Gendered, bilingual communication practices: Mobile text-messaging among Hong Kong college students

Abstract

Mobile text messaging—variously known as SMS (short message service), text messaging, mobile e-mail, or texting—has become a common means of keeping in constant touch, especially among young people, in many parts of the world today. The research literature abounds with studies on the social, cultural, and communicative aspects of mobile text messaging in different sociocultural contexts in the world. In the following sections, current theoretical positions in the research literature on mobile communication will be summarised and then findings of a pilot study on the mobile text-messaging practices of university students in Hong Kong will be reported. Implications for emerging bilingual and bicultural identities and gendered sociality practices among Hong Kong young people will be discussed.