Prior to 2004, scholarship on social and community dynamics in digital spaces conceptualized virtual communities as social aggregates formed through ongoing online interactions, characterized by unique language use and the development of ‘imagined’ or deterritorialized networks, sometimes described as ‘compunity’ (Jones, 1998). Older studies addressed the social and emotional structuring of communication, explored the ways that social positions influenced linguistic variants online, and debated whether online communities replicated or diverged from offline social forms, with some research indicating that computer-mediated communication sustained existing bonds while also fostering distinct relational and cultural styles. Some of these themes, particularly the relationships between online and offline communities.

 i.      Relationships between online and offline communities

Some of the work in our new compilation explicitly examines the connections and interactions between digital and physical spaces, indicating an ongoing interest in how these two realms intersect. For example Domingo (2012) explores the migration of people, cultural texts, and linguistic identities across both physical and digital communities. Solmaz (2020) makes the case that understanding the actual digital practices and connections between offline and virtual contexts is crucial for comprehending superdiverse societies and how superdiversity is indexed in users’ digital practices. This author also flags a need to document the digital practices of individuals experiencing transnational mobility within online participatory spaces. Already in 2006, Black was reporting that the virtual spaces made possible by new digital technologies transcended traditional cultural, linguistic, and geographic borders, impacting identity development and language socialization. As Solmaz (2020) concludes, digital spaces and networks are described by more recent investigators as dynamic, unbounded, and superdiverse, making these fluid movements complex to investigate, with various forms are changed, overlapped, re-purposed, re-contextualized, re-semiotized–that is, signs and meanings are reassigned as content moves across modes, genres, and contexts–and circulated across globalized networks.

ii.      Deterritorialization and disembodiment in virtual spaces

Questions of deterritorialization and disembodiment are much less central to recent scholarship in this field, although as themes these continue to be reflected in contemporary discussions of transnationalism and digital environments.

On embodiment/disembodiment, Ess (2017) notes that “1990s discourse surrounding the Internet emphasized ostensibly sharp contrasts between online and offline experiences–between virtual and real worlds”. That dualism, he reports, is “largely dead”, as later work increasingly found that online and offline worlds are inextricably inter-connected. However, embodiment persists as a topic of concern in a broad variety of academic fields exploring how embodied properties and perceptual processes directly shape the way humans conceptualize and interact with their environments (see for example: Shapiro & Stolz, 2019; Varela et al., 2017). Research in fields such as cognitive linguistics, applied cognitive linguistics, and cognitive language pedagogy explores how embodiment is reflected in language, how it determines communication, how and can influence language acquisition, and how it should be taken into consideration in teaching and in learning design (see also Theme 4, section vi.). By contrast, references to this vast body of cognitive research are scarce in the literature uncovered by this scoping review.

Regarding deterritorialization, the proliferation of new digital technologies has enabled the creation of virtual spaces that transcend traditional cultural, linguistic, and geographic boundaries (Black, 2006). Academic literature increasingly examines digital practices through the lens of transnational experiences, considering how individuals interact across various nationalities and online contexts (see for example Brüggemann & Wessler, 2014; Couldry & Hepp, 2019; Domingo, 2014; Han, 2017; Retis & Caballero, 2011; Seto & Martin, 2019; Tsagarousianou & Retis, 2019; Winschiers-Theophilus et al., 2022). These fluid movements underscore that the forms and meanings of cultural and linguistic practices are continually transformed, re-contextualized, and circulated within globalized networks. Consequently, digital spaces are now regarded as dynamic, unbounded domains that exemplify deterritorialization and disembodiment (Solmaz, 2020).