User-Generated Stickers: Social Media for Language Revitalization and Maintenance in Africa

Abstract

Studies in computer-mediated communication have shown how its different innovations have aided languages to find space which may assist in their revitalization. The use of user-generated stickers is one of such innovations, and it has just emerged on social media as a virtual space. Therefore, this paper examines user-generated stickers with a view to revealing how they revitalize African languages by giving opportunities to African users to express a variety of ideas in any of the continents’ indigenous languages. Generally, a sticker is a blend of sized picture and text. The paper however finds that company-generated stickers, which are also found on social media, are rigid, defined and do not allow individual creativity and cultural inclusion. User-generated stickers, on the other hand, are not rigid, as a picture could be accompanied by a text in any language or by any other feature from any culture. This paper therefore sees user-generated stickers as constituting a tool with the flexibility of which could be leveraged on for language revitalization, maintenance as well as cultural preservation in the present-day Africa. It also investigates the degree of usage and the attitude of users to this tool. The analyses are couched on the tenets of Meme theory. WhatsApp chats, observations and direct interviews were used as data sources. The analyses reveal that although user-generated stickers encounter both positive and negative predispositions from users, they considerably influence the revitalization of African languages.