Heteroglossia as a resource for reflexive participation in a community of Christian snowboarders in Finland

This paper addresses the ways in which linguistic heteroglossia is mobilized to construct participation in a youth cultural community of practice. The analysis focuses on spoken interaction among Christian snowboarders in Finland, and specifically on how the community members create social meanings by using their shared linguistic resources (e.g. religious register or snowboarding terminology). These socially indexical resources gain new meanings when the snowboarders engage in debates concerning gender, expertise and literal versus non‐literal interpretations of the Bible. During specific interactive events, they reflect on their responses to different Biblical discourses, thus aiming to reconcile traditional church teachings with late‐modern lifestyles. In the process, they construct themselves as authentic Christian members of the community. Humor and playfulness are often important means for the snowboarders to negotiate the potential contradictions between traditional religious voices and their lived social reality. Hence, ultimately, heteroglossia and indexicality enable the Christian snowboarders to establish and transform meanings, identities and cultural contexts.