A Study on Language Practices and Identity Construction Among Youth in the China-Myanmar Borderland Under New Media Context

Against the backdrop of globalization and digitalization, the China-Myanmar border emerges as a distinctive site for cross-cultural integration. Ethnic language practices in this region not only serve as a vehicle for cultural inheritance but also facilitate the construction of cross-border identities. Ruili, the locality under investigation, lies on the China-Myanmar border and has been subject to frequent cross-border interactions, exhibits both universal trends in ethnic language development across border regions and unique characteristics shaped by such transnational dynamics. The language practices of Dai youth in Ruili thus provide a typical case for exploring the interplay between ethnic language ecology and identity construction in the new media era. Focusing on Dai youth aged 18 to 35 in Ruili, this study adopts a digital ethnographic approach. Through online participant observation, semi-structured interviews and new media textual analysis, it systematically portrays the patterns of language practices employed by this group in the new media environment, analyzes the construction and expression of their multiple identities, and explores the interactive mechanism between language practices and identity. Findings indicate that the informants’ language practices bear clear connections with the construction of identity, which is characterized by the integration of ethnicity, borderland, nationhood and cross-border culture. It further illustrates the mutually shaping relationship in which language practices construct identity, while identity in turn guides language practices. By clarifying this interactive mechanism, this study seeks to offer typical cases and empirical support for the protection of ethnic language ecology and the innovation of cultural inheritance in border regions.