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Algorithmic Translanguaging and Cultural Legibility: AI-Mediated Language Practices in Chinese Digital Platforms

Haoyang He¹*, Xinyue He²

Advances in Linguistics Research / 2026,8(2): 82-94 / 2026-05-26 28 19

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• Information:

  1. Department of Communication, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Beijing Normal-Hong Kong Baptist University, Zhuhai, China
  2. Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang, China

• Keywords:
  Algorithmic Translanguaging; Cultural Legibility; Chinese Digital Platforms; AI‑Mediated Communication; Management of Internet Information Services
• Abstract: Multilingual expression on Chinese digital platforms is becoming increasingly contingent on algorithmic ranking, machine translation (MT), recommendation architectures, and platform-specific norms of visibility. Existing research has richly examined translanguaging as fluid repertoire practice and has separately analyzed platform power, yet less attention has been paid to how algorithmic infrastructures make some multilingual practices culturally legible while rendering others peripheral, humorous, risky, or unintelligible. Drawing on translanguaging theory, language ideology, platform affordance theory, and AI-mediated communication, this article develops a bounded conceptual and interpretive framework for analyzing algorithmic translanguaging in Chinese digital platforms. It argues that platform-mediated multilingual practice is not merely a product of user creativity or code choice; it is a relational process through which linguistic resources are selected, ranked, translated, normalized, and recirculated by human and computational actors. The proposed Algorithmic Translanguaging-Cultural Legibility Model distinguishes four mechanisms: algorithmic visibility sorting, interface-driven performance calibration, computational meaning standardization, and platform linguistic governance. The analysis demonstrates how translanguaging operates simultaneously as creative repertoire, platform vernacular, and object of infrastructural evaluation. This article contributes to digital sociolinguistics by systematically integrating translanguaging theory with algorithmic platform studies and proposing a bounded, analytically usable model. It does not claim theoretical novelty in translanguaging or platform studies separately, but offers an integrated framework for examining their mutual shaping.
• DOI: 10.35534/lin.0802008 (registering DOI)
• Cite: He, H. Y., & He, X. Y. (2026). Algorithmic Translanguaging and Cultural Legibility: AI-Mediated Language Practices in Chinese Digital Platforms. Advances in Linguistics Research, 8 (2), 82-94.