNAM STYLE HAS TAKEN OVER THE WORLD

‘… it has taken over the world; it has taken over the intrawebs; and now it’stime for it to take over Times Square,’ as the ABC correspondent put it duringthe Gangnam Style flash mob in Manhattan, New York on 12th September2012 (ABC News 2012). The song by the South Korean rapper PSY wasreleased in July 2012 and since then it has become the most viewed YouTubevideo of all time, with over 1.5 billion views as of May, 2013 (PSY 2013). PSYhas been invited to perform the dance in multiple media forums across theworld, leading not only to a vast expansion of the Gangnam phenomenon butalso of discourses about Gangnam Style. It is not our intention to add evenmore words to this torrent of takeup, but rather to draw attention in this paperto several related themes.Rather than Gangnam Style taking over the world, it is the ways in which the

world has taken up and taken over this dance in the form of relocalized parodiesthat are most significant. Through ubiquitous repetitions that imitate its formsand moves, this dance has been reproduced, relocated and transformed(Pennycook 2010). Thus, to focus on this Korean popular cultural form takingover Times Square as the symbolic centre of the cultural empire of the U.S. is tomiss the point that Times Square is but one corner of a vast global takeup ofGangnam Style. This observation leads to the central focus of this paper on theflows of language and culture that circulate through online media (a key forumfor such takeup). Focusing in particular on Bangladesh and Mongolia, ascountries located geographically, politically and economically on the Asianperiphery, we look at how young people use linguistic and cultural resources tostylize and reconfigure their own location.

2. CULTURAL FLOWS, GLOBAL STYLES

While remaining attentive to the deeply historical and uneven aspects ofglobalization, we are interested here in cultural and linguistic flows not somuch as processes of homogenization but as part of a reorganization of thelocal. Rather than emanating from the centre of New York, globalization isnow arriving in New York as a final step. Central to Appadurai’s (2001: 5)vision of a ‘world of flows’, is the understanding of globalization as a ‘deeplyhistorical, uneven and even localizing process. Globalization does notnecessarily or even frequently imply homogenization or Americanization,’

688 SULTANA, DOVCHIN AND PENNYCOOK


since ‘different societies appropriate the materials of modernity differently’(Appadurai 1996: 17). Not only do we therefore need to think outside a simplecentre/periphery framework – the periphery is always relational and engagedin changing patterns of peripheralization and centralization (Pietik€ainen andKelly-Holmes 2013) – but we also need to consider the diversity of flows, whereKorean cultural forms have long been part of an Asian circuit of culturaltakeup, a process that unsettles common understandings of both globalizationand Asia.These circuits of flow (Pennycook 2007) of cultural forms within and

beyond Asian contexts have a considerable history (Chua and Iwabuchi 2008;Jung 2009). ‘Over the past few years, an increasing amount of Korean popularcultural content – including television dramas, movies, pop songs and theirassociated celebrities – has gained immense popularity in China, Taiwan, HongKong and other East and Southeast Asian countries’ (Shim 2006: 25).Audiences in Hong Kong and Singapore have more intimate connections withKorean dramas than Western dramas, because of ‘greater emphasis on theportrayal of familial relationships, family values and sexual morality’ (Lin andTong 2008: 105). Likewise, Ju (2010) demonstrates how Korean TV dramas,with their mixture of modern sensibilities and redeemed nostalgia, produce ahigher degree of localized identification within Japanese audiences, describedas a re-emerging sentiment of ‘Asianness’. In her discussion of her ownengagement with Korean dramas in different places and periods of her life,Choi (2012) shows how this evolving cultural form has provided her withscripts for a teenage romance in New York, ways of interacting as a Beijinguniversity student, and topics of conversation with middle-aged Japanesewomen nostalgic for an earlier era of Japanese romantic relations.The notion of style will also be very important here, and it is surely of some

significance that Gangnam Style employs the ‘English’ term here (whether aterm such as style deployed within such cultural flows can easily be labelled asEnglish is questionable). Of particular interest in this study is the relationbetween creative online language use and the stylization of cultural locations.For Rampton, stylization involves ‘reflexive communicative action in whichspeakers produce specially marked and often exaggerated representations oflanguages, dialects, and styles that lie outside their own habitual repertoire’(Rampton 2009: 149). We share with Rampton an interest in the reflexivity ofsuch performances (potentially made more possible by the written mediumof online environments), a concern lest ideas of style overemphasize questionsof choice, and an emphasis on the exploration and challenge of stereotypicalcultural images. Yet, we do not assume stylization needs to involveRamptonian crossings, for not only are habitual repertoires increasinglyhard to define in such contexts, but we do not consider such moves essential tostyle.Style here refers to the ways in which language users create and deploy

out-of-the-ordinary linguistic and other semiotic resources in order to produce

STYLING THE PERIPHERY 689


and perform a range of social and cultural identities. This focus on semioticresources is in line with other recent sociolinguistic work (Blommaert 2010;Pennycook 2010) that has sought to account for local language use withoutrecourse to the vocabulary of languages, dialects or varieties. FollowingBourdieu (1982: 16), we see style as stylistically marked discourses (discoursstylistiquement caract"eris"es) both in their production and reception (Coupland2007). The participants in the online forums studied here are engaged inprocesses of stylization – reflexive language use often involving exaggeratedlinguistic variation and mixing in order to present particular constructions ofthemselves, their interlocutors and, in this context, the regional cultural formsthat they discuss and relocate.Unlike Rampton’s (2006, 2009) focus on the reproduction of cultural

stereotypes through the linguistic stylization of others, our focus is thereforeon the relationship between mixed online language use and the culturalrelocalizations the participants engage in. Drawing on Coupland’s (2007:121) discussion of styling place, we are interested here in the ways culturalforms are enacted, reconstructed and relocalized through divergent linguisticforms, and thus place can be understood ‘as a culturally defined category,and indeed as a social meaning amenable to being styled.’ We are interestedin the sociolinguistic consumption (Stroud and Wee 2007) of these youngonline adults within the consumer sphere of popular cultural engagement(Androutsopoulos 2009) as they take up linguistic and cultural forms andcreatively remix them as part of a process of refashioning what it means tobe young and ‘Asian’ (what counts as Asian is always therefore in flux).Sociolinguistic consumption and stylization here give us ways ofunderstanding how participants engage linguistically with culturalimages as part of a process of restyling their locations and peripheralidentifications.

3. STYLING PLACES

Bangladesh and Mongolia were certainly caught up in the global takeup andrelocalization of Gangnam Style. While significantly different in terms of size(Mongolia is 10 times bigger), population (Bangladesh has 50 times morepeople), population density, histories, economies, elevation, climate and muchmore, the two countries share a similar status as seemingly peripheral playersboth globally and in relation to a rapidly changing Asia. Each sitsuncomfortably close to the Asian giants, India and China, and each hasalso suffered periods of colonization (by the British and the Russiansrespectively). Our focus is not on a comparison of the two contexts but to seehow online consumers – those with the economic and cultural capital toaccess such media – engage with these cultural and linguistic flows asnon-peripheral participants while also negotiating their own social andcultural locations.



Young people from both countries quickly developed their own versions ofGangnam Style, such as Flash Mob Gangnam Style in Dhaka (Flash MobGangnam Style Dhaka 2012; The Project 2012) and Mongol Gangnam Style(2012). The Flash Mob2 appearance of Gangnam Style in Dhaka wasperformed in Kawran Bazaar, a dense commercial area in the capital citycomprising offices of major government organizations (such as the regionaloffice of the Dhaka City Corporation), key private television companies (NTV,Baishakhi, and ATN), the most widely-circulated Bangla newspaper, ProthomAlo, as well as the major wholesale fish and vegetable market. The flash mobperformance in an alley between the wholesale market and a biggercommercial building (rather than an upmarket area or expensive shoppingmall) was important in itself. A similar trend can also be observed in theBangladeshi American versions, such as Lungi Style (Lungi Style 2012) andBangla Style3 (Bangla Style 2012) in Jackson Heights, New York, popularlyknown as a ‘South Asian neighbourhood’ for its Bangladeshi, Pakistani,Indian, and Sri Lankan grocers, restaurants, products and consumers. Theselocations, therefore, were important as particular stylizations of whatBangladesh or Bangladesh in the U.S.A. means. With YouTubedrepresentations of space already in process, online interactions thenincreased the variety of ways in which the specific flash mob locations weretaken up.Some of the online commentators (whose own location cannot be

assumed) picked up on the perceived dislocation between Gangnam anddowntown Dhaka: ‘lol what’s funny is gangnam is actually a very rich area insouth korea, so the setting was sort of contradictory to the namesake’ (TheProject 2012). Localized Gangnam Style was described as a dance by a‘bunch of water buffaloes’ (Bangla Style 2012), a slight on its perceivedclumsiness through a reference to the beasts of burden that till Asian ricefields, or as a ‘chammok challo move’ (The Project 2012), a reference to thedance moves in the Hindi song chammok challo in the film Ra One, featuringBollywood megastars Shahruk Khan and Karina Kapoor. One commentatoridentified the Flash Mob Gangnam Style in Dhaka as a new kind ofdemonstration that could replace the regular political events in Bangladesh:‘This should be the new form of Hartal. No violence :)’ (The Project 2012), areference to the general strikes (hartal) that involve a total closure ofworkplaces, offices, educational institutions, shops, and so on. Someregretted having missed it: ‘why don’t these things happen when I’m inBangladesh? I just observe cows pooping’ (Flash Mob Gangnam Style Dhaka2012). Others refuted the critique that ‘sexy lady’ offends Bangladeshcultural sensitivities: ‘the song isn’t raunchy, nor is the dancing. this is the firsttime i’ve heard anyone linking this song to sexual perversion or obscenity. please,stop acting like bangladesh is afghanistan or Pakistan’ (The Project 2012). It isalso identified as a Ganjam Ishhtyleee4 (Trouble-making Style), Lungi Style(a reference to the South Asian-style sarong) or Gamchha Style (gamchha



refers to widely used thin and usually brightly-coloured cotton cloth, usedmainly as a towel, head rest, and so on).While the performers in Dhaka and New York use particular locations –

Kawran Bazaar and Jackson Heights market – as well as particular clothes– jerseys and T-shirts in Dhaka (Flash Mob Gangnam Style Dhaka 2012;The Project 2012), lungis over their western clothes in Jackson Heights(Lungi 2012) – to relocalize their performances, the online commentatorsthen read these against another set of cultural images of Bangladesh asagricultural, deeply influenced by neighbouring India’s entertainmentindustry, politically devastated by hartals and strikes (The Project 2012),yet more liberal than Muslim regimes in Pakistan and Afghanistan (TheProject 2012). In the volatile and versatile online domain, Gangnam Style isthus first relocalized in online performances and then again throughmultiple reinterpretations that draw on a range of cultural and linguisticresources, positioning Bangladesh as anything from boring (cows pooping)(Flash Mob Gangnam Style Dhaka 2012) to liberal (compared, say, tonearby Pakistan) (The Project 2012). Of particular interest here are theways in which in the process of relocalization, a range of often stereotypicalcultural images (water buffaloes, chammok challo, lungi, gamchha) are drawnon. These become part of the stylization of periphery, the ways in whichlocal cultural forms are deployed to relocate Bangladesh in relation to globalcultural flows.Meanwhile in Mongolia, many new localized versions of Gangnam Style also

started to appear. One particular version, Mongol Style (a Gangnam Styleparody), portrayed a group of Mongolian dancers in traditional Mongoliandress, deel (l''k), and Mongolian traditional wrestling outfit, zodog shuudag(polou iyylau), doing a traditional dance move called jalam har (;akav xap) infront of the Mongolian traditional dwelling, ger (u'p; akin to the Central Asianyurt). The performers of this music video thus relocated Gangnam Style as partof traditional Mongolian culture (Mongol Gangnam Style 2012). From theperspectives of the comments left on YouTube discussion boards, one of themost catching elements of Gangnam Style – the famous ‘horse ride dance’movement – has apparently been taken from the traditional Mongolian dance,‘Jalam Har’, whose dance steps include a depiction of galloping horses on thewild steppes of Mongolia:

hooy ene bujig chin ug n mongol bujig gedgiig medej bna uu ta nar ter jalam hargeed bujgiig uzcheerei yagaad ene mongol bujgiig delhii dahind ene muu sogargachihdag bna aa mongolchuud oorsdoo gargaj chadahgui bgaa bolhoor ingeedoor oor uil ornuudad hamag ymaa aldah geed baidag sh dee … (Mongol GangnamStyle 2012)

Hey do you know that this dance is Mongolian traditional dance? Just look at‘jalam khar’. Why has this Korean made our traditional dance so popular in theworld? Because we Mongolians cannot make it popular ourselves. We arestarting to lose our own stuff to foreigners …



Here, then, in addition to a certain frustration at Mongolia’s peripheralstatus, Gangnam Style is taken up in the Mongolian context alongside a seriesof claims that it was always Mongolian anyway. Even some Koreansthemselves appeared to question the origin of the horse dance, editor OhYoung-jin of The Korea Times, for example labelling PSY and his horse dance as‘vulgar’, ‘fearing that international audiences would confuse Koreans(traditionally farmers) with Genghis Khan and his marauding Mongols’(cited in Spry 2012: para. 16). Akin to arguments that local takeup of culturalforms always involves local cultural origins as well as imported cultural forms(Pennycook and Mitchell 2009), this is also a more direct accusation that thisdance has been ripped off.Bangla Style – showing young men in panjabis (traditional long shirts worn

by both men and women in South Asian) dancing around in grocers andkebab shops in Jackson Heights, New York, singing about halal meat, curry orchili – or Mongol Style – portraying a group of Mongolian dancers inMongolian traditional clothes, doing a traditional dance move – suggest a veryparticular parodic stylization of the local: not only are they relocalizingGangnam Style in specific contexts and through different bodies, but they arealso engaging in a playful stylization and reconfiguration of the local. Thisrecognition of ‘the degree-zero of geography’ i.e., ‘place is nothing if it is notin process’ (Doel 1999: 7; emphasis in original) points to the significance ofthe spatial locations of Gangnam Style in relation to cultural stylizationsin these different contexts. The local inflection, appropriation and culturalstylization of Gangnam Style reorganize how these consumers represent theirBangladeshiness and Mongolianness. This constant process of semioticreconstruction indicates that the spaces and cultures that define belongingare nonetheless relative and relational, negotiated and evolving anew inyoung adults’ cultural practices.

4. ‘AMI CUPID NA, AMI STUPID’: BEING FILMIC IN BANGLADESH

When a cultural form such as Gangnam style is taken up in Bangladesh orMongolia, this is but part of a long history of circuits of cultural and linguisticflow. Western cultural forms and languages play a role here but they are by nomeans the only players in town: ‘the languages and cultures that circulatewithin these flows are constantly mixed with other languages and cultures, sothat new mixtures arrive in new places and remix once again as they becomerelocalized’ (Pennycook 2007: 122). Here we want to draw attention to thediversity of linguistic and cultural forms at play. A close analysis of data drawnfrom virtual space by Bangladeshis and Mongolians (drawn from two largerprojects looking at young adults’ engagement with popular linguistic andcultural resources),5 as well as interviews with artists and consumers, showthat they are very much part of a mobile culture (Dovchin 2011; Sultana2012).



Despite its popular image as a densely-populated third-world country besetby problems of flood, famine, and poverty (and most recently the hazardousgarment factory for the wealthy fashion houses of the global north), manyyoung urban Bangladeshis are very much active consumers of various flows ofpopular culture. Figures such as Naruto, the hero of the Japanese manga seriesor Eminem, the American rapper, record producer, songwriter, and actor, havebecome a significant element of young adults’ lives, influencing their dress styleand engagement in fan and blog sites. Hindi,6 the national language of theneighbouring country India, has also enjoyed increased popularity amongstthe younger people because of Hindi movies, drama serials, talk shows, realityshows and songs which are nowadays easily accessible through satellite cable(for 300 Taka a month [about US$5.00], suburban households in Bangladeshcan enjoy access to 15 Bangladeshi channels and 30 Indian channels, 12 ofwhich are broadcast in Hindi). The world of young Bangladeshi adults is thusby no means U.S. media dominated. Their exposure is diverse: they watchKorean drama and movies, from ‘Mr. Right’ to ‘Thank you’, and Japaneseanimated cartoons, serials, and movies, from ‘Death Note’ to ‘Naruto’. As theywatch dramas and movies from countries such as Korea, India, Japan, and theU.S.A., they are exposed to a diversity of linguistic and cultural resources. Forexample, Joy,7 a university student in Dhaka states,

I am not a movie freak, but my brothers and I have a craze for cartoons.Surprisingly, these cartoons are the Japanese anime. Naruto, Bleach – I lovethese Japanese anime. We watch Japanese cartoons. We speak in Japanese. Wehave learnt it from subtitles. Japanese ‘sensei’ means ‘teacher’; ‘arigato’ means‘thank you’; ‘matto maiyo’ means ‘wait for me’. Korean dramas are very popularamongst our siblings and cousins. We watch all these things more than theBangla drama. (Joy interview 13/07/11)

Some of these terms are incorporated into daily language, and hence Joyoften uses phrases such as, BUSer sensei dise bash amaader (‘the businessteacher’ [BUS for business course; Japanese sensei for teacher] gave us‘bamboo’, perhaps better rendered as ‘stuck it up us’). Young adults like Joyhave ‘immense cultural options, recreational opportunities, access toknowledge’ and ‘ways of configuring life’ (Miles 2006: 87) and his choiceof Japanese movies or cartoons reveals his ‘reflexive engagement – choosingand rejecting, transforming or synthesising’ global elements according to histastes and needs (Nilan and Feixa 2006: 8). Nikita, another universitystudent from Bangladesh mentions how she frequently quotes lines fromHindi movies:

if someone is afraid of doing any specific work, I would say, ‘jo dar gaya wo margaya’ [‘He who is afraid is dead’]. If I want someone to do something, I wouldsay, ‘karo, karo, aaj karo. Aaj karegi tu swasti’ [‘Do, do. Do it today. If you doit today, you feel relaxed’]. These are all dialogues from Hindi movies. IfI feel like throwing swear words from Hindi movies to someone for fun,



‘kutte! mein tera khoon piya jaaonga’ [‘dog, I will drink your blood’]. (Nikita caf"e1 22/07/11)

These sentences are taken from song titles or popular dialogues from Hindimovies. For example, jo dar gaya wo mar gaya is a song title from the 2003movie, ‘Darna Mana Hai’; kutte! mein tera khoon pi jaaonga! is from the 1975movie, ‘Sholay’. Others are also very commonly found clich"ed expressions inHindi movies and TV serials. In the ‘plural worlds’ (Nilan and Feixa 2006) ofthese young adults, they draw on wide ranges of linguistic and culturalresources in their everyday discourse.The cultural parallels they draw from all these resources can make

unexpected allusions: Korean dramas, for Joy, are

just like the Indian serials. As the Indian Hindi serials are broadcast for eight,nine years, Koreans dramas are like that. They [the Koreans] also make animecartoons of the popular cartoon series. If you get into the story, it is difficult tocome out of it. I must say the qualities of Korean and Japanese moviesare unparalleled. They can present a simple love story very beautifully. If thereis fighting, we can see the kungfu! My brothers and I are so used towatching the Japanese and Korean shows with English subtitles. (Joy interview13/07/11)

Here English subtitles play an important mediating role by helping theminitially to access forms of global culture before these Asian cultural forms areincorporated into their daily or online conversations.English, often portrayed as the language of global mass culture, is used

here to crack the code of other cultural forms. Young consumers of popularculture, like Joy or Nikita, even though physically and firmly located inBangladesh, use English to cross a range of cultural borders that may equallybe Japanese and Korean as American. In using titles of Hindi movies and setexpressions from Japanese and Korean movies, they give their Bangla a globalfeel. The way they use the genre-specific language resources from the widerAsian and Bangladeshi media is at once both creative and highly stylized: it isdone with a playful awareness of the exaggerated and mixed cultural andlinguistic resources used to present their stylized young Asian selves. In theFacebook conversation below (which is quite typical of both conversationaland online interactions in the data), the entire discussion about the possiblerelationship between Ria and Raqib is propped up with references to SouthAsian films.Ria and Eshadi are students and Teaching Assistants (TA) of the English

department of a private university in Dhaka. Their TA status, which requiresadvanced levels of English for marking other students’ homework, reflects theiraffluent family backgrounds and elite educational history.



Extract 1

Facebookconversation

Translation

1. Eshadi: Raqib moved on, orparlam na oke bookingdiye rakhte.. goinggoing…. GONE

Eshadi: Raqib moved on, Icouldn’t keep himbooked for you..going going …. GONE

2. Ria: AHAHHAHAHHAHHAHAHHA got a gfalready!!! etoi availablechilo!!! moja laglo!!!!Bahahahhahahah

Ria: AHAHHAHAHHAHHAHAHHA got a gf(girl friend) already!!! Hewas so (easily)available!!!I find it amusing!!!!Bahahahhahahah

3. Eshadi: hahahaha nah nah gfna :P mani he moved on

Eshadi: hahahaha nah nah no gf(girl friend) :P I meanthe moved on

4. Ria: he was into me? :OWHAT???? you nevertold me he was intome… NEVER!!! :@

Ria: he was into me? :OWHAT???? you nevertold me he was intome… NEVER!!! :@

5. Ria: :( *heartbroken*shala ki cupid hoila…ekta kisu kore diteparla na c c siiiii

Ria: :( *heartbroken* brother-in-law (swear word),what kind of cupid areyou… you could not doanything c c siiiii (soundof disapproval).

6. Eshadi: ami cupid na, ami stupid:( .. mere felo amake..para diye gola tipe merefelo :’(

Eshadi: I am not cupid, I amstupid :( .. kill me ..stamp or choke me todeath :’(

7. Ria: na tumi morbe keno…ami morbo ami… raqibamake chere cholegelo… kotoduuuuuuuuuuuuuure!!

Ria: no, why will you die … Iwill die I… Raqib left me… so farawaaaaayyyyyy!!!



8. Eshadi: tumi morbe keno.. tumimorle desh o jonogon erki hobe.. ur contributionto society is veryimportant, tumi cholegele which other benglaiis gna watch koreandrama blankly and laughat melodramatic scenes,not laugh, hotto hashidibe

Eshadi: Why will you die .. if youdie what will happen tothe country and thepublic … ur (your)contribution to (the)society is veryimportant, if you leave(die) which other benglai(Bangali) is gna (goingto) watch Korean dramablankly and laugh atmelodramatic scenes,not laugh, belly laugh

9. Ria: IT’S A ROMANTICCOMEDY!

Ria: IT’S A ROMANTICCOMEDY!

10. Eshadi: oooh mai haaaaartmelted.

Eshadi: oooh mai (my) haaaaart(heart) melted.

The ingenuity of this virtual conversation lies in the distinct stylization thatapproximates the ‘filmic’ ways of speaking, usually found in commercial filmsin South Asian countries, specifically in Bangladesh and India (Hoek 2010;Morcom 2007). The characters in these films generally become histrionic andelated when they experience love, joy, or pain. Even in trivial situations, theirexpressions are animated and overzealous, or at other times solemn or grand.They use situation-specific set expressions:

• chhairaa dey, chhairaa dey, ami ar bachtey chai naa (‘let me go, let me go,I don’t want to live anymore’ – when the hero/heroine has experiencedintense loss);

• amaake mere falo (‘kill me’ – when the hero/ heroine no longer findsreason to live anymore, specifically after a death of a beloved);

• bachaao, bachaao, bachaao (‘help, help, help’ – when someone is abductedby the villain);

• ami tomaar jonno jan kurbaan dibo (‘I will sacrifice my life for you’ – whenthe hero declares his love to the heroine);

• moroneo tumi amaar (‘even after death, you are mine’ – when the heroinewants to show her intense love to the hero).

Similar kinds of clich"ed expressions are found in Hindi and instantly indicatethat they are from Hindi films, for example:

• chhod do mujhe, chhod do mujhe, bhagwaan ke liye chhod do (‘let me go, letme go, for the sake of God’ – when the heroine is abducted by the villain);



• ek baar, bas ek baar mere aankhon mein aankhen daal kar kahe do ki tum mujhse pyaar nahi kartey (‘once, only once, look into my eyes and tell me thatyou don’t love me’ – when love is not reciprocated);

• mein tumhaare bacche ki maa banne waali hoon (‘I am going to be themother of your child’ – when the heroine is deserted by the hero);

• kaan khol ke sun lo (‘listen to me loud and clear’ – when the hero threatensthe villain); or

• bhagwan maine tumse aak tak kuch nahin maanga (‘God, I haven’t askedanything from you until now’ – when the hero, heroine, or the motherdoes not have any other option left to save him/herself or the belovedones).

These set expressions are also over-emphasised with enunciatedpronunciation of the last vowel sound or middle vowel sound of the lastword of the sentence, such as deeeeeeeeeeey, jeyonaaaaaaa, or duuuuuuuuure(Sultana 2012) or chood do mujhee, suun loo, maanga, and so on. Suchdialogues are accompanied by exaggerated melodramatic tones, bodymovements and gestures.8

Both Ria and Eshadi opt for this specific stylization of the filmic way ofspeaking in this virtual conversation. In order to transform it from one mediumto another, they strategically use several linguistic and non-linguisticresources:

• emoticons (in lines 3, 4, 5, 6) for surprise, laughter, and sadness;

• punctuation marks (!!!, ???) for the variation in tone;

• capitalization (‘GONE’ in line 1, ‘AHAHH’ in line 2, or ‘WHAT’ in line 4)for stress in loud pronunciation;

• signs (*, …) for action and continuation in utterances;

• spelling words according to pronunciation (cc siiii; duuuuuuuure; oooh;haaaart) for lengthening the vowels.

These linguistic and non-linguistic features allow them to recreatethe dramatic effects in the written form. In Extract 1, Eshadi brings thetheatricality of Raqib moving on with his life by going going … GONE (line 1).Ria’s disappointment over it (line 4, 5) and Eshadi’s reaction to it (line 6)parallel the filmic ways of speaking in which characters react in a grand wayto a trivial matter. Hence, in line 6, Eshadi wants to stamp and choke himselfto death.They also use other dramatic set expressions from films, such as, no, why

will you die … I will die I … Raqib has left me … so far awaaaaayyyyyy!!! (line 7),why will you die .. if you die what will happen to the country and the public (line8). Ria and Eshadi further adapt the enunciated and elongated pronunciationof vowel sounds in words in their stylization in lines 2, 7 and 10, typicallyfound in Bangladeshi and Hindi films. In between, Eshadi does not miss thechance to mock Ria because she watches Korean drama and finds pleasure in



it. When he opts for English in line 10, he keeps on using the sameexaggerated stylization, thus appropriating English according to South Asianfilmic ways of speaking. These linguistic stylizations create an online contextin which Ria and Eshadi relocalize their daily lives within stylized South Asianfilm conventions.Ria and Eshadi follow the usual structure of a script in Bangla and Hindi

films with prologue (lines 1–4), climax (lines 6–8), and anti-climax (lines9–10). In line 1, Eshadi, like a skilful movie director, stages the first scene of thewhole drama. Eshadi makes the image of Raqib leaving the scene vivid, as if heis standing somewhere and Raqib is fading away from his site. In line 6, thedrama reaches its climax after heartbroken Ria questions what kind of cupidhe was that he could not do anything to make them fall in love in line 5. Theword of disapproval in line 5 (c c siiiii) provokes the sudden outburst of filmicwords and takes the conversation to the climax. He playfully uses the words‘cupid’ and ‘stupid’ side by side to create the desired twist or climax in theconversation and writes that Ria should stamp or choke him to death (line 6).Ria immediately takes up the turn and starts writing in the same register: no,why will you die … I will die I … Raqib has left me … so far awaaaaayyyyyy!!!.Such contrasts of solemnity and triviality are a commonly accepted norm incomic film effects. Eshadi employs this technique in line 8, claiming that herloss will be so great for Bangladesh and Bangladeshis. She is the only Bangali,he suggests, who watches Korean melodrama and laughs. However, Riadefends the Korean movie that she watches as a romantic comedy, not amelodrama.Although their virtual language appears to share the ‘e-grammar’ – the

structural features of computer-mediated language across cultures and nations(Herring 2011) – or what Blommaert (2011) has called a supervernacular – thearray of semiotic forms that circulate in new mobile and technology-drivennetworks – that is developing globally online, Ria and Eshadi’s stylizedperformances allude to different popular cultural forms from Bangladesh,India, and Korea while also manipulating set expressions, emoticons and otherresources. The wide range of textual means that they employ as intertextualoperators (Androutsopoulos 2010: 205), connecting words with varied images,enables them to recreate the filmic context textually (North 2007) in thevirtual space, and to straddle a range of identity repertoires. Relocalizing thecultural resources from one medium to another and reconstructing culturalresources from Bangladeshi and Indian films in their discourses, they engage inthis stylized online talk as a practice of multivocality (Bakhtin 1981).Underlying Ria’s and Eshadi’s exchanges are voices from different genresfrom different places, which they use to both dramatize and deflate a localinstance of missed romance and to give themselves particular identityattributes.These filmic references and genres, emoticons, stage directions and other

means of performing online are intertwined with a mixture of Bangla and



English. Rather than analyzing this mixture in terms of code-switching, witha concomitant assumption about distinct codes being switched or mixed(Jørgensen 2008; Otsuji and Pennycook 2010), or hybridity, with its similarimplications of the blending of pre-existing codes, we view these kinds ofmultilayered and multivocal interaction as ‘the point from which differenceemerges rather than the endpoint of convergent multilingualism’ (Otsuji andPennycook 2013: 90). The complex translingual practices (Canagarajah 2013)of these students and the diverse cultural resources they draw on are thecommon code of such young adults. The use of integrated English andBangla (which also indexes class and education) and the filmic references(indexing forms of cultural consumption) are themselves integrated forms ofstylization. It is through this combination of resources that these participantsengage in processes of stylization, presenting particular constructions ofthemselves, their interlocutors, their language resources, and their chosencultural forms.

5. MORINHUURIFICATION NTR NI COOLSHUU: ‘MONGOLIAN COOL’

Despite its image as a remote and grassy land peopled by semi-nomadic animalherders, Mongolia and particularly the capital, Ulaanbaatar, has witnessed amajor shift in lifestyle, as ‘more than two thirds of the population is now settledin urban areas and only some twenty-five percent of the population lives in thecountryside, following a traditional way of life’ (Sargaltay 2004: 332).Mongolia has changed rapidly since its days as a satellite of the former SovietUnion when cultural elements from the West were perceived as ‘capitalistproducts’ and strictly banned by the ruling Mongolian People’s RevolutionaryParty (1921–1990) (cf. Marsh 2009). While aspects of the Soviet era remain –Cyrillic has replaced the old Mongolian ‘Uyghur’ script (Rossabi 2005), andRussian linguistic and cultural elements are not uncommon – young urbanMongolians are, like their Bangladeshi counterparts, linked in to contemporarycultural flows via modern media and technology.The local takeup of global elements can clearly be seen within online

spaces, mobilized by the linguistic practices of online users. The extract belowis taken from the YouTube discussion board around a Pepsi commercialfeaturing Asash#ory#u, former Yokozuna (横綱 ‘Grand Champion’) ofProfessional Sumo Wrestling in Japan, and Amarkhuu, one of themembers of the popular Russian boy band, ‘Premier Ministry’ (PepsiCommercial 2011). Asash#ory#u (Mongolian name Dolgors€urengiinDagvadorj), a Mongolian-born sumo wrestler, became the first MongolianYokozuna. Amarkhuu Borkhuu is a Mongolian pop singer who resides inRussia. Having moved from Mongolia to Russia with his parents as a child,he rose to popularity in Russia after winning Narodniy Artist 3 (in 2006),the Russian version of Pop Idol. He is currently living in Moscow, and is thefrontman of well-known Russian boy band ‘Prime Minister’. The Pepsi



Commercial is set in a traditional Mongolian dwelling (ger), where Asash#ory#uand Amarkhuu are dressed in traditional Mongolian clothes (deel) andplaying dembee (l'v,''), a traditional Mongolian ‘hand-and-song’ game,which involves two opponents sitting opposite each other singing dembeesongs while using different hand gestures (something like ‘rock-paper-scissors’). When one of the opponents wins, he drinks the Pepsi as a reward.This commercial attracted many viewers on YouTube, who left theirimpressions on the discussion board of the commercial. Overall, most ofthe viewers express positive views, suggesting that the commercial is one ofthose productions, which is purely Mongolian and locally tasteful.

Extract 2 (CK=chinggis khan; MM=mongolgirl mongol)

YouTube comments Translation

1. CK: LOLZGONO! Yostoi ASAavraga maani laajishd.huumiiification,morinhuurification ntr nicoolshuu. Amarkhuu’s us niyatsiin be? looks like koreandrama baagiii rawfl DUH!

CK: LOLZGONO! The championASA (Asash#ory#u) is rockingit. huumiiification,morinhuurification et cetraare cool. What happened toAmarkhuu’s hair? looks likekorean drama weirdo rawfl(ROFL) DUH!

2. MM: shut up! Hujaa shig lharagdahgui bval bolooshd.korean drama uzejuildaggui yum shig.Chanvuu shig l haragdjiishd

MM: shut up! At least he is notlooking Chinese. You soundlike you don’t watch Koreandrama and cry. He looks likeChanvuu

3. MM: this is honto ni subarashine.. u make us so proud allthe time erhem hundetavraga mini. ene suuliin uedavragiin ner hundiiggutaagad bgaa yumnuudjust need to disappearntr..あなたは英雄です!あなたは私たちはとても誇りに思う!日本に住むモンゴル人

MM: This is really wonderful. umake us so proud all thetime of our dear champion.Some people who are tryingto hurt the champion’sreputation need to disappearetc. You are a hero! We arevery proud! Mongoliansliving in Japan

The two viewers in Extract 2 show a strong sense of pride and respect towardsAsash#ory#u, a common sentiment in Mongolia since he is admired forpopularizing Mongolia not only in Japan, but also around the world.Because of Asash#ory#u, sumo has become one of the most watched andplayed sports in Mongolia, inspiring the next generation of Mongolian sumo



wrestlers in Japan (the current reigning Mongolian champions in Japaneseprofessional sumo world, Hakuho and Harumafuji). Asash#ory#u has alsoreceived considerable negative publicity in recent years, as a result ofvarious events and accusations, and it is in this context that Mongolgirl’ssuggestion that those criticizing Asash#ory#u should disappear (line 3) should beread. As another Mongolian export, Amarkhuu is also a very well-knownpublic figure in Mongolia, even though most of Amarkhuu’s songs areproduced in Russian for Russian audiences. Amarkhuu has a very big femalefan base in Mongolia, and was invited to act as a judge in the ‘Universe BestSongs – 2012’ competition, the most popular reality TV show in modernMongolia.In the YouTube space, most of the viewers of the commercial declare their

love and affection for Amarkhuu (yooo bi Amarkhuu.d aiiiiiiiiiir hairtai!!!!~~~byotgoo147/ ‘I love Amarkhuu so much!’), using similar features of emphasisthat we saw in the example from Bangladesh above. One of our discussants,Chinggiskhan, however, criticizes his hairstyle for looking like a Korean TVDrama baagii, a colloquial Mongolian term, akin to the term weirdoin English (criticism of Amarkhuu’s hairstyle has been common). Inresponse, Mongolgirl defends Amarkhuu’s hairstyle, suggesting that he atleast does not look like a hujaa, a derogatory Mongolian reference to aChinese person (reflecting the common anti-Chinese sentiment in Mongolia;see Bill"e 2008).Mongolgirl further defends Amarkhuu, suggesting that he looks like

‘Chanvuu’, referring to Sung Chan-Woo, a popular male character inKorean TV drama (‘First Love’), who became a household name in Mongoliain the 90s, portrayed by famous Korean actor Bae Yong Joon. As with theBangladeshi example above, then, Korean dramas – their style, dress, hair andmelodrama – have become a significant point of reference for youngMongolians. Better for a Moscow-based Mongolian to look like a Koreanactor than someone Chinese. While expressing a sense of national pridetowards Asash#ory#u and the traditional setting of the commercial, theseconsumers are also engaged with cultural forms such as Japanese sumo,Russian pop music, and Korean dramas. And this engagement becomes part oftheir daily practices: urban youth in Mongolia imitate the hairstyles of Koreanpop stars; young male teenagers dream of wrestling in Japanese professionalsumo; they go to concerts by Russian pop artists; they watch Korean/Japanese/Chinese TV dramas (Dovchin 2011).Similar to the Bangladeshi conversation above, the linguistic practices used in

this cultural takeup are also creative and eclectic. While Mongolgirl, whoappears to be based in Japan, uses Japanese alongside English and Mongolian,Chinggiskhan mixes English and Mongolian. Chinggiskhan produces a newword ‘coolshuu’, combining the Mongolian suffix shuu (used as an intensifierfor adjectives and nouns) with the English stem word ‘cool’, meaning ‘socool!’. Moreover, Chinggiskhan’s invented terms huumiiification and



morinkhuurification combine the Mongolian words huumii (‘throat singing’)and morin khuur (‘horse headed fiddle’) with the English suffix ‘ification’, thusreferring to the practice of using traditional musical instruments and styles inthis wider context with a blend of Mongolian and English. Chinggiskhan’sblended terms come to represent the cultural practice of playing somethingglobally popular through local musical instruments. This particular creationseems to value morin khuur and huumii in a way that avoids their commonEnglish translations (‘horse headed fiddle’ and ‘throat singing’) while stillusing English suffixes to relocate these terms discursively. A similar trend hasbeen observed in the language practise of young adults in Bangladesh whoadd the English suffix ‘ing’ to Bangla verbs/nouns to give a feel of continuity,action and progression (Sultana 2012).Also worth noting in this interaction, like many other comments on this

site, and similar to the online interaction from Bangladesh discussed above, isthe use of Roman script. Here it is used for Mongolian (lines 1, 2, 3) andJapanese (line 3), though Japanese scripts (kanji, hiragana, katakana) areintroduced later. This is a very common online orthographic practice foryoung Mongolians, as the prevalence of Roman over Cyrillic can be foundelsewhere from text messaging to other forms of exchanges mediated by newtechnologies, including not only globally popular sites such as YouTube orFacebook, but also the comments left on locally popular sites such as olloo.mnand sonin.mn (Bill"e 2010). This practice seems to be ‘a conscious choiceinsofar as computers in Mongolia will be in Cyrillic input mode by default,thus requiring the user to toggle to Latin before entering text’, notes Bill"e(2010: 244).Similarly in the Bangladesh context, even though Bangla font is available in

uni-code, young adults frequently opt for Roman script. There are severalpossible reasons for this. The Roman script, which is used for a number ofmajor world languages, is seen as more widely readable than Bangla orCyrillic, and thus, although these texts require an understanding of Bangla orMongolian, it may be assumed that they can be more widely read usingRoman script. It is also the case, especially for Bangla, that it is not widelysupported in online environments outside Bangladesh.9 There is also of coursea certain sense of modernity, and a way in which Roman script is allied toEnglish, that renders this script the preferred option for online chatenvironments.If we transliterate the Mongolian above into Cyrillic script, however, a further

consideration emerges: ‘LOLPUOHO! Ecnoq ACA adpaua vaayb kaa;bqil.xѳѳvbqfication, vopbyxyypification ntr yb cooliѵѵ. Avapxѵѵubqy ѵc yb zawbqy,'? looks like korean drama ,aaubq rawfl DUH!’ (Mongolian CyrillicTransliteration). While the terms ‘xѳѳvbqfication’ and ‘vopbyxyypification’perhaps achieve greater salience as overtly mixed Mongolian traditions withEnglish modifications (to use Cyrillic for the ‘fication’ suffix seems to make littlesense), the difficulty needed for this form of script-switching acts against the



preference for the fluidity of mixed codes. In online environments, where writersoften operate in a formofwritten orality, a graphic representation of suchmixingbecomes inhibitive.Other invented words such as ntr, Lolzgono and laajishd are also extensively

used in Chinggis khan’s discourse. Unfamiliar to non-virtual space users, Ntris widely used to represent ene ter in Mongolian, meaning ‘for example’ or ‘etcetera’ in English. Lolzgono, meaning ‘Laughing Out Loud’ in Mongolian, is are-invented version of the ubiquitous ‘LOL’ (‘Laugh out loud’). In a reverseprocess to the one above – the adding to Mongolian terms of an English suffix– here the acronym ‘LOL’ has been appropriated into Mongolian, placing theMongolian suffix lzgono onto the end of the word ‘LOL’ (with a single ‘l’,Lolzgono, instead of double ‘ll’ Lollzgono). The Mongolian suffix lzgono is mostoften used to imply the botanical term for a berry. The Mongolian wordulaalzgana (‘red currant’) for example is constructed through integrating thesuffix lzgana into the core Mongolian word ulaan (‘red’), omitting the lastconsonant ‘n’ from the word ulaan (the vowels used in the suffix areconsistent with the vowels in the core word). The suffix lzgono is here addedto the acronym LOL, coinciding with the main vowel ‘o’, rendering aMongolian version of laughing out loud. The use of the suffix for berry,lzgono, integrated with acronym ‘LOL’, also produces a double meaning:‘Lolzgono’ can imply that the given subjects are not only simply funny, butalso tastefully funny, as berries are regarded as one of the tastiest fruits inMongolia.Laajiishd is a third type of invention, where the Mongolian word aljiishd

becomes laajishd. Aljiishd is a colloquial Mongolian word, used extensivelywithin the younger generation, meaning ‘Rocking it!’ or ‘Nailing it!’ It is anabbreviated form of the Mongolian expression alj baina shuu dee (‘[he/she/you/they] is/are killing it’), the present continuous simple form of the Mongolianverb root alah, meaning ‘to kill’. Here, the writer shortens the expression aljbaina shuu dee into a single word aljiishd, replacing the last part -j baina shuu dee,simply with jiishd. These abbreviated forms of writing style are alsodemonstrated within the commentaries of the second consumer, bolooshd(bolno shuu dee ‘it can be happening’), haragdjiishd (haragdaj baina shuu dee ‘[he/she/it] is looking’). This writer takes this abbreviation further, however, bythen reversing the syllables. In a manner akin to French street slang, verlan,which also uses syllabic inversion (m"echant ‘mean’ ? chanm"e; fatigu"e ‘tired’?gu"etifa; tout $a l’heure ‘just now’ ? leurtoute, etc; see Doran 2004), theconsumer syllabically inverts aljiishd into lajiishd, producing a novelcolloquialism. Unlike second generation immigrants in France, whoselanguage practices derive in part from multilingual urban contexts, theseMongolian youth derive their multilingual skills through current diverse globallinguistic and cultural flows.In the same way that the Bangladeshi online users manipulated various sets

of linguistic and non-linguistic resources, including emoticons, punctuation



marks, capitalization, signs, and spellings, in order to achieve dramatic effectswithin their online expressions, here these online consumers creatively mixEnglish and Mongolian morphemes as part of their creative online discussion.The linguistic means by which these are achieved are revealing on manylevels. English plays a role here but always in the context of other languages. Itmay equally be a means to decode other cultural forms. In the Bangladeshcontext, English is mixed with Bangla to achieve a particular mode ofstylization. Sultana (2012: 12), for example, notes that for young adults inBangladesh ‘English provides the participants with newer metalinguistic andindexical opportunities’ not only by bringing diversity into Bangla but also bytaking up different genres of discourse.These stylised linguistic practices of (dis)integration of various suffixes and

core words, abbreviations, omissions and syllabic inversions allow theseMongolian online consumers on the one hand to perform as members of a newgeneration of online language users who can use and manipulate multiplelinguistic resources, while also on the other to restate their investment inMongolian traditions (huumiiification and morinkhuurification) that arenonetheless being used in a Pepsi commercial featuring a Mongolian-Japanese sumo wrestler and a Mongolian-Russian boy-band singer (witharguably a Korean haircut). These young adults use this already-mixed code ofBangla, English, or Mongolian as an expressive means of ‘creative synthesis’,and to perform their modern ‘pluralistic … identities’ (Nilan and Feixa 2006:5). What is perhaps more significant than this mixed code is the culturalborrowing and cross-referencing of cultural practices, and the fact that Englishmay be equally employed to achieve this.

6. CONCLUSION: BEYOND TIMES SQUARE

Cultural flows in these parts of the Asian periphery frequently involve a cross-mixing of cultural elements. Cultural flows are not from the centre (‘theWest’) to the rest, and neither should we get over-excited when they appearto be the other way round – when Gangnam Style takes over Times Square.Rather, there is a much more complex and diverse array of cultural formsand practices that are discussed, watched, taken up and redeployed in dailylives. In these processes of relocalization, particular images of local culture areput on display and commented on, enjoyed by some for their playful culturalplays on what it means to be Bangladeshi (lungis, for example) or Mongolian(the ger is a favorite). This styling of the periphery, this playful pattern ofrelocalization, not only therefore relocalizes cultural forms in these contextsbut also relocalizes assumed traditions in the context of a flow of diversecultural forms.Rather than assuming, therefore, that Gangnam Style or a Pepsi commercial

is simply being relocated in a traditional context of Bangladesh or Mongolia,the stylized Bangladeshi and Mongolian contexts are also being relocalized



within these wider cultural flows. This is then reinforced by the translingualpractices of the online commentaries. In these two contexts of Bangladesh andMongolia, we can observe young adults interacting with popular culturalresources from the broader Asian region – Gangnam Style, South Asian films,Korean dramas, Sumo wrestling – commenting on the processes of localization– a downtown Dhaka version of Flash Mob Gangnam Style; a Pepsi commercialand a Mongol Style performance in traditional Mongolian settings – andrestyling themselves online through creative linguistic mixtures in relation tothese cultural remixes. As Dovchin (2011: 331) suggests in the context of thetakeup of popular music in Mongolia,

new forms of identities are performed through playful interactions and chaoticlinguistic practices of urban youth consumers of popular culture. The dynamicspace of popular music language is constructive, creative and liberaland provides urban youth with alternative ways of being modern youngMongolians.

These two contexts also reveal the complex ways globalization worksthrough local practices. While the recent global phenomenon of GangnamStyle, a quirky dance going viral, may look like a new direction as an Asiancultural form ‘takes over’ the world, we have attempted to show here that thecirculation of Asian, and particularly Korean, cultural practices has a longerand deeper history (including claims that this dance is Mongolian anyway);that the notion of Asia itself becomes harder to maintain amid these culturaland linguistic flows; that these are taken up and played with in multiple ways,even in the ‘peripheries’ of global circuits; that style is a crucial part of onlinetakeup; and that the cultural and linguistic mix that emerges from all this ismultivocal, with English only one medium for such voices.

NOTES

1. We would like to thank the editors and the two anonymous reviewers for theirinsightful comments and suggestions on an earlier version. Any shortcoming orlimitation is entirely ours.

2. ‘Flash Mob’ is a term coined to refer generally to relatively spontaneous (oftenorganized through social media) gatherings and performances.

3. There are disputes amongst the commentators over the issue of whether theperformers in Bangla Style are from Bangladesh or India. Some find the musicvideo inappropriate for Bangladeshi sensibilities and prefer to associate themwith the Bangalis from Calcutta, India.

4. Ishhtylee refers to the fact that some Bangladeshis have problems in pronouncingconsonant clusters and tend to break the cluster with an indeterminate vowelsound between /i/ and /ə/. Hence, ‘style’ is istyle, ‘school’ is iskul, and ‘station’ isistation (Hai 1961).

5. Data for this paper have been drawn from two much larger projects, involvinghundreds of hours of data, looking amongst other things at online popular



cultural consumption in Bangladesh and Mongolia (see also Dovchin 2011;Sultana 2012).

6. Bangladesh was a part of the Indian subcontinent and shared the same politicaland historical lineage for more than 200 years. Geographically it is alsosurrounded by India.

7. The opinions given by the research participants in the interviews are in Bangla.They are translated into English.

8. Indeed, we had intended to provide Bangla examples in line with the Cyrillic/Mongolian example here, but found it was too rarely supported in digitalenvironments to be practicable, a useful reminder of the unequal conditions ofglobalization in which these interactions occur.

9. These commercial films in Bangladesh, however, are highly critiqued by theintellectuals for their melodrama, obscenity, explicit violence and sexuality(Hoek 2010) and considered as inappropriate for the urban-centred educatedclass (Yasmin 2011).

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Address correspondence to:

Shaila SultanaDepartment of English LanguageInstitute of Modern Languages

University of DhakaNilkhet, Dhaka 1000

Bangladesh

[email protected]



Styling the periphery: Linguistic and cultural takeup in Bangladesh and Mongolia

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