Because of increased globalization and mediatization, young people around the world are exposed to an increasing amount of English and incorporate it in their own local repertoires. But how these linguistic features traditionally associated with English are incorporated by specific young people and which social purposes they serve for them must be investigated in the local context. As a contribution to this area of study, this paper presents a case from Denmark.

The paper is based on a linguistic ethnographic study conducted among a group of Danish high school students. Drawing on offline interactional data from self-recordings and screen recordings of online interactions primarily from Snapchat, I explore what social functions English serves for the participants and how offline and online practices interact.

The participants state that they use English as part of their everyday repertoires because English sounds better, because it is useful when making fun or joking, because Danish is more serious, and because the use of English words or phrases indicates that you are young and popular.

My findings suggest that English is used for social purposes such as styling oneself as cool and young, styling social relationships for instance by distancing yourself more or less from what is said or written, and styling activities e.g., indicating if you are being serious or making fun. I further argue that English is not present in the everyday lives of the adolescents as a separate code but as an integrated part of their everyday repertoire, and that their digital practices have an important role to play in this.