Mediating Discourse Online (AILA Applied Linguistics Series, Volume 3)

Mediating Discourse Online

AILA Applied Linguistics Series (AALS) The AILA Applied Linguistics Series (AALS) provides a forum for scholars in any area of Applied Linguistics. The series aims at representing the field in its diversity. It covers different topics in applied linguistics from a multidisciplinary approach and it aims at including different theoretical and methodological perspectives. As an official publication of AILA the series will include contributors from different geographical and linguistic backgrounds. The volumes in the series should be of high quality; they should break new ground and stimulate further research in Applied Linguistics.

Editor Jasone Cenoz

University of the Basque Country, Spain

Editorial Board Jean-Marc Dewaele

Rosa Manchón

Gabrielle Hogan-Brun

Anne Pakir

University of London, UK University of Bristol, UK

Nancy Hornberger

University of Pennsylvania, US

Volume 3 Mediating Discourse Online Edited by Sally Sieloff Magnan

University of Murcia, Spain National University of Singapore, Singapore

Mediating Discourse Online Edited by

Sally Sieloff Magnan University of Wisconsin, Madison

John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam / Philadelphia

8

TM

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mediating discourse online / edited by Sally Sieloff Magnan. p. cm. (AILA Applied Linguistics Series, issn 1875-1113 ; v. 3) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Discourse analysis--Computer-assisted instruction. 2. Communication--Data processing. 3. Language and languages--Computer-assisted instruction. 4. Intercultural communication--Computer-assisted instruction. I. Magnan, Sally Sieloff. P302.26.M43    2008 401'.410785--dc22 isbn 978 90 272 0519 3 (Hb; alk. paper)

2007052232

© 2008 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa

Table of contents

Acknowledgements Introduction Sally Sieloff Magnan

vii 1

Part I. Overview of existing research Computer-mediated discourse in instructed environments Dorothy M. Chun

15

Research perspectives on online discourse and foreign language learning Carl S. Blyth

47

Part II. Creating collaboration Postcards from the (turbulent) edge (of chaos): Complexity theory  and computer mediated communication Neil H. Johnson

73

Interpersonal and intercultural understanding in a blended  second culture classroom Kara McBride and Mary E. Wildner-Bassett

93

Creating comfort zones of orality in online discussion forums Anja Wanner

125

Part III. Co-constructing interactions Use of communication strategies in a synchronous CMC environment Claudia R. Kost Online discourse strategies: A longitudinal study of computer-mediated  foreign language learning Nelleke Van Deusen-Scholl

153

191

vi

Mediating Discourse Online

Negotiating meaningfulness: An enhanced perspective on interaction  in computer-mediated foreign language learning environments Jonathon Reinhardt

219

Foreign language resistance: Discourse analysis of online classroom  peer interaction Robin Worth

245

Part IV. Mediating social spaces Using instant messaging interaction (IMI) in intercultural learning Li Jin Transcultural communication in open Internet environments  and massively multiplayer online games Steven L. Thorne

275

305

Part V. Ethical ramifications of work in online environments Online interactions and L2 learning: Some ethical challenges  for L2 researchers Lourdes Ortega and Eve Zyzik

331

Index

357

Acknowledgements

The studies presented in this volume are drawn primarily from research presented at the tri-annual meeting of the International Association of Applied Linguistics held in Madison, Wisconsin in July 2005. The papers by Chun, Blyth, Thorne, and Ortega and Zyzik have been added. I recognize here the reviewers of the papers submitted for consideration for inclusion: Julie Belz, Heidi Byrnes, Monika Chavez, Gabrielle Kasper, Richard Kern, Robert Kleinsasser, Claire Kramsch, Yong Lang, James Lantolf, Diane Larsen-Freeman, Glenn Levine, Hiram Maxim, Numa Markee, Sachiko Matsunaga, Mary McGroarty, Lourdes Ortega, Sue Otto, Virginia Scott, Bryan Smith, Steven Thorne, Leo van Lier, and Richard Young. Their careful critique of the manuscripts, and the authors’ subsequent revisions, contributed greatly to the quality of the final versions of the chapters. For her careful checking of references and APA style, I am grateful to Paula Rucks, an advanced doctoral student in Second Language Acquisition at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. I recognize Sue Lightfoot for preparing the index. I also thank Richard Young (University of Wisconsin, Madison), who chaired the 2005 AILA conference, for the impetus to develop a volume springing from it, and Jasone Cenoz (AILA publications coordinator; University of the Basque Country, Spain) for her collaboration in conceiving the topic of this collection from the many subjects addressed at the conference, and her support throughout its publication. Finally, I thank the authors for the stimulating reading their chapters have provided to me, and John Benjamins Publishing Company for bringing them to the profession.

Introduction Sally Sieloff Magnan

University of Wisconsin, Madison

Over the last three decades information and communication technology has rapidly transformed our notions of literacy and of how information is created and exchanged. Warschauer (2005) explains the multi-dimensional expansiveness of this change. By providing interactive written communication, technologies such as instant messaging and chat lead us to question traditional borders between speech and writing. By allowing the creation of hypertexts, blogging, wikis, and other web-based technologies challenge traditional forms of narrative because they bring together information in new ways. By their simple ways of combining text, image, sounds, and video, multimedia technologies challenge the exclusionary dominance of the written word. Most importantly, by facilitating a global form of many-to-many communication, technologies, such as blogs, bulletin board discussion fora, and recently facebook, have changed literacy practices around the world. To Warschauer’s (2005) compelling image of how technology has transformed human interaction, we might add Shaffer, Squire, Halverson, and Gee’s (2004) contention that technology is also changing how its users think, solve problems, and learn, that is, how they create new ways to make knowledge and process it. For example, people who play video games confront multiple-path information networks, learn to use hypothesis testing to solve problems, confront multiple solutions, and engage in the imaginary social and cultural worlds of the game. According to Gee, these worlds, and the pathways through them, help game players learn by integrating thinking, social interaction, and technology. Technology is reconstituting how we communicate, making it possible to exchange information and to create new meaning collaboratively in new ways and at new rhythms. Our discourse both reflects the technology in which it was created and serves to drive technology forward to offer increasingly new ways to communicate. Through online discourse, we build new digital communities, such as MOO environments and online multiplayer gaming, for which users must develop new discourses in order to belong. Because our ways of communicating



Sally Sieloff Magnan

influence how we learn and how we process knowledge, online discourse influences societal development. It is an opportune time to intensify our study of these new communication mediums. Howe and Strauss (2000) identified the generation born from 1982 as Millennial youth, a generation that has grown up as native users of digital technologies. These digitals natives are now entering the workforce in large numbers and having a new generation of children who will not know life, or its literacy practices, in an age without computers. In comparison to preceding generations, this group makes much less separation between learning in the formal institution of school and learning, often through the Internet, at home (cf. Levin & Arafeh 2002). Responding to the technologies that are increasingly at their disposal, members of the Millennial generation communicate in multiple discourses for varied environments and communicative needs. Through these discourses they enter and create new digital communities in which they engage intensely and often passionately. Are these discourses in some ways different from those occurring in face-to-face encounters or in written mediums which are less interactive in nature? How do these discourses function in terms of building knowledge, developing communities, and shaping individual identities? Researchers studying online interaction are struggling to keep pace with the increasing richness of communication in the rapidly expanding digital environment. In the study of second language (L2) learning, in particular, the need to understand how learners collaborate in mediating discourse online is quite acute. Thorne (2006) describes research by Hanna and de Nooy (2003) to illustrate how “participation in open and thematically oriented Internet communities supports the very processes L2 education ostensibly seeks to provide, such as the use of language as a resource for ongoing identity formation and personally meaningful communication in the service of goals that extend beyond ‘practice’ or ‘learning’ in the restrictive senses associated with institutional settings” (p. 14). Taking up the notion of discursive practice, Young (2007) redefines ‘practice’ in terms that would be compatible with the type of collaboration in digital environments that is reshaping contemporary society. For Young, “The practice is what is learned, not the language” (p. 265). Learning language is not the goal of discourse. Rather, the goal is to change how one participates in a community; language is a tool needed for engaging in a social interaction, whether it is an online game, an online chat, or a face-to-face encounter. Following Lave and Wenger (1991) and Sfard (1998), Young sees learning as changing participation. Important research questions would include: How might we characterize participation in digital environments, which vary greatly one from another and are constantly evolving? How does interaction in these environments determine community membership and participation? How does language function in collaboration and encounters



Introduction

online? What characterizes discourse competence in online environments, and is that competence different in online and face-to-face interactions? Interaction always exists, of course, within a cultural frame. For L2 learning this frame is by nature intercultural. The chapters in this volume confront crosscultural expectations and consequences by examining how users of digital media collaboratively create discourse that leads them across cultural borders and reshapes their perceptions of others and self. The questions we might pose become more far reaching: What strategies do learners need in order to create discourse in intercultural exchanges online? From a learner’s point of view, how do digital media function in facilitating collaboration, in creating solidarity, and in building and maintaining intercultural connections? What is it in the discourse, and in how it is created, that provides insight on the self and the other? How does the opportunity of online exchange influence how social structures within and across cultures develop? What theories of inquiry best allow researchers to gain insight into these questions, which are so contextually sensitive and socially based? Confronting such questions, especially in terms of L2 learning, we are led to reconsider many traditional components of instructed learning situations: instructor and student roles; instructional tools and how learning is carried out; the place of culture in the language curriculum; the syllabus of instruction; and expectations for learning and means of recognizing it. We are also led to interrogate the boundaries between instructed and non-instructed learning through digital channels. In 1996, Warschauer (1996, 2002) acknowledged that the computer in education has gradually been transformed from a tutor to a tool. The chapters in this volume explore the nature of that tool and especially the interaction, collaboration, and learning that occur through its use. The studies presented in the volume rely on a variety of theoretical approaches, from Reinhardt’s comparison of interactionist and sociocultural perspectives to Worth’s ethnographic microanalysis to Johnson’s use of dynamic systems or complexity theory and McBride and Wildner-Bassett’s frame within a critical social-constructivist approach to pedagogy. Taken as a whole, they suggest an ecological heuristic for investigating online discourse and the knowledge and behaviors that come through it. The chapters consider issues of communicative strategies, negotiation of face and solidarity, voice, and social identity through the lenses of a variety of digital modes (bulletin boards, course management systems, chats, instant messaging, and online gaming). As its title, Mediating Discourse Online, suggests the review pieces and studies presented focus on how discourse is constructed collaboratively and how that mediated exchange results in creating new ways of thinking and interacting. Although the volume considers primarily the discourse of L2 learners, the studies are not limited to instructed environments or to interactions of language





Sally Sieloff Magnan

learners. Two chapters (Wanner; McBride & Wildner-Bassett) offer studies where participants are not identified as language learners and two chapters (Jin; Thorne) present studies where native speakers and non-native speakers interact in social spaces. This mix of ecologies for online discourse offers provocative insights for language instructors and researchers, who are seen as the primary audiences for this collection. The volume is presented in five parts, the first of which offers an overview of existing research. First Dorothy Chun offers a careful analysis of what previous studies have taught us about learner interaction in instructed, computer-mediated environments. She begins by addressing the thorny questions of how online discourse resembles face-to-face interaction and how instructed discourse resembles naturally occurring online communication. Then, looking to SLA research from both interactionist and sociocultural perspectives, her review surveys the professional literature to ask: How have instructors helped students create extended discourse online and reflect on that activity? Chun’s review and analysis makes it clear that many logistical, pedagogical, and social factors are at play when learners communicate online. Instructors, she warns, must never assume that providing opportunities for intercultural communication will necessarily afford target language interaction or that this interaction will automatically result in learners developing linguistic or cultural competence. Although digital environments offer much recognized potential for implementing the National Standards for Foreign Language Education (ACTFL 1996), the profession needs to develop, Chun advises, a more appropriate theoretical framework for using computer-mediated communication in foreign language learning. In a second review chapter, Carl Blyth takes us on an historical journey through metaphors used to conceptualize technology-based language learning to demonstrate how our scholarly thinking has opened progressively to social factors involved in language learning. Seeing the internet as a major social factor in today’s world, Blyth positions technology-based research as reflections of how SLA scholars have viewed and studied language learning through the past several decades. He offers a taxonomy of four theoretical approaches to researching online discourse – technological, psycholinguistic, sociocultural, and ecological – with the goal of uncovering the most salient research directions for the near future. Like many authors in this volume, Blyth sees an ecological approach as the most promising of the theoretical stances he reviews due to its holistic nature, which recognizes a symbiotic relationship between the cognitive and the social. The Internet, he concludes “has not caused change so much as it has hastened changes that were already well underway in the profession. In particular, the rise of the Internet has coincided with a documented paradigm shift towards social approaches to language learning, that is, a shift from a psycholinguistic approach



Introduction

to a sociocultural approach to, more recently, an ecological approach” (p. 66–67). As it becomes increasingly commonplace for language learners to enter online social spaces, online discourse may become the norm for communicative as well as instructional practices. Studying diverse digital environments, which are becoming increasingly blended, is an imperative for research. Online data should no longer be considered a special, or unique body set apart by its unusual environment, but rather a critical body of inquiry at the basis of how we communicate and learn. Chun’s and Blyth’s chapters prepare readers for the nine, new research studies that follow. These studies use different media for online interaction (bulletin boards, course management systems, chats, instant messaging, and online gaming) to reveal how learners create collaborative digital spaces in which they explore issues of identity, voice, and joint problem-solving; how they co-construct interactions and how these interactions are influenced by the ecology in which they occur; and how they establish and mediate social spaces in which they explore intercultural notions. Based in different theoretical stances, the studies, as a whole, point to insights gained from an ecological approach to studying how interactants engage in discourse online. The second section, “Creating collaboration,” includes three studies that used online bulletin boards and course management systems as platforms for fostering social dynamics and written exchanges fundamental to learning course content. The first two of these chapters come from work at the University of Arizona. In his chapter, “Postcards from the (Turbulent) Edge (of Chaos): Complexity Theory and Computer Mediated Communication,” Neil H. Johnson uses the lens of dynamic systems or complexity theory to explore how a computer-mediated learning environment might foster interdependence and collaboration among students. These participants (native and high-level nonnative speakers of English enrolled in two graduate seminars) made asynchronous postings on WebCT to debate theoretical issues arising during class discussions or readings and also to manage the class-based collaborative work. Johnson demonstrates how participants created an online learning community through which they explored new perspectives on their own lives and the similarities and differences between their life experiences and those of their classmates, while at the same time discussing texts about people from the German-speaking world. The thoughtful analysis illustrates the potential of the dynamic systems theoretical framework to enhance our understanding of the complex and nonlinear aspects of language learning as interactive social processes and practices. It shows how large restructuring of the learning community can be triggered by the smallest of interventions within the system and how online and face-to-face encounters stimulate each other and interaction in a course context.





Sally Sieloff Magnan

In a similar vein, Kara McBride and Mary Wildner-Bassett’s chapter “Interpersonal and Intercultural Understanding in a Blended Second Culture Classroom,” explores the evolution of the voices, social identities, and intercultural perceptions of undergraduate students enrolled in a course entitled Dialogue of the Sexes: Women and Men in German-speaking Societies. The course, which is used to fulfill requirements in the category of Gender, Race, Class, Ethnicity, or Non-Western Area Studies, involved blended face-to-face interaction with online bulletin board postings through the course management system Desire 2 Learn. It enrolled mostly Americans who were native speakers of English but also two American and two international students whose English was proficient but not native. Not directed then to learning language, McBride and Wildner-Bassett’s study examined how U.S. students developed interpersonal and intercultural understanding by exploring texts about people from the German-speaking world through collaboration and discussion with classmate peers. Their chapter presents data from written remarks made in bulletin board postings and on end-of-course surveys to provide compelling testimony to how students developed social identities that were more open to cultural difference and to how the online environment promoted sociality, criticality, and co-construction which led to shifts of individual perspective in intercultural understanding. McBride and Wildner-Bassett situate their study within a critical social-constructivist approach to pedagogy, offering a compelling argument that research and teaching need to look widely at the ecology of learning. Giving an additional view of how participants negotiate social spaces online, Anja Wanner examines discourse organization in Internet discussion forums to reveal how users alter bulletin board protocols to transform these asynchronous spaces into environments that emulate features of more interactive, synchronous chat. Her chapter, “Creating Comfort Zones of Orality in Online Discussion Forums,” begins by explaining how bulletin boards would seem to invite conceptually less oral forms of communication than do chatrooms (cf. chapters by Kost, Van Deusen-Scholl, Reinhardt, and Worth). Her study of the forum of the German weekly Die Zeit then demonstrates that even in these asynchronous, public environments, users attempt to become members of a discourse community by creating and maintaining spaces where they can engage in personalized and active interactions. The third section of the volume, “Co-constructing interactions,” examines the chat environment directly. Two chapters explore communication strategies that students use when mediating discourse online. From these studies we see the value of the digital environment for providing space to negotiate and create meaning collaboratively, especially when difficulties in communication arise. The first study, “Use of Communication Strategies in a Synchronous CMC Environ-



Introduction

ment,” by Claudia Kost, investigates how beginning learners of German doing role plays in computer-mediated chats co-construct meaning and negotiate interactions. The results confirm the use of strategies by these beginning learners and point to several factors that influence the amount and kind of strategies used: students’ familiarity with the topic of the role play, the specificity of the topic, students’ knowledge of vocabulary and structures required to do the role play, and their proficiency level. They also confirm that students are able to self-monitor while they create meaning through online interactions, even at the beginning stages of language learning. In the chapter, “Online Discourse Strategies: A Longitudinal Study of Computer-Mediated Foreign Language Learning,” Nelleke Van Deusen-Scholl explores the discourse strategies that beginning and advanced German learners used in online interactions with peers and their instructors. She sought to relate strategy use in online environments with the learning process as measured by success in the associated language courses. It is not surprising that she found that students who used communicative strategies more consistently during online interactions were more successful in their language courses (i.e., they earned higher grades and performed better on a final oral interview task) than students who used strategies less often. More specifically, she found that more successful learners made more frequent attempts to incorporate newly acquired structures and vocabulary into their online conversations, which led them to produce more language of greater syntactic complexity. In addition, they actively sought more feedback and correction, were more aware of their own learning, and engaged in more self-reflection than students who used fewer strategies. This study demonstrates the positive relationship between the ability to mediate conversational interactions online and overall learning achievement. As we look to incorporate online components to instruction – such as through hybrid courses taught partly online and partly in classrooms – or even as we ponder replacing class-based courses with virtual ones, this study offers compelling evidence that online interaction provides opportunities that contribute to language learning. Through these two chapters, online chatting is seen as a productive and creative environment for negotiating meaning as part of language learning. Reflecting back to the taxonomy of research provided by Blyth, readers might wonder what different theoretical lenses might bring to such analyses of chat data. Offering such a comparison in his chapter, “Negotiating Meaningfulness: An Enhanced Perspective on Interaction in Computer-mediated Foreign Language Learning Environments,” Jonathon Reinhardt reanalyzed chat data from Belz’s (2006) corpus of German and English telecollaborative data, from both an interactionist and a sociocognitive perspective. Focusing on two dyads of language learners (each with one German native speaker and one American student who was learning German),





Sally Sieloff Magnan

he explored whether Varonis and Gass’s (1985) original negotiation for meaning model may require extension or alteration for interaction in digital environments. His interesting comparison demonstrates that while an interactionist framework reveals self-noticing and use of task-appropriate responses, a sociocognitive framework is needed to understand greater issues in the ecology of learning, specifically negotiation of face and solidarity, which are fundamental to making meaning. The sociocognitive interpretation is shown to enhance, rather than contradict, an interactionist analysis of negotiation for meaning. Through this comparison, Reinhardt argues for the complementarities of the two perspectives as applied to how learners mediate discourse online, and adds support to Blyth’s suggestion that future research would benefit from a an ecological heuristic. In line with an ecological perspective, Robin Worth offers a critical ethnographic microanalysis of a beginning-level Italian class engaged in online chat. Her chapter, “Foreign Language Resistance: Discourse Analysis of Online Classroom Peer Interaction,” considers learner resistance to instructional policies and a discourse adopted by the instructor. The data demonstrate the different individual approaches that learners took in their participation, such as code-switching between Italian and English and playing dumb, and how the chatroom functioned for them as a pedagogical safe house (Pratt 1991; Canagarajah 1997) where they could express frustrations and resistance to what they perceived as instructors’ discourse of power. Worth’s analysis effectively extends the notion of resistance from learning situations associated with linguistic or cultural imperialism to those associated with foreign language learning. It also extends the notion of resistance from face-to-face encounters to the online environment, where, as Worth shows, resistance may surface even more readily. Taken together, these four studies of discourse found in the chatroom suggest the fertility of the online environment for fostering diverse processes involved in human interaction: mediating understanding and learning through strategy use, monitoring language, negotiating face and solidarity, and resisting discourses perceived to threaten the self and how the individual prefers to learn and communicate with others. The fourth section, “Mediating Social Spaces,” includes a study by Li Jin on using instant messaging as an intercultural learning tool and one by Steven Thorne about online gaming. These digital environments are usually seen as extra-curricular. Their inclusion in this volume reinforces the findings of the other studies, which show that online interaction contributes to making meaning in a way that explores the self. Mediating discourse online is thus a means of learning toward personal growth. In the chapter, “Using Instant Messaging Interaction (IMI) in Intercultural Learning,” Li Jin examines instant messaging interactions between beginning-



Introduction

level Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) learners and Chinese native speakers. Using an intercultural sensitivity scale, dyadic IMI transcripts, and interviews, Jin found that through their IMI exchanges CFL learners gained sensitivity to intercultural differences, engaged in critical thinking and self-reflection, and increased their confidence in intercultural communication as well as developed positive attitudes toward intercultural differences. Like other authors in this volume, Jin argues that online encounters provide useful tools for language learners, especially, in this case, for intercultural learning even at beginning levels of instruction provided that purposeful tasks are thoughtfully selected and developed. Steven Thorne moves us out of the classroom to examine online gaming and open Internet environments as informal settings for L2 use and development in his chapter “Transcultural communication in open Internet environments and massively multiplayer online games.” Using the game World of Warcraft as his primary example, he shows how this context can offer meaningful communicative activity for participants and thus a new environment for mediating discourse online. The gaming environment is important for understanding how learners create and share discourses online because it is so different from the school environment. In fact, Thorne explores the problematic divide between the goals and processes of conventional schooling and how students use discourse in their interpersonal, recreational, and professional lives. It is clear from his discussion that researchers need to continue exploring this new media genre and its selective inclusion into instructed L2 pedagogy, processes, and curricula. To close the volume, Lourdes Ortega and Eve Zyzik offer a compelling wakeup call to researchers through their exploration of the ethical ramifications of our work in online environments. Reminding us that cultural sites of online mediation are not neutral, they portray and discuss ethical challenges related to how encounters take place online and also to the cultural assumptions that we routinely make about the linguistic and cultural benefits of L2 computer-mediated interactions. Is lurking online appropriate as a way to enter a conversational space as a researcher or as a language learner? What are the borders of the researcherresearched relation in an environment that we have considered (perhaps falsely) to reduce power differentials between participants? Taking a close look at interactions, they further question the notion that productivity increases in online environments and that learners are able to exercise more agency over their personal involvement in encounters done online than in face-to-face situations. Indeed, they ask even the most basic, compelling questions: Is production and participation always good for language learning? How are speakers situated in the online world, as native speakers or as language learners? Under what circumstances, and with what effects, can learners join local online communities? Are there limits to how online interaction promotes



10

Sally Sieloff Magnan

cross-cultural understanding? How are cultural values and social identities played out when mediating encounters online, especially when transformed by avatars and varied social posturing? How does research take into account the fact that these values and identities are never fixed but rather are continually constructed and reconstructed? Perhaps less surprising but equally compelling, Ortega and Zyzik also focus our attention on standards of conduct for research, including informed consent, anonymity, validity, and researcher-researched relations. Resolving these issues is grounded in how we view digital spaces: Are they public spaces, archival spaces, or more similar to on-the-street or in-the-classroom encounters? Is the role of researcher that of involved interactant or detached observer, and how does this relationship play out in the online environment? As a first step in responding to these serious questions, Ortega and Zyzik wisely recommend that we heighten our sensitivity to issues of participation, reticence, cultural norms, and agency as we investigate how learners mediate discourse in online interactions. They call for researchers to collect multiple kinds of data and use mixed-research methodologies. It is clear from their presentation that research must confront not only these ethical issues inherent in the research process, but also those related to the transmission of research findings into pedagogical recommendations for language education. This volume provides a collection of such research studies that offer analyses of the ecology of online communication as it occurs in various digital forums, through different languages, and with users having different levels of proficiency. It attests to the ever-increasing need to understand how language is created and meaning is made in online environments. In our rapidly expanding digital world, our discourse will be increasingly online. It is imperative that we come to understand how it occurs, how it develops, and the impact that the act of its creation has on our thinking and intercultural understanding.

References ACTFL (1996). National Standards for Foreign Language Education: Preparing for the 21st Century. Alexandria, VA: American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. Belz, J. (2006). At the intersection of telecollaboration, learner corpus analysis, and L2 pragmatics: Considerations for language program direction. In J. Belz & S. Thorne (Eds.), Internetmediated intercultural foreign language education (pp. 207–246). Boston, MA: Heinle. Canagarajah, A. S. (1997). Safe houses in the contact zone: Coping strategies of African-American students in the academy. College Composition and Communication, 48, 173–196. Hanna, B. & de Nooy, J. (2003). A funny thing happened on the way to the forum: Electronic discussion and foreign language learning. Language Learning & Technology, 7(1), 71–85.



Introduction

Howe, N. & Strauss, W. (2000). Millennials rising: the next great generation. New York, NY: Vintage Books. Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: CUP. Levin, D. & Arafeh, S. (2002). The digital disconnect: The widening gap between Internet-savvy students and their schools. Washington, DC: Pew Internet & American Life Project. Pratt, M. (1991). Arts of the contact zone. Profession, 91, 33–40. Sfard, A. (1998). On two metaphors for learning and the dangers of choosing just one. Educational Researcher, 27(2), 4–13. Shaffer, D. W., Squire K., Halverson, R., & Gee, J. (2004). Video games and the future of learning. Accessed October 11, 2007 at http://www.academiccolab.org/resources/gappspaper1. pdf Thorne, S. (2006). New technologies and additional language learning. CALPER Working Paper No. 7, November. Varonis, E. & Gass, S. (1985). Non-native/non-native conversations: A model for negotiation of meaning. Applied Linguistics, 6, 71–90. Warschauer, M. (2005). Hybrid literacy texts and practices in technology-intensive environments. International Journal of Educational Research, 43, 432–445. Warschauer, M. (2002). A developmental perspective on technology in language education. TESOL Quarterly, 36, 453–475. Warschauer, M. (1996). Computer-assisted language learning: An introduction. In S. Fotos (Ed.), Multimedia language teaching (pp. 3–20). Tokyo: Logos. Young, R. (2007). Language learning and teaching as discursive practice. In Z. Hua, P. Seedhouse, L. Wei, & V. Cook (Eds.), Language learning and teaching as social interaction (pp. 251–271). Basingstoke: Palgrave.

11

part i

Overview of existing research

Computer-mediated discourse in instructed environments Dorothy M. Chun

University of California, Santa Barbara

This chapter discusses opportunities afforded by online environments for mediating discourse in instructed second language (L2) environments, that is, how learners both create and reflect on extended L2 discourse using both asynchronous and synchronous forms of computer-mediated communication (CMC). It addresses questions such as whether online discourse is a different from discourse found in foreign language (FL) classrooms, what type of language is used in pedagogical activities, whether exchanges with other cultures require a change in discourse practices, and what interactions among intercultural partners look like. Including an overview of how CMC has been used for teaching language and culture, it focuses on SLA principles that have been implemented in instructional CMC environments (focus on form, negotiation of meaning for improving linguistic competence, development of pragmatic and intercultural communicative competence). Although it might appear that online distance exchanges and collaborations between learners of different cultures is ideal for developing intercultural competence, a growing body of research is documenting both successes and failures of online intercultural exchanges. The chapter concludes with a discussion of challenges we face in mediating discourse in instructed online environments. Studies are repeatedly emphasizing the role of the instructor in raising awareness, in designing appropriate tasks, in monitoring the online collaborations, and in following up on intercultural exchanges. However, the advent of the second-generation Web 2.0, combined with the FL teaching profession’s focus on communication and cultures, propel us toward using CMC for intercultural collaborations, fraught as they may be with difficulties.

Online environments are being used with increasing frequency to aid in the learning of a second language (L2) and particularly of a second culture (C2). The general term for using computers and the Internet to communicate online is Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC). Although the term was not coined specifically for language learning, the use of CMC to foster L2 acquisition has

16

Dorothy M. Chun

grown and expanded rapidly during the last two decades, in part because the technology has evolved so quickly and in part because more and more language instructors are integrating the use of technology into their classrooms. In addition, text-based CMC has become part of everyday life and is widely used outside the classroom (e.g., email, bulletin boards, forums, blogs, wikis, instant messaging, chats, etc.). In this chapter, I will first discuss the opportunities offered by online environments for mediating discourse in instructed environments, that is, how we as instructors facilitate student creation of and reflection on extended discourse online. I will then provide an overview of how CMC has been used for teaching language and culture, particularly with regard to how discourse is mediated and developed. Finally, based on previous research and telecollaborative projects, I will discuss the challenges inherent in online communication as well as those that have been identified in actual practice. I will suggest directions for future research and practice in instructed online environments in accordance with Standards-based recommendations for gaining knowledge and understanding of other languages and cultures and with the current focus in the fields of second language acquistion and foreign language education on developing intercultural communicative competence (ICC).

Opportunities Given that language is an essential element of human communication, the question in the 21st century is: How does the Internet and, specifically, CMC alter this role? Ong (1982) suggested a “secondary orality” to explain the blurred distinction between writing and speaking in venues such as email and chatrooms (p. 136). For L2 learning, relevant questions are: Is online discourse a different type of discourse than found in classrooms among students learning an L2 or foreign language (FL)? Are the entries in synchronous chat shorter and more abbreviated than posting to an asynchronous forum or bulletin board? Does an exchange with another culture require a change in the discourse so that it conforms to the particular communication genres of that language and culture? What type of language is used in pedagogical activities, that is, what do interactions among classmates, among intercultural partners look like? What cultural frames must be learned for successful interaction? These questions have been investigated by many researchers and practitioners during the last two decades. The Internet provides the medium for extended discourse and for direct contact with local classmates or with global partners and also compiles records or artifacts of these interactions for use in pedagogical review and as research data. In online intercultural exchanges, native speakers (NSs) provide input with regard to



Computer-mediated discourse in instructed environments

both linguistic form and cultural content, and the ensuing interaction with the L2 learners (nonnative speakers, or NNSs) can provide insights into the pragmatics of different communication genres in the target language and culture. If collaborative tasks are assigned, this type of exchange would seem to afford participants an ideal opportunity for extended discussion and discourse. However, despite these obvious and seemingly simple concepts of extended interactions and direct contact with speakers of the FL, research and practice have shown that much effort must be invested by teachers in designing appropriate tasks for learners, in monitoring the online discourse, and in following up in the classroom. In the next section, an overview of selected studies will be presented.

Overview of CMC for SLA Computer-Mediated Communication is defined in Wikipedia as “any form of data exchange across two or more networked computers. More frequently, the term is narrowed to include only those communications that occur via computer-mediated formats (i.e., instant messages, emails, chat rooms) between two or more individuals” (“Computer-mediated communication,” 2007: 1). Murray (1995) attributed the coinage of CMC to Hiltz and Turoff (1978) in their classic study of computer conferencing, while others suggested that Harasim (1986) first coined the term and defined it as the exchange of information through electronic means in an educational context (Chao 2000). Regardless of the precise origin of the term, a number of different forms of CMC have been used for L2 learning and teaching, beginning in the early 1990s (see Thorne & Payne 2005). There are two primary modes of CMC that have been examined in the fields of second language acquisition (SLA) and foreign language education: asynchronous computer-mediated communication (ACMC) and synchronous computermediated communication (SCMC) (see Figure 1). Asynchronous modes include text-based email, bulletin boards, newsgroups, forums, blogs, and wikis; audio- and video-based modes include asynchronous audioboards and videoclips. Synchronous modes include text-based instant messaging, Internet Relay Chat (IRC) or simply chat, and multiuser virtual realities (MUDs = Multi User Dimensions/Domains/Dungeons; and MOOs = MUD Object Oriented or Multi-user Object Oriented). Recently, audiobased and videobased CMC programs, in both synchronous and asynchronous modes (e.g., Internet phones, audioconferencing, and videoconferencing) have become more readily accessible (see Cziko & Park 2003; Hampel 2003; Lafford & Lafford 2005; Lamy 2004; Vetter & Chanier 2006; Wang 2004). In addition, the two modes of CMC can be subdivided in two other ways with regard to the interlocutors: first, whether the participants are

17

Figure 1.  Modes of CMC

18 Dorothy M. Chun

inter-cultural (N S-NNS) intra-class (N NS-NN S)

Figure 2.  Types of CMC interlocutors

m ulti-person (groups)

inter-cultural (N S-NNS)

Synchronous CM C

one-on-one m ulti-person one-on-one m ulti-person one-on-one m ulti-person one-on-one (dyads) (groups) (dyads) (groups) (dyads) (groups) (dyads)

intra-class (N NS-NN S)

Asynchronous CM C

Com puter-M ediated Com m unication

Computer-mediated discourse in instructed environments 19

20 Dorothy M. Chun

Table 1.  SLA principles implemented in instructional CMC SLA principles

Purpose of CMC

focus on form, noticing, corrective feedback interaction, input, and output

linguistic, grammatical development improvement of communicative competence, oral and written proficiency negotiation of meaning co-construction of knowledge/meaning  development of pragmatic competence intercultural exchange/communication

interactionist and sociocultural approaches sociocultural approaches intercultural communicative competence

only NNSs, that is, L2 learners in a class, or whether NNSs interact with L1 NSs in an intercultural exchange; and second, whether it is one-on-one communication between two-person dyads or group communication with multiple participants (see Figure 2). As in any discussion about using technology for educational purposes, the underlying learning theories and goals of instruction must be clarified (see Chapelle 1997, 1998, 2005; Harrington & Levy 2001; Levy 2007). In addition, empirical research must be conducted to identify the processes and outcomes of using particular technologies in the classroom (see Ortega 1997 for a discussion of networked classroom interaction to facilitate SLA). Table 1 shows in the left column key SLA principles that have been demonstated to be important for successful language/culture learning, and in the right column, the corresponding purpose of using CMC to achieve the particular language/culture learning goals. The first two categories represent a generally more cognitive approach to SLA. For cognitive approaches, the mental processes of acquiring the different linguistic components of language (morphosyntactic, phonological, lexical) are of great importance. Researchers are interested in such processes as memory, noticing, automatization, and fossilization. The other three categories intersect with sociocultural approaches to SLA. For sociocultural approaches, language development is essentially a social process. In this view, language is not owned solely by the learner, but is co-constructed with others, and is “also a property of social settings and the interface between person and social context” (Foster & Ohta 2005: 403). In other words, CMC is thought to create “the opportunity for a group to construct knowledge together, thus linking reflection and interaction” (Warschauer 1997: 473). In both approaches, a common goal is to study how learners develop facility in an L2 via social interaction. In this chapter, I will summarize selected studies that deal with extended discourse produced online by L2 learners (see Table 2).

Studies

Abrams 2003; González-Bueno 1998; Kitade 2000; Lai & Zhao 2006; Lamy & Goodfellow 1999; Pellettieri 2000; Smith 2004; Sotillo 2000 Abrams 2003; Beauvois 1998; Bohlke 2003; Chun 1994; Fiori 2005; Fitze 2006; Kelm 1992; Kern 1995; Lee 2002; Salaberry 2000; Sotillo 2000; Sullivan & Pratt 1996; Tudini 2005; Wang 2004, 2007; Warschauer 1996 Belz & Kingiger 2003; Lee 2006; Sotillo 2005 Improvement of Cononelos & Oliva 1992; Dussias 2006; Hauck & Hampel 2005 communicative Abrams 2003; Beauvois 1992, 1997; Chun 1994; Dussias 2006; competence, oral Hampel & Hauck 2004; Kelm 1992; Lamy 2004; Payne & Ross and written profi- 2005; Payne & Whitney 2002; Tudini 2005; Vetter & Chanier 2006; Weininger & Shield 2004 ciency Dussias 2006 Negotiation for Kitade 2006 meaning Blake 2000; Hauck & Hampel 2005; Lee 2001, 2002; Smith 2003; Wang 2006 Blake & Zyzik 2003, Kötter 2003; O’Rourke 2005; Tudini 2003 Co-construction of Sotillo 2000 knowledge/mean- Abrams 2003; Chun 1994; Fitze 2006; Sykes 2005 ing, development Belz & Kinginger 2003; Thorne 2003 of pragmatic competence Intercultural See Table 3. exchange/communication

Linguistic, grammatical development

Purpose of CMC

Table 2.  Studies on the use of CMC for SLA Type of Interlocutors Intra-group NNSs Intra-group NNSs

Intercultural NS-NNS Intra-group NNSs Intra-group NNSs

Intercultural NSs-NNSs Intercultural NSs-NNSs Intra-group NNSs Intercultural NSs-NNSs Intra-group NNSs Intra-group NNSs Intercultural NSs-NNSs

Mode of CMC Asynchronous CMC Synchronous CMC

Synchronous CMC Asynchronous CMC Synchronous CMC (Chat/MOO)

Asynchronous & Synchronous CMC Asynchronous CMC Synchronous CMC Synchronous CMC (Chat/MOO) Asynchronous CMC Synchronous CMC Synchronous CMC

Computer-mediated discourse in instructed environments 21

22

Dorothy M. Chun

Linguistic competence With regard to the first item in Tables 1 and 2, a number of studies have suggested that online text-based intra-group (NNSs) chatting provides learners with more time and opportunities than face-to-face (FTF) conversations to notice and correct their errors, particularly their linguistic errors, either because they had recognized the errors themselves or because other chatters had pointed out the errors to them (e.g., Kitade 2000; Lai & Zhao 2006; Lamy & Goodfellow 1999; Pellettieri 2000; Smith 2004). Other studies on how computer-assisted classroom discussion (SCMC) can improve linguistic or grammatical development have been conducted, for example, by Beauvois (1998), Bohlke (2003), Kern (1995), Warschauer (1996), who showed that students tend to produce more complex language when chatting than in FTF discussions. Some studies have found greater grammatical accuracy, for example, González-Bueno (1998), who found a higher level of language accuracy in emails from students to their instructor than in FTF output, and Salaberry (2000), who found more accurate usage of past-tense morphological markers in written chat interactions than in oral FTF conversations. A study by Fiori (2005) examined the role that consciousness raising plays in grammatical development in L2 Spanish learners engaged in synchronous CMC. She found that consciousness raising had a greater impact on learning and using por/para and ser/estar in the form-and-meaning focused group than in the group that focused on meaning only. Instead of comparing SCMC to FTF discussions, Sotillo (2000) compared SCMC and ACMC and found that the delayed nature of asynchronous discussions gave learners more opportunities to produce syntactically complex language. In contrast to intraclass CMC, other researchers have investigated the development of linguistic accuracy in intercultural interactions between NSs and NNSs. A recent exploratory study of NS-NNS and NNS-NNS dyads engaged in communicative and problem-solving activities via an instant messaging system by Sotillo (2005) found that NSs provided only indirect corrective feedback focusing primarily on grammatical and lexical errors to L2 learners (NNSs) while NNSs provided more explicit corrective feedback to their peers. There was evidence of successful learner uptake of this feedback, but Sotillo cautioned that the longterm effects of corrective moves must be studied in future research. Lee (2006) also studied synchronous communication between native teachers and NNSs of Spanish, in particular, the relationships among error type, feedback types, and responses. She found that lexical rather than syntactical errors were the main triggers for negotiation moves. However, not all research has yielded unequivocally positive results. Earlier studies by Lee (2001, 2002) had provided tempering evidence about the value of



Computer-mediated discourse in instructed environments

online communication for promoting linguistic accuracy. She found that learners tended to ignore each other’s mistakes, focusing on the meaning of the communication rather than the form itself. In addition to investigating linguistic accuracy and complexity, SCMC and FTF discussions within classes have been compared on a number of other dimensions, for example, the amount of language produced. Kern (1995) found that L2 French students produced two to four times more sentences and more words in SCMC discussions than in oral FTF discussions, using several rough measures of language productivity (length of learner output in terms of number of words, sentences, and turns). He also found that the average turn length was similar in both the electronic and nonelectronic condition, but in the electronic mode, simpler, shorter messages tended to elicit more responses than complex, longer ones. In an ESL setting, Sullivan and Pratt (1996) found an increase in learner language production in the electronic mode due to the drastic reduction of teacher talk in favor of student production. More recently, in a study comparing three groups of L2 German learners (a control group, a synchronous CMC group, and an asynchronous CMC group), Abrams (2003) confirmed an increase in quantity of language produced by students in the SCMC group compared to the other two groups, but found that the ACMC group did not outperform the control group. However, in contrast to earlier studies, her analyses of the quality of language indicated no significant differences among the three groups, either lexically or syntactically. Unlike Abrams’ findings, Fitze (2006) reported no statistically significant difference in the total number of words that ESL students produced in real-time FTF versus written electronic conferences within their intact class groups. However, the discourse in synchronous written electronic conferences displayed significantly greater lexical range, suggesting that students were better able to use and practice a wider range of vocabulary in online discussion than in FTF discussions. Another beneficial effect that was reported in the 1990s was that CMC fosters more equality of participation than FTF conversations, that is, participation increases in online CMC with “quieter” students participating as much or even more than those students who normally dominate FTF classroom discussion (see Beauvois 1992; Chun 1994; Kelm 1992; Kern 1995; Sullivan & Pratt 1996; Warschauer 1996). However, a recent study by Fitze (2006) of two intact ESL classes found that in one of the two groups, participation in written electronic conferences was indeed more balanced among students, whereas for the other group, participation was about equally balanced regardless of the conference setting. He speculated that the group dynamics in both classes might have been established prior to the electronic conferences and did not change during the online conferencing. In summary, while the majority of studies have suggested positive effects of CMC in terms of quantity and quality of L2 production, several studies have

23

24

Dorothy M. Chun

shown no differences between CMC and FTF discussions in terms of noticing linguistic errors, lexical or syntactic complexity, length of discourse produced, or equality of participation.

Oral and written proficiency Research has found CMC discourse to exhibit features of both oral and written language. To summarize briefly, among the characteristics similar to spoken language are the real-time nature of the communication (in SCMC), the use of firstperson, and the informality typical of both synchronous and asynchronous CMC. Characteristics of CMC that resemble writing include the permanent record of the discourse, the lexical density of a page or screen, and the use of punctuation and textual formatting in messages. There are also many unique characteristics of CMC, including simplified registers and syntax, shorter sentences, abbreviations, and the frequency and apparent acceptance of surface errors (see Murray 2000; Smith 2003). In addition, due to the absence of prosodic and paralinguistic features, emoticons and other expressions of emotion are created with symbols and other diacritics. Moreover, turn-taking in electronic conversations includes many more overlaps than in FTF exchanges, and, because chats and forums often involve multiple participants, turn-taking does not happen in chronological order as it does in FTF conversations. But the question at hand is whether and how CMC might be helpful for improving L2 oral or written proficiency, or both. Studies since the early 1990s have reported on the use of both asynchronous and synchronous CMC to improve oral and written proficiency. In a study of an electronic bulletin board on the Internet (ACMC), Cononelos and Oliva (1993) found that one factor in the improved writing of their advanced Italian-language students was the feedback gained by the students from responses of NSs who were not language teachers but who shared a common area of interest with the students. Communicating on the bulletin board allowed for an ongoing conversation between the participants, made the students co-creators of text generated by parties authentically interested in particular subjects, and sparked dialogue between the respondents. Although they did not explicitly examine the transfer of chatting skills to FTF speaking skills, studies of SCMC by Beauvois (1992), Chun (1994), and Kelm (1992) suggested that both the strong resemblance between the types of utterances generated during chats and what would be said in spoken conversation might lead to transfer from synchronous online chats to conversational L2 speech. Later work has shown that real-time, online conversational exchange via text may indirectly help to develop L2 speaking ability (Abrams 2003; Beauvois 1997; Payne &



Computer-mediated discourse in instructed environments

Whitney 2002; Tudini 2005; and Weininger & Shield 2004 with regard to MOOdiscourse). To elaborate, Payne and Whitney (2002) conducted a naturalistic experiment to test the hypothesis that synchronous CMC can indirectly improve L2 oral proficiency by developing the same cognitive mechanisms underlying spontaneous conversational speech. Their findings showed that the oral proficiency of participants who spent two of four contact hours per week in a chatroom was significantly higher than participants whose four contact hours were in traditional classrooms. In a follow-up study using working memory as a lens for interpreting patterns of language use in a chatroom and their relation to L2 oral proficiency development, the results reported in Payne and Ross (2005) lent support to the notion that the chatroom may provide a unique form of support (or bootstrapping effect) to certain types of learners, namely those with lower phonological working memory capacity, in developing L2 oral proficiency. In a recent study, Dussias (2006) investigated whether text-based CMC has measurable consequences for the development of FTF oral communication. There were two groups of participants: the intercultural group that engaged in a partnership with NSs in Spain and the group that participated in intraclass electronic discussions. The two groups participated in both synchronous and asynchronous CMC interaction. An analysis of the transcripts of pre- and postsemester ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interviews suggested that the group that engaged in NS-NNS interactions benefited from the use of CMC tools, and that language learning mediated by these tools appeared to transfer readily to spontaneous oral language production. In summary, research studies appear to demonstrate positive transfer of CMC discourse to FTF oral proficiency. One might speculate that this positive transfer relates to how college students today are comfortable with the different modes of CMC and how they transition with great versatility from one mode to the other.

Negotiation of meaning From an interactionist approach, language development can be studied by examining how a learner makes use of the L2 in interaction with other people. From a sociocultural viewpoint, preserving the integrity of environments and the people and interactions embedded in them is also critical. One challenge in instructed L2 environments is to identify tasks and situations that facilitate interaction and negotiation for meaning. To this end, there is extensive literature on FTF learner interaction and a growing body of studies on negotiation for meaning in CMC (see Smith 2003, for a summary of previous work).

25

26 Dorothy M. Chun

In FTF oral interaction in FL classes, learners are often presented with situations or problems to solve, with the underlying premise that the process of negotiating for meaning facilitates L2 acquisition. In a number of studies on the discourse used in CMC environments, learners have been shown to use similar tactics in negotiating for meaning online (e.g., Smith 2003). A study by Blake (2000) found that pairs of L2 Spanish (NNS-NNS) learners performing jigsaw and information-gap tasks online negotiated with each other often about lexical confusions but not as frequently about syntactic issues. Blake suggested that SCMC can be used as a medium for tasks that elicit negotiation of meaning, as such tasks seem to affect L2 learners’ output and furthermore provide a window on their interlanguage. Consistent findings were reported in a study by Blake and Zyzik (2003), in which similar tasks were used but each pair of learners consisted of one heritage speaker of Spanish (NS) and one learner of Spanish (NNS). Tudini (2003) studied intermediate learners of Italian (NNSs) chatting in dyads with Italian NSs. Her chat logs indicated that learners negotiate for meaning and modify their interlanguage when engaged in open-ended conversational tasks with unfamiliar interlocutors, with both lexical and structural difficulties triggering most negotiations. Although Smith (2003) found that, in broad terms, the negotiation patterns in online synchronous chat conversations of NNS dyads were similar to those observed in FTF communication and fit loosely into the Varonis and Gass (1985) model, he suggested expanding the model for CMC environments to allow for delays in responses to the so-called “triggers” in the Varonis and Gass model. This is due largely to the lack of strict turn adjacency in CMC compared to that found in FTF communication. Complementary to the above studies of synchronous CMC, Kitade (2006) investigated the negotiation model in asynchronous CMC. Utterances in ACMC have generally been found to be more accurate, complex, formal and longer than those in SCMC. Her study examined task-based email interactions among NSNNS dyads with respect to the negotiation structure and strategies used, revealing distinctive features of ACMC in the data. Although the time interval between the email messages allowed participants sufficient time to comprehend, plan, and produce messages, the pressure to reply to signals was also reduced, and the participants thus easily ignored or forgot them. Therefore, in order to get their partner’s attention, participants used more complicated, formal and explicit signals as compared to those observed in SCMC. The combination of asynchrony and text-based characteristics permitted participants to provide salient and beneficial triggers, signals, and responses. NS responses to NNS triggers were found to provide very high-quality input to learners (e.g., rephrasing, explanations, and examples of usage).



Computer-mediated discourse in instructed environments

In addition to synchronous text chats and asynchronous emails, a third type of CMC described in the literature is the MOO environment, which involves userextendable replicas of virtual worlds. Users can set up personal profiles of their online persona, create and manipulate objects, and save them in the MOO database. When users sign on to a MOO, they are dropped into a text-based virtual reality, which is divided into many rooms or locales. Kötter (2003) investigated synchronous tandem learning in a MOO environment. Tandem learners are pairs of learners whose target language is their partner’s respective native language. Although early tandem learning involved exchanging emails, Kötter studied tandem learners interacting in a synchronous MOO and found that online tandems can work even though the learners have to respond more quickly to each other in real time than if they had communicated via asynchronous email. In particular, he investigated the learners’ engagement in negotiation of meaning and found that the ratio of clarification requests to the overall number of turns in the tandem data was much higher than the aggregate of all the repair work that Pica and Doughty’s (1985) learners engaged in during their FTF encounters. In a related study, O’Rourke (2005) also examined whether an online, textbased MOO used in the tandem framework had effects on the negotiation of meaning. He suggested that the single most important factor in whether the negotiation patterns exhibited a metalinguistic focus was the absence of nonlinguistic cues. Specifically, he noted that the taxonomies of signal and response types for FTF interaction cannot be applied unmodified to negotiation in the MOO. For example, Varonis and Gass’s (1985) nonverbal category is irrelevant, as MOO users do not employ “silence” (nonresponse) as a nonunderstanding signal, and there are no other available nonverbal channels. The burden of feedback thus falls squarely on language, although typographical means are occasionally used as a supplement or even as a substitute. In an earlier study, O’Rourke (2002) had observed that interlocutors did not show any tendency to focus on formal aspects of problematic utterances in resolving communication difficulties, and reiterated in his later article (Rourke 2005) that they “remain focused on global meaning (semantic or pragmatic), and in cases in which they are specific, it is mostly in relation to words, as has been found repeatedly in negotiation research” (p. 458). Studies of synchronous videoconferencing have begun to emerge. For example, Wang (2006) found that learners’ focus on form in videoconferencing tasks was beneficial to the negotiation of meaning in task completion. In summary, on the whole, L2 learners tend to negotiate meaning extensively and reasonably successfully in their discourse when problems in communication occur during task-based CMC. But it may well be necessary to modify the traditional FTF model to accommodate the different parameters of online CMC environments.

27

28

Dorothy M. Chun

Pragmatic competence With regard to the development of pragmatic competence in instructed online environments, the focus is on the knowledge that allows L2 learners to use appropriate utterances or speech acts in particular contexts and to manage conversations or other discourse situations. In an early study of synchronous CMC within a NNS class of German learners, Chun (1994) found that networked class discussions allowed students to generate and initiate more types of speech acts than they typically would in FTF oral conversations. They asked more questions of other students as well as of the teacher; and they gave feedback to others and requested clarification when they had not understood someone else. Students also played a greater role in managing the discourse, for example, they felt greater freedom to suggest a new topic, follow up on someone else’s idea, or request more information. In general, they took the initiative more than they do in the normal classroom, due to the more decentralized role of the instructor. Later studies with English as a Second Language (ESL) and FL classes have obtained similar results. Sotillo (2000) investigated discourse functions in learner output obtained via SCMC and ACMC in two advanced ESL writing classes. Her results showed that the quantity and types of discourse functions present in SCMC were similar to the types of interactional modifications found in FTF conversations deemed necessary for SLA. Discourse functions in asynchronous discussions were more constrained than those found in synchronous discussions and similar to the question-response-evaluation sequence of the traditional language classroom. Positive results were presented by Fitze (2006), who found that in electronic conferences within his advanced ESL class, students produced more discourse demonstrating interactive competence than in FTF conferences, or in other words, more control of the discussion. In a study comparing German learners’ output in pencil-and-paper group journals with their production in SCMC, Abrams (2001) found that learners not only adopted a larger variety of participant roles during CMC than in group journals (e.g., they challenged, supported, and joked with their interlocutors), but these roles were also more interactively negotiated in the CMC environment than in the pencil-and-paper journals. In a systematic comparison of the effects of three types of synchronous group discussion (written chat, oral chat, and FTF discussion) on the acquisition of the speech act of refusing an invitation, Sykes (2005) found that the discussion type had an effect on the pragmatic development of students in two classes of thirdsemester Spanish. Qualitative and quantitative analyses of the role play data in all three discussion types revealed that the students in all three discussion groups improved their pragmatic competence in some way. The written chat group outperformed the others in terms of both complexity and variety of strategies used,



Computer-mediated discourse in instructed environments

ostensibly because without the tools that oral communication often provides (e.g., intonation, body language, etc.), the written chat group had to be more explicit in their communication. She concluded that overall, SCMC is a valuable tool for pragmatic instruction, but suggested that written chat should be the principal means of electronic SCMC discussion due to the complexity and variety of the achieved results. She based her recommendations on previous research (Abrams 2001; Beauvois 1997; Payne & Whitney 2002; Smith 2003), which had also found that written chat contains characteristics of both oral and written communication but at the same time allows learners more time for production and negotiation of meaning. In contrast to the immediately preceding studies, which involved intact classes of L2 learners (only NNSs), other studies have investigated NS-NNS interactions. Because pragmatic competence might be better developed by opportunities to interact with a variety of interlocutors – in particular NSs of the target language, from whom learners are able to observe appropriate linguistic choices or pragmatic options and receive assistance – instructors and researchers have arranged online exchanges and collaborations for their L2 learners with NSs. For example, Belz and Kinginger (2002, 2003) reported on extensive telecollaborations between (a) students in Germany who were preparing to be English teachers and students in the United States who were in fourth-semester German classes and (b) students in an English language class at a graduate school of telecommunications in France and students in the United States who were in fourth-semester French classes. In telecollaborative partnerships, “internationally-dispersed learners in parallel language classes use Internet communication tools such as e-mail, synchronous chat, threaded discussion, and MOOs ... in order to support social interaction, dialogue, debate, and intercultural exchange” (Belz 2003a: 2). Their data demonstrated the development of pragmatic competence in the use of the formal versus the informal variety of the word you in German and French, and they suggested that the emergence of pronoun use is tied to the expression of solidarity among student peers. A key conclusion was that it is the participation in relevant social interaction, where issues of personal identity are at stake, that plays an important role in language socialization and may be more helpful for developing pragmatic competence than rule-based language acquisition. Thorne (2003) described a case in which a U.S. student studying French and an engineering student in France went beyond the pedagogical goals and developed a personal, more intimate relationship via instant messaging (IM). There were intense periods of communicative activity, and based on many hours of transcripts, he noted definitive foreign language development in the areas of syntax and pragmatics. Other advantages of interaction and collaboration with native speaking partners are that learners may choose to observe conversations or to participate in

29

30

Dorothy M. Chun

them. They also have access to a broader range of authentic discourse options with members of the second language speech community (Belz & Kinginger 2003). Thus, based on the studies to date, it appears that CMC can be helpful in developing a certain measure of L2 pragmatic competence. However, as will be discussed in the next section, intercultural exchanges have brought to light some of the challenges that are presented when speakers with different pragmatic systems attempt online discussion and collaboration.

Intercultural competence At first glance, it would seem that online distance exchanges and collaborations between learners of different cultures would be ideal for enhancing intercultural competence, as they provide “convenient, authentic, direct, and speedy access to native speakers and their cultures” (Kramsch & Thorne 2002: 100). Indeed, particularly since the start of the new millennium, numerous projects have been implemented and a rapidly growing body of research studies is emerging (see Belz & Thorne 2006, and the overview by Lomicka 2006). In this chapter, the results of selected studies on intercultural communication will be summarized (see Table 3 below). Although it is convenient to divide studies into two categories, asynchronous CMC and synchronous CMC, a number of articles examined both types of CMC (e.g., Chun & Wade 2004; Kramsch & Thorne 2002; Thorne 2003). The majority of recent research and pedagogical implementation has focused on intercultural communication, which typically involves asynchronous CMC (email exchanges or forum discussions) or synchronous CMC (chat, MOOs) between NNSs and NSs. However, some attention is being paid to intracultural CMC in the L2 classroom as well. (For a summary of previous work on intracultural CMC and a detailed discussion of directions for future research as well as the pedagogical considerations of designing tasks and assignments, evaluating student performance, and what the role of the instructor should be, see Abrams 2006). Some projects involved both intracultural and intercultural CMC (e.g., Kramsch & Thorne 2002). Although it might be assumed that intercultural learning is an automatic benefit of email exchanges between learners in different countries, (e.g., NNSs learning an L2 through emailing NSs in the target country), varying results have been reported. To some extent, learners have been able to develop some elements of Byram’s (1997) intercultural communicative competence (e.g., Liaw & Johnson 2001; Müller-Hartmann 2000; O’Dowd 2003), but even within a partly successful exchange, problems have arisen. For example, Liaw and Johnson (2001) found that with EFL students in Taiwan and pre-service bilingual/ESL teachers in the

Text-based chat/MOO

Instant messaging Sotillo 2005; Thorne 2003

Sotillo 2005

Forums/bulletin boards

Belz 2003; Hanna &  de Nooy 2003; Reeder et al. 2004

Chun & Wade 2004;  Furstenberg et al. 2001; Wade 2005; Ware 2005; Ware & Kramsch 2005

Email Intragroup (NNSs only) Abrams 2006; Kramsch & Thorne 2002; Liaw &  Johnson 2001;  Müller-Hartmann 2003; O’Dowd 2003 Intercultural NNSs-NSs Belz & Müller-Hartmann 2003; Belz & Kinginger 2003; Chun & Wade 2004; Itakura 2004; Kramsch & Thorne 2002; Thorne 2003 Belz & Müller-Hartmann 2003; Belz & Kinginger 2003; Kramsch & Thorne 2002; Lee 2006; O’Dowd & Eberbach 2004; O’Rourke 2005; Schneider & von der Emde 2006; Thorne 2003

Abrams 2006; Kramsch et al. 2000; Schneider &  von der Emde 2006

Synchronous

CMC

Asynchronous

Table 3.  Intercultural Exchanges and CMC

Jepson 2005; Kinginger 1998; Lomicka 2006; O’Dowd 2006

Blake 2005; Hampel & Hauck 2004

Audio-/Videoconferencing

CMC

Computer-mediated discourse in instructed environments 31

32

Dorothy M. Chun

United States, “curiosity toward the other culture was a motivating factor for ongoing correspondence, but cultural presumptions were sometimes a hindrance for communication; positive interpretations of cultural differences and empathy were key factors contributing to the removal of communication obstacles” (p. 235). Müller-Hartman (2000) found in three email projects between EFL high school classes in Germany and English and Social Studies classes in the United States and Canada that tasks, setting, the ability of the teacher to discover issues of intercultural learning within the learners’ entries and to then engage students in effective classroom activities, and the ability of the learners to develop their own questions and comments all contributed to intercultural learning processes. O’Dowd (2003) reported on a year-long email exchange between Spanish and English second-year university language learners. Examples from five different partnerships generally confirmed the value of CMC interactions for the development of different components of Byram’s (1997) intercultural communicative competence (ICC), though to what extent the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of ICC were developed and whether or how the students would later put them to use could not be determined. Some students simply confirmed their negative attitudes towards the target culture, while others moved on from the stereotypes and prejudices they had held at the outset of the exchange. The more “successful” learners had opportunities to express their feelings and views about their own culture to a receptive audience; they were encouraged to reflect critically on their own culture through questions posed by their partners; they engaged in dialogic interaction with their partners about the home and target cultures and this consequently led to a growing awareness of different perspectives on the two cultures’ products and practices (p. 137). Kramsch and Thorne (2002) reported on an asynchronous CMC email exchange between a second-year French class in the United States and French lycée (high school) students (NNSs and NSs), in which the French and American students discussed a variety of topics during the semester. Examples are provided of problematic scenarios that are “characterized by different discourse styles that play themselves out on the national, institutional, and personal levels” (p. 96), because “neither the French nor the American students were aware that the global medium only exacerbated the discrepancies in social and cultural genres of communication” (p. 100). An important recommendation for such exchanges is that it is imperative for learners to understand the differences in these genres in order to understand each other’s lives and reconfigure understanding of their own lives. In addition, choosing an appropriate medium for communication is important: Thorne (2003) reported on a case study that found email an awkward medium for mediating peer interaction among college students.



Computer-mediated discourse in instructed environments

Itakura (2004) explored how cultural stereotypes are formed, modified, dismissed or reinforced based on a collaborative intercultural email project between Hong Kong university learners of Japanese and Japanese university students. Her data suggested that the email exchanges with a NS of the target language enabled the learners to modify existing stereotypes that had been formed on the basis of sources such as the media and hearsay from their fellow learners and, in becoming more aware of the limitations and problems of cultural stereotypes, to negotiate the validity of their previous assumptions. But some negative aspects were also revealed, namely that the learners were found to be greatly influenced by remarks made by NSs to the extent that they sometimes formed new stereotypes. Chun and Wade (2004) reported on an intercultural exchange that involved both email and forum discussions, based on the Cultura project, which was developed at MIT and described in Furstenberg, Levet, English, and Maillet (2001) and on the work of Kramsch (1993, 1998), who argued that cultural meaning is created through the actions and interactions of speakers – in this case writers – in social contexts, and that language and culture are inseparable. In general, Chun and Wade found that learners were able to construct new intercultural knowledge from reading entries made by both German and American students, from writing entries to the forums (threaded discussions), and in particular, from participating in the email exchanges. However, their generally positive results were tempered by the fact that it was not always entirely clear that learners noticed or were aware of cultural differences and were able to link their existing knowledge with new knowledge. In the forum entries, for example, learners made a number of erroneous generalizations and statements that contradicted what was actually stated in the online questionnaires that both sides had filled out at the start of the exchange. An interesting finding by Chun and Wade was that in the email exchanges, learners were more inclined to ask questions, request clarification, negotiate the meaning of words, concepts, and practices, and make observations and hypotheses than in the forum discussions. Not only did they ask more questions of their email partners than in the forum entries, and seemed to be culturally curious and motivated to understand their own as well as the other culture, but they also engaged in more direct forms of address and dialogue as well as rapport management. They went beyond general observations and comments prevalent in the forum entries (e.g., “the Germans,” “the Americans,” “most people”) to the personal realm, using more speech acts in the process. In contrast to the findings of Furstenberg et al. (2001) that forums went “much deeper than traditional e-mail student exchanges” (p. 73), the students in Chun and Wade’s study conducted deeper discussions in their email exchanges than in the more public forums. With regard to whether the online exchange fostered understanding a foreign culture by putting that culture in relation with one’s own, it appeared that the

33

34

Dorothy M. Chun

project did establish what Kramsch (1993) has called a “sphere of interculturality,” that the students did, to varying degrees, reflect on and modify their stereotypical ideas or preconceived notions about their own and the other culture (p. 205). However, there was also evidence that certain cultural preconceptions and misconceptions appeared to be difficult to change and tended to prevail, even in the face of direct evidence to the contrary. Other studies of online forums found similar successes and failures. For example, Hanna and de Nooy (2003) reported on a case study that examined threads written by four Anglophone students of French when they posted messages to a forum on the web site of a French newspaper. Students who were able to conform to the norms and conventions of French online discussion felt successful, whereas learners who did not have strategies to write and analyze “appropriately” interpreted their lack of success as personal rebuff. Ware and Kramsch (2005) discussed an extended episode of misunderstanding that occurred during an asynchronous telecollaborative project between two learners in the United States and Germany and suggested that teachers are pivotal in helping learners take an intercultural stance. In terms of assessing intercultural competence, Shelley and Baumann (2005) suggested that mere exposure to language and cultural information is not sufficient for inducing attitudinal change and that “further work needs to be undertaken to develop more accurate ways of measuring the gain of intercultural competence” (p. 137). Studies of intercultural communication using synchronous CMC include Kinginger (1998), who studied two-way simultaneous videoconferencing, Thorne (2003) whose learners communicated via instant messaging, and Kramsch, A’Ness, and Lam (2000), who reported on the use of Internet relay chat. In one of the first studies of videoconferencing in FL teaching, Kinginger (1998) analyzed the exchange between English-speaking and French-speaking students in videoconferences, in which the interaction was structured based on a set of prepared questions. The first half-hour of the exchange took place in French and the second in English. In an analysis of the French portion of the videoconference, Kinginger found that the American students were unsuccessful in profiting from the interaction due to heightened anxiety and a mismatch between various features of the standard written-based variety of French taught in the class and the spoken variety of French used by the NSs. Kramsch et al. (2000) reported on a case study of the use of Internet relay chat by a Chinese high school learner of English. They suggested that CMC can empower L2 learners to express themselves and reflect on their identities, in that “Internet relay chat offers its users the opportunity to develop several identities that might seem to be at odds with one another, ... but, in the virtual world of the Internet, these identities can be articulated in a coherent multimedia narrative



Computer-mediated discourse in instructed environments

(p. 98). They concluded that “multimedia and the Internet enable learners to find a voice for themselves at the intersection of multiple time scales, to represent their own version of reality through multimodal texts, and to confront a broad public audience with that reality” (p. 98). In sum, this section has described some of the successes and failures of online intercultural exchanges. In the next section, I will examine the challenges we face for the different areas of L2 and second culture (C2) acquisition.

Challenges The combined wisdom of the many studies discussed above suggests that although online CMC can provide unprecedented opportunities for quick, extensive, and reasonably authentic exchanges and collaborations between learners in different countries and cultures, there are a number of inherent challenges that can be obstacles to successful L2 learning, and particularly to successful C2 or intercultural learning (see O’Dowd & Ritter 2006, who developed a structured inventory of factors, suggesting 20 different factors at four different levels: individual, classroom, socioinstitutional, and interaction). Challenges that I view as particularly salient include the following: 1. From a theoretical standpoint, there is a lack of appropriate theoretical frameworks for using CMC in FL learning. For example, when applying the interactionist approach to SLA or the negotiation of meaning construct to study CMC, revised or expanded models are necessary to accommodate the entirely different modes (online written conversation, FTF oral conversation, virtual conversation via videoconference). In problematizing the notion of culture, “a less essentialist and more dynamic, discourse-based understanding of culture is needed” (Reeder, Macfadyen, Roche, & Chase 2004: 100). 2. In terms of improving linguistic competence, it cannot be assumed that learners automatically will notice their errors or that their NS partners will always correct them. It is often difficult to get learners to focus on form in quasi-authentic conversational situations. 3. Although studies have shown that CMC can contribute to improving oral proficiency, continued effort is necessary to demonstrate actual causality of transfer of written online discourse to spoken FTF discourse. 4. In dealing with pragmatic competence, it is essential to raise the awareness of learners with regard to the different communication norms, conventions, and genres, so that misunderstandings can be kept to a minimum.

35

36

Dorothy M. Chun

5. For intercultural exchanges, there are a number of extralinguistic, social, cultural and institutional factors that must be dealt with beforehand in order to ensure successful collaborations, for example, finding appropriate and compatible partner classes and colleagues to work with; finding sufficient overlap in the calendars/schedules of the two institutions (see Belz 2001; Belz & Müller-Hartmann 2003); and, dealing with differences in expectations and norms for the project, such as, how seriously an exchange is taken, whether it is just an assignment, or whether it becomes a personal or intimate friendship (Thorne 2003; Ware 2005). 6. In general, individual differences must be taken into account, for example, the affective aspects of learning and learners (including motivation, attitudes, the maturity of the learners) and, quite importantly, the differences in linguistic proficiency of both learners. In his study of tandem learning, for example, O’Rourke (2005) stated, “When we consider the effect on negotiation behavior of the tandem framework, it is evident that the proficiency imbalance and the consequent lingua franca status of English has a substantial impact ... . German students presumably benefit from the sheer volume of L2 input and output but also from the increased metalinguistic focus I believe arises from modified input and pushed output; Irish students correspondingly lose out in all of these areas. If their L1 is seen as the preferred and most effective solution to most communication problems, we can scarcely expect increased focus on target language form” (p. 458). The conclusions drawn in most of these studies point repeatedly to the role of the instructor in raising awareness, in designing appropriate tasks, in monitoring the collaborations, and in following up on these exchanges, either online or in the classroom (e.g., Chun & Wade 2004; Hampel 2006; Hauck & Hampel 2005; O’Rourke & Schwienhorst 2003). This, then, is the challenge for FL teachers for mediating discourse in instructed online environments: not only must the assignments we give our students be well-conceived and based on underlying SLA principles, but we must never assume that simply providing opportunities for intercultural communication will unproblematically afford target language interaction or will automatically result in the development of linguistic or cultural competence. In order for linguistic and pragmatic competence to be enhanced, it is not sufficient only to offer extensive input without some degree of attention to form and opportunities to use these forms appropriately in actual communicative contexts. Lee (2006) maintains “When communicative and problem-solving activities are carefully orchestrated, corrective feedback is readily available to learners” (p. 490), but how and whether this feedback becomes uptake needs further study. According to O’Dowd and Eberbach (2004), teachers must first develop students’



Computer-mediated discourse in instructed environments

understanding of intercultural learning, help learners improve their ability to make effective contributions to the online interaction, increase their awareness of the difference between online monologues and dialogues, and finally, establish a good working relationship with the partner teacher. In order to modify, not even to speak of eliminating, stereotypes or preconceived notions of the other culture, it is imperative to view acquiring intercultural communicative competence as an ongoing, co-constructed process. As an example of following up in the classroom on an online intercultural exchange, let us revisit a study by Chun and Wade (2004), discussed in the preceding section. After observing the shortcomings in a two-year online intercultural exchange between students of German in the United States and partner classes of students in a German university as reported in Chun and Wade (2004), we followed up in our German classes by having students present oral reports about their online forum discussions. The classroom discussions that ensued were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed. The analysis of 11 forum group discussions, averaging 2,000–4,000 words per group, was reported in Wade (2005). She found that although learners displayed Byram’s (1997) attitudes of curiosity and interest, the classroom data showed mixed results in displaying attitudes of openness and critical reflection on C1 and C2. Furthermore, in the classroom discussions, some of the American students noted that the Germans did not seem to be interested in the Americans because they purportedly did not ask many questions in their forum entries. This observation led to a third phase in our data analysis, namely to examine cross cultural pragmatics. Scholars of cross cultural pragmatics posit that speakers interact according to their own pragmatic norms, which can result in a clash of expectations and misperceptions about the other group (Boxer 2002). Scholars of interlanguage pragmatics suggest that it is the task of the L2 learner to acquire the C2 norms (Kasper & Rose 1999). We therefore are currently examining pragmatic features in the forum discourse data to try and see what might have caused our students’ complaints. Specifically, we are looking at how students express interest in and curiosity about the other culture (C2), in both the L1 and L2 entries. Preliminary results show that in some forum groups, interest was expressed in similar ways (a) in both L1 and L2 and (b) about both “controversial” and “non-controversial” topics. In other groups, some differences can be found. For example, when reflecting on C1 and C2 (and when voicing criticism), some American students used direct and indirect questions and hedges, such as “I’m not exactly sure ...” and “Possibly one answer might be ... .” However some German students used statements and formulaic expressions to communicate their thoughts on C1 and C2 as facts or general truths, for example, “For me it

37

38

Dorothy M. Chun

was clear that ...” and “This is in no way expressed in the Americans’ narratives ... .” This attention to the pragmatics of online discourse is the focus of other researchers and practitioners as well. Schneider and von der Emde (2006) discussed the issue of conflict emerging within intercultural partnerships during synchronous interactions using a German-English MOO. They suggested a shift away from the term communication and toward the Bakhtinian conception of dialogue, which characterizes language not as a unified system for maintaining status quo semantics, but rather as a site of struggle. Their approach includes having students read research on intercultural FL education in addition to participating in dialogue with speakers in another culture. As Belz (2003b) stated, “the importance (but not necessarily the prominence) of the teacher ... increases rather than diminishes in Internet-mediated intercultural FL education precisely because of the electronic nature of the discourse. In contrast to conventional FTF classroom-based learning, the teacher in telecollaboration must be educated to discern, identify, explain, and model culturally-contingent patterns of interaction in the absence of paralinguistic meaning signals” (p. 92). In the next and final section, I look toward the future of CMC and intercultural collaborations, noting that emerging technologies such as videoconferencing may restore some of the paralinguistic signals that are missing in text-based CMC. Whether this medium has positive or negative results for L2 and C2 learning remains to be seen.

Directions for the future The phrase Web 2.0 was coined, according to Wikipedia, by O’Reilly Media in 2004 to refer to a supposed “second generation of web-based communities and hosted services” that let people collaborate and share information online in perceived new ways, such as social networking sites, wikis, and other communication tools (“Web 2.0,” 2007, §1). For the purposes of concluding this chapter, I find one of these characteristics listed in the NetLingo dictionary particularly appropriate, namely that Web 2.0 emphasizes “user-generated content, ... looking for ways to get users involved and feeling like co-developers in what is known as the “architecture of participation” (“Web 2.0,” 2007, §1). For example, Wikipedia is seven times larger than Encyclopedia Britannica, available in 92 languages and is written by readers. I would like to conclude this chapter by suggesting that both the advent of the second-generation Web, combined with the focus in the profession on communication and cultures (see Byrnes 2002; National Standards 1999;



Computer-mediated discourse in instructed environments

Schulz, Lalande, Dykstra-Pruim, Zimmer-Loew, & James 2005), propel us in the direction of using CMC for intercultural collaborations, fraught as they may be with obstacles. To echo Kern, Warschauer, and Ware (2004), I believe that key issues to continue to study include: (a) the fact that connectivity does not necessarily translate into successful intercultural learning or understanding; (b) the notion that learners can try to retain their “natural” discourse style, but both sides need to become more aware of their own and the other culture’s dominant patterns (based on the work of Belz 2003b); and (c) whether the initial assumption that the type of communication that students engage in during CMC naturally supports the development of intercultural understanding (Kramsch & Thorne 2002). It appears not to be a matter of linguistic misunderstandings, but rather a clash in cultural frames and discourse systems that can lead to unsuccessful intercultural understanding. In other words, Kern et al. (2004) stated that research thus far has indicated that “there is no single effect of using online communication, but rather that processes and results vary widely depending on a range of logistical, pedagogical, and social factors” (p. 243). Thorne’s (2006) argument for a shift from communicative competence to intercultural competence also resonates with my views of the future of Internet-mediated intercultural FL education. Collaborative exchanges provide opportunities for L2 learners to read and produce extended discourse with the goal of enhancing linguistic knowledge and cultural understanding. In terms of new technologies, emerging asynchronous tools include blogs and wikis (see Ducate & Lomicka 2005; Godwin-Jones 2003), while synchronous tools include electronic conversation partners called chatbots (or chatterbots) that rely on artificial intelligence to understand human language and to generate logically consistent and realistic responses (see Fryer & Carpenter 2006), audioconferencing (see Blake 2005; Hampel & Hauck 2004; Jepson 2005; Lomicka 2006), and videoconferencing (e.g., Lafford & Lafford 2005; O’Dowd 2006; Wang 2007). The study by O’Dowd (2006) is one of the few studies to date which examines the influence of both text and image-based Internet communication tools. He provides valuable information on the pedagogy of intercultural videoconferencing, and the profession awaits research on the impact of this new medium in SLA. It will be interesting to see whether videoconferencing can restore prosodic and paralinguistic features such as gestural information, dynamic real-time repair mechanisms, and other elements found normally in FTF conversation, and more importantly, whether L2 and C2 learning will benefit from this new type of online discourse. In the meantime, I fully endorse Belz and Thorne’s (2006) call to consider seriously “blended instruction” in intercultural FL education, which involves technologymediated and (gasp!) traditional forms of instruction such as FTF instruction.

39

40 Dorothy M. Chun

References Abrams, Z. I. (2001). Computer-mediated communication and group journals: Expanding the repertoire of participant roles. System, 29, 489–503. Abrams, Z. I. (2003). The effect of synchronous and asynchronous CMC on oral performance in German. Modern Language Journal, 87, 157–167. Abrams, Z. I. (2006). From theory to practice: Intracultural CMC in the L2 classroom. In L. Ducate & N. Arnold (Eds.), Calling on CALL: From theory and research to new directions in foreign language teaching (pp. 181–209). San Marcos, TX: CALICO. Anonymous (n.d.). Computer-mediated communication. Wikipedia. Retrieved on July 10 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer-mediated_communication Anonymous (n.d.). Web 2.0. Wikipedia. Retrieved on July 10 2007, from http://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Web_2 Anonymous (n.d.). Web 2.0. netlingo. Retrieved on July 10 2007, from http://www.netlingo. com/lookup.cfm?term=Web%202%2E0 Beauvois, M. (1992). Computer-assisted classroom discussion in the foreign language classroom: Conversation in slow motion. Foreign Language Annals, 25, 455–464. Beauvois, M. H. (1997). Write to speak: The effects of electronic communication on the oral achievement of fourth semester French students. In J. Muyskens (Ed.), New ways of learning and teaching: Issues in language program direction (pp. 93–115). Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle. Beauvois, M. H. (1998). Conversations in slow motion: Computer-mediated communication in the foreign language classroom. Canadian Modern Language Review, 54(2), 198–217. Belz, J. A. (2001). Institutional and individual dimensions of transatlantic group work in network-based language teaching. ReCALL, 13(2), 129–147. Belz, J. A. (2003a). From the special issue editor. Language Learning & Technology, 7(2), 2–5. Belz, J. A. (2003b). Linguistic perspectives on the development of intercultural competence in telecollaboration. Language Learning & Technology, 7(2), 68–117. Belz, J. A. & Kinginger, C. (2002). The cross-linguistic development of address form use in telecollaborative language learning: Two case studies. Canadian Modern Language Review/ Revue canadienne des langues vivantes, 59(2), 189–214. Belz, J. A. & Kinginger, C. (2003). Discourse options and the development of pragmatic competence by classroom learners of German: The case of address forms. Language Learning, 53(4), 591–647. Belz, J. A. & Müller-Hartmann, A. (2003). Teachers as intercultural learners: Negotiating German-American telecollaboration along the institutional fault line. Modern Language Journal, 87(1), 71–89. Belz, J. A. & Thorne, S. L. (Eds.). (2006). Internet-mediated intercultural foreign language education. Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle. Blake, R. J. (2000). Computer mediated communication: A window on L2 Spanish interlanguage. Language Learning & Technology, 4(1), 120–136. Blake, R. J. (2005). Bimodal CMC: The glue of language learning at a distance. CALICO Journal, 22(3), 497–511. Blake, R. J. & Zyzik, E. (2003). Who’s helping whom? Learner/heritage speakers’ networked discussions in Spanish. Applied Linguistics, 24(4), 519–544.



Computer-mediated discourse in instructed environments

Bohlke, O. (2003). A comparison of student participation levels by group size and language stages during chatroom and face-to-face discussions in German. CALICO Journal, 21(1), 67–87. Boxer, D. (2002). Discourse issues in cross-cultural pragmatics. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 22, 150–167. Byram, M. (1997). Teaching and assessing intercultural communicative competence. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Byrnes, H. (2002). The cultural turn in foreign language departments: Challenge and opportunity. Profession 2002, 114–129. Chao, T. (2000). Computer-mediated conferencing: Moderation and evaluation strategies. Retrieved August 31 2006 from University of Alberta: http://www.humanities.ualberta.ca/ tlc/workshops/CMCmoderation_handouts.doc Chapelle, C. (1997). CALL in the year 2000: Still in search of research paradigms? Language Learning and Technology, 1(1), 19–43. Chapelle, C. (1998). Multimedia CALL: Lessons to be learned from research on instructed SLA. Language Learning and Technology, 2(1), 22–34. Chapelle, C. (2005). Interactionist SLA theory in CALL research. In J. L. Egbert & G. M. Petrie (Eds.), CALL research perspectives (pp. 53–64). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Chun, D. M. (1994). Using computer networking to facilitate the acquisition of interactive competence. System, 22(1), 17–31. Chun, D. M. & Wade, E. R. (2004). Collaborative cultural exchanges with CMC. In L. Lomicka & J. Cooke-Plagwitz (Eds.), Teaching with technology (pp. 220–247). Boston: Heinle. Cononelos, T. & Oliva, M. (1993). Using computer networks to enhance foreign language/culture education. Foreign Language Annals, 26(4), 527–533. Cziko, G. A. & Park, S. (2003). Internet audio communication for second language learning: A comparative review of six programs. Language Learning & Technology, 7(1), 15–27. Ducate, L. & Lomicka, L. (2005). Exploring the blogosphere: Use of web logs in the foreign language classroom. Foreign Language Annals, 38(3), 410–421. Dussias, P. E. (2006). Morphological development in Spanish-American telecollaboration. In J. A. Belz & S. L. Thorne (Eds.), Internet-mediated intercultural foreign language education (pp. 121–146). Boston, MA: Thomson Heinle. Fiori, M. L. (2005). The development of grammatical competence through synchronous computer-mediated communication. CALICO Journal, 22(3), 567–602. Fitze, M. (2006). Discourse and participation in ESL face-to-face and written electronic conferences. Language Learning & Technology, 10(1), 67–86. Foster, P. & Ohta, A. S. (2005). Negotiation for meaning and peer assistance in second language classrooms. Applied Linguistics, 26(3), 402–430. Fryer, L. & Carpenter, R. (2006). Emerging technologies: Bots as language learning tools. Language Learning & Technology, 10(3), 8–14. Furstenberg, G., Levet, S., English, K., & Maillet, K. (2001). Giving a virtual voice to the silent language of culture: The Cultura Project. Language Learning & Technology, 5(1), 55–102. Godwin-Jones, R. (2003). Blogs and wikis: Environments for online collaboration. Language Learning & Technology, 7(2), 12–16. González-Bueno, M. (1998). The effects of electronic mail on Spanish L2 discourse. Language Learning & Technology, 1(2), 55–70. Hampel, R. (2003). Theoretical perspectives and new practices in audio-graphic conferencing for language learning. ReCALL, 15(1), 21–36.

41

42

Dorothy M. Chun

Hampel, R. (2006). Rethinking task design for the digital age: A framework for language teaching and learning in a synchronous online environment. ReCALL, 18(1), 105–121. Hampel, R. & Hauck, M. (2004).Towards an effective use of audio conferencing in distance language courses. Language Learning & Technology, 8(1), 66–82. Hanna, B. E. & de Nooy, J. (2003). A funny thing happened on the way to the forum: Electronic discussion and foreign language learning. Language Learning & Technology, 7(1), 71–85. Harasim, L. (1986). Computer learning networks: Educational applications of computer conferencing. Journal of Distance Education, 1(1), 59–70. Harrington, M. & Levy, M. (2001). CALL begins with a “C”: Interaction in computer-mediated language learning. System, 29, 15–26. Hauck, M. & Hampel, R. (2005). The challenges of implementing online tuition in distance language courses: Task design and tutor role. In B. Holmberg, M. Shelley, & C. White (Eds.), Distance education and languages (pp. 258–277). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Hiltz, S. R. & Turoff, M. (1978). The Network Nation: Human communication via computer. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley. Itakura, H. (2004). Changing cultural stereotypes through e-mail assisted foreign language learning. System, 32(1), 37–51. Jepson, K. (2005). Conversation -and negotiated interaction- in text and voice chat rooms. Language Learning & Technology, 9(3), 79–89. Kasper, G. & Rose, K. (1999). Pragmatics and SLA. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 19, 81–104. Kelm, O. R. (1992). The use of synchronous computer networks in second language instruction: A preliminary report. Foreign Language Annals, 25, 441–454. Kern, R. G. (1995). Restructuring classroom interaction with networked computers: Effects on quantity and characteristics of language production. Modern Language Journal, 79, 457–476. Kern, R. G., Warschauer, M., & Ware, P. (2004). Crossing frontiers: New directions in online pedagogy and research. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 24, 243–260. Kinginger, C. (1998). Videoconferencing as access to spoken French. Modern Language Journal, 82, 502–513. Kitade, K. (2000). L2 learners’ discourse and SLA theories in CMC: Collaborative interaction in Internet chat. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 13, 143–166. Kitade, K. (2006). The negotiation model in asynchronous computer-mediated communication (CMC): Negotiation in task-based email exchanges. CALICO Journal, 23(2), 319–348. Kötter, M. (2003). Negotiation of meaning and codeswitching in online tandems. Language Learning & Technology, 7(2), 145–172. Kramsch, C. (1993). Context and culture in language teaching. Oxford: OUP. Kramsch, C. (1998). Language and culture. Oxford: OUP. Kramsch, C., A’Ness, A., & Lam, E. (2000). Authenticity and authorship in the computer-mediated acquisition of L2 literacy. Language Learning & Technology, 4(2), 78–104. Kramsch, C. & Thorne, S. (2002). Foreign language learning as global communicative practice. In D. Block & D. Cameron (Eds.), Language learning and teaching in the age of globalization (pp. 83–100). London: Routledge. Lafford, P. A. & Lafford, B. A. (2005). CMC technologies for teaching foreign languages: What’s on the horizon? CALICO Journal, 22(3), 79–709. Lai, C. & Zhao, Y. (2006). Noticing and text-based online chat. Language Learning & Technology, 10(3), 102–120.



Computer-mediated discourse in instructed environments

Lamy, M. N. (2004). Oral conversations online: Redefining oral competence in synchronous environments. ReCALL, 16(2), 520–538. Lamy, M. N. & Goodfellow, R. (1999). Reflective conversation in the virtual language classroom. Language Learning & Technology, 2(2), 43–61. Lee, L. (2001). Online interaction: Negotiation of meaning and strategies used among learners of Spanish. ReCALL, 13(2), 232–244. Lee, L. (2002). Synchronous online exchanges: A study of modification devices on non-native discourse. System, 30 (3), 275–288. Lee, L. (2006). A study of native and nonnative speakers’ feedback and responses in SpanishAmerican networked collaborative interaction. In J. A. Belz & S. L. Thorne (Eds.), Internetmediated intercultural foreign language education (pp. 147–176). Boston, MA: Thomson Heinle. Levy, M. (2007). Culture, culture learning and new technologies: Towards a pedagogical framework. Language Learning & Technology, 11(2), 104–127. Liaw, M. & Johnson, R. J. (2001). E-mail writing as a cross-cultural learning experience. System, 29(2), 235–251. Lomicka, L. (2006). Understanding the other: Intercultural exchange and CMC. In N. Arnold & L. Ducate (Eds.), Calling on CALL: From theory and research to new directions in foreign language teaching (pp. 211–236). San Marcos, TX: CALICO. Müller-Hartmann, A. (2000). The role of tasks in promoting intercultural learning in electronic learning networks. Language Learning & Technology, 4(2), 129–147. Murray, D. E. (1995). Knowledge machines: Language and information in a technological society. Longman: London. Murray, D. E. (2000). Changing technologies, changing literacy communities? Language Learning & Technology, 4(2), 43–58. National Standards in Foreign Language Education Project. (1999). Standards for Foreign Language Learning in the 21st Century. Yonkers, NY: National Standards in Foreign Language Education Project. O’Dowd, R. (2003). Understanding the “other side”: Intercultural learning in a Spanish-English e-mail exchange. Language Learning & Technology, 7(2), 118–144. O’Dowd, R. (2006). The use of videoconferencing and e-mails as mediators of intercultural student ethnography. In J. A. Belz & S. L. Thorne (Eds.), Internet-mediated intercultural foreign language education (pp. 86–120). Boston, MA: Thomson Heinle. O’Dowd, R. & Eberbach, K. (2004). Guides on the side?: Tasks and challenges for teachers in telecollaboartive projects. ReCALL, 16(1), 5–19. O’Dowd, R. & Ritter, M. (2006). Understanding and working with “failed communication” in telecollaborative exchanges. CALICO Journal, 23(3), 623–642. Ong, W. (1982). Orality and literacy. London: Methuen. O’Rourke, B. (2002). Metalinguistic knowledge in instructed second language acquisition: A theoretical model and its application in computer-mediated communication. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Trinity College, Dublin. O’Rourke, B. (2005). Form-focused interaction in online tandem learning. CALICO Journal, 22(3), 433–466. O’Rourke, B. & Schwienhorst, K. (2003). Talking text: Reflections on reflection in computermediated communication. In D. Little, J. Ridley, & E. Ushioda (Eds.), Learner autonomy in foreign language teaching: Teacher, learner, curriculum, assessment (pp. 47–60). Dublin: Authentik.

43

44 Dorothy M. Chun

Ortega, L. (1997). Processes and outcomes in networked classroom interaction: Defining the research agenda for L2 computer-assisted classroom discussion. Language Learning & Technology, 1(1), 82–93 Payne, J. S. & Ross, B. M. (2005). Synchronous CMC, working memory, and L2 oral proficiency development. Language Learning and Technology, 9(3), 35–54. Payne, J. S. & Whitney, P. J. (2002). Developing L2 oral proficiency through synchronous CMC: Output, working memory, and interlanguage development. CALICO Journal, 20(1), 7–32. Pellettieri, J. (2000). Negotiation in cyberspace: The role of chatting in the development of grammatical competence. In M. Warschauer & R. Kern (Eds.), Network-based language teaching: Concepts and practice (pp. 59–86). Cambridge: CUP. Pica, T. & Doughty, C. (1985). The role of group work in classroom second language acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 7, 233–248. Reeder, K., Macfadyen, L. P., Roche, J., & Chase, M. (2004). Negotiating cultures in cyberspace: Participation patterns and problematics. Language Learning and Technology, 8(2), 88–105. Salaberry, R. (2000). L2 morphosyntactic development in text-based computer communication. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 13(1), 5–27. Schneider, J. & von der Emde, S. (2006). Conflicts in cyberspace: From communication breakdown to intercultural dialogue in online collaborations. In J. A. Belz & S. L. Thorne (Eds.), Internet-mediated intercultural foreign language education (pp. 178–206). Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle. Schultz, R. A., Lalande, J. F., Dykstra-Pruim, P., Zimmer-Loew, H., & James, C. J. (2005). In pursuit of cultural competence in the German language classroom: Recommendations of the AATG Task Force on the Teaching of Culture. Die Unterrichtspraxis, 38(2), 172–181. Shelley, M. & Baumann, U. (2005). Assessing intercultural competence gain in a German distance learning course for adults. In B. Holmberg, M. Shelley, & C. White (Eds.), Distance education and languages (pp. 119–139). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Smith, B. (2003). The use of communication strategies in computer-mediated communication. System, 31, 29–53. Smith, B. (2004). Computer-mediated negotiated interaction and lexical acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 26, 365–398. Sotillo, S. (2000). Discourse functions and syntactic complexity in synchronous communication. Language Learning & Technology, 4(1), 82–119. Sotillo, S. (2005). Corrective feedback via instant messenger learning activities in NS-NNS and NNS-NNS dyads. CALICO Journal, 22(3), 467–496. Sullivan, N. & Pratt, E. (1996). A comparative study of two ESL writing environments: A computer-assisted classroom and a traditional oral classroom. System, 24, 491–501. Sykes, J. (2005). Synchronous CMC and pragmatic development: Effects of oral and written chat. CALICO Journal, 22(3), 399–431. Thorne, S. L. (2003). Artifacts and cultures-of-use in intercultural communication. Language Learning & Technology, 7(2), 38–67. Thorne, S. L. (2006). Pedagogical and praxiological lessons from Internet-mediated intercultural foreign language education research. In J. A. Belz & S. L. Thorne (Eds.), Internet-mediated intercultural foreign language education (pp. 2–30). Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle. Thorne, S. & Payne, J. S. (Eds.). (2005). Special issue on computer-mediated communication and foreign language learning: Context, research, and practice. CALICO Journal, 22(3), 368–763.



Computer-mediated discourse in instructed environments

Tudini, V. (2003). Using native speakers in chat. Language Learning & Technology, 7(3), 141– 159. Tudini, V. (2005). Chatlines for beginners: Negotiating conversation at a distance. In B. Holmberg, M. Shelley, & C. White (Eds.), Distance education and languages (pp. 212–229). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Varonis, E. M. & Gass, S. M. (1985). Non-native/non-native conversations: A model for negotiation and meaning. Applied Linguistics, 6, 71–90. Vetter, A. & Chanier, T. (2006). Supporting oral production for professional purposes in synchronous communication with heterogeneous learners. ReCALL, 18(1), 5–23. Wade, E. R. (2005). Enhancing German language learners’ intercultural communicative competence through the on-line exchange project ICE. PhD dissertation. University of California, Santa Barbara. Wang, Y. (2004). Supporting synchronous distance language learning with desktop videoconferencing. Language Learning & Technology, 8(3), 90–121. Wang, Y. (2006). Negotiation of meaning in desktop videoconferencing-supported distance language learning. ReCALL, 18(1), 122–146. Wang, Y. (2007). Task design in videoconferencing-supported distance language learning. CALICO Journal, 24(3), 591–630. Ware, P. (2005). “Missed” communication in online communication: Tensions in a GermanAmerican telecollaboration. Language Learning & Technology, 9(2), 64–89. Ware, P. & Kramsch, C. (2005). Toward an intercultural stance: Teaching German and English through telecollaboration. Modern Language Journal, 89(2), 190–205. Warschauer, M. (1996). Comparing face-to-face and electronic discussion in the second language classroom. CALICO Journal, 13(2), 7–26. Warschauer, M. (1997). Computer-mediated collaborative learning: Theory and practice. Modern Language Journal, 81(4), 470–481. Weininger, M. J. & Shield, L. (2004). Promoting oral production in a written channel: An investigation of learner language in MOO. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 16(4), 329–349.

45

Research perspectives on online discourse and foreign language learning Carl S. Blyth

University of Texas at Austin

In order to understand changing research approaches to online discourse in the field of foreign language learning, this essay examines the most common metaphors used to conceptualize and to guide CALL and CMC research. Next, a taxonomy of research approaches is sketched in an effort to catalog the constitutive parts of research studies (e.g., theoretical framework, methodology, focus of research, locus of research, etc.). It is argued that most CMC research belongs to one of four fairly distinct approaches to language learning research (technological, psycholinguistic, sociocultural, and ecological). The technological approach is comprised of descriptive, largely atheoretical studies that examine a new technology’s application to traditional classroom practices. Studies belonging to the psycholinguistic approach are typically framed in terms of the interaction hypothesis and the noticing hypothesis. The sociocultural approach is characterized by the Vygotskyan notions of the mediated mind and social learning. And finally, the ecological approach shifts the goal of research to the discovery of how the constituent parts of a learning environment (students, teachers, classroom, school, computers, etc.) form a whole. Each research approach is analyzed more closely by examining studies that represent prototypical exemplars of the particular approach. Although the four approaches are historically situated – first technological, next psycholinguistic, then sociocultural, and finally ecological – all four continue to be relevant and productive. The evolution of the four research approaches indicates a growing interest in the social context of foreign language learning.

In his wide-reaching book on language and the Internet published in 2001, wellknown linguist David Crystal claims that Netspeak, his neologism for online discourse, is something completely new and different. Crystal admits at various times in his book that conducting research on the linguistic consequences of the Internet is a daunting challenge due to the size and dynamism of the Internet. He takes pains to warn the reader that his efforts must be understood as exploratory,

48 Carl S. Blyth

programmatic, and suggestive of further research and reflection. Despite these careful warnings, Crystal (2001) discusses the impact of the Internet on human communication in hyperbolic terms rarely found in academic prose: The phenomenon of Netspeak is going to ‘change the way we think’ about language in a fundamental way, because it is a linguistic singularity – a genuine new medium…. It is something fundamentally different from both writing and speech, as traditionally understood. It is, in short, a fourth medium … Netspeak is a development of millennial significance. A new medium of linguistic communication does not arrive very often, in the history of the race.  (pp. 238–239) … the sheer scale of the present Internet, let alone its future telecosmic incarnations, has convinced me that we are on the brink of the biggest language revolution ever. Whereas in the past we have had speech, then writing, and throughout the 20th century debated the relationship between the two, now we are faced with a new medium, and one which could be bigger than either of its predecessors. What I have been calling Netspeak will become part of a much larger computer-mediated language, which in the digitally designed enhanced-bandwidth environment of the future could be the community’s linguistic norm. Whereas, at the moment, face-to-face communication ranks as primary, in any account of the linguistic potentialities of humankind, in the future it may not be so. (p. 241)

Crystal’s cautionary tone is well taken – any attempt to describe the impact of the Internet on the trajectories of human language(s) or even on the future of foreign language acquisition research is fraught with problems. The subject is simply too big and too dynamic. As a consequence, the goal for this essay is purposely circumscribed, that is, to describe and classify the literature on online discourse and foreign language learning in order to uncover the most salient research trends. In other words, this essay attempts to describe where research on foreign language learning and online discourse has been and where it may be headed in the near future. How have applied linguists attempted to explore the potentialities of online discourse? What methodologies have they employed? What theoretical frameworks have they adopted? What research foci have they chosen? This essay builds upon three recent overviews of CALL and CMC research (Egbert & Petrie 2005; Kern 2006; Kern, Ware, & Warschauer 2004). It seems that the time is right for such overviews given that “research on online language learning is now entering its second decade” (Kern, Ware, & Warschauer 2004: 243). And yet, as Crystal cautions, it is impossible to produce a definitive summation of the state-of-affairs regarding the impact of the Internet given its rapid growth. In fact, as Crystal himself acknowledges, it is almost a convention for scholarship on the Internet to contain a disclaimer that much information will likely be outdated by the time of publication.



Research perspectives on online discourse

In order to understand changing research approaches to online discourse, this essay’s point of departure will be a brief overview of the most common metaphors used to conceptualize and to guide CALL and CMC research. Next, a taxonomy of research approaches will be sketched. The goal of this section is to catalog the constitutive parts of research studies (e.g., theoretical framework, methodology, focus of research, locus of research, etc.) in order to develop four overlapping yet fairly distinct research agendas (technological, psycholinguistic, sociocultural, and ecological). Each research approach will then be analyzed more closely by examining studies that represent prototypical exemplars of the particular approach. Finally, lines of future research will be discussed in light of recent technological and educational developments.

Guiding metaphors In her brief essay on CALL research perspectives, Petrie (2005) suggested the metaphor of cartography to describe attempts to chart the boundaries and relationships between different CALL researchers and practioners. In keeping with Petrie’s metaphor, this section presents a map of the field by describing the dominant metaphors invoked by CALL/CMC research. Meskill (2005) claimed that metaphors naturally have a place of privilege in any research agenda because metaphorical thinking is generally called upon to make sense of new phenomena. She described seven metaphors commonly used by applied linguists when thinking about CALL and CMC: the conduit, the berry-bush, the magister, the pedagogue, the environment/world, the tool, and the community. The conduit metaphor, perhaps the oldest and most influential metaphor in education, describes learning as the passage of knowledge from one container to another, from the teacher’s mind to the learner’s mind. This metaphor is operant whenever educators use terms such as instructional delivery, exposure, and transmission. According to Meskill (2005), in much of the CALL research of the mid 1980s, the computer was viewed as the repository of information and the computer-controlled activities or tutorial programs were seen as the conduit. A variant of the conduit metaphor, the berry-bush, was invoked to conceptualize student-controlled computer-assisted activities. Students working in a berry-bush environment could choose their own paths rather than proceed along a prescribed path as was common in most early computer tutorials. Such a program was conceived of as a bush with berries (content, information) hanging from different branches (paths through the computer program) that students could pick (choose) according to their own preferences.

49

50

Carl S. Blyth

Another early metaphor for conceptualizing CALL was the intelligent tutor. According to Meskill, citing Higgins (1988), there were two prevalent variants of the tutor metaphor: the magister and the pedagogue. The magister, as the name implies, is an educational authority in total control of all aspects of learning. The magister chooses what is taught and how it is to be taught. The magister leads; his students dutifully follow. While the pedagogue is a teacher too, he is not in the lead. In fact, according to Higgins the word pedagogue originally meant “the slave who escorts the children to school” (as cited in Meskill 2005: 14). Thus, the pedagogue walks several paces behind his young master who calls upon his knowledgeable slave to supply him with the correct information according to his whim. Meskill (2005) demonstrated that the magister metaphor underlies the design of integrated learning systems (ILSs) in which “learners drill and practice with programmed instruction” (p. 30). Furthermore, Meskill claimed that such a metaphor of the all-knowing, infinitely patient educator dispensing information and evaluating performance in an ongoing effort to achieve quantifiable results largely shaped “experimental research questions of the ‘if treatment X, then learning outcome Y’ sort” (p. 30). The pedagogue metaphor better reflects how contemporary learners use the Internet whenever they need to find information (e.g., conducting keyword searches, posting queries on bulletin boards, participating in a chat room or online forum). Meskill (2005) argued that research informed by the pedagogue metaphor tends to be more qualitative: “It is also the case that contemporary research that examines pedagogue applications of CALL by definition is conducted in less systematized, more messy venues where, rather than simple objective scores, evidence of learning is constituted by recorded language used by students when undertaking tasks .... Studies using this less-tidy approach yield less quantifiable but richer results” (p. 31). Meskill cited Papert (1980) as the first to coin the phrase microworld to refer to a virtual space that simulated real life to some degree and where computer users could interact with features of the environment to affect desired outcomes. One of the first and best-known microworlds was called Logo, a program designed by Papert to teach small children about geometry. In the Logo microworld, children would write simple computer commands that caused an onscreen turtle to draw geometric shapes. As a consequence of playing with the turtle, children made their own discoveries about various principles underlying geometry. This concept of discovery learning in a computer simulation came to be known as a microworld following Papert’s ground-breaking software. The microworld concept was later extended to foreign language materials, most notably the Spanish interactive videodisc Montevidisco (Bush & Larson 1983) and the French program A la rencontre de Philippe (Furstenberg & Malone 1993). In both programs, the learner must



Research perspectives on online discourse

make decisions about real-life problems based on information gleaned from interacting with the environment, in the case of Montevidisco, to find one’s way around a Spanish village, and in the case of A la rencontre de Philippe, to help a young Parisian locate an affordable apartment. Besides sparking interest in instructional design, the microworld metaphor has focused researchers on the affordances that different contexts offer to learners, that is, the opportunities for learning from interaction with the environment (Meskill, Mossop, & Bates 1999). The last two metaphors cited by Meskill – the tool metaphor and the community metaphor – are frequently invoked in current research studies, particularly those informed by sociocultural theory. At the heart of Vygotskyan and sociocultural approaches to language learning are the concepts of mediation and social learning (Lantolf 2000; Lantolf & Thorne 2006). Vygotsky emphasized that tools such as computers or even language itself mediates and controls human behavior and cognition (Wertsch 1991). In addition, sociocultural approaches emphasize the social or external nature and origins of internal mental operations. These two metaphors have taken on special relevance with the advent of social networks and online communities (e.g., Facebook & Myspace), a recent phenomenon that Meskill (2005) predicted will become the focus of language learning research in the near future: “Language teachers, learners, and researchers have much to explore regarding online communities where language is being used in highly social, highly productive ways. The community/meeting place metaphor holds perhaps the richest potential as a tool for examining second language acquisition and the development of identities” (p. 36). In the introduction to her edited volume entitled Language Acquisition and Language Socialization: Ecological Perspectives, Kramsch (2003) examined the dominant metaphors that “channel the imaginations” (p. 1) of second language teachers and researchers. Kramsch’s main argument is that the fields of language acquisition and language socialization have been guided by two competing metaphors, learner-as-machine and learner-as-apprentice. These metaphors have been organizing principles for so long in their respective disciplines that they are largely invisible today, that is, taken for granted by researchers trained in these fields. According to Kramsch, applied linguists are beginning to turn to yet another overarching metaphor – ecology – for fruitful ways to conceive of their research. While the applied linguistic embrace of the organic metaphor may be relatively recent, the other two metaphors hark back many years. Kramsch (2003) claimed that the learner-as-machine metaphor, the basis of language acquisition research, arose as the dominant metaphor in the field of psycholinguistics in the 1960s. When researchers conceptualize language learning in terms of this metaphor, “The language learner is seen as an information processor that receives input from caretakers, teachers and peers, processes this input into intake, and,

51

52

Carl S. Blyth

ultimately, produces output of a measurable kind” (p. 1). Kramsch showed that such a metaphor naturally focused researchers on linguistic properties of the input and away from the role of context in language learning. In contrast, the field of language socialization had its origins in anthropological linguistics in the 1970s and 1980s (Ochs & Schieffelin 1979, 1983; Schieffelin & Ochs 1986). The dominant metaphor of this field, the learner-as-apprentice, led researchers to pay close attention to contextualized language use and to the learner as a member of a community: “The focus is not on the way symbolic systems are acquired, and grammatical and lexical paradigms are used to encode reality, but on the way language practices are organized within members of a community of language users” (Kramsch 2003: 2). Although metaphors illuminate some relationships and similarities, they invariably obscure others. As a consequence, researchers may run the risk of becoming “prisoners to their own metaphors” (Kramsch 2003: 3). For this reason, researchers have recently rallied around the holistic metaphor of ecology in an effort to synthesize the fields of acquisition and socialization and their opposing foci and frames of reference. Kramsch contended that the ecological metaphor has been prompted not only by a desire to acknowledge the symbiotic relationship between the cognitive and the social, but also by two recent developments: globalization and multicultural education. And at the heart of both of these developments lies telecommunications, specifically the Internet: “The Internet revolution has made researchers and practitioners even more aware of the importance of context in language development” (p. 3). Arguing that the Internet’s staggering growth in terms of both speed and reach has led to qualitative changes in human communication, Kramsch claimed that the Internet revolution “is not just a change in degree, but a change in kind” (p. 3). Even though Meskill (2005) and Kramsch (2003) pointed out that different metaphors have taken on special prominence at specific historical moments, it is important to remember that newer metaphors do not necessarily replace older ones. In fact, Kramsch explicitly stated that the ecological metaphor is not meant to be a replacement: “By embracing an ecological perspective [researchers] do not intend to replace existing metaphors” (p. 5). As noted, metaphors are created and disseminated by researchers in their efforts to conceptualize and understand new phenomena. Because new phenomena do not necessarily replace old phenomena, early metaphors often retain their relevance.



Research perspectives on online discourse

Criteria used for classifying CMC research Although the metaphors described in the last section are useful in classifying CMC research, there are many other relevant criteria for classification. In this section, different research criteria will be catalogued according to the four major approaches to CMC research: technological, psycholinguistic, sociocultural, and ecological. These criteria fall into three main categories: theoretical, methodological, and linguistic. Gleaned from a review of CMC research literature dating back to the early 1990s, these criteria have been chosen for examination based on their frequency and their co-occurrence with other criteria. It is important to bear in mind that just as in the case of metaphors, these various criteria are historically situated in the field.

Theoretical criteria In their review of online pedagogy and research, Kern, Warschauer, and Ware (2004) spoke of two phases – an early, more quantitative phase of research that focused primarily on the technology itself rather than on the theoretical issues of SLA or on the wider learning environment; and a second, more recent phase that better situates CMC research within language learning theory and describes more carefully the context of language learning and use. In a similar fashion, Huh and Hu (2005) discussed the various factors required for effective CALL research and noted that one of the primary weaknesses of most early studies was an apparent lack of theoretical framework. They referred to such studies as technocentric. The more neutral term technological is adopted in this essay to refer to an approach that takes the specific technology as its point of departure (e.g., local area networked computer application) and is not grounded in any specific SLA theory. In the first edition of the online journal Language Learning & Technology, Chapelle (1997) claimed that CALL studies were dominated by computational models that did not derive from SLA research per se. As a consequence, she contended that CALL was still in search of more appropriate research paradigms. To fill the perceived theoretical void, she argued for the applications of psycholinguistics, cognitive psychology, and constructivism. In particular, she called for future CALL researchers to adopt an interactionist approach and discourse analytic methods that had proven so successful for investigating instructed SLA. In this essay, the term psycholinguistic will be used to refer to any approach to CMC/CALL that derives from an input/output model of language acquisition and that takes negotiated interaction (Gass 1997; Long 1985) as its primary research focus.

53

54

Carl S. Blyth

Two years later, in a commentary on Chapelle, Salaberry (1999) argued that the research agenda of CALL should pay greater attention to sociocultural approaches to language learning in general and CMC in particular. (Chapelle had made no mention of CMC in her previous article.) Furthermore, Salaberry noted that the development of a “valid research proposal for CALL should be attentive to important principled distinctions incorporated into various theoretical frameworks. For instance, the conceptualization of CALL systems as tools ….” (p. 106). Salaberry’s insistence on the tool metaphor for conceptualizing CALL is in keeping with his call for sociocultural approaches that emphasize language as a tool to mediate cognition and behavior. Salaberry ended his commentary by noting that “… the analysis of computer mediated communication, including the analysis of learners’ use of technical components that render CMC possible, deserves to be at the forefront of future research agendas” (p. 106). With the growth of virtual communities and the rise of theoretical concepts such as situated learning (Lave & Wenger 1991) and distributed cognition (Hutchins 1995), researchers have sought to expand the foci and metaphors of sociocultural approaches to encompass ever more contextual information. The result is an ecological approach. Van Lier (2004) described the ecological approach as the logical extension of a Vygotskyan sociocultural approach “in the light of present-day needs and knowledge” (p. 20). According to van Lier, an ecological approach differs from sociocultural theory by explicitly rejecting Cartesian dualism (language/context): “An ecological theory holds that if you take the context away there is no language left to be studied. It’s like an onion. You can’t peel away the layers and hope to get to the ‘real’ onion underneath: it’s layers all the way down. So it is with language: it’s context all the way down” (p. 20). Not surprisingly, researchers who adopt an ecological approach focus their research not on the acquisition of linguistic form but on the context and how learners use language (among other tools) to configure the context (Shin 2006). Other common foci of sociocultural and ecological approaches are identity construction and the relation between different levels of context or of the learning environment (learner, classroom, home, society at large). The central idea to an ecological approach to language learning is to view learners as living organisms engaged in a complex network of relationships with the other elements in the environment.

Methodological criteria In addition to the dominant theoretical frameworks, research on CMC can also be classified according to the methodologies employed. These methodologies are themselves bundles of various criteria: locus of study (e.g., classroom or real



Research perspectives on online discourse

world), control (e.g. computer vs. teacher vs. student), data type (quantitative vs. qualitative), tasks (pedagogical vs. authentic), number of subjects (many vs. few), and time frame (short-term vs. long-term). Methodological criteria tend to co-occur according to the four different paradigms. Earlier research was mainly comprised of short-term studies (anywhere from a few sessions to a semester) based on intact classes. The computer or the teacher set relevant experimental or pedagogical tasks and parameters that produced data for quantitative analysis (e.g., mouse clicks, number of T-units, number of turns at talk, etc.). In contrast, sociocultural and ecological studies tend to employ qualitative methods (ethnographic case studies, participant observation, diaries, interviews, etc.) and to examine fewer subjects over longer periods of time. Moreover, as the Internet grows, so grows the size and scope of the research studies: from a single networked class to international telecollaborations between partnered classrooms (Belz & Thorne 2006) to massive online social networks called virtual communities (Thorne, this volume).

Linguistic criteria Finally, different research approaches tend to privilege certain kinds of language use. For example, in teacher-fronted networked classrooms where students are given an explicitly pedagogical task to be performed in the L2, the use of the L1 is actively discouraged. In contrast, in sociocultural and ecological approaches where students generally have more autonomy, the L1 may be viewed as a resource or tool to mediate cognition during the language learning task. In general, more learner autonomy leads to more use of the L1, a greater range of discourse functions, non-standard forms and more language play (Warner 2004). While these criteria often travel together, the patterns of co-occurrence are not rigid, such as a study that combines quantitative and qualitative methods. These various criteria – theoretical, methodological, and linguistic – are displayed in Figure 1.

Approaches to CMC research This section takes a closer look at the four main approaches to CMC research outlined above: technological, psycholinguistic, sociocultural, and ecological. The distinguishing features of each approach will be described and prototypical studies will be examined.

55

56

Carl S. Blyth

A. Theoretical Framework Approach Acronym Metaphors SLA theory

Technological CAI/CALL Tutor None/general

Psycholinguistic CALL/CMC Tutor/Tool Interactionist

Focus

Technology

Negotiated interac- Activity tion Linguistic forms Mediation Input/Output

Sociocultural CMC Tool Vygotskyan

Process/Identity

Ecological CMC Network/Community Vygotskyan/Social Semiotic Context Relation between levels Process/Identity

B. Methodological Framework Environment Control Data Tasks N of subjects Timeframe

Single class/ Paired classes Virtual communities Single class Telecollaboration (e.g. Myspace) Peer-to-peer Computer Teacher Student/Teacher Student Qualitative (open-ended) Quantitative (prescribed categories) Contrived/pedagogical Authentic Numerous (classes, cross-sectional) Few individuals (case studies) Short-term Long-term

C. Linguistic Framework Language use Language choice Modality

Standard/Referential Monolingual Written

Non-standard/Ludic, Emotive Multilingual Mixed

Figure 1.  Taxonomy of CMC research

Technological approaches A review of the CMC literature of the past two decades reveals that the technological approach may be something akin to a developmental stage. In other words, whenever a technology is new, it appears natural for researchers to conduct exploratory, descriptive studies in an attempt to assess the new technology’s potential benefits. These studies almost always compare and contrast the new technology with the traditional way of doing things, for example, synchronous written interaction in networked computer classrooms versus oral discussion in traditional classrooms. Although many scholars have criticized early research for its lack of theoretical framework, such descriptive studies perform a valuable service – they introduce the new technology to teachers and administrators, and they demonstrate how the new technology changes traditional student and teacher performance and roles. Kern, Ware, and Warschauer (2004) contended that studies appearing in the 1990s tended “to focus on the most quantifiable



Research perspectives on online discourse

and easily measured aspects of online communication” (p. 243). Moreover, these studies tended to stress the potential benefits of CMC for foreign language learning. The most commonly reported CMC benefits of these studies are the following: increased quantity and quality of L2 production (Beauvois 1992, 1997, 1998; Kelm 1992; Kern 1995; Warschauer 1996), increased L2 discourse functions (Chun 1994; Herring 1996; Kern 1995), greater L2 syntactic complexity (Kern 1995), equalization of student and teacher roles (Beauvois 1998; Kern 1995), and improved motivation (Beauvois 1992 1997 1998; Kelm 1992; Kern 1995). Beauvois (1998) and Kern (1995) are both typical exemplars of the technologist approach because they both explicitly compare synchronous networked computer ‘discussions’ using InterChange local area network (part of the Daedalus Integrated Writing Environment) with traditional oral discussions. Kern (1995), a study investigating the use of CMC by second-year French students at University of California-Berkeley, quantifies the data in several ways: number and length of messages, number of sentences and T-units averaged per student, number and type of discourse functions produced, number of morphosyntactic features produced, and control of topic. In addition to an analysis of the discourse, Kern examined attitudinal data from a questionnaire administered after the sessions and found overwhelmingly positive reactions to the new technology. Like many short-term technologist studies, Kern’s study is based on only two class sessions (CMC session vs. traditional classroom discussion session). Beauvois (1998) looked at how third-semester French students use the same technology (InterChange software) under very similar conditions – to discuss a previously assigned reading. She evaluated the discourse along quantitative lines similar to those used by Kern (1995), but also included a discussion of online error correction, the evolution of conversations, and the circumstances of codeswitching, referred to as “reverting to the native language” (p. 200). Not only did she note similar benefits as those found in Kern – greater student participation, especially for quiet or shy students; greater L2 production; improved quality of L2 discourse – but, by reviewing transcripts with students, she also found that errors were frequently explicitly corrected either online or offline. Finally, she claimed that L1 use in the CMC condition is much less frequent than in the oral discussion condition. Beauvois emphasized that “the slowing down of the communicative process seems to bridge the gap between the oral and written communication for a number of students allowing [the students] to benefit more fully from the language learning process” (p. 213). She described the online discourse produced using the InterChange LAN as a “conversation in slow motion” (p. 198), a new kind of hybrid form of communication. In addition to the oft-stated criticism of an overly narrow focus on technology and an absence of theoretical framework, the main critique of early studies

57

58

Carl S. Blyth

of technology is that they essentially put old wine in new bottles. In other words, these studies typically describe the application of a new technology to traditional pedagogical practices. Critics pointed out that the real innovation of any new technology may be overlooked by framing research in terms of traditional practices. In the case of Beauvois (1998) and Kern (1995), that traditional practice is a teacher-initiated discussion of an assigned reading. However, in defense of this line of research, such criticism misses the obvious point that the primary goal of technologist approaches is to help teachers – not researchers – understand new technology, and there appears no better way to do that than through comparative studies that take current pedagogical practice as the point of departure. Moreover, even as the Internet enters its second decade, there will always be new forms of technology (e.g., Skype, iPhone, etc.). As a consequence, technology-focused, descriptive research will continue to play an important role.

Psycholinguistic approaches A vocal proponent for more theoretically informed CALL research, Chapelle (1997, 1998, 2005) has repeatedly argued for the relevance of Interactionist SLA (Gass 1997; Long 1991, 1996; Long & Robinson 1998; Pica 1994). Based on the input hypothesis – the notion that comprehensible input is the primary ingredient of language acquisition – interactionist theory claims that the process of interaction holds the keys to getting learners to attend to linguistic forms and their contextualized meanings in the input. As interlocutors interact, they monitor their listeners’ comprehension and naturally make conversational adjustments as needed (e.g., repetitions, paraphrases, metalinguistic comments, etc.). Chapelle (2005) claimed that Interactionist Theory is largely based on Schmidt’s Noticing Hypothesis: One might sum up the benefits proposed by interaction theory as the means of prompting learners to direct their attention in useful ways to linguistic input. In this sense, the interaction hypothesis is related to the noticing hypothesis (Schmidt 1992) which hypothesizes the value of attention directed toward key linguistic features during second language tasks.  (p. 56)

An extension of the noticing hypothesis is Swain’s output hypothesis that states that learners may become aware of (notice) their own linguistic deficiencies while engaged in communication and make attempts to fix the problem by pushing themselves to use linguistic forms beyond their control (Swain 1995, 2000).



Research perspectives on online discourse

Chapelle (1998) translated the main points of the Interactionist SLA model (the input hypothesis, the output hypothesis and the noticing hypothesis) into “seven hypotheses relevant for developing multimedia CALL” (p. 23): 1. The linguistic characteristics of target language input need to be made  salient. 2. Learners should receive help in comprehending semantic and syntactic  aspect of linguistic input. 3. Learners need to have opportunities to produce target language output. 4. Learners need to notice errors in their own output. 5. Learners need to correct their linguistic output. 6. Learners need to engage in target language interaction whose structure can be modified for negotiation of meaning. 7. Learners should engage in L2 tasks designed to maximize opportunities for (pp. 23–25) good interaction. 

An empirical study by Blake (2000), framed in terms of Interactionist SLA, examined the use of a synchronous chat program, Remote Technical Assistance, in terms of the Interaction Hypothesis: the conditions for SLA are crucially enhanced by having L2 learners negotiate meaning with other speakers, native or otherwise. Among the benefits cited, these negotiations tend to increase input comprehensibility through language modifications – such as simplifications, elaborations, confirmation and comprehension checks, clarifications requests or recasts – which end up providing the L2 learner with the type of negative evidence deemed necessary by some SLA theories for continued language development… . (p. 121)

More precisely, the study examined the effect of task type (information gap, decision making, jigsaw puzzle) on the negotiated interaction of 25 dyads of intermediate learners of Spanish. Following work by Pica, Kanagy, and Falodun (1993), Blake hypothesized that the jigsaw task and information gap task would lead to increased instances of successful negotiated interaction and thus be most beneficial to SLA. The results partially confirm the hypothesis by demonstrating a highly significant level of negotiated interaction during the jigsaw task but not during the other two task types. Furthermore, a closer inspection of the data revealed a predominance of lexical negotiation and a paucity of syntactic negotiation. Blake argued that the findings suggest that CMC may provide learners with the alleged benefits ascribed to the interaction hypothesis, that is, “apperceived input, which can subsequently be used to modify and improve their vocabulary” (p. 133). Building on the seven hypotheses for CALL research and instructional design advocated by Chapelle (1998), Doughty and Long (2003) proposed a set of

59

60 Carl S. Blyth

methodological principles for CALL design that incorporates task-based learning into the interactionist paradigm. These principles are the following: 1. Use tasks, not texts as the unit of analysis. 2. Promote learning by doing. 3. Elaborate input (do not simplify, do not rely solely on ‘authentic’ texts). 4. Provide rich (not impoverished) input. 5. Encourage inductive (chunk) learning. 6. Focus on form. 7. Provide negative feedback. 8. Respect ‘learner syllabi’/developmental process. 9. Promote cooperative/collaborative learning. 10. Individualize instructions (according to communicative needs and  psycholinuistically).  (p. 52)

González-Lloret (2003) described a Spanish multimedia simulation program called En Busca de Esmeraldas based on these principles. Developed and used at the University of Hawai’i for teaching Spanish, En Busca de Esmeraldas “places students in a plot in which they are hired to help find a document at the University of Hawai’i. Students have the choice of either reading a letter or listening to a message on their answering machine from a woman in Spain who would like to hire them to search for a document at the University” (p. 87). Following Doughty and Long’s task-based learning principles, the program requires pairs of students to perform complementary tasks and exchange information as they navigate their way through the events and challenges of the 3-D storyworld. In addition to describing the task-based principles for the design of the online materials, González-Lloret assessed the program’s efficacy by conducting an empirical study to determine whether the materials lead to improved negotiated interaction. Based on transcripts of recorded interactions between eight learners (four dyads) using the program, González-Lloret examined the negotiation process following a model outlined by Doughty (2000) as illustrated in Figure 2. Trigger →

Signal →

Response →

Reaction

Lexical error Phonetic error Language/task

Confirmation check Clarification request Comprehension check

Repetition Expansion Reformulation Use of L1

Exclamation Non-verbal Correction complexity

(Figure 2 is cited with permission from González-Lloret 2003: 92)

Figure 2.  Negotiation proces . The complete online program may be accessed at http://marta.lll.hawaii.edu/enbusca



Research perspectives on online discourse

After coding the data for these negotiation and interaction features, she verified the active participation of both participants in the dyads. She found that unknown lexical items trigger the majority of negotiations (approximately 53%), a finding in keeping with Blake (2000). González-Lloret also noted instances of selfand other-correction that might reveal L2 acquisition. Her main finding was: the language produced by the participants during the simulation was typical of negotiation for meaning, where the main emphasis is on the completion of the task, and where language is used with its main communicative purpose in an economical way, without paying attention to the production of long, accurate constructions.  (p. 98)

Sociocultural In recent years there has been a marked increase in so-called social approaches to SLA (Block 2003). Block argued that researchers need to examine not only the individual and cognitive aspects of language learning but also the socially constructed learning process itself. A large part of this so-called social turn in SLA research derives from the application of Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of mind to language learning. (For overviews of sociocultural theory, see Lantolf 2000; Lantolf & Thorne 2006.) Warschauer (2005) noted that previous CALL research conducted from a sociocultural perspective has largely focused on issues of culture, literacy, and identity in three specific contexts: individual networked classrooms, informal online learning, and telecollaborative exchanges between classes (Warschauer 1996; Warschauer & Kern 2000). Warschauer (1997) argued that there are three main aspects to Vygotskyan thought that are relevant to CALL and CMC research: mediation, social learning, and genetic analysis (p. 41). According to Lantolf (2000), “the most fundamental concept of sociocultural theory is that the mind is mediated” (p. 1). In essence, mediation implies an indirect relationship between the human mind and the world that is negotiated with the help of tools (frequently referred to as artifacts in the literature). These tools or cultural artifacts may be relatively concrete (e.g., a calculator, an abacus, fingers) or relatively abstract and symbolic (e.g., language, metaphor). Lantolf and Thorne (2006) explained succinctly the consequences of mediation for human learning: Vygotsky’s fundamental claim is that higher forms of human mental activity are mediated by culturally constructed auxiliary means…. These auxiliary means arise as a consequence of participation in cultural activities (for example, manufacturing goods, raising and educating children, playing, producing art, etc.) in which cultural artifacts (for example, books, paper, clocks, technology, toys, eating

61

62

Carl S. Blyth

utensils, etc.) and cultural concepts (for example, self, person, family, time, literacy, law, religion, mind etc.) ‘interact in complex, dynamic ways with each other and with [biologically endowed] psychological phenonomena’ (Ratner 2002: 10).  (Lantolf & Thorne 2006: 59)

The above quotation captures another fundamental concept of Vygotskyan thought – the all-important social origin of higher mental functioning, a concept that Warschauer refers to as social learning. The Vygotskyan notion most often associated with social learning (also called apprenticeship learning) is the zone of proximal development (ZPD), defined as the distance between what a learner can accomplish on her own as opposed to what she can accomplish with the help of a more experienced peer or expert. Lantolf (2000) restated the ZPD as people who “co-construct contexts in which expertise emerges as a feature of the group” (p. 17). He pointed out the importance of social learning, “since without such a possibility it is difficult to imagine how expertise of any kind could ever arise; unless of course we were to assume an a priori biological endowment that specified the precise properties of the ability in question” (p. 17). Genetic analysis is the third fundamental concept that Warschauer mentioned in his outline of sociocultural theory and CMC. Socioculturalists maintain that human mental operations are best analyzed as a historical or developmental process. Vygotsky proposed four different genetic domains for the study of higher mental functions in humans: phylogenetic (development of the species during human evolution), sociocultural (development of human cultures), ontogenetic (development of an individual over the lifespan), and microgenetic (development of an individual during a particular task). Lantolf (2000) pointed out that most research has occurred on the ontogentic level where “the focus has been on exploring the ways in which abilities such as voluntary memory are formed in children through the integration of mediational means into the thinking process” (p. 3). A excellent example of CMC research framed in terms of sociocultural theory is Thorne’s 2003 study, an examination of various cultural influences on the use of Internet communication tools such as email or chat by foreign language learners. Thorne (2003) examined three case studies with the aid of the three fundamental sociocultural concepts – mediation, apprenticeship learning, and genetic analysis. In all three case studies, Thorne’s method is essentially microgenetic, that is, a close analysis of an individual’s development during a specific communicative event. In the first case study based on earlier research (Kramsch & Thorne 2002), Thorne analyzed apparent cultural mismatches between American college students learning French and their online partners, a group of French high school students. Thorne (2003) showed that the American and French interlocuters held conflicting expectations for online discourse:



Research perspectives on online discourse

What I would like to suggest is that a difference in communicative genres demonstrably thwarted satisfying interaction in this case of telecollaborative foreign language interaction. Trust and relationship-building for the Americans and truth value and negotiation of factual accuracy for the French involved differing goals, frames of reference, and perceptions of what is desirable, and even possible, through Internet-based communicative activity. (p. 46)

In the second case study, Thorne (2003) described the communication between an American and a French college student who expanded their relationship beyond the boundaries of the structured pedagogical activity. Thorne showed how the American student benefited from “the mediation of another person, specifically an age-peer who was willing to provide immediate and explicit linguistic feedback as part of a socially meaningful relationship” (p. 51) in order to learn French terms of address (tu vs. vous) as well as locative prepositions (en, dans, etc.). The interaction between the expert (a native French speaker) and the learner (an American student of French) is a model of apprenticeship learning in an informal context. In the third case study, Thorne (2003) reported on interviews conducted with American students who participated in a telecollaborative project. He noted that while the American students indicated general support for telecollaboration, they rejected the use of email, greatly preferring the use of instant messenger for what he calls “interpersonal age-peer relationship-building” (p. 57). Thorne deemed the use of email for peer-to-peer informal exchanges as “the wrong tool for the right job” (p. 54).

Ecological The latest theoretical approach to researching online discourse is the ecological approach (Kramsch 2003; Leather & van Dam 2003; van Lier 2004). Van Lier (2004) credits the 19th century German biologist Ernst Haeckel with coining the term ecology to refer to the “totality of relationships of an organism with all other organisms with which it comes into contact” (p. 3). Proponents of an ecological framework for analyzing online discourse argue that the Internet is best understood as a network of networks, or a system of interlocking systems, that is, an ecology. Van Lier (2004) claimed that an ecological approach to language learning shares much in common with sociocultural theory. In fact, van Lier sees the ecological approach to language learning as the natural extension of sociocultural theory. Nevertheless, despite the apparent affinities, the ecological approach distinguishes itself from sociocultural theory by providing a consistent theory of

63

64 Carl S. Blyth

language learning situated within semiotics. Moreover, an ecological approach shifts the goal of research to the discovery of how the constituent parts of a complex system (be it an ecosystem or a computer network) form a whole. Van Lier contends that a major consequence of this relational emphasis is that any “research must be seen as a piece of the ecological puzzle, i.e., an effort must be made to see where and how it fits” (p. 207). Drawing on the work of the well-known developmental psychologist Bronfenbrenner (1979, 1993), who developed an ecological approach to human development, van Lier (2004) described educational ecology as a hierarchy of nested ecosystems: the lesson, the classroom, the school, the district, and so forth. According to van Lier, the “value of Bronfenbrenner’s model lies not in the nested set of systems per se, but in the focus on the relationships among the systems. These linkages allow the researcher to track instigative and debilitative forces between one ecosystem and another” (p. 210). An excellent application of Bronfenbrenner’s ecological approach to developmental systems comes from van Lier’s study of project-based language learning in two very different classrooms (van Lier 2003). Van Lier framed his study by noting that research on the benefits of computers in education has resulted in contradictory findings. He opined that traditional research has been unable to demonstrate which variables are consequential for learning in a technology-mediated environment because the object of study is too complex and dynamic: “One of the reasons that traditional research models do not work is that technology is a moving target: as soon as the description of a particular software or hardware appears in print, it is rendered obsolete by a new version or a totally different way of doing things” (p. 51). One of the major points of van Lier’s study is to demonstrate a principled way of handling the lack of comparability between learning contexts, in this case, a fourth-grade, dual immersion classroom of Anglo and Latino children from mixed socioeconomic backgrounds and an intensive ESL classroom of economically privileged, highly motivated adults. Using Bronfenbrenner’s analytic categories of nested systems (microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem), van Lier (2003) showed that the efficacy of technology in project-based language learning depends on very different variables in the two classrooms. He suggested that in order to understand technologymediated peer interactions in the fourth-grade classroom, the researcher must begin by peeling back the outer layers of context, namely the historical and ideological practices surrounding bilingual education in American society, the macrosystemic level in Bronfenbrenner’s terms. Next, he peels back the exosystem layer (the community level) by analyzing the differences in performance between the Anglo students and the Latino students in terms of access to technology in their respective communities. In contrast to his analysis of the performance of



Research perspectives on online discourse

fourth-grade dual immersion students, van Lier argued that the researcher does not need to “cast the net of contextual research much wider than the language course and the institutional setting (the microsystem or mesosystem)” in order to understand the performance of the university ESL students (2003: 61). As such, his focus shifts to the classroom when analyzing the ESL students’ interactions. Two hallmarks of the ecological approach are apparent in van Lier’s (2003) study: reliance on close, ethnographic documentation and a focus on the relationships between systemic levels. On the face of things, these two widely divergent case studies are hardly comparable, much less generalizable. But van Lier argued that their informativeness lies in their particularities: “In sum, while the classroom activities described cannot be generalized, it is likely that some of the best things that happen in these classrooms can be particularized as part of pedagogically sound curricula in other settings” (p. 57). Like most studies of interaction, van Lier’s study is based, in large part, on the careful analysis of transcribed data. However, unlike in psycholinguistic approaches, the transcribed data is not about negotiated interaction that leads to increased awareness of form-meaning connections per se, but rather is about social concepts such as learner autonomy or increasing diversity of actions and responses to affordances in the setting. Moreover, these transcribed data are related to other data concerning belief systems and educational policies. In fact, given that the purview is so large – the educational ecosystem itself – the actual transcribed data are only small pieces to a much larger puzzle.

Conclusion In his recent overview of language learning and technology, Kern (2006) pointed out that the disappearance of the acronym CALL (computer-assisted language learning) in educational scholarship signals an important shift in perspective and research agenda. Computers are no longer conceptualized as an add-on or as a special context for language learning, but rather they are now seen as an integral part of everyday communication. In other words, the disappearance of the acronym CALL indicates that computer technology has reached a level of ubiquity in our society and, as a consequence, invisibility. Even the acronym CMC may be headed for extinction because computer communication technologies are converging rapidly with other digital technologies (e.g. the appearance of Apple’s iPhone, a hand-held device that combines a mobile phone with an iPod and Internet access). As communication technologies grow more powerful and convergent, they expand and diversify the array of social contexts of communication, each with

65

66 Carl S. Blyth

it own exigencies and patterns of interaction: chatrooms, threaded discussions, listservs, virtual communities, and so forth. It should come as no surprise then that the research literature is currently undergoing a similar expansion and diversification. New research approaches to online language learner discourse, most notably those that examine informal and non-instructed contexts as discussed above, have greatly increased. Kern (2006) noted that ethnographic research methodology will become more relevant “as more technology-mediated language learning and language use takes place (a) outside of educational institutions and even outside of educational frameworks, and (b) across diverse social, cultural, socioeconomic, and political contexts” (p. 187). Nevertheless, the rise of the newer, more socially-oriented approaches has not put an end to psycholinguistic or technological approaches which have retained their relevance to the field. That the Internet is having an enormous impact on language learning and language teaching is certainly beyond debate. However, what is debatable is how best to describe that relationship. For instance, the discussion of Crystal’s book is framed in terms of how the Internet has an impact on language. Such an approach implies that the Internet is causing language and literacy to change. But what impact does language and literacy have on the Internet? The causation of social and educational change is rarely simple and rarely flows in one direction. Murray (2000) made this point in her cogent discussion of changing technologies and literacies. She noted that scholars often equate the Internet to the introduction of the printing press in the 15th century and that the printing press is generally understood to have triggered widespread changes in literacy practices. The parallel is based on the notion that technological revolutions entail rapid and far-reaching social change that is the inevitable result of the introduction of a major new technology. In this view, change in the technologies of literacy affect literacy practices and communities: The transformation from an oral culture to a literate one reshaped consciousness; the introduction of alphabetic writing in ancient Greece transformed Greek thought; the invention of the printing press moved the power of scholar-priests to more democratic institutions and promoted individualism, nationalism, and secularism. Scholars thus claim that the introduction of the computer will inevitably result in a different social consciousness of what literacy is and how it functions in individuals and society.  (p. 43)

Murray’s main contention is that technology and society are in a complex, mutual relationship. In terms of the field of foreign language pedagogy and foreign language learning research, the Internet has not caused change so much as it has hastened changes that were already well underway in the profession. In particular, the rise of the Internet has coincided with a documented paradigm shift towards social approaches to language learning, that is, a shift from a psycholinguistic



Research perspectives on online discourse

approach to a sociocultural approach to, more recently, an ecological approach. This development is not surprising, because, as Crystal (2001) pointed out echoing the words of Berners-Lee, the central figure in the creation of the Internet, the Internet is “not just a technological fact; it is a social fact” (p. 237). Thus, it appears that the massive size and rapid spread of the Internet have made it virtually impossible for language researchers to ignore the centrality of the social context in human interaction and language learning. More important, according to Crystal, is the very real possibility that mediating discourse online may one day be more prevalent than face-to-face interaction (p. 241). Such a mind-boggling scenario underscores the importance of further research for understanding language learning and language use online.

References Beauvois, M. H. (1992). Computer-assisted classroom discussion in the foreign language classroom: Conversation in slow motion. Foreign Language Annals, 25, 455–464. Beauvois, M. H. (1997). Write to speak: The effects of electronic communication on the oral achievement of fourth semester French students. In J. Muyskens (Ed.), New ways of learning and teaching: Issues in language program direction (pp. 93–115). Boston, MA: Heinle. Beauvois, M. H. (1998). Conversations in slow motion: Computer-mediated communication in the foreign language classroom. Canadian Modern Language Review, 54, 198–214. Belz, J. & Thorne, S. (Eds). (2006). Internet-mediated intercultural foreign language education. 2005 AAUSC Issues in Language Program Direction, Boston, MA: Thomson Heinle. Blake, R. (2000). Computer mediated communication: A window on L2 Spanish interlanguage. Language Learning & Technology, 4, 120–136. Block, D. (2003). The social turn in second language acquisition. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bronfenbrenner, U. (1993). The ecology of cognitive development: Research models and fugitive findings. In R. Wozniak & K. W. Fischer (Eds.), Development in context: Acting and thinking in specific environments (pp. 3–44). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Bush, C. & Larson, J. (1983). Montevidisco [Computer software] (Version 1.00). Provo, UT: Brigham Young University. Chapelle, C. (1997). CALL in the year 2000: Still in search of research paradigms? Language Learning & Technology, 1, 19–43. Chapelle, C. (1998). Multimedia CALL: Lessons to be learned from research on instructed SLA. Language Learning & Technology, 2, 22–34. Chapelle, C. (2005). Interactionist SLA theory in CALL research. In J. Egbert & G. M. Petrie (Eds.), CALL research perspectives (pp. 53–64). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Chun, D. M. (1994). Using computer networking to facilitate the acquisition of interactive competence. System, 22, 17–31. Crystal, D. (2001). Language and the internet. Cambridge: CUP.

67

68 Carl S. Blyth

Doughty, C. (2000). Negotiating the L2 linguistic environment. University of Hawai’i Working Papers in ESL, 18, 47–83. Doughty, C. & Long, M. (2003). Optimal psycholinguistic environments for distance foreign language learning. Language Learning & Technology, 7, 50–80. Egbert, J. L. & Petrie, G. M. (Eds.). (2005). CALL research perspectives. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Furstenberg, G. & Malone, S. (1993). A la rencontre de Philippe. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Gass, S. (1997). Input, interaction, and the second language learner. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. González-Lloret, M. (2003). Designing task-based CALL to promote interaction: En busca de esmeraldas. Language Learning & Technology, 7, 86–104. Herring, S. (Ed.). (1996). Computer-mediated communication. Linguistic, social and cross-cultural perspectives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Higgins, J. (1988). Language learners and computers. London: Longman. Huh, K. & Hu, W. (2005). Criteria for effective CALL research. In J. L. Egbert & G. M. Petrie (Eds.), CALL research perspectives (pp. 9–21). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Hutchins, E. (1995). Cognition in the wild. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Kelm, O. R. (1992). The use of synchronous computer networks in second language instruction: A preliminary report. Foreign Language Annals, 25, 441–454. Kern, R. (1995). Restructuring classroom interaction with networked computers: Effects on quantity and characteristics of language production. Modern Language Journal, 79, 457– 476. Kern, R. (2006). Perspectives on technology in learning and teaching languages. TESOL Quarterly, 40, 183–210. Kern, R., Ware, P., & Warschauer, M. (2004). Crossing frontiers: New directions in online pedagogy and research. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 24, 243–260. Kramsch, C. (2003). Introduction: How can we tell the dancer from the dance? In C. Kramsch (Ed.), Language acquisition and language socialization: Ecological perspectives (pp. 1–30). London: Continuum. Kramsch, C. & Thorne, S. (2002). Foreign language learning as global communicative practice. In D. Block & D. Cameron (Eds.), Globalization and language teaching (pp. 83–100). London: Routledge. Lantolf, J. P. (Ed.). (2000). Sociocultural theory and second language learning. Oxford: OUP. Lantolf, J. P. & Thorne, S. (2006). Sociocultural theory and the genesis of second language development. Oxford: OUP. Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: CUP. Leather, J. & van Dam, J. (Eds.). (2003). Ecology of language acquisition. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Long, M. (1985). Input in second language acquisition theory. In S. Gass & C. G. Madden (Eds.), Input in second language acquisition (pp. 377–393). Rowley, MA: Newbury House. Long, M. (1991). Focus on form: A design feature in language teaching methodology. In C. Kramsch & R. Ginsberg (Eds.), Foreign language research on second language acquisition (pp. 39–52). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Long, M. (1996). The role of linguistic environment in second language acquisition. In W. C. Ritchie & T. K. Bhatia (Eds.), Handbook of second language acquisition (pp. 413– 468). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.



Research perspectives on online discourse

Long, M. & Robinson, P. (1998). Theory, research and practice. In C. Doughty & J. Williams (Eds.), Focus on form in classroom second language acquisition (pp. 15–41). Cambridge: CUP. Meskill, C. (2005). Metaphors that shape and guide CALL research. In J. Egbert & G. M. Petrie (Eds.), CALL research perspectives (pp. 25–40). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Meskill, C., Mossop, J., & Bates, R. (1999). Electronic texts and English as a second language environment. Albany, NY: National Research Center on English Learning and Achievement. Murray, D. E. (2000). Changing technologies, changing literacy communities? Language Learning & Technology, 4, 43–58. Och, E. & Schieffelin, B. B. (1979). Developmental pragmatics. New York, NY: Academic Press. Och, E. & Schieffelin, B. B. (1983). Acquiring conversational competence. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Papert, S. (1980). Mindstorms: Children, computers and powerful ideas. New York, NY: Basic Books. Petrie, G. (2005). Toward a cartography of CALL. In J. Egbert & G. M. Petrie (Eds.), CALL research perspectives (pp. 193–196). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Pica, T. (1994). Research on negotiation: What does it reveal about second language-Learning conditions, processes and outcomes? Language Learning, 44, 493–527. Pica, T., Kanagy, R., & Falodun, J. (1993). Choosing and using communication tasks for second language instruction. In G. Crookes & S. Gass (Eds.), Tasks and language learning: Integrating theory and practice, Vol. 1 (pp. 9–34). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Ratner, C. (2002). Cultural psychology: Theory and method. New York, NY: Kluwer/Plenum. Salaberry, R. (1999). Commentary on Carol Chapelle’s CALL in the year 2000. Language Learning & Technology, 3, 104–107. Schieffelin, B. B. & Ochs, E. (1986). Language socialization across cultures. Cambridge: CUP. Schmidt, R. (1992). Awareness and second language acquisition. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 13, 206–226. Shin, D.-S. (2006). ESL students’ computer-mediated communication practices: Context configuration. Language Learning & Technology, 10, 65–84. Swain, M. (1995). Three functions of output in second language learning. In G. Cook & B. Seidlhofer (Eds.), Principle and practice in applied linguistics. Studies in honor of H. G. Widdowson (pp. 125–144). Oxford: OUP. Swain, M. (2000). The output hypothesis and beyond: Mediating acquisition through collaborative dialogue. In J. P. Lantolf (Ed.), Sociocultural theory and second language learning (pp. 97–114). Oxford: OUP. Thorne, S. (2003). Artifacts and culture-of-use in intercultural communication. Language Learning & Technology, 7, 38–67. van Lier, L. (2003). A tale of two computer classrooms: The ecology of project-based language learning. In J. Leather & J. van Dam (Eds.), Ecology of language acquisition (pp. 49–64). Dordrecht: Kluwer. van Lier, L. (2004). The ecology and semiotics of language learning: A sociocultural perspective. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Warner, C. (2004). It’s just a game, right? Types of play in foreign language CMC. Language Learning & Technology, 8, 69–87. Warschauer, M. (1996). Comparing face-to-face and electronic communication in the second language classroom. CALICO Journal, 13, 7–26.

69

70 Carl S. Blyth

Warschauer, M. (2005). Sociocultural perspectives on CALL. In J. Egbert & G. M. Petrie (Eds.), CALL research perspectives (pp. 41–51). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Warschauer, M. & Kern, R. (Eds.). (2000). Networked-based language teaching: Concepts and practice. Cambridge: CUP. Wertsch, J. V. (1991). Voices of the mind: A Sociocultural approach to mediated action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

part ii

Creating collaboration

Postcards from the (turbulent) edge (of chaos) Complexity theory and computer  mediated communication Neil H. Johnson University of Aizu

This chapter presents data from two graduate seminars at the University of Arizona that illustrate how classroom activities and curriculum can be meaningfully supported by the use of a computer-mediated learning environment. The transcripts from postings made in both courses are analyzed and related to dynamic systems theory. It is argued that the data captures characteristics of learning as a dynamic open system, the central idea in dynamic systems theory (also known as complexity or chaos theory), as discussed by Gleick (1987) and Larsen-Freeman (1997a, 1997b, 2002). The suggestion is that computernetwork-based tools offer a useful communicative space for establishing and fostering interdependence and collaboration among students. This theoretical framework provides potentially useful ways of understanding the complex and nonlinear aspects of language learning as interactive social processes and practices.

In this chapter, the meaning-making interactions of graduate students within a computer-mediated learning environment are described from a dynamic systems or complexity theory perspective. Focusing on learner interaction in this way involves a particular view of language, learning, and the possibilities afforded by computer-networked learning systems. It involves thinking that is part of what Watson-Gegeo (2004) described as the “paradigm shift in human and social sciences that is revolutionizing the way we view mind, language, epistemology and learning” (p. 331). This shift, or social turn, in applied linguistics and second language acquisition (SLA) studies specifically, complements the mainstream SLA research that works within linear notions of cause and effect and notions that isolate and test for variables that necessarily exclude issues of sociocultural context

74

Neil H. Johnson

and the individuality and agency of the learner. An approach based in complexity theory allows for the exploration and engagement with the multifaceted nature of interaction within any given learning situation, and as such, is broadly compatible with the ecological metaphor (Kramsch 2002; van Lier 2004) for language socialization as well as with the growing body of work in sociocultural theory and language pedagogy (for an overview see Lantolf & Thorne 2006). Hill (2003), for example, specifically draws comparisons with the nonlinear processes highlighted by complexity theory and the learning that takes place within the Vygotskyan zone of proximal development. The commensurability of these two theoretical positions is, however, yet to be determined, although van Lier (2004) located both theories within a broad ecological, semiotic perspective to language and education. Indeed, the application of dynamic systems theory to applied linguistics in general has yet to be understood or developed fully, but the promise it holds for understanding what might be otherwise seen as overly complicated contextual factors and anomalous learner interaction, both in and outside of the language classroom, means that it is surely worth further consideration. In this chapter, I will apply some of the basic principles of dynamic systems theory to small samples of data from two graduate-level classes that communicated extensively outside of the classroom through technology, and discuss the insights and implications of this application. In both examples, small groups of graduate students, both native and nonnative English speakers, met for 2½ hour sessions, once a week, in a classroom developed for computer-network based interaction. The learners and instructor made considerable use of the WebCT® system that allowed for asynchronous discussions to be threaded and continued throughout the 16-week semester. Students were encouraged to discuss theoretical issues arising during class discussions or readings, and also to manage the class-based collaborative work that was an important component of this particular course.

Computer-mediated communication As Thorne and Payne (2005) pointed out in their recent review of the language learning and technology field, a third generation of computer usage in language teaching and learning is now a reality. The most recent trends are currently toward what is termed device-agnostic CMC, involving a clear shift away from the time when technology was seen as a useful device primarily for the drilling of discrete linguistic items. Computer-mediated communication may be broadly defined as the use of computers and computer networks for communication purposes. Synchronous and asynchronous forms include chat, email, Wikis, and dis-



Postcards from the (turbulent) edge (of chaos)

cussion-based message boards. Warschauer and Kern (2000) suggested that these tools provide potentially profound possibilities: “These new technologies do not only serve the new teaching/learning paradigms, they also help shape the new paradigms. The very existence of networked computers creates possibilities for new kinds of communication” (p. 12). Thinking about CMC from an ecological perspective allows us to see these learning media as offering different affordances for learning. The idea of affordances is defined by van Lier (2004) as “a relationship between an organism (a learner in our case) and the environment, that signals an opportunity for or inhibition of action” (p. 4). The affordances of the CMC environment potentially include new ways for students to collaborate and co-construct knowledge and meaning, presenting as they do, a space where “access is available and engagement encouraged” (van Lier 2000: 253). This technological move toward network-based learning is perhaps a part of larger developments in the workplace and in communication on a societal and even a global level. Indeed, as the world becomes increasingly global in nature, to some extent based on the new literacies of technology and information, there is a risk that the world is eventually going to become divided between individuals who have electronic literacy and individuals who do not. Gee (2000: 43) described this technological revolution as the “new Fordism” in terms of how it has changed global capitalism. We have gone beyond the old production capitalism into the information-based capitalism that makes very different demands on the citizens under its employ. It is suggested that economic marginality awaits people who do not adapt to the new ways of thinking and operating that characterize the new global capitalism, which is increasingly based on networked and socially situated ways of thinking and operating. It is an economy demanding ever-increasing flexibility and new ways of interacting with information and technology from participants. It follows, then, that education should keep ahead of these changes in the broader society – mindful perhaps of the reservations that critical educators and others may have about the ways in which technology is changing the world around us. In this study, technology, in the form of asynchronous message boards, was purposely employed by the class instructor, to try to reshape the ways students interacted and collaborated, in keeping with the stated objectives of the class which were to create, explore, and further collaboration and interdependent learning among the participants. Because this explicit and specific goal of this graduate level seminar (Wildner-Bassett 2002) was situated within the paradigm shift mentioned previously, it is worthwhile to consider the role that computer-mediated communication played in the realization of the course objectives.

75

76

Neil H. Johnson

Complexity theory In rejecting the idea of learning as a simple cause and effect process, with tokens of knowledge being passed from someone who knows to those who do not, we must simultaneously embrace an alternate view. In this belief, I follow the lead given by Larsen-Freeman (1997a, 2002) Leather and van Dam (2002), van Lier (2000, 2002, 2004), and Wildner-Bassett (2005) in applying the theoretical understanding of complexity theory to allow educators interested in learner discourse to understand further the dynamic ways in which learners interact and create meaning for themselves and each other. Van Lier (2004) made this application explicit: Within an ecosystem, including any social ecosystem (a family, a classroom, a school) a large number of influences are present in a partially chaotic, unpredictable and uncontrolled way…a complex order emerges…is dynamic rather than static and provides affordances for active participants. Learning emerges as part of the affordances being picked up for further action. (p. 8)

The conceptual basis of complexity theory came to public consciousness in two bestselling works that detailed the possibilities offered by developments in scientific thought and inquiry: Gleick’s (1987) Chaos: towards a new kind of Science and Waldrop’s (1992) Complexity: the emerging science at the edge of order and chaos. These models were first related to applied linguistics in the influential work of Larsen-Freeman (1997a, 2002), and have since been developed by other research in language education (Cameron 2003; Hill 2003; Mallows 2002). These ideas have resonated elsewhere in research on development and cognition. For example, Bates and Thelen (2003) made a case for linking connectionist theories of mind with dynamic systems theory. Similarly, Garson (1998) investigated ways in which the brain’s function is best understood by, and is dependent upon, the functioning of a dynamic system. Larsen-Freeman (2000) described language itself as a dynamic system comprising multiple elements, such as syntax, morphology, phonology, and so forth, interacting together through use over time in nonlinear and unpredictable ways and producing diachronic change and variation. This work led Larsen-Freeman to coin the term grammaring (2003) as a way of capturing this dynamic nature of language in use. Cameron (2003) examined how discourse is created from such interacting elements of use and concluded that language, at the discoursal level, can be seen as a dynamic system. Discoursal features such as metaphor, then, may be better explained by considering them as attractors (a set to which the system evolves after a sufficient period of time). Indeed, interest is growing across disciplines in the applications for research that this “new science” offers. Outlined by Larsen-Freeman (1997a), the basic tenets of complexity theory offer a potentially useful framework for understanding lan-



Postcards from the (turbulent) edge (of chaos)

guage acquisition processes (see also van Lier 2004, for an overview of the theory and applications for language pedagogy and learning). I will now sketch the main features of this theory and subsequently apply these to the research context with which I am concerned.

Dynamic, complex, nonlinear Complex systems are defined as being made up of many, often diverse, components that interact together over time. The components react to the environment and to each other, meaning that even in a state of eqilibrium, the system is never fixed or fully static. Order within the system emerges out of these interactions in cyclical shifts of energy and activity that may take the system toward what is referred to as the edge of chaos. It is at these moments that restructuring in the dynamics of the system will occur. The shifts in energy can be triggered by seemingly insignificant changes in the environment whereas what might be taken as a massive trigger within such a system may have little or no effect at all. This aspect of the systems is well known as the butterfly effect. This is the reason, for example, that the weather is notoriously difficult to predict, because minute shifts in the conditions can have dramatic consequences when magnified through further changes as they develop over time.

Chaotic, unpredictable, sensitive to initial conditions The chaotic and unpredictable nature of a dynamic system is seen within the dynamic interaction over time that defines it. It is certain that change will occur, but it is impossible to predict when and why these transformations will arise. An often-cited example is the movement of a tiny pebble on a mountainside triggering an avalanche. That the avalanche was coming was not in doubt, but when exactly it was to be triggered was uncertain and the smallest movement of one component within the overall system ultimately produced it. The avalanche itself, incidentally, can be seen as a restructuring of the system of the mountain and its immediate ecology. The term initial conditions refers to the components of the system and how they relate to each other and the environment. The effects of their relationship are magnified as interactions take place over time, and large divergences may appear from what were initially very small differences. In terms of pedagogy, it is useful to remember that no two lessons ever seem to unfold in the same way. A lesson plan that worked brilliantly the previous semester may suddenly appear to be simply not effective. This change in outcome can perhaps

77

78

Neil H. Johnson

be explained by a change in the initial conditions of the lesson – different students and perhaps even a change in the meeting time of the class.

Open, self-organizing, feedback-sensitive, adaptive A dynamic system is said to be open because it must, by definition, be receiving energy from the environment within which it exists. If the system is closed and cut-off from that environment, it will simply cease to be. Because the elements of the system are located within a larger system and not merely haphazardly interacting, they will self-organize to maintain the integrity of the system itself. There are boundaries and rules about what can happen in that system. To expand on the weather example, there are an infinite number of possible weather variations, but because these variations fall within the attractor of a climate, the attractor state is confined within the climactic system. Order and restructurings depend on the fact that the system is feedback sensitive, which means that there is always going to be an element of unpredictability and instability present. “Positive feedback kicks evolution forward” as Briggs (1992) (cited in Larsen-Freeman 1997a: 145) explained. If the evolutionary patterns of species, for further illustration, are dynamic, complex systems as suggested, then the two poles of positive and negative feedback are what drive the evolutionary process forward. The species are, then, seen as not merely responding to their environment passively but also as interacting with it to produce the best and most advantageous outcomes – in other words, self-organizing through feedback from interaction. To return to the classroom example, the dynamics of any classroom will necessarily change through the course of a lesson period, a week, and a semester, as the different participants interact in multiple ways. Teachers often talk informally about a class that has become difficult to teach after some unexpected event or interaction that has taken place. Such changes in classroom functioning are, of course, impossible to predict, and yet may have serious implications for the learning that takes place. Understanding why they occur could potentially improve classroom management.

Strange attractors, fractal shape “The path that a dynamic system takes can be traced in space and is called an attractor” (Larsen-Freeman 1997a: 145). The attractors or paths in dynamic systems are called strange because of their unpredictable and nonlinear nature. The tracing of the dynamic system paths for the data in this study takes the form of a simple graph, which highlights the ebb and flow of student interactions over time throughout a semester. For every class, such a path would, of course, be



Postcards from the (turbulent) edge (of chaos)

different as the interactants self-organize and interact with their environments and each other. The term fractal refers to the idea of self-similarity at different magnification within a system. Agar (2005) cited the example of the stock market to highlight this phenomenon. Taken over a year, the fluctuations of a market will give rise to a pattern when charted through time on a graph. These patterns can be reflected at different time scales from a month, week, day, and even down to the hour. The important point of this similarity to the theory is that it suggests continuous dynamism within the system; even when it appears to be static, magnification to some degree will reveal activity and change.

Complexity and a CMC learning environment In this study I am interested in the dynamic, ongoing cycles of the learners within the classroom-based CMC system. The notions of stability, instability, open-system, and chaos match to a great degree the fluctuations of creativity and interaction within a classroom and CMC environment. The idea that the system shifts, breaks down, and restructures itself on a different plane also seems to capture some of the essence in what happens when groups of learners come together and try to collaborate in ways that are unfamiliar to them. The paradigm shift necessary to create true collaboration and interdependence among learners was the key element in providing the framework for interaction in this instance. The WebCT® system provided the tool to enable this shift. Other outcomes were dependent upon the learners and instructor to negotiate and navigate as the semester unfolded. In Table 1, the central notions of dynamic systems theory as outlined previously, have been applied to a CMC classroom environment. As mentioned, the initial conditions of any class are necessarily complex and unique. Student identities – how they identify themselves and are identified by discourse (e.g., Siegal 1996) within a situation or class – will of course be multiple and changing over time, depending on how the students relate to the course itself, their peers, their instructor, and their own sense of self. Identity will necessarily intersect with the evolving trajectories of the students. Developed by Lave and Wenger (1991), the notion of a trajectory attempts to capture the dynamic nature of participant engagement with a community. It is contingent upon a range of factors connected to how a person views him or herself in relation to the community and its practices. For example, if a student perceives a class as crucial to his or her development rather than as simply a filler class for credit, this perception influences how that student works and responds in the class. These are, in a sense, hidden variables, and yet consideration of their potential and realized impact provides insight into the multifaceted nature of teaching. The idea of the fractal,

79

80 Neil H. Johnson

Table 1.  Complexity theory and CMC Features of a complex, dynamic system

Applied to interaction and learning in a CMC environment

Sensitive to initial conditions

Student identities, needs, trajectories. Syllabus, materials, context, etc. Necessarily different for each class. System evolves over the semester as individual students interact with their learning environment and initial conditions. Composed of many diverse individuals that interact in nonlinear and unpredictable ways. Resistance can be seen as chaotic turbulence from which new order may emerge. Shifts in behavior in student learning and interaction patterns occur throughout the semester. The members of the class also belong simultaneously to many other systems and bring their ideas and suggestions into the system as it progresses. The instructor may also provide “feedback” in the traditional understanding. The path that the class postings/discussions and learning takes through the semester is not predictable. Levels of interaction and activity within the system are reflected at different time scales throughout the semester of participation. The similar patterns that emerge suggest continuous shifts and dynamism.

Dynamic, open Complex, emergent

Self-organizing, adaptive Feedback, sensitive

Strange attractors Fractal

Note: Adapted from Larsen-Freeman (1997a).

in which levels of interaction are repeated on different planes, and on different scales, throughout a system has not yet been applied to a classroom situation. It could be, for example, that, as energy within the class shifts, patterns of interaction inside the classroom at the more microlevel of group discussion are reflected in the class as a whole or within the CMC interaction. The ways in which different aspects of a learning ecology complement and reinforce each other, or not, is an interesting area for further research in exploring the dynamics of pedagogical practice and outcomes. I suggest, then, that the theoretical perspective of a dynamic system offers a different and potentially useful perspective on learner interaction. This perspective locates the learner within their full social situation and further sees the participants as individuals with complex and changing needs and wants within the classroom context. The central question with which I approach the data from the WebCT® learning environment is: What restructuring of interaction patterns and outcomes emerge in the postings of a group of learners as they come together and interact in a specific context?



Postcards from the (turbulent) edge (of chaos)

The study The research context The data are taken from the asynchronous WebCT® postings from two graduate-level courses, both titled, “Pedagogy of Cultural Change: Non-foundational Paradigms and CMC in Real Life Classroms,” in the Second Language Acquisition and Teaching program at the University of Arizona. WebCT® offered an online web space, organized by the instructor, that housed the syllabi, synchronous chat, grade updates, and asynchronous, threaded discussion boards. Dr. Mary Wildner-Bassett taught both of these classes in the COHLab, which is both a physical facility and a theoretical, research-based project developed in the College of Humanities at the University of Arizona. (The graduate students were either native speakers of English or highly proficient nonnative speakers of English.) The classes were small, 6 students in class 1, which took place in the fall of 2002, and 5 students in class 2, which convened in the spring of 2004. The classes met for 2½ hours, once a week, for 16 weeks, and students were encouraged to use the WEBCT® class site to collaborate and discuss with their fellow students and the instructor. The majority of the postings were made outside of class time, but postings and activities were also recorded in class time, such as a weekly “one minute reflection” at the end of each class period. The goal of the class, as described on the syllabus, was to: “think and live beyond the constraints of the still dominant cultures of the classroom and of its related research to create new communities of knowing” (Wildner-Bassett, General Rationale). In other words, the students were asked to theorize and study about different ways of learning simultaneously within a CMC framework as well as to live the paradigm shift toward collaborative, constructivist approaches in their own activity as students.

The data A complexity theory perspective provides the opportunity to think about classroom interactions in several ways. At the microlevel we may be concerned with the details of how the interactions are operating to create new knowledge and understandings or what Mercer (1995) termed the guided construction of knowledge (p. 9). At the macrolevel we can also consider the general ways in which the system organizes, structures, and changes itself over time. For this reason, the

. A full description of the COHLab and its functions and operations can be found in Wildner-Bassett (2002) and McBride (2005).

81

82

Neil H. Johnson

data from the two discussion boards was first examined for the basic number of contributions over time (see Figures 1 and 2). The calculation of the graph data takes no account of the length of a posting, or its nature, or whether it was posted inside or outside of class time. The majority of the postings were, however, made outside of class time. The purpose of counting the number of postings was to try to capture the dynamics of the energy within the systems as the learners progressed through the semester. The resultant graphs offer a very general insight

Figure 1.  Graph showing the attractor path of classroom interaction for class 1,  Fall 2002

Figure 2.  Graph showing the attractor path of classroom interaction for class 2,  Spring 2004



Postcards from the (turbulent) edge (of chaos)

into ways the students’ participation changed throughout the semester. In terms of complexity theory, I have then drawn an attractor, or path, for each dynamic system. Once these general trends were established, I thought it would be insightful to look at the microlevel interactions at different points during the semester to examine what was happening within the system when the sudden shifts in activity appeared to be taking place. These points represent places of change at the edge of chaos: points at which the classes, as a system, are potentially open to transformation in how the elements comprising the system interact and interrelate. For example, in the first class it is interesting to understand what happens within the class dynamics to create the large spikes in activity that take place in weeks 2 and 3. Similarly in the second set of data, around week 11, there appears to be a sudden and dramatic shift in activity after a period of relative inactivity. The following data from both classes offer insight on these moments in the semester. The interactions in both cases appeared within three days of the initial posting at the point indicated by the arrow on the graphs.

Interaction analysis and discussion of class 1 postings Example 1 shows the postings made by members of the class around week 3 of the semester. In class posting 1, Lena mentions the word tacit. Laura (posting 2) does not fully understand this term and seeks clarification on the discussion board. This query triggers a series of discussion postings in which students share personal narratives about their experiences as teachers and learners and thereby co-create an understanding of this term within the context of the class. Further discussion, elaboration, and collaboration ensue in the postings, which ultimately involve all members of the class as discussion moves to kinds of knowledge related to the notions of tacit knowledge, feedback, and clarification (postings 4–7). From a dynamic systems perspective, it is interesting how this interaction occurs in a specifically nonlinear and unpredictable way: there are sudden changes in the interaction both in terms of amount of interaction and depth of discussion. The almost casual question at the end of a routine message causes a surge in activity within the system and is responsible for generating what we can assume is meaningful interaction and a collaborative exploration of meaning within the group. As van Lier (2004) stated, “Learning emerges as part of the affordances being picked up for further action” (p. 8), a notion that seems to be borne out by this example, . The names of the participants have been changed and prior consent was obtained as part of the COHLab project.

83

84

Neil H. Johnson

Example 1.  Asynchronous web postings for class 1 Class 1. WebCT® postings between Monday and Thursday – week 3 Posting 1 Posting 2

Posting 3

Posting 4

Posting 5

Posting 6

Posting 7

Laura: He successfully finished the activity and got to know what he was supposed to do and how to organize his language on the tacit ground. Lena: This just feels strange at the moment because I learned “tacit” as a new word just the day before yesterday and memorized it as “something, which cannot be described”. Ok. Let’s describe something that cannot be described and I am not quite sure I get it… Petra: Tacit knowledge is unspoken knowledge. Tacit knowledge would be assumptions that we carry on a topic such as language learning and teaching. An assumption that I carry (and I’m not sure if I’m answering this question correctly) about learning and teaching is that it is important to have a student-centered environment … that student centeredness is “good” it is “the best way”. And this has been a big part of my belief system. John: Tacit knowledge, I’m really not sure I have a complete grasp of what this type of knowledge entails. I think part of my problem is that I have contradictory notions of what “knowledge” is. A part of me views it as a collection of facts, while another part of me sees it as a process. Laura: I think knowledge is both a process and knowing about facts. It is just that the “knowing of facts” develops or changes over the course of time (either because of experience, as in Petra’s case, or because of you acquiring more facts and thus shaping your knowledge) and this development of the “knowing of facts” of course happens as a process. Katrina: Two examples of tacit knowledge for me are: the role of grammar teaching and critical period hypothesis. The first example is probably the more interesting, for I have changed my mind on it several different times in the past 5 years ... Instructor: I think you do indeed grasp the meaning of tacit. Literally, it means “silent”. So silent knowledge or assumptions, in this context, would be what is working in us but never mentioned or spoken about. It is also, thus, hard to describe.

in which the web postings themselves become a part of the learning ecology of the class, offering the students opportunity for further action and development. Personal narrative has been demonstrated to be one of the most important ways people make sense of their own experience (Polkinghorne 1988); the use of such narratives in this context suggests a high level of personal involvement and engagement from the participants. This series of postings also exemplify an affordance provided by the ecology of the learning environment within which the students are interacting. The affordance, in this example, emerges from the different perspectives, experiences, and understandings that the class participants bring to the learning situation. It is the online space that allows the learners to interact and explore these differences that then become a potential resource for learning.



Postcards from the (turbulent) edge (of chaos)

Example 2.  Asynchronous web postings for class 2 Class 2. WebCT® postings between Monday and Thursday – week 11 Tom: Well, I guess I give up! I suppose I’ll write up my research as a paper and hand that in and present the paper on the final day of class. Posting 2 Jane: Yeah, I was thinking the same – if there’s nothing else posted after returning from TESOL, I give up. Posting 3 Instructor: The main feeling I get, just to be frank, from the overall interaction in the group this semester, and especially on CMC discussions, is that of most everyone taking the path of least resistance most of the time… Posting 4 Tom: I felt like giving up when I got back from TESOL because the silence in the WebCT felt to me like active resistance to the process. I just felt that coerced coconstruction is no co-construction at all. Posting 5 Emily: The situation in our class in getting from pleasant to very NEGATIVE Tom and Instructor are getting frustrated whereas I don’t feel that way at all … I certainly am not rebelling … I guess I sound irritated, but I’m not that irritated, I just think we could have done this faster and in one shot in class, unless we had so many other things planned for in class that we had to co-construct out of class. I hope I or anybody else doesn’t resort to being this confrontational again – it is unacceptable, computer-mediated or not. Posting 6 Emily: I find it fascinating how differently people perceive this class. And Tom, if you were that frustrated, you could have also sent me an email and told me to get my act together and respond on the WebCT. Don’t assume that I’m rebelling. I would have done so gladly. I honestly misunderstood the class agenda. I’m sorry. Posting 7 Tom: Well ... I said it felt like you were resisting – an unfair assumption based on a misunderstanding – I accept that. But that is what it felt like. I didn’t send an email because it hardly seems my place to do so and as I say – having to ask people to contributes defeats the purpose pretty much. Posting 8 Jane: Although this all sounds negative, it is not a reflection on anyone. I like and respect everyone involved in this class. Everyone has made great contributions – I just wish there was more of that! Posting 9 Instructor: I’m in fact right now feeling better about some aspects of our class than I have all semester. At least there’s some stuff happening. Posting 10 Jane: HEY EVERYONE! I don't think this is so hard – we just have to get to it. We need to co-construct our final assessment activity and we have a good idea, but all we’ve done so far is talk around it and not get into the meat of it. So here goes: Posting 1

Interaction analysis and discussion of class 2 posting The second data example (Example 2) is taken from postings at around week 12 of the semester in the second class. It is interesting to note in Figure 2 that prior to these postings, the number of postings had fallen to almost none for a number of weeks. This cycle is broken by the announcements from Tom and Jane in postings 1 and 2 that they are “giving

85

86 Neil H. Johnson

up” trying to collaborate with their fellow students and that they feel their time will be better spent working individually on their own projects. A clear sense of frustration is evident in these postings. The frustration triggers a response from the instructor (posting 3) who is also clearly frustrated by the lack of activity and progress within the group. The instructor expresses frustration with the thought that perhaps the students are only “taking the path of least resistance most of the time….” This suggestion brings further response from Tom (posting 4) and then a more heated response from Emily (posting 5), who feels that the tone of the class discussion is becoming “unacceptable.” More discussion and analysis follow until it seems at one point in the postings that the class may have collectively experienced a serious breakdown in communication and collaboration. A complexity theory perspective suggests that the group experienced a shift away from equilibrium within the system. The lack of activity and perceived resistance to the project generated energy within the system that rapidly transformed into a strain on the class dynamics as the shift away from equilibrium and balance continued. The confusion can be seen as a move toward the turbulent edge of chaos where there is a real possibility that the system will break down. This breakdown could manifest itself as a falling out between class members and a refusal to participate in the class project, for example. It is interesting to note, however, that the system, in a sense, self-corrects and re-organizes itself. This re-establishment of the system can be seen in Jane’s final message in posting 10, where she calls on her classmates to renew their efforts at collaborative enterprise. Indeed, Jane’s post can be seen as a transition and restructuring of the class dynamic, given that, following this interaction, the activity within the system appears at its most intense level, is sustained for the rest of the 16-week semester, and culminates in successful completion of the term project. The system was indeed sensitive to feedback from the environment, and the turbulence experienced might be considered a necessary phase for achieving the requisite level of interaction for success in truly co-operative and collaborative learning in this class. In a sense then, the movement and dynamism that shift the system between stability and chaos, provide the very space for creativity and growth in terms of, in these brief examples, learning and interpersonal relations. As Leather (2002) suggested, “This area of equipoise between stability and instability is where creative reorganization is evinced” (p. 60). This example highlights what Thorne (2003) described as “emergent interpersonal dynamics” (p. 1). It demonstrates that learning to learn in an unfamiliar paradigm requires students to renegotiate participation structures through ways of interacting, negotiating, and collaborating.



Postcards from the (turbulent) edge (of chaos)

Further implications and conclusion It must be recognized that the data samples here are small and taken from specialized classroom situations. Graduate students in small seminar settings may not offer a good example for what typically happens in general educational practice. Similarly, the classes here contained native speakers and very high-level nonnative speakers who are in graduate programs in the United States, and are not therefore a typical student population. Given these limitations, however, I believe these examples offer insight to how a computer network-based approach can complement and improve classroom instruction, while supporting the avowed pedagogical approach of an instructor. An important focus of SLA research has been the extent to which CMC creates more favorable participation opportunities for students compared with traditional classroom settings. There is interest in the role of CMC as a possible “equalizer” in participation (Hansen 2005: 10) that allows for greater interaction by less active students and changes the traditional teacher-dominated discussion structure (Honeycutt 2001). Warschauer (1996), for a further example, offered the hope “that electronic discussion may create opportunities for more equal participation in the classroom” (p. 22). This additional space for discussion means that all students, and especially underrepresented or less active students, are given further opportunity to interact and learn. There is evidence in these small samples that the role of the teacher in these CMC discussions is one of equal participant and that the technology affords students the opportunity to determine the course of the discussion. For example, in the case in class 1, posting 2, we see Lena taking responsibility to explore an issue from something that has arisen in the classroom discussion. This acceptance of responsibility leads to a significant, student-lead interaction involving the class and finally the instructor. Other studies (e.g. Kern 1995; Liu & Sadler 2003) on peer review work with second language writers, for example, have suggested that a hybrid use of face-to-face and CMC communication may provide the most effective learning environment. This suggestion is partly supported by the findings of the present study in that ideas arising from the face-to-face interaction are later taken up and discussed in detail in the asynchronous mode. It is critical to understand how the relationship between classroom interaction and CMC functions and how these two learning environments can complement and support each. These questions should be the subject of further research in CMC use in teaching practice. These two examples also suggest that an online computer-mediated discussion board can harness the energies and engagement of learners in meaningful and constructive ways. The two small examples show us that capturing such energy can create a dynamic, complex system that will evolve organically over time

87

88

Neil H. Johnson

and can deepen the learning experience and sense of community for a class. As instructors and learners, we have all experienced a class situation where once the lesson has ended, the energy created within the class time dissipates when books are being placed into bags and students head for the door. The high level of interaction and instances of collaborative learning evidenced in the discussion postings for these two classes suggest that using CMC as a learning tool can effectively challenge such a way of being. However, as Hansen (2005) warned, CMC cannot be seen as an all-powerful mode of communication that will, in and of itself, lead to more powerful learning outcomes. Indeed, one of the perhaps contradictory findings of the small samples provided here (see also Wildner-Bassett 2002) is that students may well resist CMC participation and the extra work and commitment that collaboration of this nature can entail. By looking longitudinally at interaction patterns over a semester, it is possible to see that investment and activity within the system are not always evident and, therefore, that the online environment cannot be said to be functioning effectively throughout the semester. Indeed, as Figure 1 shows, the students did not make extensive use of the online discussion board between weeks 4 and 12. This reduced usage is eventually reflected in the apparent frustration of some of the class members and the instructor (Example 2, postings 5 and 7). A complexity theory perspective allows us to see these ebbs and flows as a natural progression within a learning system – which includes the possibility that the system may simply lose energy and die out. The theory suggests that the system requires energy, in the form of attention and effort from the instructor and students, if it is to develop and allow the benefits of further dialogic interaction to be realized. The notion of the strange attractors (see Table 1) within the theory suggests that the path taken by a class will necessarily be unique and unpredictable – given the different initial conditions that form any classroom ecology. This insight provides further support for the notion that CMC technology cannot simply be employed without due care and consideration for pedagogical practice. The data described here also support the claim from within a dynamic systems theory perspective that the learning process is not a linear transmission of knowledge from an expert to a novice. As Mercer (1995) helpfully reminded us, “The essence of human knowledge and understanding is that it is shared … [and it] is rarely, if ever, a matter of simply pooling information … knowledge and understanding are only generated by working with information, selecting from it, organizing it, arguing for its relevance” (p. 67). The postings in the example from class 1 (Example 1) exemplify this notion of self-selection and organizing to create knowledge, which relates to the idea of learners selecting from, and therefore also co-creating, a learning ecology, as suggested by van Lier (2004). The unpredictable nature of the learning experiences seen in these examples points



Postcards from the (turbulent) edge (of chaos)

to the nonlinear, dynamic system: large restructuring can be triggered or caused by the smallest of interactions or interventions within the system. Learning, then, can be usefully characterized as a process and not simply an end product, or as Gleick put it: “… of becoming rather than being” (p. 5). The examples offer evidence of van Lier’s (2004) observation that teaching does not cause learning, at least not in the lockstep, linear ways suggested by the notions of input and output and resulting approaches to language teaching. This statement may seem counterintuitive, but it allows for teachers to stop trying to force learners to learn, and instead to concentrate on providing the basis for meaningful activity and affordance within a rich learning environment. It also speaks to the experience of many educators who, in conversation about their work, express frustration when students just aren’t “getting it” and likewise joy for those unexpected and perhaps unplanned for “A-ha!” moments that learners experience from time to time. This particular approach allows us to make sense of such everyday phenomena in our classrooms. Similarly, resistance and turbulence within a class system can supply positive energy for change and ought to be embraced (so long as they do not descend into flaming or abuse) rather than suppressed by educators. The differences between positive and negative energy within the system is also something that must be monitored. When embraced in a constructive way, such resistance, as we have seen in this study, can lead to creativity and enhanced possibilities for learning. The concluding point of this chapter is therefore perhaps best expressed by Lantolf and Genung (2002): Proponents of these theories suggest that effective learning and motivation are always socially embedded…. As will become clear, ineffective learning is also socially embedded. It is not embedding that makes learning effective; it is the quality of the social framework and the activity carried out within that framework that determine learning outcomes.  (p. 176)

The data in this study suggests that CMC is one way of potentially providing the quality social learning framework within which learners can carry out meaningful and effective learning activity. Evidence to support this claim is seen in the engagement and participation by students in the study, that is, I would argue, reflected in their online postings. At times the postings cited became very personal and there was evidence of tension, friction, and turbulence, all of which suggests involvement and investment on behalf of the students. In conclusion, the theoretical lens of dynamic systems allows us to understand the CMC data in ways that might not have been possible within other theoretical frameworks. Specifically, the theory suggests the value of looking at particular classroom communication as part of a whole system of interactions. Periods of inactivity followed by sudden bursts of creativity no longer seem anomalous, and

89

90 Neil H. Johnson

seemingly innocuous questions that produce detailed discussion and feedback can be understood as integral parts of a functioning system. In considering the different and complex elements that can affect and influence learners and learning outcomes “in relational terms” (Larsen-Freeman 2002: 44), while participants engage in real world contexts, we gain a fresh perspective on the potential for computer networks to enhance and complement the goals of classroom teaching.

Acknowledgements I would like to gratefully acknowledge Mary Wildner-Basset for her teaching and work with the COHLab project at the University of Arizona. I also offer my thanks to Kara McBride for help organizing the data for this project. Thanks also to Elizabeth Specker and Paul Lyddon for instructive feedback and comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Special thanks to Diane Larsen-Freeman for her pioneering work with complexity theory in applied linguistics, and her teaching at Penn State Summer Institute in Applied Linguistics, 2005.

References Agar, M. (2005, June 29th). Languaculture strudel: A nonlinear blend of complexity, ethnography and linguistics. Plenary Address at Penn State Summer Institute of Applied Linguistics. Bates, E. & Thelen, E. (2003). Connectionism and dynamic systems: Are they really different? Development Science, 6(4), 378–391. Briggs, J. (1992). Fractals: The patterns of chaos. New York, NY: Schuster and Schuster. Cameron, L. (2003). Metaphor in educational discourse. London: Continuum. Garson, J. W. (1998). Chaotic emergence and the language of thought. Philosophical Psychology, 11(3), 303–315. Gee, J. P. (2000). New people in new worlds: Networks, the new capitalism and schools. In B. Cope & M. Kalantziz (Eds.), Multiliteracies: Literacy learning and the design of social future. London: Routledge. Gleick, J. (1987). Chaos: Making a new science. New York, NY: Viking-Penguin. Hansen, J. G. (2005). 1 STETS Language & Communication Review, 4(1), 9–14. Hill, K. A. (2003). Quantum linguistics: A response to David Mallows. ELT Journal, 57 (2), 175–178. Honeycutt, L. (2001). Comparing e-mail and synchronous conferencing in online peer response. Written communication, 18(1), 26–60. Kern, R. G. (1995). Restructuring classroom interaction with networked computers: Effects on quantity and characteristics of language production. The Modern Language Journal, 79, 457–476. Kramsch, C. (Ed.). (2002). Language acquisition and language socialization. Ecological perspectives. London: Continuum.



Postcards from the (turbulent) edge (of chaos)

Lantolf, J. & Genung, P. B. (2002). “I’d rather switch than fight”: An activity-theoretic study of power, success, and failure in the foreign language classroom. In C. Kramsch (Ed.), Language acquisition and language socialization: Ecological perspectives (pp. 175–196). London: Continuum. Lantolf, J. & Thorne, S. L. (2006). Sociocultural theory and the genesis of second language development. Oxford: OUP. Larsen-Freeman, D. (1997a). Chaos/complexity science and second language acquisition. Applied Linguistics, 18, 141–165. Larsen-Freeman, D. (1997b). An attitude of inquiry: An interview with Diane Larsen-Freeman. Language Teacher [Online Newsletter]. Retrieved June 19 2005, from http://www.jalt- publications.org/tlt/files/97/jul/inquiry.html Larsen-Freeman, D. (2002). Language acquisition and language use from a chaos/complexity theory perspective. In Kramsch, C. (Ed.), Language acquisition and language socialization (pp. 31–46). London: Continuum. Larsen-Freeman, D. (2003). Teaching language: From grammar to grammaring. Boston, MA: Heinle. Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: CUP. Leather, J. (2002). Modeling the acquisition of speech in a “multilingual” society: An ecological approach. In C. Kramsch (Ed.), Language acquisition and language socialization (pp. 47–67). London: Continuum. Leather, J. & van Dam, J. (2002). Ecology of language acquisition. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Liu, J. & Sadler, R. W. (2003). The effects and affect of peer review in electronic versus traditional modes on L2 writing. English for Academic Purposes, 2. Mallows, D. (2002). Non-linearity and the observed lesson. ELT Journal, 56(1), 3–10. McBride, K. (2005). The COHLab website. Retrieved August 10 2005, from http://www.coh. arizona.edu/codi/ Mercer, N. (1995). The guided construction of knowledge: Talk amongst teachers and learners. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Polkinghorne, D. (1988). Narrative knowing and the human sciences. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Siegal, A. (1996). The role of learner subjectivity in second language sociolinguistic competency: Western women learning Japanese. Applied Linguistics, 17(3), 56–82. Thorne, S. L. (2003). Artifacts and cultures of use in intercultural communication. Language Learning & Technology, 7(2), 38–67. Thorne, S. L. & Payne, J. S. (2005). Evolutionary trajectories, Internet mediated expression, and language education. CALICO Journal, 22(3), 371–397. van Lier, L. (2000). From input to affordance: Social-interactive learning from an ecological perspective. In J. P. Lantolf (Ed.), Sociocultural theory and second language learning (pp. 245–259). Oxford: OUP. van Lier, L. (2002). An ecological-semiotic perspective on language and linguistics. In C. Kramsch (Ed.), Language acquisition and language socialization: Ecological perspectives (pp. 140–164). London: Continuum. van Lier, L. (2004). The ecology and semiotics of language learning: A sociocultural perspective. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Waldrop, M. M. (1992). Complexity: The emerging science at the edge of order and chaos. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.

91

92

Neil H. Johnson

Warschauer, M. (1996). Comparing face-to-face and electronic discussion in the second language classroom. CALICO Journal, 13(2), 7–26. Warschauer, M. & Kern, R. (Eds.). (2000). Network-based language teaching: Concepts and practice. Cambridge: CUP. Watson-Gegeo, K. A. (2004). Mind, language, and epistemology: Toward a language socialization paradigm for SLA. The Modern Language Journal, 88, 331–350. Wildner-Bassett, M. (2002). Planet Xeno: Creating a collaborative computer-mediated communication culture. In P. Comeaux (Ed.), Communication and collaboration. in the online classroom: Examples and applications (pp. 157–174). Bolton, MA: Anker. Wildner-Bassett, M. (2004). General rationale for the class SLAT 696d. Internal Memo. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona. Wildner-Bassett, M. (2005). Ecological perspectives on CMC, paradigm shifts and language pedagogy. Paper presented at the SLAT Colloquium. University of Arizona, Tucson. SLAT Colloquium Series.

Interpersonal and intercultural understanding in a blended second culture classroom Kara McBride and Mary E. Wildner-Bassett Saint Louis University / University of Arizona

A critical stance toward one’s own views as well as the ability to take on the perspective of others is required for intercultural and interpersonal understanding. This chapter presents a study from an undergraduate course used to fulfill a requirement in the category of gender, race, class, ethnicity, or non-Western area studies. A critical social-constructivist approach to pedagogy shaped this course, entitled Dialogue of the Sexes: Women and Men in German-speaking Societies. This study focused on the ways that meaning is made in computermediated and face-to-face (FTF) discussions. Through the analysis of qualitative and quantitative data from the course, it demonstrates that a blended class format involving both FTF discussion and threaded, asynchronous computermediated communication (CMC) can promote the kind of sociality, criticality, and co-construction that lead to important shifts of perspective.

This chapter describes how one course used a blended format – blended between face-to-face (FTF) classroom encounters and computer-mediated communication (CMC) – to develop intercultural understanding in students through a critical social-constructivist (CS-C) approach to language and culture pedagogy. The course was called Dialogue of the Sexes: Women and Men in German-speaking Societies. It was one of the classes offered to undergraduate students at our university to fulfill their requirement to take a course from the category of Gender, Race, Class, Ethnicity, or Non-Western Area Studies within what is called the General Education curriculum. These courses are conceived of in this way:

. The term hybrid is more commonly used in the United States to describe this kind of class format, but we have chosen the European term blended to emphasize the fact that activities in this class ran from one format to another.

94 Kara McBride and Mary E. Wildner-Bassett

General education is designed to accomplish several goals … Taken together, the experiences of general education encourage the student to develop a critical and inquiring attitude, an appreciation of complexity and ambiguity, a tolerance for and empathy with persons of different backgrounds or values and a deepened sense of self.

These goals mesh very well with Byram’s (1997) conception of teaching intercultural communicative competence, which emphasizes that, “There ... needs to be a willingness to suspend belief in one’s own meanings and behaviors, and to analyze them from the viewpoint of others with whom one is engaging” (p. 34). To be able to stand back from one’s beliefs and actions and view them from another point of view requires criticality, and it also leads to a greater understanding of the self. “An appreciation for complexity and ambiguity,” to quote from the course description above, is required for deeper understandings of culture, the self, and the other. Identities are not constant. Humans are defined by their social relations to others and by their culture, and these things are in constant flux. In order to understand fully this dynamic, one needs to live it, and be critically aware of living it. There is no simple way to hand this knowledge over to students. This kind of understanding, however, can grow out of discussion. One proposal for this type of learning has been offered by Brookfield and Preskill (2005) in a book entitled Discussion as a Way of Teaching. Even though their book is not applied to second or foreign language or culture learning, they offer important ideas about making discussions critical – a key aspect of the approach we took in the class that is used as an example and data source here. As Brookfield and Preskill describe it, When participants [in discussion] take a critical stance, they are committed to questioning and exploring even the most widely accepted ideas and beliefs. … One of the defining characteristics of critical discussion is that participants are willing to enter the conversation with open minds. This requires people to be flexible enough to adjust their views in the light of persuasive, well-supported arguments and confident enough to retain their original opinions when rebuttals fall short.  (p. 7)

This approach to learning functions very well within a CS-C framework, in which learning is considered an act of re-creation on the part of each learner embedded in a particular social context. Through qualitative and quantitative analyses of data collected in a class based on CS-C approaches to pedagogy and focusing on the ways that meaning is made . http://catalog.arizona.edu/policies/974/genedure.htm. This website describes the goals and general course objectives of the general education course structure for the entire university.



Interpersonal and intercultural understanding

in discussions using a blended format of CMC and FTF modalities, we seek in this chapter to answer the following general research questions: What impact did the CS-C pedagogy and the use of discussion as way of teaching/learning have on the students in the class? How did the use of a blended model of CMC and FTF discussion influence the students and the objectives of the class? Did CMC serve to enhance the class and its proposed aims, or did it have a negative or a negligible impact on them?

Critical social-constructivism What informs the conceptualization of learning that guided the events described in this chapter are our readings of CS-C theories, which emphasize a critical approach to social interactions and to discussion for learning, where interpersonal relations and the influence of these activities on learning become evident. This notion of a critical approach, as Luke (2004) has explicated it, … entails an epistemological Othering and ‘doubling’ of the world – a sense of being beside oneself or outside of oneself in another epistemological, discourse, and political space than one typically would inhabit. … [It is] the out-of-body experience of watching oneself watch oneself as an object of power and naming oneself as such. (pp. 26–28)

Our use of the ideas and our applications of these theories make possible the outof-body experience of watching ourselves (both learners and teachers) performing acts of power and mediating them through discussion as they emerge in the learning ecology of the CMC-FTF classroom. When we write about the learning ecology of our classroom, we emphasize, as does Dimitrov (2002), … learning as essentially holistic – not only the human mind – reason, logic, ability to think and decide – is the most important agent in this process. Equally important are also the human heart – feelings, emotions, ability to love and care – and the human soul – intuition, inspiration, ability to aspire and meditate. The heart and soul factors are vital for any manifestation of human creativity, and without creativity learning is a mere repetition of knowledge borrowed from books and gurus. (pp. 386–387)

It is within the complexities of these aspects of learning that students and instructors develop voice and identity. Voice and identity, though, are not themselves simple, clear, or monolithic concepts in any way. One definition of voice(s) helps explicate the complexity of the phenomenon: “Voices can mean the same as ‘ideas and opinions,’ but has

95

96 Kara McBride and Mary E. Wildner-Bassett

another meaning …: voices in the sense of ways with words, accents, grammatical, lexical and broader discoursal choices, feeling ‘at home’ in particular genres and discourses” (Ivanič 1998: 183). Writing, either formally or in a CMC context, always conveys a representation of the self of the writer. These representations of self are most prevalent in process writing where the writing is dialogic or discussion-oriented, and where the learners have an opportunity to develop an understanding of the way that readers appreciate and respond to their writing. In our applications of these ideas, this opportunity occurs in both the CMC discussions as well as in the FTF classroom discussions, which expand on and extend the topics and exchanges in the CMC discussions. In this way, then, our model supports processes which lead to a multiplicity of ways for learners to become aware of voice and express identity. As Vollmer (2002) has summarized, “… students increase their control over written discourse when they become aware of the interpretive contexts for their texts and develop a metalanguage from which to analyze these contexts.” Ivanič and Camps (2001) also maintain that critical awareness offers writers/learners the means to “maintain control over the personal and cultural identity they are projecting in their writing” (p. 31). This stance then explains the “critical” part of our teaching model’s name. The “social-constructivism” part of CS-C is the belief that learning is not the transfer of immutable facts from teacher to student. Instead, the nature of knowledge requires that learning take place as a re-creation of the knowledge in the learner’s mind, a process residing in social contact embedded in a particular context. Truth is a matter of human perception which is shaped by social relations and conventions. Because learning always happens as an act of re-creation in the learner’s mind, education is best served by recognizing this process of learning as opposed to fighting it. Brookfield and Preskill (2005) explain how learning occurs in this way, even in the “hard” sciences, where facts are easier to delineate. Whatever the nature of the field of study, learning is always a matter of negotiation with the human mind. Learning in areas of study like culture, where the subject matter defines itself through change and multiplicity, is particularly impoverished and even nonsensical when an attempt is made to broach the subject without the dialogical. As was pointed out so clearly in an article by Schulz, LaLande II, et al. (2005), there is a lack of professional consensus regarding appropriate definitions of culture for classroom instruction, common objectives and instructional content, as well as appropriate assessment in the area of cultural knowledge and awareness. Exploration of these issues must continue, both among the professionals of our field, and with the learners in our classrooms. The critical-social constructivist perspective that is an essential aspect of our pedagogy allows written discussions



Interpersonal and intercultural understanding

in CMC to become one important way to explore social identity, which Harklau (1999) terms “cultural inquiry through writing” (p. 125).

Sociality and co-construction Two final aspects of the critical-social perspective that apply to both the class and our investigation of its results are the ideas of sociality and co-construction. In its simplest definition, sociality is a tendency to associate with others and form social groups. In the ecology of learning that we investigate here and the pedagogical applications of the ideas presented above, participation and related sociality are key elements. As Lankshear and Knobel (2006) have discussed, Participation means involvement in some kind of shared purpose or activity – taking part in some kind of endeavour in which others are involved. The kinds of activities one might participate in may be things that are already more or less established, with more or less recognised norms and criteria. Alternatively, they might be things that are evolving and being developed, such that one’s participation becomes part of building a practice or an affinity or community that may continue to evolve. (p. 4)

From this understanding of participation as sociality, the concept of co-construction of ideas in the learning ecology of the blended CMC-FTF classroom emerges. Co-construction and meaning making occur when people exchange their ideas on a specific topic, collaboratively creating new knowledge, a tangible product, or a common understanding of a concept, and re-acculturating this knowledge into their own belief and knowledge systems. Obviously, participation and sociality are required for this kind of knowledge creation through co-construction. In order for sociality to develop naturally in the blended classroom ecology that we encouraged, we needed to develop ground rules for congenial and collaborative interaction on the discussion boards of the courseware and in the FTF contexts of the classroom. Brookfield and Peskill (2005) discuss the importance of co-constructing ground rules for discussions in class. Experience in our classrooms has shown us that time spent co-constructing basic guidelines for decent and congenial contributions, rather than hierarchical or exclusionary contribu. Discussed in more detail in Wildner-Bassett (2002) and its associated website, http://www. coh.arizona.edu/planet-xeno/coconstruction.html . This is the general course management software package supported by our university, called Desire 2 Learn. It is most commonly known as D2L. The preposition never occurs, even in the full name.

97

98 Kara McBride and Mary E. Wildner-Bassett

tions, or even flaming, is time well spent. Some of the materials used in this class to initiate these discussions are included in Appendix C. Our experience with this class was that even though some students expressed mild hostility at the beginning of the class (e.g., adding “b.s.” in the subject line to describe an assignment), this behavior very quickly yielded to the indirect peer pressure of no response in kind from other students. The students established a serious but friendly tone, where politeness, mutual support, and inclusiveness were the implied ground rules for interaction. Data to support this point is included below in a further discussion.

Blended learning Our class used a blended format in order to encourage sociality and critical awareness. It was believed that sociality could best be encouraged through FTF contact, while CMC, in the form of a threaded electronic discussion, would be an ideal writing environment where students could take their time to produce well thought-out responses with a heightened awareness of audience. If we could create a class environment that encouraged sociality, critical discussion and a coconstruction of ideas, then conditions would be right for the participants to come to new understandings of their own and others’ perspectives. We are not the first researchers to have aimed for students to view their own and others’ perspectives in a new light, and reports on encouraging this shift in students and their teachers are numerous in the literature. Furstenberg, Levet, English, and Maillet (2001) created an online site called CULTURA, whose primary objective was to help students see the world with “other eyes.” Their project gets students to work in tandem with other students who live where their target language is spoken, and together they investigate differences that are often subtle or difficult to pinpoint between two cultures. Other intercultural exchanges accomplished through tandem learning have also been specifically crafted to get the students to take a step back from their own cultural beliefs in order to get a more critical view of them. This more distanced view is considered necessary for coming to understand the point of view of someone from another culture (Belz 2002; Belz & Müller-Hartmann 2003; Müller-Hartmann 2000; O’Dowd 2003). Although some of these projects have reported finding the desired results (e.g., Furstenberg et al. 2001; von der Emde, Schneider, & Kötter 2001), height. See Abrams (2003) for a discussion of CMC and flaming, which can be defined as posting messages that are deliberately hostile and insulting, usually in the social context of a discussion board, as in our classroom context.



Interpersonal and intercultural understanding

ened intercultural understanding is far from an automatic outcome of cross-cultural online discourse (Kern, Ware, & Warschauer 2004). Many researchers have reported difficulties in these efforts, which resulted in frustration (Belz 2000; Belz & Müller-Hartmann 2003), miscommunication (Ware 2005; Ware & Kramsch 2005), or deepened negative stereotypes on the part of the students involved (Meagher & Castaños 1996). Reasons cited for these problems include unequal levels of technological or linguistic competence between the two groups of students (Belz 2002); differences in university schedules and student motivations (Belz & Müller-Hartmann 2003; Kramsch & Thorne 2002); and issues of interpersonal communication and Internet pragmatics (Belz & Müller-Hartmann 2003; O’Dowd 2003; Ware & Kramsch 2005). This last factor is particularly important. In a situation of intercultural education, students are already grappling with trying to understand the point of view of an other and with perspectives that differ from their own. When this effort is mediated through online communication, the possibility for misunderstanding is multiplied because most forms of online communication used in language and culture classes, such as email and MOOs, are only text based. Tone of voice and body language add a tremendous amount of information to a message, and messages that are stripped of these features can easily be misinterpreted (Walther 1996). The blended nature of the course described here allowed students to interact online and take advantage of what online communication has to offer – fewer chances of loss of face (Ware 2005), an opportunity for increased participation on the part of every class member (Kelm 1992; Kern 1995; Warschauer 1996), and an increase in the students’, as opposed to the teacher’s, role (Beauvois 1998; Kern 1995) – while also allowing ample time for FTF contact with their interlocutors so that the gaps left by online communication could be filled during live interaction. Another characteristic of this class that sets it apart from the recently referred to culture classes is that, while a foreign (German-speaking) culture was the focus of the course content, the students communicated with other students at their own university instead of students in another country. Students in this course explored new perspectives on their own lives and the similarities and differences between their life experiences and those of the people in the room with them, while at the same time discussing texts about people from the German-speaking world. In this way, the students could learn by analogy. They started with interpersonal comparisons that were smaller leaps: seeing ways in which they had much in common with classmates they might have otherwise considered very different, while at the same time gaining new perspectives (largely through classmates’ reactions to their own work) on themselves and their own lives. This understanding was then used as a bridge to bring about an analogous understanding of the lives and perspectives of people in the German-speaking societies that were the

99

100 Kara McBride and Mary E. Wildner-Bassett

focus of the course’s content. This chapter shows how this process, with online communication as an essential element, was able to “... help students enter into a new realm of collaborative inquiry and construction of knowledge, relaying their expanding repertoire of identities and communications strategies as resources in the process” (Kern et al. 2004: 254).

Data Both qualitative and quantitative data were used for this project. The qualitative data include all written products made by the students for the course, such as the writing assignments and the discussions on the electronic, threaded discussion board on the course management system Desire 2 Learn (D2L; described below). The quantitative data comes from a survey that was administered near the end of the semester. Of the total 22 students enrolled, 18 took the survey, knowing that the teacher would not see the results until after the grades were turned in, and that they could answer the survey anonymously if they wished. In order to triangulate the qualitative data and to have a way to check our interpretation of them, we wanted to ask direct questions to the students about the ways in which the blended learning environment of the course affected them. The items on this survey were created by adapting Moos’ (1987) conceptual framework of social environment and the New Constructivist Learning Environment Survey (Taylor, Fraser, & Fisher 1997). The survey can be seen in Appendices A and B, along with the results, which are also interwoven into the discussions of the quantitative data.

The participants The students The students who took part in this ecology of learning had enrolled in a class to satisfy their general studies requirements, as described at the outset of this discussion. They were a mixture of undergraduates at different points in their studies: beginning (freshmen), midway (sophomores or juniors), or finishing (seniors). Their age range was 18–23. The majority of the class was American citizens, but there were two international students as well. Of the 22 students who finished the class, 4 students were nonnative speakers of English, but only 1 of those 4 seemed to have slightly less than fully fluent and accurate English usage. Their exposure to the cultures and language of German-speaking countries before the class was



Interpersonal and intercultural understanding 101

minimal. Only 1 of the students was studying toward a minor in German Studies, and she was 1 of 2 students who had rudimentary skills in German language use. The class was taught in English, and all the readings were in English, but a few German words occurred in the readings, and three films/documentaries in German with English subtitles were shown during the semester. There was a generally quiet atmosphere in the class at the beginning, but as students got to know each other better and feel integrated into the learning ecology, they gradually began to contribute more easily and openly in the FTF sessions.

The teacher and her role in the class The instructor for this class was a full professor in the Department of German Studies. She is known among colleagues, students, and personal friends as having something of a “mom” personality, both as someone a person can go to for assurance and advice, as well as prone to expressing sentiments that seem to exemplify maternal concern. Her speaking style is authoritative, punctuated frequently with a lowered chin and furrowed brow during moments of silence as she gauges whether her students have any confusions that they need to discuss. She practices this stance frequently because her typical teaching practice is to present to her students complexities with which they are expected to engage dialogically, as the examples in later sections illustrate. The teacher never lectured in class but did give extended answers extemporaneously to questions that came up in class. The primary way in which the instructor’s point of view was present was through the questions that she posed for the students to discuss with each other, and through the material which she had selected for class. The instructor never participated in the online discussions, although the students knew that she was reading them. Her feedback tended to be brief. When grading, she filled in numbers in a grading rubric, thus communicating to what extent she believed that the student had completed the stated objectives, and she added summarizing comments, such as, Donna, I very much enjoyed reading your autobio. I’m sorry for your loss of your father at such at early age, but your reflections about what it has meant to you are eloquent. I would have liked to have read a little more about your reflections on Others and on the cultural or gender implications. This is a very good job, though!

. A pseudonym.

102 Kara McBride and Mary E. Wildner-Bassett

Despite what could sound like a low level of activity in the course, if one were to interpret the facts in light of typical teacher behavior in traditional classes, the instructor’s involvement and personality came through to the students, and in a positive way. The three questions on the survey that asked the students their impressions of the teacher – whether she cared about their interests (19a), whether she was fun (22a) and whether they felt that they could trust her (28a) – all received 100% responses of either agree or strongly agree.

The class The students met twice a week for a total of 3 contact hours per week. In one session per week, the class met in a regular classroom and engaged in FTF discussions of the topics in the syllabus, the readings, and the students’ projects, all of which focused on comparative and contrastive views of their personal and cultural identities in both their first language(s) and culture(s) and in the cultures and identities that are salient in present-day German-speaking countries. The second session of the week met in a computer lab that was designed specifically for collaborative teaching practices, and was conducted using a mixture of FTF conversation and asynchronous CMC. Throughout all sessions, participants were asked to see and construct themselves as learning and knowing subjects rather than to listen to lectures by a teacher. As subjects responsible to their peers, they brought their attitudes, positionalities, and perspectives into their own focus and consciousness (Quasthoff 1993; Rao 1993; Wildner-Bassett & Meerholz-Haerle 1999). The aim of all written and oral activities in all aspects of the class was to realize basic tenets of critical, feminist, and positional pedagogies which encouraged learners to “… situate themselves within the complex of linguistic, cultural, and value-laden practices in which they participate …” (Zuss 1994: 264). The written conversations resulting from these assignments10 show how the learners see and

. These numbers refer to the questions in the questionnaires included in Appendices A and B. . The computer screens are embedded into the tables so that it is easy to see over them and instead see one’s classmates and the instructor. The chairs are rolling office chairs so that reconfiguration of the seating arrangement is easy. The basic seating arrangement is in three “pods” of eight computers in a circle, so students face each other rather than the teacher’s desk. . See also Brookfield and Preskill (2005: 156–157) for a similar discussion. 10. The full syllabus of the course, including a more detailed description of written discussion assignments, is included in Appendix C.



Interpersonal and intercultural understanding 103

construct themselves as learning and knowing subjects. Excerpts from their conversations are explored below. The students’ first assignment was to write an “Intellectual and Cultural Autobiography,” which went through three rounds of peer review before a final draft was due. The assignment was described to the students as a request for them to define how they see the world and what had shaped that viewpoint for them.11 It is important to note here that Brookfield and Preskill (2005) also suggest “…giving students opportunities to talk and write autobiographically …” to encourage a “… mutual receptivity to new ideas and perspectives ….” (p. 9). The semester’s further assignments and activities revolved around this essential first assignment. In this way, participants defined and co-constructed approximately 60% of the content of the course – readings and other source materials (websites, films, documentaries) served as the other 40%. As the semester continued, there were two more assignments that were closely related to and built on the first, namely one researched and one interview profile of women or other others in German-speaking societies. The final assignment was a paper that required students to make connections among all of the writings and profiles they had accomplished during the semester and how those connections related to the overall goals of the class. With this final assessment opportunity, the learners were invited once again to reflect on the connections they could make among the ways of knowing and being that they had co-constructed throughout the semester.

The online component The course management software, Desire 2 Learn (D2L), that is used and supported at the university where this course took place, is very flexible. Not all of the options that are available in a D2L course space were used for this class. When a user logged onto the course, he or she saw “News Items.” This space was used to post class reminders, such as when an assignment was due. On the top menu bar, there were links to all of the major parts of the website. These were: “Learning Activities,” “Discussions,” “Links,” and “Dropbox.” Like most pages on D2L, the “Learning Activities” page had an outline format. Topics were listed, and under them, subtopics, which were clickable links. One topic on this page was “Weekly Schedule of Activities.” Below it were one-line descriptions of the weekly activities. Clicking on one of these activities took the

11. See the syllabus in Appendix C for the entire description.

104 Kara McBride and Mary E. Wildner-Bassett

user to another page which had a description of what exactly the students were supposed to do for that activity. Another major topic on the “Learning Activities” page was “Quizzes and Preparation.” Each link below that topic led to explanations of what would be on the quizzes and how to prepare for them. Other material found in “Learning Activities” included grading rubrics and detailed explanations of the procedures students were expected to follow. The most heavily trafficked part of the course website was “Discussions.” This section contained one area for each of the discussions that the students participated in. These were threaded discussion boards, where each contribution was identified by a subject line and by the name of the author, as well as the time of posting. It was possible to attach documents to each posting. Just like with email, participants could reply to messages, and the reply was grouped under the original message where it was indented in the master list. In this way, threads of discussion were identified. The “Dropbox” was where students went to turn in final copies of some of their assignments. Specific folders were set up for each assignment. These folders had due dates attached to them, after which point the student could no longer submit an assignment. The instructor returned assignments with comments on them, either in an attached Word document or separately, in a D2L window that was specifically for that purpose.

Student perception of D2L use Students appreciated the use of CMC in the class. On Item 2a of the survey, 17 out of 18 students agreed or strongly agreed with the statement “I would like to see some of the ways we used computers in this class used in other classes.” Of the 18 students, 13 said that it was clear to them why computers were used in the class (Item 12a). From the survey items where students responded with frequency measures as opposed to agree or disagree, only 1 student said that it was never the case that working on the computer allowed the class to do things that would not otherwise have been possible, and 8 students said that that had been true many times (Item 17b). No students responded with never to the statement “Using computers added a kind of flexibility to the course that I appreciated” (Item 12b). Finally, other items on the survey showed that the students experienced very few difficulties in using the technology (Items 20b, 23b, and 30b).



Interpersonal and intercultural understanding 105

Intercultural understanding Students in this class felt that they had come to a better understanding of another culture as a result of their participation. In response to the survey item (15b) that said “I understood something about a culture that I did not understand before,” no one in the class disagreed, and 12 students indicated that it had happened to them many times. As a student wrote in her final reflection paper, “I have taken away a much more complete knowledge of a culture I was never previously interested in.” She went on to say that, in contrast to the majority of her college courses, what she learned in this course would stay with her through her whole life, adding, “I think that this semester has shown me a new and valuable approach to analyzing life.” This comment indicates that the students gained knowledge about the culture of study, which is one part of Byram’s (1997) model of what is needed in the development of intercultural understanding. Also necessary is a critical understanding of oneself and one’s own perspectives, as well as understanding the perspective of another. To the statement “I understood new perspectives and points of view because of this class” (Item 10b) and “Something in this class led me to understand someone else’s point of view better” (24b), only one person (a different one for the two items) answered with never. On the former (10b), 13 out of 18 students said this revealing moment had occurred for them many times. Students gained new perspectives by being able to relate to the lives of people from another culture. One student wrote, “The research paper at first scared me because I had no idea how I was going to find some one from a German speaking society to relate to” but he went on to say that he and his classmates were all able to do that. In order to gain new perspectives on others, the students had to understand their relation to others in the world. One wrote, I have learned a lot about myself and others during the research profile process. One important thing that I have learned about myself is that I really have an American view of the world. Since I have grown up in the United States during the late 20th and early 21st century, during which time the U.S. has played a dominant role in the world, I tend to see world events from an American perspective. It has really opened my eyes to other perspectives of the world and taught me to be more sensitive towards them.12

Similarly, the student who turned in his first few assignments in the class with “b.s.” as part of the title wrote at the end, 12. All quotes are direct quotes, lifted straight from the students’ written work. Errors found in the quotes were in the originals.

106 Kara McBride and Mary E. Wildner-Bassett

I have also learned to be not so judgmental. Prior to this class I may have been some-what judgmental. Learning about various aspects of profiles has open windows to various cultures unbeknownst to me. I have greatly improved as a person as a result of this class and the D2L participation that came along with it.

Students were able to change their perspectives on others by relating to material about the German-speaking world and discussing it primarily with their peers. Before this semester, I never really thought too much about my life in connection to German-speaking cultures. I have learned that I have a connection to this culture just as I have some sort of connection to many other cultures. By learning about German culture through people, it is much easier to connect to rather than gathering this information from books. It is also much easier to connect to this information after discussing these topics with other people from my culture and age group.

By starting with a process of relating to others who were right there beside them, these students were able to bridge their understanding from the others in their class to the others elsewhere in the world. This bridge also worked in the opposite direction. By gaining greater perspective on aspects of German culture, students came to new understandings about their own society: “Finally, while reading the profiles about German immigrants my perspective on how immigrants are treated in the U.S. and abroad really changed.” Therefore, in this learning ecology, the goals of interpersonal growth, identity formation, expanding higher level thinking, and experiencing CS-C pedagogy were important aspects of the course. In addition, of course, the goal of intercultural understanding, with the target culture of the German-speaking societies in the 20th and 21st centuries, was a main focus of the class. Leading students to achieve these goals was accomplished through the various class assignments, as is evidenced in the following student’s description of her experience with interviewing someone from Germany:13

13. The writing assignments were these: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Researched profiles of women or other Others in German-speaking societies written by class members. Standpoint (intellectual and cultural) autobiographies of class members. Interview profiles of women or other Others in local societies written by class  members. Published profiles of women from the past and present in our reading and handouts. Written reflections on the connections among these pieces and the lives of class  participants.



Interpersonal and intercultural understanding 107

… when she agreed to help me with this interview, and all she could say was “finally, I get to talk about how great my life in Germany is, to someone who is actually interested!!” Much of the information that I got from Birgit very much mirrored the topics that have been discussed in the classroom regarding German society. Such things as the implied gender roles, schooling, and the historical aspects of German culture were discussed which acknowledged my previous familiarity from this course with the dialogue of the sexes in German society.

This student expresses well how the experiential phase of learning through a FTF interview interfaces and supports classroom CMC and CS-C of the learning ecology. All of these facets of class activity move through the complexities of personal identities and experiences to support the goals of both interpersonal and intercultural understanding in the blended second culture classroom.

Co-construction Through discussion, the students shaped each other’s perspectives and influenced the way that they wrote about issues later on in the course. For most assignments, the students had to post their responses to prompts from the teacher, and then they had to respond to a certain minimum number of their classmates’ postings. Sometimes the posting was done by individual students, but often it was done in groups of two or three. Within the group, the students discussed ideas and either came to a consensus or at least came to understand the other group members’ point of view. Several times small groups reported their answers by saying what each different student in their group thought, providing support for each idea. Other individuals or groups then responded in the threaded discussion to these postings.

In addition, the students wrote intensively in the CMC context, where the assignments were described this way: Dialogue journals, which will consist of 7–10 entries throughout the semester. These journal entries will be the result not only of one student's writing, but will be collections of discussions and process evaluation in the small groups and with partners. The dialogic learning portfolio will contain the above two sets of entries (drafts and written discussions), and it will also contain assignments which address particular topics. The assignments will be in the form of short, relatively formal written summaries and essays, and they will be based on interviews, comparative readings, etc. The process approach will be fully integrated by having portions of the discussion groups, as well as the electronic synchronous discussions, dedicated to the topics and content that will eventually be reflected in the written assignments.

108 Kara McBride and Mary E. Wildner-Bassett

In almost every posting, the students praised the thoughts and writings of the classmates to whom they were responding, even when the message also included disagreement or a critique of the other person. When reviewing each other’s drafts of assignments, students were encouraged to use the Track Changes feature in Word. Either through that feature or in the discussion space proper, students typically encouraged each other to probe deeper into ideas. For example, when one student wrote in his autobiography that he learned not to be afraid of the real world, one of his peer editors wrote, “what type of situations helped you not to be afraid of the real world.” Another example is the following: The other comment was about the “personalness” of the paper. It seems like you just want to list off the absolute facts about yourself and I see no ambiguity or doubt in your analysis of the events in your life. It’s hard to understand why you are the way you are because you’re just telling us instead of explaining it. Again, I really like your writing style … just write more.

The student whose rough draft is described above reworked her autobiography to be an extremely honest work, where the voice she used to express her identity changed dramatically to talk about her feelings about being abandoned by her mother at the age of four and how she has continued on to become a very optimistic and strong person as a result of working through her broken heart. In all cases, peer reviews shaped and helped to make clearer later drafts of assignments. Students enjoyed influencing each other’s work. One student wrote about a second draft, “I really like how you listened to my suggestion and i think the changes that you made have greatly improved you paper. I really liked how you went into more details about your grandmothers death, and your sister being born. your life is very interesting.” There was less of an opportunity to see a chronicle of how peer comments affected students in the discussions, but sometimes they wrote directly about that effect. For example, one student early on into the semester wrote, “thanks for your criticism, it does help me reread what i wrote making sure to state my same idea more clearly.” Even when students were not told to change something about their writings, they were often inspired to by what they read from their peers. There were several comments such as, “very commendable to chose a broad belief in tolerance toward ‘others’ … i have to admit, my response seems superficial in comparison … kudos,” or “As for the importance in the other areas, such as #1 … you made me think about wanting to change some of my answers.” In a discussion about Austrian women during wartime, one group compared one of the stories for discussion with Rosa Parks’ act of resistance. Four different groups of students wrote back in the discussion that they had not thought of that connection but that upon reading it, they considered it very insightful: “Finally, the



Interpersonal and intercultural understanding 109

example at the end about Rosa Parks was one that we did not remember but brings up a good point about how civil rights relate to the situation.” In this way, students helped each other see new connections and co-created the content of the course. One group, responding to an article about differences in feminine and masculine styles of reasoning wrote: The idea of valuing an open structure over a closed structure is something that relates even to the structure of this class itself. The fact that we as student[s] are able to create the structure of this class through online discussion threads, brings this quote more close to home.

This last quote shows that the students themselves saw the class as an occasion of co-construction. The survey results support this perception. All but two students reported being able to see themselves and their classmates developing as students throughout the semester (Items 6b and 14b). The survey also supports the impression that the students valued each other’s contributions in class. Most students (11 out of 18) saw themselves as an important part of the class (Item 14a); all but one felt that their comments were truly understood by classmates (Item 9b); and they were interested in what their classmates had to say as well (Item 18b – 100% agreement).

Development of identity Out of 18 respondents to the survey, 17 students agreed with the statement, “This class helped me understand my own life experiences better” (Item 23a), and 12 of them agreed that they were clearer about who they were as a result of the class (27a). Items 18a, 20a, 31a, 3b, and 21b show that the students felt very comfortable in the class environment and free to be themselves. The class helped students understand themselves better, and the students’ final papers made it clear that they saw this development as a result of their interaction with others. Their writings included statements such as, “it was reading other peoples profiles that really made me learn about myself,” and “In the process of writing my own profiles and reading those of others my perspective of myself and others has been altered.” Elsewhere a student wrote: I’ve also realized that being more culturally, religiously, and socially sensitive and tolerant to those who hold the title as an “other” within our society and beyond, has actually deepened my sense of self, and made me feel more comfortable in my own skin, while feeling that others accepted me and my stories of “otherness” as defining what it means to be human.

110 Kara McBride and Mary E. Wildner-Bassett

Another particularly good expression of this personal growth was the following: When I first signed up for this class I expected it to be like any other. Just a class where you learn simple facts about history and put them in to memory only for them to be lost shortly down the road. To my surprise this class brought something to the table that I had not expected. It taught me to look at others and help me diminish some stereotypes. In doing this is [should read “it”] also created a whole new look at something, myself. The activities we did in this class helped me take a look at my own life and relate it to situations that others deal with that may be similar or completely opposite from mine.

The survey results point to some important re-evaluations taking place in the students. More than half of the students overall reported one or more of the following: changes in career plans, political beliefs, views on spirituality, and their abilities as a listener (9a, 10a, 32a, and 4a, respectively). That is, over half of the students surveyed experienced a shift in themselves in at least one of those four areas.

Predispositions The items in the survey were a measure of the extent to which the course had served to encourage critical thinking and intercultural and interpersonal understanding, or the extent to which the survey takers appreciated and participated in the goals and structure of the class. To look at these notions, we did a quantitative analysis on survey responses. Each item of the survey had four possible answers, phrased either in terms of agreement or disagreement (survey items labeled with an a) or frequency of an occurrence (b items). A value was assigned to each answer, on a scale of 1 to 4, with a higher number indicating greater critical thinking, intercultural and interpersonal understanding, or satisfaction with the course. In this way we were able to rank the items, as well as find mean scores for each student. Higher mean scores reflected a greater appreciation of and engagement with the course. We found that for almost all items, there was a consistency of the ranking of the items. That is, items fell into the same relative rank order, from strongest to least agreement, across the board, both for the students with lower mean scores and higher mean scores alike. There were, however, three items for which the ranking of responses differed from this otherwise consistent trend. These were item 14a, “I play an important role in this class”; 13b, “Participating in this class made me feel smart”; and 28b, “Participating in this class made me feel creative.” The students with an overall less positive mean (bottom third) response gave very



Interpersonal and intercultural understanding

low scores for these items in particular, in contrast to the group of their classmates whose overall mean response was higher (top third). Because these three items were exceptions to the overall consistency of rank ordering, we examined the qualitative data from the autobiographies to look for a possible insight that might be related to this apparent inconsistency. In the autobiographies, we discovered that these students’ descriptions of their contexts and ecologies in early childhood differed dramatically from one another. The three students whose overall mean scores on the survey were highest, made the following observations about their childhoods: “I was fortunate enough to have been raised in an environment where I was taught that no dream was too big and was given the opportunities to achieve them”; “I feel fortunate to be able to ascertain these opportunities, dreams, goals, aspirations due to my loving, supportive family”; and “Growing up, I was blessed to have an amazing family.” In stark contrast, the three students whose mean scores on the survey were the lowest came from unfortunate and difficult early environments, as they described: “Despite all my animosity toward them, my parents have taught me a great deal … . They have taught me how not to treat others, and especially how not to treat my child”; “This was very hard for me because I felt like I wasn’t grounded and I had no real home … . It forced me to grow up on my own. I think a lot of times I grew up too fast;” and “Through my short 21 years of life, I have seen many lives cut short because of bad choices. During the first few years of my life I met all of the relatives I would later either see or hear about passing away due to their bad decisions.” It would seem, then, that these three items are indicators of an important underlying difference. The survey questions are about confidence and self-worth in the classroom environment. Students who did not find support in the class for those aspects of their lives now came into the classroom experience, by their own reports, with a history of a lack of support or without a particularly nurturing environment. CS-C classroom experiences for a single semester are apparently not salient enough to overcome what some learners bring into the experience.

A disconnect between FTF contact and CMC We have reviewed much evidence that shows that the format of the class encouraged discussion and criticality and that the students appreciated the way the class was structured. There is, however, one aspect of the course that did not work out quite as expected and that was somewhat perplexing given the fact that most of the course was quite successful. There is an apparent disconnect that some students experienced between their FTF and CMC interactions with each other. The

111

112 Kara McBride and Mary E. Wildner-Bassett

strongest and clearest expression of this disconnect comes from one woman’s final paper: However, because of the format of the class was rather impersonal, I found I never really got a chance to truly get to know my classmates. The profiles although informative and interesting, I felt as if I was reading about strangers.

As the researchers, we found this quite consternating for several reasons. For one, the information that the students read about each other in the autobiographies was very intimate information, and students were able to learn things about each other, from the beginning of the semester, that one rarely learns about one’s classmates. This intimacy makes the student’s descriptor impersonal a surprising word choice. We conjecture that because of the formal writing format of the autobiographies, complete with three rounds of peer editing that included suggestions on wording and sentence structure, the students perceived the material as overall formal and therefore impersonal, despite the content of the papers. Their online discussions were not quite so formal as some of the quotes provided suggest. Still, these online discussions were written with a certain amount of premeditation, with the knowledge that a written record of the postings would remain throughout the semester and beyond, for all in the class to see, and they were written explicitly to fulfill requirements laid out by the teacher. Even FTF conversations were frequently conducted with the goal being for students to write out in the CMC format a summary of their conversation in such a way that it could be understood by all who viewed the discussion board, which, to repeat, constituted a permanent record. It may be that for these undergraduate students, what is said in spontaneous conversation simply feels more personal than what is communicated through formal writing. After all, they have spent all their lives participating in spontaneous speech. In contrast, their experiences with premeditated, organized writing have largely been restricted to written assignments in the educational context. Although many of these students, as members of a generation that grew up using computers, have no doubt used CMC extensively in their private communication, the nature of that CMC is sure to be qualitatively different from what they practiced in the class described in this chapter. Email is considered by a large proportion of younger people to be an outmoded, overly formal and slow form of communication, now that instant messaging has become the norm for younger people’s use of CMC (Thorne & Payne 2005). The following quote from another student’s final paper on connections touches on this idea of formality being opposed to the real and personal, but at the same time it cites the distance created by CMC as something that promotes disclosure.



Interpersonal and intercultural understanding 113

I have experienced a level of honesty from my classmates I have rarely experienced before. This honesty is partly due to the open format of the writing assignments. We were allowed to destructure our essays – make them less formal and more real – and that opened the door for the content to also be more real. It is also due, in part, to the feeling of anonymity that online posting allows.

This quote highlights the opposing forces that our chosen form of CMC, threaded electronic discussions, introduced to the class dynamic. By imposing a predetermined format and style, and by encouraging more carefully considered and constructed answers, it encouraged higher level thinking that led the students to new insights about themselves, others, and humanity itself. At the same time, for some members of the class, it defamiliarized communication and kept relations with their classmates from feeling very personal and friendly.

Conclusions and implications As a reminder for our readers, our research questions were as follows: 1. What impact did the CS-C pedagogy and using discussion as way of teaching/learning have on the students in the class? 2. How did the use of a blended model of CMC and FTF discussion influence the students and the objectives of the class? 3. Did CMC serve to enhance the class and its proposed aims, or did it have a negative or a negligible impact on them? Our surveys and study of the data from students’ writings for the class have shown that the learners were constantly challenged to co-construct their own ways of and contents for knowing. The effects of a blended classroom, where both FTF discussions and the spatially and temporally independent means of communication and co-construction that were afforded by the integration of CMC were another key concentration of our inquiry. We focused on learners’ engagement with the processes of their learning, as they interacted in an electronic medium and we reflected on their FTF interactions as well. For the most part, they were able to connect in a real and personal way to the practices of CS-C and the theories that inform them. We have been able to demonstrate that by gaining more and more familiarity with the practices of CS-C learning and teaching made manifest in FTF interactions and written conversations using CMC, learners became active participants in a new, emergent paradigm where they created knowing that had measurable effects on them in psychosocial and interpersonal ways. We have shown how a CS-C model has an impact on interaction and learning in postsecondary language

114 Kara McBride and Mary E. Wildner-Bassett

and culture education. This impact especially has effects on voice and identity in the CMC aspects of the blended classroom. Our analysis of the data focused on the key areas of criticality, sociality, coconstruction, identity development, and the implementation of blended pedagogy using both CMC and FTF interaction. The main findings are summarized here: 1. Sociality was evidenced by participants’ heightened openness and honesty toward each other through their computer-posted writings, and by their feeling of comfort in each other’s and the teacher’s presence. One student summed up the essence of this point when she wrote, “[We] … learned about our interconnectedness, the need for sincerity and honesty in our every day lives, the value of reaching out to someone….” 2. Critical social-constructivism maintains that all knowing is socially and culturally determined, and that the interaction that students have with their fellow learners, when guided by critical thought, leads to new ways of knowing and constitutes learning. The class approach, imbedded in criticality and sociality, was able to accomplish this goal, as evidenced by student writing and by the survey results. Students were themselves surprised at how much they could learn from each other, and were able to report on their own emerging co-construction of knowledge, both in the survey and in their writing: “I have learned how to reflect on myself by reading how other people reflect on themselves.” 3. The effects of early family experience emerged from the data as a surprisingly strong influence on learners’ responses to the survey and in their writing. This observation raised our awareness about the individual learner variables and pre-dispositions toward (or away from) confidence and self-worth in the classroom environment. Those students who did not demonstrate the experience of finding support in the class for those aspects of their lives came into the classroom experience, by their own reports, with a history of a lack of support or without a nurturing early environment. CS-C classroom experiences for one semester are apparently not powerful enough to overcome what some learners bring into the experience. This aspect of our findings motivates us to further investigations into the interaction of CS-C and blended classroom pedagogy with individual learner differences and self-reports about early family experience. 4. There is an apparent disconnect that some students experienced between their FTF and CMC interactions with each other. It may be that for these undergraduate students, what is said in spontaneous conversation simply feels more personal than what is communicated through formal writing. Also, as members of the generation that is moving from email to instant messaging as a preferred mode of communication, they may find the discussion board



Interpersonal and intercultural understanding 115

postings to be too formal, and therefore opposed to real and personal interaction. At the same time, though, students mentioned that the distance created by CMC was something that promoted more personal disclosure. This perception of distancing is reinforcement for our motifs of criticality and social constructivism. The students themselves realized that the blended CMC-FTF classroom gave them a means to gain a sense of Luke’s (2004) “… out-of-body experience of watching oneself watch oneself ….” From that perspective they could observe their own experience, ponder their own identities in development and express the results of the process in what they termed “personal disclosure.” In the class described in this chapter, students came to new interpersonal and intercultural understandings through a radical change in their ways of acting in a class. This paradigm shift toward co-constructing meaning is a function of all participants’ finding the courage to teach and learn in the risk-taking format of CS-C. We therefore conclude that the sorry state of higher education that Hersh and Merrow (2005) describe – a mutual nonaggression pact between professors and students, with each side agreeing not to impinge on the other and students preferring to be passive receptacles – is not inevitably true. Students are at least as surprised in their emergent paradigms of co-construction as are their teachers, but we all find the risks we take to engage in this new paradigm well worth the rewards. We close, as is most appropriate, with the words of one of the students, who also helped us make meaning in what this investigation found. She writes, On my first day of class, I thought, “Oh, God. It’s going to be a long semester.” I was convinced that this class was going to be a touchy-feely, weird, pseudo-feminist lecture that I would just have to get through to get my Gender/Race/Class/ Ethnicity/Non-Western credit. I was wrong. … people were open and honest and willing to share even intimate details of their lives simply because it was asked for. That seems so basic, but it’s the most important thing that I learned in this class. If you show a little interest in someone, take just a little bit of time and ask them a sincere question, they will give you a sincere answer. Most Americans have forgotten the value in “getting to know each other.” … This class has taught me a thing or two, and that’s saying a lot for an elective. I learned about our interconnectedness, the need for sincerity and honesty in our every day lives, the value of reaching out to someone, and the beautiful little things we all experience that make life bearable. I didn’t just learn about the person in each profile I read, I learned about humanity in general. I’m glad I didn’t let my judgmental side get the best of me on the first day of class.

116 Kara McBride and Mary E. Wildner-Bassett

References Abrams, Z. I. (2003). Flaming in CMC: Prometheus’ Fire or Inferno’s? CALICO Journal, 20(2), 245–260. Beauvois, M. H. (1998). Write to speak: The effects of electronic communication on the oral achievement of fourth semester French students. In J. A. Muyskens (Ed.), New ways of learning and teaching: Focus on technology and foreign language education (pp. 93–115). Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle. Belz, J. A. (2002). Social dimensions of telecollaborative foreign language study. Language Learning & Technology, 6(1), 60–81. Belz, J. A. & Müller-Hartmann, A. (2003). Teachers as intercultural learners: Negotiating German-American telecollaboration along the institutional fault line. The Modern Language Journal, 87(1), 71–89. Brookfield, S. & Preskill, S. (2005). Discussion as a way of teaching: Tools and techniques for democratic classrooms (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Byram, M. (1997). Teaching and assessing intercultural communicative competence. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Dimitrov, V. (2002). Learning ecology for human and machine intelligence. In V. Dimitrov & V. Korotkich (Eds.), Fuzzy Logic: A paradigm for the new millennium (pp. 386–393). Heidelberg: Physica-Verlag. Furstenberg, G., Levet, S., English, K., & Maillet, K. (2001). Giving a virtual voice to the silent language of culture: The CULTURA Project. Language Learning & Technology, 5(1), 55–102. Harklau, L. (1999). Representing culture in the ESL writing classroom. In E. Hinkel (Ed.), Culture in second language learning and teaching (pp. 109–135). Cambridge: CUP. Hersh, R. H. & Merrow, J. (Eds.). (2005). Declining by degrees: Higher education at risk. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Ivanič, R. (1998). Writing and identity: The discoursal construction of identity in academic writing. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Ivanič, R. & Camps, D. (2001). I am how I sound: Voice and Self representation in L2 writing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 10(1), 3–33(31). Kelm, O. R. (1992). The use of synchronous computer networks in second language instruction: A preliminary report. Foreign Language Annals, 25, 441–454. Kern, R. (1995). Restructuring classroom interaction with networked computers: Effects on quantity and characteristics of language production. The Modern Language Journal, 79(4), 457–476. Kern, R., Ware, P., & Warschauer, M. (2004). Crossing frontiers: New directions in online pedagogy and research. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 24, 243–260. Kramsch, C. & Thorne, S.(2002). Foreign language learning as global communicative practice. In D. Block & D. Cameron (Eds.), Globalization and language teaching (pp. 83–100). London: Routledge. Lankshear, C. & Knobel, M. (2006). Blogging as participation: The active sociality of a new literacy. Paper presented to the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco. April 11, 2006. Luke, A. (2004). Two takes on the critical. In B. Norton & K. Toohey (Eds.), Critical pedagogies and language learning (pp. 21–29). Cambridge: CUP.



Interpersonal and intercultural understanding 117

Meagher, M. & Castaños, F. (1996). Perceptions of American culture: The impact of an electronically mediated cultural exchange program on Mexican high school student. In S. Herring (Ed.), Computer-mediated communication: Linguistic, social and cross-cultural perspectives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Moos, R. H. (1987). The social climate scales: A user’s guide. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psycholinguistics Press. Müller-Hartmann, A. (2000). The role of tasks in promoting intercultural learning in electronic learning networks. Language Learning & Technology, 4(2), 129–147. O’Dowd, R. (2003). Understanding the ‘other side’: Intercultural learning a Spanish-English e-mail exchange. Language Learning & Technology, 7(2), 118–144. Quasthoff, U. (1993). Ethnozentrische Verarbeitung von Information: Zur Ambivalenz in der Funktionen von Stereotypen in der interkulturellen Kommunikation. In P. Matusche (Ed.), Wie verstehen wir Fremdes? Aspekte zur Klaerung von Verstehensprozessen (pp. 37–62). Munich: Goethe Institut. Rao, N. (1993). Verstehen einer fremden Kultur. In P. Matusche (Ed.), Wie verstehen wir Fremdes? Aspekte zur Klaerung von Verstehensprozessen (pp. 110–121). Munich: Goethe Institut. Schulz, R. A., LaLande II, J. F., Dykstra-Pruim, P., Zimmer-Loew, H., & James, C. J. (2005). In pursuit of cultural competence in the German language classroom. Die Unterrichtspraxis Teaching German, 38(2), 172–181. Taylor, P., Fraser, B. J., & Fisher, D. L. (1997). Monitoring constructivist classroom learning environments. International Journal of Educational Research, 27(4), 293–302. Thorne, S. L. & Payne, J. S. (2005). Evolutionary trajectories, internet-mediated expression, and language education. CALICO, 22(3), 371–397. Vollmer, G. (2002). Sociocultural perspectives on second language writing. ERIC/CLL News Bulletin, 25, 1–3. von der Emde, S., Schneider, J., & Kötter, M. (2001). Technically speaking: Transforming language learning environments through virtual learning environments (MOOs). The Modern Language Journal, 85, 210–255. Walther, J. B. (1996). Computer-mediated communication: Impersonal, interpersonal, and hyperpersonal interaction. Communication Research, 23(3), 3–43. Ware, P. (2005). ‘Missed’ communication in online communication: Tensions in a GermanAmerican telecollaboration. Language Learning & Technology, 9(2), 64–89. Ware, P. D. & Kramsch, C. (2005). Toward an intercultural stance: Teaching German and English through telecollaboration. The Modern Language Journal, 89(2), 190–205. Warschauer, M. (1996). Comparing face-to-face and electronic discussion in the second language classroom. CALICO Journal, 13, 7–25. Wildner-Bassett, M. E. (2002). Planet Xeno: Creating a collaborative computer-mediated communication culture. In P. Comeaux (Ed.), Communication and collaboration in the online classroom: Examples and applications (pp. 157–174). Bolton, MA: Anker. Wildner-Bassett, M. E. & Meerholz-Haerle, B. (1999). Positional pedagogies and understanding the other: Epistemological research, subjective theories, narratives, and the language program director in a ‘web of relationships’. In L. K. Heilenman (Ed.), Research issues and language program direction (Vol. 9, pp. 203–243). Boston, MA: Heinle. Zuss, M. (1994). Value and subjectivity in literacy practice. In B. Ferdman, R.-M. Weber & A. Ramprez (Eds.), Literacy across languages and cultures (pp. 239–272). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

118 Kara McBride and Mary E. Wildner-Bassett

Appendix A: Part A of the survey Item Items listed from those showing most agreement to least number agreement

Disagreea Agree

28a 15a 19a 22a 26a

 0 18* 18* 18*  0

17   0*   0*   0* 18

18* 18* 16*

  0*   0*   1*

17* 17*  1

  1*   1* 17

 1

17

 2 16*

16   2*

 3  3  3  4 13*

15 15 15 14   5*

 5

13

 5

13

13*

  5*

 6  6

12 12

 7

10

 7  7  8 12   6*

11 11 10  6 12*

13   5*

 5 13*

  6a   7a 24a 18a 21a 23a   2a 20a 34a 25a 31a   8a 5a 12a   1a 33a 35a 17a 27a 16a 14a   3a 30a 13a 29a 11a   9a

I can trust the teacher. I haven’t learned much in this class.* The teacher doesn’t care much about the students’ interests.* The teacher isn’t much fun.* The way we are graded in this class is fair and representative of the class goals. The goals of this class were not clear to me.* This class isn’t as good as I thought it would be.* I would rather ask the teacher for help with the class than ask a classmate.* I can’t really be myself in this class.* Being in this class makes me nervous.* This class helped me understand my own life experiences better. I would like to see some of the ways we used computers in this class used in other classes. I expressed myself very freely and openly in this class. The teacher is inflexible about how we can be and act in the class.* The teacher is competent with technology. The other students can count on me to express my opinions. I have made friends in this class. I pursue topics that are interesting to me in this class. It wasn’t clear to me why we used computers so much in this class.* Things were well timed in this class – neither rushed nor too slow. I am a better communicator as a result of having taken this class. I don’t expect to ever talk to my classmates once this class is over.* I know the names of the other students in this class. I am clearer about who I am because of some of the discussions we have had in this class. After this class, I would be more likely to stand up for my own or others’ rights. I play an important role in this class. The class dynamic changed a lot during the semester. My writing has improved as a result of this class. I am a more compassionate person after having taken this class. I have not changed my ideas about my heritage as a result of this class.* After this class, I am a better reader. This class has had no effect on my career plans.*



  4a 10a 32a

Interpersonal and intercultural understanding 119

After this class, I am now a better listener. 14 I have reevaluated my political views because of something that 15 happened in this class. This class has had no effect on my views about religion or   3* spirituality.*

 4  3 15*

Originally, the students responded with one of four answers: strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree. For clarity, the answers are reported with the two choices of agreement grouped together, and similarly for disagreement. Of the 35 items, 7 items are framed negatively, so that disagreement with the statement reflects a more positive attitude towards the class. These items are marked with an asterisk. Finally, the items are reported in an order that reflects the items with the most positive responses first. The left-most column shows the order in which the items appeared on the version of the survey that the students responded to. a

Appendix B: Part B of the survey Item Items listed from those showing most number agreement to least agreement

Never Once or A few Many twice times times

10b

 1

2

2

13

13* 13* 13*

4* 2* 3*

0* 3* 1*

  0*   0*   1*

 0

1

6

12

12*

6*

0*

  0*

11*

2*

5*

  0*

  9*

6*

2*

  1*

  8*

6*

4*

  0*

 1

5

4

 8

 0

1

9

 8

 2

7

2

 7

 0

6

5

 7

 4  2

6 6

2 4

 6  6

23b 19b   4b 15b 30b 11b 25b 20b 17b 18b 21b 12b 13b   1b

I understood new perspectives and points of view because of this class. I needed to ask for help with D2L.*b Someone laughed at my ideas in this class.* There was a misunderstanding in the class that wouldn’t have arisen if we weren’t communicating through computers.* I understood something about a culture that I did not understand before. Having to get access to a computer for this class made me lose time.* Someone in my class said something really stupid during a class discussion.* The teacher got frustrated with the technology that we used for the class.* I got frustrated with the technology that we were supposed to use.* Doing things on computer allowed us to do things that we wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise. My classmates made very interesting contributions in this class. I expressed myself in this class and then felt very satisfied being able to do that. Using computers added a kind of flexibility to the course that I appreciated. Participating in this class made me feel smart. I forgot about my personal problems while I was in this class.

120 Kara McBride and Mary E. Wildner-Bassett

  9b 24b 28b 29b   3b 14b 16b   8b   6b   5b 22b   2b 27b 26b   7b b

I said/wrote something in this class and someone else really got what I was trying to say. Something from this class led me to understand someone else’s point of view better. Participating in this class made me feel creative. I had an interesting exchange with someone in this class that I wouldn’t have had if we weren’t communicating through computers. I left class in a better mood than when I went in. I could see my classmates’ ideas develop over the semester. I felt good about helping a fellow student in this class. The computer end of the class created additional work for me.* I could see for myself that I was developing as a student. I talked to someone outside of the class about concepts that were discussed in this class. I formed study groups with others in this class. The teacher let me change a class assignment so that it better suited what I wanted to do. I learned something new about computers in this class. I have asked other students for help in this class. Something from this class led me to forgive someone I know.

 1

 6

5

 6

 1

 5

6

 6

 4  4

 5  4

4 5

 5  5

 2  2

 3  4

8 7

 5  5

 1

 6

6

 5

  6*

  4*

3*

  4*

 2

 5

7

 4

 2

 8

5

 3

 9  8

 6  4

1 3

 2  2

 5

 9

2

 1

 4 14

11  1

2 1

 1  1

Of the 30 items, 8 items are framed negatively, so that disagreement with the statement reflects a more positive attitude toward the class. These items are marked with an asterisk. Note also that the items are reported in an order that reflects the items with the most positive responses first. The left-most column shows the order in which the items appeared on the version of the survey that the students responded to.

Activities/Topics

Introduction to the course and formation of working dialogue groups

First introduction to the COHLab3 in ML 412

Peer editing in COHLab; Discussions in classroom

Peer editing in COHLab; Discussions in classroom

Week

January 13

January 18–21

January 24–28

January 31–Feb. 4

Weekly Schedule of Activities:

Women in Austria, pp. 104–119. “Politics, Gender, and Equality”

Begin discussion of “Intellectual and Cultural Autobiography”

Aptheker, B. 1989. Tapestries of Life: Women’s Work, Women’s Consciousness, and the Meaning of Daily Life (excerpts) Aptheker, B. 1989. Tapestries of Life: Women’s Work, Women’s Consciousness, and the Meaning of Daily Life (excerpts) Bohnen, A. 1993. Women in Society: Germany. pp. 37–65

Comments

Intellectual and cultural autobiography first draft due in COHLAb for peer editing Intellectual and cultural autobiography. Work on extending and deepening

Exploring the WWW and other sources for information on women in German-speaking societies. Discuss in detail with your partner and your discussion group.

Daily life from women’s and men’s perspectives in Germany: What are the similarities and differences?

Students will be asked to find a partner who can be somehow defined as “other”, i.e. of other gender, background culture, family background, orientation, etc. Continue discussion and Daily life from women’s and men’s perspectives: Are begin writing “Intellectual and there differences? Cultural Autobiography”

Writing

Reading

Brief Description of the Course: This course views many aspects of the daily lives of individuals in the contemporary European German-speaking societies. The course content includes recent historical perspectives, such as the Wall and unification; daily life, including the political issues that affect daily living; and personal profiles of women and others in German-speaking countries. Collaborative computer-mediated activities in the COHlab in ML 412 will be integrated as essential elements of the course. Texts: A reader for the class will be made available, as will occasional additional handouts.

Welcome! German 274 Spring 2005 The Dialogue of the Sexes: Women and Men in Contemporary German-Speaking Societies Gen.Ed. Tier II Course in Individuals & Society and General Education Gender, Race, Class, Ethnicity, or Non-Western Area Studies Instructor: Prof. Mary E. Wildner-Bassett

Appendix C: Class syllabus and selected activities

Interpersonal and intercultural understanding 121

Focus on aspects of the person’s life that overlap or are very similar with your own interests, goals, talents, personal history, or other overlaps. The second focus will be on aspects of the person’s life that are different or “other” than your own interests, goals, talents, personal history, or other overlaps. Read for focus on aspects that overlap or are very similar with and different or “other” than own interests, goals, talents, personal history, or other overlaps.

Autobiographies final draft due Begin work on research profiles a woman or another “other” in German-speaking society First draft due in COHLAb for peer editing of researched personal profiles in detail with your partner and your discussion group in the COHlab session Continue work on personal profiles. Second draft due for peer editing

Women in Austria, pp. 213–234, “War and Gender Identity: The Experience of Austrian Women 1945–1950”

Final version of research profile due. Begin work on interview profile. See comments this week and first week after break. Have Fun

Viewing of documentary films

No Classes

Reading: Women in Austria, pp. 56–82, “Rights at last? The first generation of female members of parliament in Austria”

Be Safe

Interview with women or another “other” in your society. Compare with researched profile of a woman or another “other” in German-speaking society. Interviews are similar to those you have read in the readings for this week.

Read for good writing and for aspects that overlap or are very similar with and different or “other” than own interests, goals, talents, personal history, or other overlaps.

Historical views: Milestones in German-speaking women’s lives.

Second draft of Autobiographies due

Bohnen, A. 1993. Women in Society: Germany. pp. 11–35

Bohnen, A. 1993. Women in Diversity in the Germanspeaking world: “Other” Society: Germany, pp. 67–81 women and men. Peer editing in COHLab; Discussions in classroom

First quiz on readings and discussions Peer editing in COHLab; Discussions in classroom Historical views: Social situation and personal expectations of women and men in the immediate post war years

Equal rights: Women, men and the law in Germanspeaking countries. Peer editing in COHLab; Discussions in classroom March 7–11 Review sessions: Historical perspectives, daily life and personal profiles of women and others in German-speaking cultures. Second quiz on readings and discussions March 14–18 Spring Break

February 28–Mar.ch 4

February 21–25

February 14–18

February 7–11

122 Kara McBride and Mary E. Wildner-Bassett

c

Review postings by fellow students; review any other readings

What is the “dialogic emergence of culture”? Where are you in the process of entering a dialogue with the German-speaking cultures? Where are you in the dialogue of the sexes? What is the “dialogic emergence of culture”? Where are you in the process of entering a dialogue with the German speaking cultures? Where are you in the dialogue of the sexes?

Written reflections on the connections among these pieces and the lives of class participants. Compare your own experiences to what have read. Discuss in detail with your partner and your discussion group.

After reading this section, reflect once again on cultural and personal shaping of identity. Compare your own experiences to what have read.

Interview someone you know who you consider to be “other” than you are. Ask them about their general life experiences, but focus on one of the general topics from our class (e.g. world of work, family life, educational experiences, political involvements). Discuss your reactions to the film in detail with your partner and your discussion group.

COHLab is an acronym for the Collaborative Computing Laboratory of the College of Humanities at our institution.

May 2–5 Continue class summary and Last day of review. Comments on peers’ classes May 4 work in COHLab; Discussions in classroom May 12 Final Exam 8:00–10:00 am

April 25–29

April 18–22

April 11–15

April 4–8

March 28–April 1

Final draft of connections statement due

Work on Interview profile. Write a summary and description of your interview, including what your criteria were for the choice of the person. First draft of Interview Profile Women and men in the “New Shoemaker, S. 1996. My Second Life. Video viewing and discussion due Germany”. Unification (the Wende) and change. Peer editing in COHLab; Discussions in classroom Austrian Women, pp. 197–212, Final draft of interview Gender identities and life “Representations of the beginprofile due stories ning: Shaping Gender Identities Comments on peers’ work in COHLab; Discussions in in Written Life Stories of Women classroom and Men” Begin summary statement – Third quiz on readings and Kolinsky, pp. 100–150 Connections discussions Write a description of your Girls and boys, women and Kolinsky, pp. 100–150 own schooling experiences to men in schools and higher date, with a focus on gender education issues that might occur to you Class summary and review. Illustration of class concepts in First draft of connections Peer editing work in COHLab; viewing and critical discussion of statement due Discussions in classroom the film Run Lola Run

March 21–25 Women and men in the “New Excerpts from Dodds and AlGermany”. Unification (the len-Thompson. 1994. The Wall Wende) and change. in my Backyard and Kolinsky, pp. 259–294

Interpersonal and intercultural understanding 123

Creating comfort zones of orality in online discussion forums Anja Wanner

University of Wisconsin-Madison

This chapter examines the discourse organization of Internet discussion forums, which seem to invite conceptually less oral forms of communication than chatrooms in three main ways: (a) Whereas chatroom communicat­ion is simultaneous and is often one-on-one, communication in a discussion forum is non-simultaneous and public. (b) Whereas chatroom conversations are only visible to those who are in the chatroom at the time of the conversation, postings in a discussion forum are not transitory and can be seen, searched, and linked to long after they have been made. (c) Whereas postings in a chatroom are sequenced purely chronologically, postings in a discussion forum are organized thematically into threaded discussions. In this chapter, I show how users systematically override these functional restrictions of discussion forums and reclaim “comfort zones of orality” by making sophisticated use of the structural options provided by the forum software to create and maintain spaces in which they can engage in chat-like conversations, with the added benefit of creating a visible discourse history. I argue that this seemingly against-its-purpose use of a discussion forum is essential for participants to become members of an online community. Data come mainly from the discussion forum hosted by the major German weekly Die Zeit.

The Internet has significantly changed the way people communicate with each other through the use of written language. A number of genres have emerged that challenge the traditional idea that written discourse tends to be asynchronous and to involve more formal language. However, the difference between oral and computer-mediated communication still runs deep. Erickson (1999) pointed out that computer-mediated conversations may be “searched, browsed, replayed, annotated, visualized, restructured, and recontextualized, with what are likely to be profound impacts on personal, social, and institutional practices” (para. 4). Among the genres that have been analyzed with respect to their situational, linguistic,

126 Anja Wanner

and interactional characteristics are emails, electronic newsletters, blogs, instant messaging, online chats, and discussion forums or newsgroups (Baron 2003; Beißwenger 2000; Crystal 2001; Lewis 2003; Marcoccia 2004; Werry 1996; Ziegler 2002). There is an ongoing discussion about whether one should consider these genres as text types or rather as forms of oral communication (cf. Ziegler 2002) and whether or not they are instantiations of a general new variety of “netspeak,” a “fourth medium” – in addition to oral, written, and signed language – that displays features unique to the Internet and manifested in all types of online discourse (Crystal 2001: 18). In this chapter I show that while each of these forms of “persistent conversations” (Erickson 1999, Title) can be characterized by certain structural parameters (such as simultaneousness and transitoriness of communication), users may override limitations resulting from these parameters to create a space that serves their communicational needs and not necessarily the needs of those who provide the platform for their discourse. In the first part of this chapter I contrast the communicative setting of a discussion forum with that of a chatroom. The discussion forum with its non-transitory postings and its thematic organization invites more formal forms of discourse than the chatroom. In the second part I position discussion forums and chatrooms in a continuum of conceptually written versus oral communication, following the criteria developed by Koch and Oesterreicher (1994). I then demonstrate how users in a discussion forum systematically use graphic code and whatever options the software provides them with to create what I refer to as “comfort zones of orality.” It will be shown that, seemingly paradoxically, participants open threads without a specific theme, only to manage fast-paced discussions carefully and to use sophisticated technical means to achieve topic continuity within these threads. I argue that these “comfort zones” are not attempts at emulating a chatroom, but rather are the very deliberate construction of a traceable discourse history within an online community.

The communicative setting of a discussion forum According to Joyce and Kraut (2006), in the United States “over 50% of all Internet users regularly stay in contact with an online group” (Introduction, para. 1). . Preece and Maloney-Krichmar (2005) discuss several approaches to defining the term online community. I use the term here in the technical sense of a group of “people who come together for a particular purpose, and who are guided by policies (including norms and rules) and supported by software” (Preece & Maloney-Krichmar 2005, Introduction, para. 3, their italics).



Creating comfort zones of orality 127

Discussion forums (also called discussion boards or newsgroups) are a subcategory of these online groups. They are asynchronous forms of web-based discourse in which communication is public and organized within topic areas. Marcoccia (2004), who looked specifically at Usenet newsgroups, describes them as “on-line polylogues [….], computer-mediated hybrid[s] of interpersonal and mass communication” (p. 116). Thematically, discussion forums can be highly specialized or rather general. For instance, most of eBay’s discussion forums deal with issues related to eBay transactions – how to give feedback, how to bid wisely, how to act if a buyer doesn’t pay and so forth – and there is no reason to assume that anybody who does not regularly sell or buy items on eBay would ever become part of this community. On the other end of the spectrum we find online communities like Table Talk or The Well, which are part of the online magazine Salon.com and cover discussion areas as diverse as Books, Health and Science, News and the Media, The White House, and Work Life. The discussion forum that I examine in some detail, associated with the German weekly Die Zeit, lies somewhere in the middle: Like eBay’s forums, it is sponsored and maintained by a mother company whose primary business is not to distribute information on the web, and like the discussion forums on Salon.com, it covers a broad range of topic areas and is part of a web of general interest online articles and other online services. Discussion forums are usually organized into thematic areas (very much like folders on a computer) or domains, which may contain any number of discussion threads. A thread is a discussion devoted to a specific topic. In Table Talk, for example, the domain Books has threads like Harry Potter predictions or Book recommendations. Discussion forums may or may not be moderated. The “managerial influence” (Crystal 2001: 133) of moderators or hosts varies widely. Moderators may have the power to shorten or delete messages that are not in line with the forum rules and they may be able to block a participant from posting further messages. In some forums, only moderators can open a discussion thread, in others any participant can (but that does not make them moderators of the thread). Moderators usually do not actively steer the direction of a discussion. The following example illustrates a posting from a discussion board, in this case Table Talk. We can see the hierarchical structure of the forum: Example 1 is

. Newsgroups is the term used on Usenet. Technically, newsgroups are different from discussion forums in that a posting first goes to a user’s news server and from there is copied to other servers. Newsgroups are usually accessed with a special client software. . Full access to the discussion forums on Salon.com is only available to subscribing (and paying) members. . The URL is http://tabletalk.salon.com.

128 Anja Wanner

a posting in the thread What did you rent last night, which is a thread within the domain Movies. Each posting indicates the writer’s screen name (not necessarily the participant’s real name) and optional tagline, a time stamp, and a numeric identifier within the thread. The posting in Example 1 is a self-contained short review of the movie Flirting with Disaster, that is, it directly addresses the topic of the thread. The first line of the posting is an answer to the thread question. Using terminology from conversation analysis, one would say that the thread title (What did you rent last night?) and the first part of the posting (Flirting with Disaster) form an adjacency pair (Levinson 1983). Unlike a posting in a chatroom, Example 1 is not a reply to anyone else’s postings and it doesn’t require a response either. It is essentially a self-contained contribution to a list of film reviews. Michal Steep talks about a movie that he enjoyed more than he had expected. Example 1. Table Talk >> Movies >> What did you rent last night? Michal Steep – 07:09 pm Pacific Time – Aug 15 2005 – #4509  solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short Flirting With Disaster I think I resisted this movie for so long because while I don’t harbor any animosity toward Ben Stiller (how could I, since I adore his parents?), I’m just not a fan. But it turns out that a) this is not a “Ben Stiller movie”, and b) he’s quite endearing in it. Anyway, very funny film, with a fantastic cast hitting on all cylinders. It felt like Robert-Altman-meets-Christopher-Guest at times. 90 minutes well spent.

Although there are certainly similarities between chatrooms and discussion forums, the communicative setting of a discussion forum – public, non-transitory, topic-oriented – is very different from that of a chatroom. In a chatroom, a message can only be read by those who are logged on to the chatroom when the message is posted, and the pace of interaction is necessarily faster. Crystal (2001) used the hybrid term “chatgroup” to refer to chats and discussion forums alike (p. 11). According to him, discussion forums are simply asynchronous chatgroups. However, this generalization is too broad. The following sections show that discussion forums differ from chatrooms in a number of situational parameters and that these differences affect the topics that are chosen and the way participants interact with each other.

. All data come from publicly available threads. Screen names that were not obviously pseudonyms have been changed.



Creating comfort zones of orality 129

Synchronicity and simultaneousness Strictly speaking, neither chatroom conversations nor discussion forums are synchronous forms of communication. Chatroom communication is simultaneous, but usually not quite synchronous. Participants who engage in communication have to be present in the chatroom at the same time (i.e. simultaneously), but they cannot normally see each letter as it is typed (Storrer 2001). They type their turns into a box and then click on a send button, which means there is a time lag between production and reception. Considering the fast pace of chat conversations, this time lag can feel quite noticeable. As a result of these time lags and also of the shortness and the high frequency of turns typically found in chatroom conversation, unintended sequencing of turns occurs quite often (Schönfeldt & Gelato 2003). In addition to being not simultaneous, communication in a discussion forum is also clearly asynchronous. The metaphors of a room (for chat communication) versus a bulletin board (for discussion forums) capture the difference between the two communication settings very well. In a chatroom, one enters a room and can join a conversation or just hang around and listen to what others are saying. Postings are visible only to those who are in the same room at the same time. In a discussion forum, however, postings are visible to anyone who visits the forum at any point after the posting has been made. Messages can be read and responded to long after they have been posted, just like a note on a real bulletin board can be read long after the car that someone is putting up for sale has been sold. Marcoccia (2004) hypothesized that newsgroup users (and by extension, discussion forum users) do not perceive the delays between a message and a response to it as gaps because they do not share the same timeframe: “when a user reads a message sent to the forum, for him/her it is a new message, even though it may have been sent several days before” (p. 116). Although it can happen that the two parts of an adjacency pair are produced weeks apart, it is highly unlikely that users are unaware of the time gap in between given that all postings on a discussion forum bear a time stamp (unlike the majority of postings on a cork discussion board). Furthermore, depending on the software, threads without any activity may shift to the bottom of the list of discussions. Regular participants on a discussion board sometimes make the conscious effort to revive a thread and to move it back to the top. This maneuver is known as bumping up a thread. If a thread is low on the list, this position is evidence that the thread has not been active for a while.

130 Anja Wanner

Dialogicity When someone enters a chatroom, there is normally some sort of automatic message of the kind x enters the room. Participants engage in welcome (and goodbye) rituals in order to signal their availability for a conversation (Beißwenger 2000; Bader 2002). There is not much one can do in a chatroom if there is nobody else in the room at the same time; it is essentially a dialogic form of communication. The situation is different in a discussion forum. There is no specific room that is entered, and one does not normally know how many participants are logged on at a given time. Marcoccia (2004) identified three discourse roles for participants of a discussion forum: Senders are the ones that regularly post messages; readers or eavesdroppers, also known as lurkers, are the ones who join a forum without ever posting anything themselves, that is, without leaving any trace of their presence, and hosts are the ones who steer discussions (p. 131). While lurkers are often frowned on in a chatroom, it is perfectly alright to lurk on a discussion forum – nobody will notice anyway. Which role one can take may depend on the structural settings of the discussion board. In the forum Table Talk, for example, most threads are public, which means that anyone can read them. But only users that are logged in and have paid a subscription fee can post messages. The slogan Log in. Lurk smarter. Join Table Talk to keep your place in the dialog is used as an invitation to lurkers to become paying subscribers (and thus potential senders). Whether or not lurking readers become visible, committed participants in discussions seems to depend to some extent on the response they get when they first post a message. In a recent study based on six thematically oriented discussion forums Joyce and Kraut (2006) found that receiving a response to an initial posting increased the likelihood that the poster would post again. It is interesting that the nature of the response (length of response, emotional tone of response, content of response) was not a significant factor in determining whether or not a newcomer would post again. Being responded to is a marker of being recognized as a member of a community, and a sense of belonging is the basis for forming the newcomer's commitment to this group.

Transitoriness and publicness Conversations in discussion forums are public. If a participant posts something on the discussion board, it will be visible to anyone who visits the forum. Such publicness is not typically the context for one-on-one conversations, as could be seen in Example 1. Even though users may address their posting to a specific member of the community, others will still be able to read the message. There is



Creating comfort zones of orality 131

no equivalent to chatroom whispering (one-on-one conversations that are invisible to others) in discussion forums. Example 2 shows how a participant asks a question addressed to the general audience. Example 2. Table Talk >> Books >> What I’m reading NOW, redux Wonder Dog – 09:43 am Pacific Time – Aug 12 2005 – #5151 Just finished reading Michael Chabon’s Summerland. Mixed feelings and thoughts have I. Has anyone else read the book, and, if so, what did you think? BTW, I loved The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay though I thought the Antarctic section a little odd. keith_h79 – 10:14 am Pacific Time – Aug 12 2005 – #5152 I haven’t read summerland but have considered picking it up during many book buying binges! I also loved Kavalier and Klay and thought the Antarctic scene was a little misplaced but interesting nonetheless.

Wonder Dog asks if “anyone” has read the book Summerland by Michael Chabon, and keith h79 responds to the question about half an hour later. In Example 3, Ms. Anthrope asks the general community whether or not eating onions is dangerous for dogs. Five minutes later godzoriz answers the question, using an abbreviated form of address (Ms. A.), thereby making it very clear that this answer goes with Ms. Anthrope’s question. Later in the thread, other people answer the same question. Ms. Anthrope and godzoriz do not have a private conversation, and other participants join in as they see fit and answer Ms. Anthrope’s question from their own perspective. Example 3. Table Talk >> House and Garden >> Dogs: Behavior, Training and General Appreciation Ms. Anthrope – 04:50 pm Pacific Time – Aug 26 2005 – #3376 So dogs (and cats) can’t handle the Vitamin K in onions? Is it only the amount in onions or any Vitamin K? godzoriz – 04:55 pm Pacific Time – Aug 26 2005 – #3377 Dunno, Ms.A. It coming up here was the first I’d heard of the onion/garlic thing, so the only thing I’ve noted is what I quoted before.

Although chatroom conversations can be downloaded and saved, they are essentially transitory and visible only to those who are logged in at a given time. Postings in a discussion forum, on the other hand, are crucially not transitory and, depending on the archiving policies of the host, can be read, bookmarked, searched, linked, or responded to years after they have been posted. Discussion forums therefore invite more careful wording and more elaborate postings than chatrooms. In Example 2,

132 Anja Wanner

Wonder Dog is mainly concerned with the book Summerland, which she did not like very much, but she adds that she liked other books by the same author, thereby minimizing the risk of sounding confrontational.

Topic-orientedness By their very nature discussion forums are organized hierarchically and thematically. Participants have to make up their minds in advance regarding which topic they want to talk about. This choice may be easy if one joins an eBay help discussion board with a specific problem, but it is more difficult with discussion boards that have very broad topic areas, such as Table Talk. The strict thematic organization encourages information-oriented styles of communication, such as problem-solving, questions and answers, or discussing the pros and cons of a controversial topic. Moreover, the sequential order of postings is not determined purely on a first-come, first-served basis, as is the case in chatrooms (cf. Storrer 2001). In some forums, participants can choose between a linear view, in which postings within a thread are displayed in the order in which they were made, or a threaded view, in which participants can respond directly to any posting. If this option is available, one can, for example, have visual adjacency pairs despite considerable time lags and numerous new messages between postings. If this option is not available, the automatic numbering of postings still allows for referring to a specific message without quoting or rephrasing it.

Written or oral communication? The Internet has been the platform for new forms of written communication challenging the traditional pairing of written language as formal and oral language as informal (Bader 2002; Baron 2003; Dürscheid 1999; Haase, Huber, Krumeich, & Rehm 1997; Koch & Oesterreicher 1994; Rehm 2002; Tannen 1982b). It has become more important than ever to clarify what exactly one is talking about when one uses the term written language. Koch and Oesterreicher (1994) distinguish between utterances that are medially written, that is, they are are realized through graphic code, and utterances that are conceptually written, which means that they are more distanced and less spontaneous (p. 587f.). Medially written utterances can be conceptually oral (such as an email to a friend), and medially . Pronouns are used in line with the gender that participants self-identify with in the forum.



Creating comfort zones of orality 133

oral utterances can be conceptually written (such as a scholarly talk). Unlike the distinction between medially oral and written forms of communication, the distinction between conceptually oral versus written forms of communication is not dichotomous. Rather, the terms represent two prototypes with a broad spectrum in between. Among the parameters to consider are the distance (that exists in time, space, and relationship) between participants, the salience of the situational context (in oral face-to-face discourse participants can rely on a shared reference system), and the role of planning ahead (written discourse allows for more elaborate texts, with well organized topics and complex syntax). Linguistic markers of conceptually oral discourse include incomplete sentences, pauses, short turns, and the use of discourse particles and high-frequency “passe-partout words” (Koch & Oesterreicher 1994: 591), which are semantically underspecified and fit many different contexts, such as do or get. With the structural characteristics outlined above, it seems that discourse in discussion forum settings is more conceptually written and less involved (Tannen 1982a) than in chatrooms: The hierarchy of threads invites topic-oriented, informative contributions, potentially long time lags between postings pave the way for elaborate monologs, the absence of visible communication partners makes it unlikely that postings will be addressed to individual participants, and the public, non-transitory status of each posting makes it more likely that participants will word their contributions carefully. Chatroom communication seems to be based on a “mindset of orality” (Beißwenger 2000: 41): Participants enter a metaphorically constituted room, greet each other, and spontaneously produce texts that mimic the syntax and pronunciation of spoken language (including contracted forms, cliticized pronouns, and phonetic spellings), combining them with web-specific elements or formats like emoticons, verbal glosses – also known as inflectives (Schlobinski 2001) – set off by asterisks or angle brackets (), and capitalization to emulate involvement and prosody, which can only occur in (medially) written forms of discourse (Bader 2002; Kilian 2001). Compared to chatrooms, the communicative setting of discussion forums is conceptually more written: It is definitely asynchronous, it is non-simultaneous (in principle), it is always one-to-many (while chatrooms often allow participants to engage in private conversations, called “whispering”), postings are public and non-transitory, and there can be long time lags between two turns that are related to each other. However, many discussion forums typically have an area whose raison d’être seems to be to break out of the structural corset of strict thematic organization and non-specific addressees. In the Zeit-Debatte this area is called the Lounge, Front Porch is the equivalent at eBay (“Sit down and relax with eBay friends!”), and the German weekly magazine Der Spiegel simply has a Treffpunkt (“meeting point”). Note that these names all refer to places that invite informal gatherings.

134 Anja Wanner

In the following, I demonstrate that discussion forums typically have a comfort zone of orality, in which regular participants use the medium very much like a chatroom, with the added benefit of creating a visible discourse history.

Characterization of a particular discussion forum: The Zeit-Debatte Structure of the forum The discussion forum on which most of my observations are based is part of the online edition of the major German weekly Die Zeit (“The Time”), which offers free access to articles and a number of online services, such as a newsletter, a job listing service, and a collection of blogs. The newspaper was founded in 1946 and is considered one of the most influential German newspapers, with a high proportion of college-educated readers. It covers areas such as politics, education, and culture and has the highest circulation among weekly newspapers in Germany. The online version, Zeit online, is a daughter company of the same publisher. It has a reach of about one million unique users per month (Zeit online internet facts 2005). Because most articles can be read without registration, only a fraction of these users are actually registered. However, in order to participate in the discussion forum one has to be a registered member. The Zeit online discussion forum, which was founded in 1999, is officially called the Debatte (“debate”) or Zeit-Debatte, but participants simply refer to it as zin, an acronym for Zeit im Internet (“The Time on the Internet”), and to themselves ironically as Zinioten, a self-deprecating blending of Zin and Idioten (“idiots”).10 In 2003, the year from which the relevant examples discussed here are taken, the central database for all online services requiring registration had about 10,000

. I would like to thank two former moderators of the Zeit-Debatte, Corinna Maliske and Lorenz Lorenz-Meyer, for providing me with helpful information on the history of the forum. . In 2006, the circulation was about 480,000 paid copies per week (Zeit-Mediadaten 2006). To compare: The circulation of the Sunday edition of The New York Times in 2005 was about 1.7 million copies (New York Times Fact Sheet 2005). . The concept of a unique user is used to measure the popularity of a website. A unique user is identified by an IP number and a user agent, such as a web browser. To compare: The online version of The New York Times has more than 1.3 million unique users per day (New York Times Fact Sheet 2005) and it has more than 10.8 million active registered users. 10. The URL of the forum is http://www.debatte.zeit.de/.



Creating comfort zones of orality 135

names,11 but the number of regular participants in the Zeit-Debatte was much lower (around 100). Within the discussion forum, there is also a chatroom, but it is usually empty (part of the reason is that some participants cannot use it due to the firewall settings on their computer). The Zeit-Debatte is a moderated discussion forum: One general moderator, an employee of the publishing company, is assisted by a few participant-moderators, who have moderator rights within individual threads. The topic organization on the Debatte loosely follows established sections in the paper, such as Politik (“politics”), Gesellschaft (“society”), Wissen (“science”), Leben (“life”), and some of the articles in the online edition of the paper have links to threads in the Debatte. Within each topic domain there are dozens of threads. Each user can subscribe to threads he or she is interested in and will see new postings in a personalized Message Center. There is a conscious effort of the general moderator to create connections between the paper and the forum, for example by opening threads relating to an article in the paper or by pointing participants to an article in the paper. Some participants in the Debatte identify themselves as readers of the print version of the paper, but in general articles from the paper hosting the forum are not discussed more intensively than articles from other sources. The main criterion for a newspaper article to become discussion material in the forum is that one can link to it. Almost all of the regular participants are native speakers of German. There are threads that encourage using another language, but they are not very popular – the thread Le bistro franco-allemand, for example, which invites participants to post messages in French, was opened in 2003 and 3 years later has only grown to about 135 postings.12

Discussion in topic-oriented areas Depending on the topic of a thread, the discussion in a forum can resemble that of ordinary panel discussions (cf. Biber 1988), which share characteristics of scientific texts (e.g., high numbers of passives and nominalizations) as well as of conversational texts (e.g., high numbers of pronouns and contracted forms).

11. At that time, users did not have to state their real name for the registration process. All they needed was a working email address. 12. The use of English thread names or screen names in German discussion forums reflects the role that English plays as the dominant language of web-based discourse. Although many participants link to articles in English and incorporate some English words and phrases in their postings, English is not used as a general language of discussion.

136 Anja Wanner

Example 4 from the topic area Science illustrates the kind of posting that one might expect, given the situational characteristics of this specific discussion forum. The topic of the thread is Darwin’s theory of evolution, this posting deals with the question of how the term Mensch (“human being”) should be defined. As in the examples from Table Talk, each posting begins with an identifier in which the name of the participant, the date and time of the posting, the name of the thread, and the number of the posting in the thread are listed. The first thing to notice about the posting in Example 4 is its length and its structure: There are five carefully separated paragraphs, each with complete sentences with complex syntax (subordinate clauses, relative clauses, complex noun phrases) and scientific vocabulary. Within these paragraphs, a specific font is used to highlight keywords.13 Using this font requires minimal knowledge of html formatting (or of the forum-internal shortcut). The visual impression of this posting is very much like that of a text that could have been taken from a textbook. Example 4. From: Zeit-Debatte >> Science >> Evolution Theory14 Dr. P. Specht - 23. Feb 2001 19:03 (Evolutionstheorie, Pro & Contra, #143) Zu #133 von Richard Virchner und #140 von FM: Eine politische Definition wäre eine, die von einer politischen Ent­schei­ dungsinstanz gesetzt wird (heutzutage z.B. vom Bundestag, früher z.B. per Dekret von Karl dem Großen oder bei den Römern vom Rat der Ältesten oder was auch immer). Während früher i.d.R. keine Notwendigkeit dazu vorlag (mit perversen Ausnahmen während der Kolonialzeit und bei den Nazis, wo allerdings von irgendwelchen angeblich minderwertigen Menschen gefaselt wurde), fehlt heute die Legitimation (Biologie wird nicht per Gesetz beschlossen). So kann „Mensch“ also sicherlich nicht definiert werden. Auch in anderen Kulturkreisen sehe ich das nicht. Ich glaube, sogar bei den Taliban in Afghanistan, wo die Frauen praktisch keinerlei Rechte haben, werden sie dennoch als “Mensch” angesehen, oder? Also scheidet auch die gesellschaftliche Übereinkunft in einer größeren Gruppe ähnlich Denkender als Abgrenzungsmöglichkeit für den Begriff Mensch aus. 13. For typographical reasons, this font (bold font in the original) is represented as italics here. 14. The way the posting is represented here is a simplified version of how it appears on the screen. On the screen, each posting is embedded in a frame that includes the name of the forum, the topic of the thread, instructions on formatting, and so forth. Participants’ screen names appear in red and link to a short profile of the user, including a list of postings most recently made by this person. Participants may also use a tagline (neglected here, as it is frequently changed, and the new version is retroactively applied to old postings as well).



Creating comfort zones of orality 137

SF können wir hier wohl überspringen. Zu den “Anencephalen” kann ich mich mangels Wissen nicht äußern und bitte um Erläuterung, falls etwas Relevantes dahintersteckt. “Mode” ist in seiner Beliebigkeit/Kurzfristigkeit nicht zu übertreffen und war wohl eher provokativ gemeint. Bleibt also nur die biologische Definition. Die Menschenaffen sollen doch offenbar nur deshalb intensiver einbezogen werden, weil es die Erkenntnisse der Molekular­ genetik nahe legen. Oder andersherum: Dass die Menschenaffen in der biologischen Systematik nun näher an den Menschen rücken sollen bzw. die Gruppeneinteilung etwas den molekulargenetischen Erkenntnissen angepasst werden, spricht ja gerade dafür, dass die Einteilung wissenschaftlich (nach biologischen Kriterien) und nicht politisch vorgenommen wird. Damit erledigt sich dann ebenso der angeblich “theoretische Beleg” für eine politische Definition mit dem hypothetischen kontinuierlichen Abfall des menschlichen DNA-Anteils. Da es diese hypothetischen Zwischenstufen nicht gibt, sondern nur diskrete Gruppen mit Verwandt­schaftsbeziehungen, welche sich seit der Molekulargenetik über DNA-Differenzen einteilen lassen, muss eine feinere Unterteilung, gar nicht getroffen werden. Die wissenschaftliche Charakterisierung und Benennung dieser Gruppen genügt. Und damit sind wir wieder beim Punkt. Für den “Mensch” als Art gibt es heute nur die Möglichkeit der biologischen Definition, als schiere Folge des heutzutage vorliegenden biologischen Wissens. Somit hat FM in #140 meiner Meinung nach richtig geantwortet. Aber aus dem o.g. “theoretischen Beleg” folgen interessante Dinge, wie in meiner nächsten Mitteilung zu lesen ist. Bookmark Translation of Example 4 into English: Dr. P. Specht - 23. Feb 2001 19:03 (Evolutionary Theory, Pros & Cons, #143) On #133 by Richard Virchner and #140 by FM: A political definition would be one that is settled by a body of political decision makers (these days, for example, by the Bundestag [German parliament], in former times, for example, via imperial decree by Charlemagne, or in Roman times by the council of elders or whatever). While previously normally there was no necessity for this (with perverse exceptions during colonial times and during the Nazi time, when there was gibbering about some supposedly inferior human beings), today there is no legitimization for this approach (biology cannot be legislated). This approach cannot be the way to define the term “human being”. I don’t see this in other cultural groups either. I believe that even with the Taliban in Afghanistan, where women have practically no rights, they are still seen as “human beings”, right? That means that an agreement within a

138 Anja Wanner









larger group of people or in a society cannot count as a defining criterion for the concept of human being either. SF we can skip here. On the subject of “anencephalics” I am not knowledgeable and cannot say anything, please tell me more about it, if this is relevant in any way. “Fashion” cannot be outranked in its arbritrariness/ephemerality and was probably meant as a provocative argument. Which leaves us with a biological definition. Obviously, primates are only included in the discussion because this is in line with findings from molecular genetics. Or to put it the other way round: The very fact that in the biological system primates should be considered as closer to human beings tells us that the classification is done scientifically (following biological criteria), not politically. This takes care of the presumed “theoretical proof ” in favor of a political definition using a hypothetical decrease of human DNA. Since there are no such hypothetical in-between stages, but only discrete groups that are related to each other, there is no need for a fine-grained subclassification. The scientific characterization and naming of these groups suffices. This brings us to the main point again: For “human beings” as a species there is today only the possibility of a biological definition, as a simple consequence of what we know from modern biology. That means that FM in #140, in my opinion, has given the correct answer. However, from the above-mentioned “theoretical proof ” there follow some interesting things, as can be read in my next posting. Bookmark

The first line of the posting situates it in the context of the thread: Dr. P. Specht – a participant with a low number of postings in the Debatte – comments on two postings made the day before by other participants, referring to their number in the thread, very much like one refers in written discourse to a letter by the date it was received. A more expert way to make this reference would be to link to the postings directly, but this linking requires knowledge of how to post a link, and only regular participants bother to learn these technicalities. There is interaction with other postings in the thread, but it is minimal. In the last line of the posting the sender announces that consequences of the criteria for the definition of Mensch outlined in this posting will be discussed in the sender’s next posting. This deictic reference indicates that Dr. P. Specht has planned the content of his or her next message already – it does not really matter how other participants will respond to this message.



Creating comfort zones of orality 139

The lounge as a comfort zone of orality A topic domain that is very different from the one just portrayed is called the Lounge. It is clearly the most dynamic discussion area in the Zeit-Debatte (in May 2003, the most active thread in the Lounge had more than 90,000 postings, while discussions in the Politik area rarely go beyond 500 postings). Almost all of the regular forum participants post in the Lounge15 – and quite a number of regulars post in the Lounge area exclusively.16 What makes this domain different from others? First of all, unlike Science or Politics it does not have any correspondence to a section in the paper. It lends itself more easily to being constructed around the interests of the forum participants. Second, the name itself suggests that it is an area in which to hang out and feel comfortable. It does not deal with anything in particular, any topic has a chance to be picked up (but will also be dropped easily). Third, many of the discussions in the Lounge are self-involved. There are threads with titles like Perlen (“pearls”) or Zitronen (“lemons”), devoted to the highs and lows of the forum, as well as threads about how to lead a good discussion. The most active threads, however, are rather erratically called Tja (a discourse particle, roughly corresponding to well) and Stammtisch (the word for a table reserved for regular customers in a German pub). Postings in Tja are very different from the posting in Example 4 discussed above. They are much shorter, with incomplete sentences, and sometimes consist of only minimal responses like tja or hm. Posting frequency is much higher than in any other area. These characteristics indicate that participants are continually scanning the Lounge for new postings and respond to them. Unlike in a chatroom, participants cannot know who is reading the thread unless that person makes a contribution to it. In Example 5 we see a sequence from Tja in which brigitte introduces a new topic (ach is a discourse particle that can indicate topic shifting) and in which she comments on a prior posting by Pallas, addressing Pallas directly, using a second person pronoun (Du). Pallas’s immediate response Tja … is the verbal equivalent to a shrug and also an insider play on words, since Tja is the title of the thread. The two postings are adjacent and occur within a minute, which means that there is no need for Pallas to indicate that his posting is a response to brigitte’s. 15. The exception are participants who use the Debatte for playing online Scrabble in the Games area. They do not just not post in the Lounge, they do not post anything in thematic areas like Politik or Kultur either. 16. One of the Lounge regulars ironically referred to another participant, who seemed totally unaware of topics that were discussed outside the Lounge, as a “lazy lounge-only poster.” The comment was made in a Lounge thread, of course (Stammtisch, post 54054).

140 Anja Wanner

Example 5. From: Zeit-Debatte >> Lounge >> Tja brigitte - 28. May 2003 10:07 (Tja, #91364) ach und Pallas - Du hattest schon witzigere Pallas - 28. May 2003 10:08 (Tja, #91365) Tja ... Translation of Example 5 into English: brigitte - 28. May 2003 10:07 (Tja, #91364) ah and Pallas – you’ve had funnier Pallas - 28. May 2003 10:08 (Tja, #91365) Well ...

With many participants monitoring the Lounge area and specifically the Tja discussion, it is inevitable that multiple postings will be sent to the server at the same time. The equivalent in a conversation would be an overlap, which interlocutors would notice immediately, but in an online setting it is more difficult to recognize an overlap, as the software will automatically sequence all postings. Example 6 illustrates how participants deal with this situation: Example 6. Zeit-Debatte >> Lounge >> Tja everyone – 27. May 2003 9:47 (Tja, #91251) Gestern war die Nacht der Naechte: Matrix, 4 Filme. TheWitch – 27. May 2003 9:47 (Tja, #91252) oh, ich dachte gerade Du würdest das sofort erkennen Oh. Asche auf mein Haupt ... Das hätte ich wirklich erkennen müssen. Ich bin wohl etwas unaufmerksam derzeit! everyone – 27. May 2003 9:49 (Tja, #91253) Wir verstehen das. brigitte – 27. May 2003 9:45 (Tja, #91254) Matrix, 4 Filme. wie 4 Filme? iich verstehe das nicht TheWitch – 27. May 2003 9:55 (Tja, #91255) *misstrauisch guck* TheWitch – 27. May 2003 9:55 (Tja, #91256) X



Creating comfort zones of orality 141

Translation of Example 6 into English: everyone – 27. May 2003 9:47 (Tja, #91251) Last night was the nights of nights: Matrix, 4 movies. TheWitch – 27. May 2003 9:47 (Tja, #91252) oh, I thought you would realize this at once Oh. Mea culpa ... I should really have realized that. I guess I am a little inattentive! everyone – 27. May 2003 9:49 (Tja, #91253) We understand. brigitte – 27. May 2003 9:55 (Tja, #91254) Matrix, 4 Movies. how 4 movies? ii don’t understand TheWitch – 27. May 2003 9:55 (#Tja, 91255) *looking skeptical* TheWitch – 27. May 2003 9:55 (#Tja, 91256) X

In Example 6, post 91251 everyone brings up the topic of the movie The Matrix. He says that he has seen all four Matrix movies (a remark that is bound to create surprise because there were only three Matrix movies at the time). The next posting, by TheWitch, has the same time stamp (9:47), that is, it cannot technically be construed as a response to post 91251. It is also ruled out linguistically as a response: This posting begins with a quote from a previous message, set off by smaller font (not reproduced here for technical reasons) and indentation (oh, ich dachte gerade …). This format is a common topic identifier in the Zeit-Debatte, particularly in the fast-paced threads that characterize the Lounge. Note that the topic identifier is not integrated into the sentence; a sequence from a previous posting is copied and pasted and then formatted in a way that makes the topic identifier stand out clearly. The last line of the posting in 91252 is in italics. Italics is commonly used to distance oneself from a statement, often ironically. The next posting, by everyone, is an ironic response to TheWitch’s posting. Note that everyone also uses italics, thereby creating cohesion merely through his choice of font. The next posting, by brigitte (post 91254), comes 6 minutes later and shows the three-layered format used by TheWitch before: The first line is set off in the topic indicator format (she returns to the topic of the four Matrix movies), the second line is in the regular format, and the third line is in italics, relating to the ironic

142 Anja Wanner

remarks in italics by TheWitch and everyone. Brigitte indicates that she does not quite understand what everybody is talking about (given that there are only three Matrix movies), and one might expect that the next posting is an answer to her question (wie 4 Filme?). However, the next posting, by TheWitch (post 91255), doesn’t clear up the situation for her. Thematically, this posting could be construed as a comment on the one immediately preceding it. Using an inflective, TheWitch expresses disbelief – but disbelief at what? At the fact that brigitte doesn’t get everybody’s remark on four Matrix movies? There is technical as well as linguistic evidence that TheWitch’s posting actually refers back to everybody’s posting in post 91253: The technical evidence is that 91254 and 91255 bear the same time stamp. It is virtually impossible to read, write, and send a response to somebody else's message within a minute. But just to be on the safe side, TheWitch posts another message right away: X, short for cross, is a marker used to indicate that two postings have crossed, resulting in a sequential order that may cause confusion and ambiguity. By posting her X comment right away, TheWitch makes it clear that her previous posting, 91255, is a response to post 91253 (not to the adjacent post 91254). In terms of conversational analysis, the X comment can be considered a genre-specific form of self-initiated repair. This behavior is in line with results from a study by Schönfeldt and Golato (2003), who found that participants in chatroom conversations adapt practices from ordinary conversations to the online setting.17 It is no real surprise that participants in a discussion forum apply these mechanisms as well. Another method of self-repair is to go back and modify one’s posting (a feature generally not available in chatrooms and certainly not available in oral discourse). In the Debatte, this option is available within 30 minutes after sending a message. If, for example, TheWitch wanted to rule out that her posting in 91255 could be construed as an answer to post 91254, she could go back and delete or modify it. Although participants often correct typos in their postings, they do not often use the correction function to erase sequencing errors. One reason why this procedure is not used as often as the X comment is that it can set off a whole cascade of new corrections (if a posting is modified, the next posting may not make any sense any more and may then have to be modified as well). Self-corrections are difficult to document because they do not leave a trace. A posting that is deleted will be automatically marked with a stamp indicating by whom it was deleted, but a posting that has been modified does not get stamped modified.18 Summing up, the Lounge seems to be characterized by the mindset of oral discourse that is usually ascribed to chatrooms. Threads are not topic-specific, 17. I would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for pointing out this article to me. 18. Only moderators are expected to indicate that they edited a posting.



Creating comfort zones of orality 143

within a thread local topics change quickly, and participants juggle a number of topics at the same time, contributions are short, sentences are not complete, participants negotiate which speaker has the floor. Posting frequency is high and participants can expect to receive a reply to their messages, even if it is just the Lounge-specific minimal response Tja. At the same time participants make extensive use of graphic code and netspeak conventions: A special format is used to indicate the topic (but it is not integrated into the sentence), italics are used to express irony or to draw attention to a statement, overlaps caused by time lags are explicitly commented on (X), and netspeak conventions like non-standard spellings (iich) and inflectives (*misstrauisch guck*) are used to express what would otherwise be conveyed through nonverbal channels.19 Thus, the markers of written discourse that we find in the Lounge are very different from the ones in more information-oriented topic areas, and the markers of oral discourse are not quite those that we find in chatrooms. Nevertheless, what can be observed is a shift towards more conceptually oral communication, but it is firmly embedded within the structure of a public and non-transitory platform. Lorenz Lorenz-Meyer, initiator and first moderator of the Zeit-Debatte, pointed out to me (p.c.) that once an online community is established, participants will be interested in individualized communicat­ion.20 When the publishers of the Debatte switched to new discussion forum software in 2000, Lorenz-Meyer ensured that it had an instant messaging tool, which allowed participants to engage in private one-on-one communication. According to an informal survey among participants of the Debatte, this tool is used extensively, but it does not replace threads like Tja and Stammtisch in the Lounge. Clearly, these threads are not makeshift outlets for one-on-one communication. Even when a chatroom was added to the Debatte, the popularity of Tja was not diminished. One could, of course, say that there is always variation and that there is nothing terribly remarkable about not all postings in a forum conforming to the discussion forum prototype. However, the claim made here goes beyond just variation. The Lounge is the interactive center of an otherwise thematically organized discussion forum. Participants also have the choice to use a chatroom (it is 19. The use of emoticons is frowned on as silly by the regular participants in the Debatte. If someone uses a smiley face, it is almost always done ironically or it is done by a new user. 20. Individualized communication often leads to face-to-face meetings. Preece and MaloneyKrichmar (2005) explained that although the term online community is “a legacy term that is engrained in Internet culture,” it is increasingly “accepted that online communities rarely exist only online; many have physical components. Either they start as face-to-face communities […], or conversely, members of an online community seek to meet face-to-face” (Introduction, para. 5).

144 Anja Wanner

actually embedded within the Lounge area), but even if they do, it does not mean that they will spend less time in threads like Tja. Participants can also send each other instant messages, and they do, but it does not keep them from creating a written history of their communication in the Lounge. Postings in the Lounge are not just a chat-like version of ordinary postings, they are of a different kind: They are a written record of a community.

Who serves whom? It has been shown that participants in a specific discussion forum make creative use of the communicative potential of the medium. This behavior results in maximally interactive “comfort zones of orality,” in which discourse is highly involved and personal, micromanaged through sophisticated use of graphic formatting, that is, written code. The Lounge is a comfort zone for regular participants, but to an outside observer it may seem like an opaque web of trivialities, not at all what one would expect from a discussion forum associated with one of the country’s most prestigious newspapers. Many observers find this use of a discussion forum deplorable and think that “online forums should offer more than idle chatter” (Schrage 2003, Subtitle). Schrage blamed a lack of interest on behalf of the newspaper: “The New York Times, for example, may be a superbly edited newspaper, but it has a horribly moderated online forum. […] Apparently, these publications care more about editing online text than facilitating online conversations. They treat customers like readers rather than potential participants.” He suggested that papers invest more manpower in making their discussion forums platforms for spirited, information-oriented discussions that match the topnotch quality of the paper itself and relate to its content and targeted audience. A paper of national recognition needs an online edition with a forum in which readers can indeed become participants. However, building and maintaining an online forum requires investment and commitment, and the efforts of the publishers of the Debatte to create the kind of forum that reflects the spirit of the paper and enhances its reputation are not very intense, to put it mildly. For a start, the forum is not prominently advertised on the website of Die Zeit. Those who find it and who visit the forum for the first time may feel a little lost, given that the structure of the forum follows that of the paper only loosely. There is no way of knowing, for example, which thread is the most active, all one sees is a list of domains. In order to be able to post messages, newcomers have to go through a registration process, they have to master the forum’s software, and once they make their presence known by joining a discussion, they are not necessarily welcomed by anyone. In short, one has to be very curious or very interested in a specific thread to even make a



Creating comfort zones of orality 145

first contribution to the forum. Joyce and Kraut (2006) found that a first response is essential for a newcomer to return to a forum, but in the Debatte there are no friendly greeters, and newcomers are regarded as intruders by some of the regular participants, in particular when the new participant's first contribution to the discussion is the opening of a new thread. For example, when a new participant opened a thread to discuss the design of his personal website, the first thing that a regular participant pointed out to him brusquely was that this was no topic of general interest (post 2 in Homepages – what is interesting?). Moderators of the Debatte are either volunteers or part-time employees, and they are not very visible in the forum (they are not named explicitly on a welcome page, for example), nor do journalists respond to reactions to their articles in the forum. If a forum is largely left to its own, it does not come as a surprise that participants will either abandon it or shape it according to their own needs. The forum might then look quite different from what the publisher imagined, with many threads devoted to interpersonal topics rather than to the discussion of articles that appeared in the newspaper. As Christoph Drösser, a former moderator, put it: “The deal ‘We give you the platform – you pay us back with ‘premium content’ that is an asset to the Zeit’ does not work.”21 It takes more than just a platform to create a community. Although one could consider domains like the Lounge and its cousins in other discussion forums to be unfortunate appropriations of public space, I would like to express a different view: The Lounge is not some peripheral area of the Debatte that unfortunately does not measure up to other, more topic-oriented domains. Like it or not, it is clearly the interactive center of the forum. Postings in the Lounge are monitored carefully by regular participants, and participants need to use just as much elaboration, proficiency, and commitment to connect their own short text in a floating web of topics (by using quotes, internal links, specific formatting, etc.) as they need to produce a more complex, but less engaged text in a thread on Theories of Evolution. To say that the Lounge is the interactive center of the forum does not mean that the whole discussion forum is conceptually oral – it means that it is difficult, and perhaps inappropriate, to locate a discussion forum like this as a chunk in the spectrum between conceptually oral and conceptually written communication. By making creative use of the software features of a discussion forum, users become and recognize each other as members of an online in-group. Discussions like Tja are an open record of this development. From the publisher’s perspective, it may seem like failure if participants spend their time in creating and maintaining a thread like Tja, but from a discourse perspective it is fascinating to watch how users build a space that serves their own needs, the 21. It will not come as a surprise that the comment was made in the Lounge area (post 731 in the thread How to have a good discussion).

146 Anja Wanner

Lounge, within the public space provided to them by a profit-oriented and statusseeking publishing company.

Conclusion It has been shown – contrary to Crystal (2001) – that online discussion forums are not just asynchronous chatgroups. Their hierarchical organization into threads invites more formal, more topic-oriented and altogether more conceptually written forms of communication. Time lags between postings require a longer attention span and allow for carefully crafted, monologic postings. However, the very fact that postings are public and not transitory also gives participants the chance to create discussions in which multiple participants can be actively involved and in which a strong sense of community can grow. In this chapter, I looked at how participants in a discussion forum override the structural limits of a forum to create a space where they pursue conceptually more oral forms of communication – reminiscent of a chatroom, but with stronger emphasis on creating a visible, traceable discourse history. Participants open non-thematic threads in which the posting frequency is high and the language that is used is very similar to that in chatrooms (incomplete sentences, exclamations, phonetic spelling, use of inflectives), but there are also markers that we do not find in chatrooms. In order to handle various topics, participants use specific formatting codes as topic indicators (such as indented paragraphs or links to previous postings) and topic continuity markers (such as italic font) and strategies to deal with overlaps (such as self-correction). All of these markers show awareness of the thread as a whole, which means that participants regularly scroll back to messages that were posted in their absence – something that is not possible in a chatroom. The discussion forum that I looked at in some detail, the Debatte (part of the online edition of the major German weekly Die Zeit), even has a chatroom associated with it, but it is far from being as popular as the Tja thread in the Lounge area. The main reason seems to be that only few participants can participate in a chatroom conversation at a given time, and that, unlike a discussion thread, it does not leave a record for others to share. This is also why the instant messaging tool available in the Zeit-Debatte, though popular with regulars, has not really done much to keep what critics consider idle chatter at bay. It is not a community-building tool in the way Tja is, because it is essentially a tool for one-on-one communication. There is, of course, great variability in the way discussion boards are run, and chatroom conversation can be every bit as formal and topic-oriented as a con-



Creating comfort zones of orality 147

versation on a discussion board (an example would be a one-on-one chatroom conversation between someone who is having a software problem and a member of a tech support team). However, areas like the Lounge are more than just an indicator of variability within a discussion forum. These comfort zones of orality in which conversations are micromanaged through sophisticated use of graphic and html code can be found in many discussion forums. They have names that suggest places where everybody can hang out and casually join a conversation, such as Lounge, Front Porch, Treffpunkt (“meeting point”). Often they are the most active area of a discussion forum. However, what looks like the creative and successful adaptation of tools provided by the software to some, may be considered failure by others, in particular by those who want a forum to be a showcase of information-oriented discourse, attractive and welcoming to new users. A compromise can only be reached if one recognizes and accepts that areas like the Lounge are an integral part of a discussion forum. They may shift the mindset of the communication towards the more oral, but they are firmly based within the public, non-transitory, non-simultaneous setting of a discussion board, and they serve a community-creating and community-stabilizing function.

References Bader, J. (2002). Schriftlichkeit und Mündlichkeit in der Chat-Kommunikation [Written mode and orality in chat communication]. Networx, 29. Retrieved June 23 2006, from http:// www.mediensprache.net/networx/networx-29.pdf. Baron, N. (2003). Why email looks like speech. In J. Aitchison & D. Lewis (Eds.), New media language (pp. 85–94). London: Routledge. Beißwenger, M. (2000). Kommunikation in virtuellen Welten: Sprache, Text und Wirklichkeit [Communication in virtual worlds: Language, text, and reality]. Stuttgart: ibidem. Biber, D. (1988). Variation across speech and writing. Cambridge: CUP. Crystal, D. (2001). Language and the Internet. Cambridge: CUP. Dürscheid, C. (1999). Zwischen Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit [Between orality and written mode]. Papiere zur Linguistik, 60, 17–30. Erickson, T. (1999). Persistent conversation: An introduction. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 4 (4), Article 1. Retrieved June 23 2006, from http://jcmc.indiana.edu/ vol4/issue4/ericksonintro.html. Haase , M., Huber, M., Krumeich, A., & Rehm, G. (1997). Internetkommunikation und Sprachwandel [Internet communication and language change]. In R. Weingarten (Ed.), Sprachwandel durch Computer [Language change through computers] (pp. 51–85). Osnabrück: Opladen. Joyce, E. & Kraut, R. (2006). Predicting continued participation in newsgroups. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11 (3), Article 3. Retrieved June 23 2006, from http:// jcmc.indiana.edu/vol11/issue3/joyce.html.

148 Anja Wanner

Kilian, J. (2001). T@stentöne: Geschriebene Umgangssprache in computervermittelter Kommunikation. Historisch-kritische Ergänzungen zu einem neuen Feld der linguistischen Forschung [Key sounds: Written informal speech in computer-mediated communication. Historical-critical additions to a new field of linguistic research]. In M. Beißwenger (Ed.), Chat-Kommunikation: Sprache, Interaktion, Sozialität und Identität in synchroner computervermittelter Kommunikation. Perspektiven auf ein interdisziplinäres Forschungsfeld [Chat communication: Language, interaction, sociality, and identity in synchronous computermediated communication. Perspectives on an interdisciplinary field] (pp. 55–78). Stuttgart: Ibidem. Koch, P. & Oesterreicher, W. (1994). Schriftlichkeit und Sprache [Written mode and language]. In H. Günther & O. Ludwig (Eds.), Schrift und Schriftlichkeit/ Writing and its use. Ein interdisziplinäres Handbuch internationaler Forschung/ An interdisciplinary handbook of international research (Vol. 1, pp. 587–604). Berlin: de Gruyter. Levinson, S. (1983). Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lewis, D. (2003). Online news: A new genre? In J. Aitchison & D. Lewis (Eds.), New media language (pp. 95–104). London: Routledge. Marcoccia, M. (2004). On-line polylogues: Conversation structure and participation framework in internet newsgroups. Journal of Pragmatics, 36, 115–145. New York Times Fact Sheet 2005. Retrieved June 23, 2006, from http://www.nytmarketing.com/ mediakit2/docs/NYT_FactSheet.pdf. Preece, J. & Maloney-Krichmar, D. (2005). Online communities: Design, theory, and practice. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 10 (4), Article 1. Retrieved June 23, 2006, from http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol10/issue4/preece.html. Rehm, G. (2002). Schriftliche Mündlichkeit in der Sprache des World Wide Web [Written orality in the language of the world wide web]. In A. Ziegler & C. Dürscheid (Eds.), Kommunikationsform Email [Communication form email] (pp. 263–308). Tübingen: Stauffenburg. Schlobinski, P. (2001). *knuddel – zurueckknuddel – dichganzdollknuddel*. Inflektive und Inflektivkonstruktionen im Deutschen [*hug – hugback – hugyouverymuch*. Inflectives and inflective constructions in German]. Zeitschrift für germanistische Linguistik, 29, 192– 218. Schönfeldt, J. & Golato, A. (2003). Repair in chats: A Conversation analytic approach. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 36, 241–284. Schrage, M. (2003). Flaming ideas. Online forums should offer much more than idle chatter. Technology Review. Retrieved June 23 2006, from http://www.technologyreview.com/ articles/03/03/schrage0303.asp?p=1. Storrer, A. (2001). Sprachliche Besonderheiten getippter Gespräche: Sprecherwechsel und sprachliches Zeigen in der Chat-Kommunikation [Linguistic characteristics of typed conversations: Speaker change and linguistic pointing in chat communication]. In M. Beißwenger (Ed.), Chat-Kommunikation: Sprache, Interaktion, Sozialität und Identität in synchroner computervermittelter Kommunikation. Perspektiven auf ein interdisziplinäres Forschungsfeld [Chat communication: Language, interaction, sociality, and identity in synchronous computer-mediated communication. Perspectives on an interdisciplinary field] (pp. 3–24). Stuttgart: Ibidem. Tannen, D. (1982a). Oral and literate strategies in spoken and written narratives. Language, 58, 1–21. Tannen, D. (1982b). The oral/literate continuum in discourse. In D. Tannen (Ed.), Spoken and written language: Exploring orality and literacy (pp. 1–16). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.



Creating comfort zones of orality 149

Werry, C. (1996). Internet Relay Chat. In S. Herring (Ed.), Computer-mediated communication. Linguistic, social and cross-cultural perspectives (pp. 47–63). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Zeit-Mediadaten 2006 [Zeit Media data 2006]. Retrieved June 23, 2006, from http://anzeigen. zeit.de/mediadaten/index.php. Zeit online internet facts 2005. Retrieved June 23, 2006, from http://zelos.zeit.de/media/zo_agof. pdf. Ziegler, A. (2002). Email – Textsorte oder Kommunikationsform? Eine textlinguistische Annäherung. In A. Ziegler & C. Dürscheid (Eds.), Kommunikationsform Email [Communication form email] (pp. 9–32). Tübingen: Stauffenburg.

part iii

Co-constructing interactions

Use of communication strategies in a synchronous CMC environment Claudia R. Kost

University of Alberta

Communication strategies are generally considered as discourse strategies which are used to maintain a conversation and to avoid communication breakdown in interactions between learners (Long 1983). They have been investigated in a variety of contexts and from different theoretical standpoints. Research on the use of communication strategies in a computer-mediated environment, however, is rather scarce. Chun (1994) reports that the online discussions in her study promoted a wide array of discoursal moves, such as topic initiation and expansion, as well as interactional moves, such as requests for clarification, comprehension checks, and repair strategies. Lee’s (2001, 2002) and Smith’s (2003b) studies indicated that learners used a wide variety of communication strategies when engaged in task-based CMC. The present study investigates how learners doing role plays in a synchronous CMC environment co-construct meaning and negotiate interactions when they experience difficulties in their communication. Analyzing transcripts from weekly chat sessions of secondsemester German learners, this chapter discusses what kind of communication strategies were used, how learners negotiated meaning, and whether some role play topics elicited more communication strategies than others. Results indicate that beginning learners of German used a wide variety of strategies to negotiate and create meaning, and to accomplish the assigned tasks in their online discussions. It also seems that topic-related issues (e.g., familiarity with a topic; specificity of the context/topic; knowledge of required vocabulary and structures) and proficiency level were directly related to the amount and kind of communication strategies used.

Research in the area of computer-mediated communication (CMC) has shown great potential for its use in the foreign or second language classroom. In general, CMC refers to communication that is mediated by a computer interface. CMC can refer both to synchronous as well as asynchronous interactions. In synchronous interactions, students are all logged on to the same network at the same time,

154 Claudia R. Kost

although not necessarily in the same physical location. Students type their comments, click to send them, and their messages appear immediately on the screens of all those who are in the same chat room or channel. They can read and respond to each other’s postings immediately: They are engaged in real-time conversations. Asynchronous discussions are time-deferred, that is, there is a time lapse between the posting and the reading of students’ messages (e.g., email, list servs).

Previous research in CMC Many studies have suggested a positive effect of online discussions on affective features of language learning such as positive attitude, increased motivation, low anxiety, and more equal participation by all participants (Beauvois 1992, 1995; Kelm 1992; Kern 1995; Meunier 1998; Sotillo 2000; Warschauer 1995/96, 1996). Similarly, a positive effect on linguistic features has been reported, such as greater amount of language production, higher level of language complexity, and the use of a wider range of discourse features as compared to those found in oral classroom interaction. Online discussions, both synchronous and asynchronous, have been called a “hybrid” between oral and written language: the spontaneity and informal style of the writing is comparable to oral speech, yet the modus is written language. The two obvious differences are the speed and the permanence of the exchange. Computer-mediated communication has been described as “ ‘conversation in slow motion’ that allows students time to reflect and compose before communicating – something that is not possible in oral exchanges of information” (Beauvois 1998b: 93). The more permanent nature of written language might have an effect on learners’ awareness of language features, which subsequently might lead to different ways of processing in the interlanguage system, that is, the learner’s internal and constantly developing system of the target language. Furthermore, a link between oral communication and online discussion has been suggested, given that writing in a computer-mediated environment resembles spoken language in terms of its interactional features (Beauvois 1997; Chun 1994). More specifically, a possible effect of CMC on the development of oral proficiency has been proposed, as synchronous CMC seems to develop the same cognitive mechanisms that underlie spontaneous oral communication (Abrams 2003; Beauvois 1998a, 1998b; Kost 2004; Payne & Whitney 2002; Payne & Ross 2005). More recently, a number of studies have examined negotiation of meaning during online discussions using an interactionist framework (Blake 2000; Fernández-García & Martínez-Arbelaiz 2002; Pellettieri 2000; Smith 2003a). During the negotiation process, learners receive input, attend to feedback, and produce output similar to face-to-face conversations (Pellettieri 2000). By modifying their



Use of communication strategies in a synchronous CMC environment 155

language interactions and increasing input comprehensibility, they negotiate for both meaning and form. These features are argued to be facilitative for language acquisition within the interactionist framework (Long 1983, 1996; Gass 1997). Other studies (Darhower 2002; Kötter 2003) explored synchronous computermediated communication through sociocultural theory. They found that learners appropriated the discussion space, and, through the use of a variety of discourse modification devices and social interactional features such as greetings, use of humor, identity search and role play, turned their class into an autonomous discourse community of learners. Recent years have also shown an increased research interest in intercultural communication in online contexts, focusing on the use of computer-mediated communication tools for discussion and social interaction among students from all over the world. These telecollaborative projects demonstrated participants’ linguistic and pragmatic development as well as heightened cultural awareness of their own and the target culture, with some of the projects resulting in unsuccessful communication and frustration and others in successful interaction and friendship (Belz 2002, 2003; Belz & Thorne 2004; Kinginger 2004). So far, research on CMC has shown its potential for changing classroom dynamics and for restructuring the process of language acquisition, for potentially having an impact on learners’ language development across different modalities (i.e., speaking or writing), and for providing increased opportunities for autonomous language practice and gaining cultural experience.

Research on communication strategies Over the last three decades, research into communication strategies has shown that there is no universally accepted definition. In general, there seem to be two ways to approach research in this area: one approach focuses on describing communication strategies via taxonomies and liberally adding categories if needed, the other approach views communication strategies as cognitive processes and is primarily concerned with reducing categories used to describe strategies in order to attain generalizability and psychological plausibility. In one of the earliest attempts, Tarone, Cohen, and Dumas (1976) defined a communication strategy “as a systematic attempt by the learner to express or decode meaning in the target language, in situations where the appropriate systematic target language rules have not been formed” (p. 77). Tarone (1983) expanded on the earlier definition and changed the focus of communication strategies which, up to this point, had been on the speaker, by introducing an interactional aspect to her conceptualization of communication strategies: “[T]he term relates to a mutual

156 Claudia R. Kost

attempt of two interlocutors to agree on a meaning in situations where the requisite meaning structures do not seem to be shared. (Meaning structures here would include both linguistic structures and sociolinguistic rule structures)” (p. 65). The earlier discussions about communication strategies also focused on creating taxonomies based on their respective definitions. Tarone’s (1977) taxonomy was the first one and can still be considered one of the most influential. Other taxonomies were offered by Corder (1978/1983) and Faerch and Kasper (1983). These taxonomies provide lists of language devices used by L2 learners to compensate for gaps in their linguistic proficiency once they conceive a problem. Faerch and Kasper’s (1983) perspective of communication strategies is influenced by a psycholinguistic approach as they locate communication strategies in a speech production framework. The general model consists of a planning phase and an execution phase. In order to achieve the intended communication goal, the speaker needs to match the plan with the goal, analyzing the situation and the available resources, and execute the plan. If a problem occurs in either part of the process, due to the realization that there is insufficient linguistic knowledge (planning phase) or the inability to retrieve the desired item or rules (execution phase), communication strategies have to be used. Faerch and Kasper defined them as follows: “Communication strategies are potentially conscious plans for solving what to an individual presents itself as a problem in reaching a particular communicative goal” (p. 36). With this definition, they introduced two defining criteria of communication strategies: problem-orientedness and consciousness. The notion of problem-orientedness refers to the fact that language learners most likely will find themselves in communicative situations requiring them to deal with deficient knowledge to reach their communicative goal successfully. Problem-orientedness distinguishes between communicative goals that can be reached without difficulty, and goals that present themselves as problems. Only plans designed to overcome the latter are considered strategies. The secondary defining criterion of consciousness is derived from problem-orientedness as an individual must be consciously aware that there is a difficulty in order to design a plan to solve the problem. Faerch and Kasper (1983) differentiate in their taxonomy between formal reduction strategies, functional reduction strategies, and achievement strategies. They list cooperative strategies as one of their achievement strategies, which is a considerable difference from Tarone’s taxonomy. According to Tarone’s interactional concept, all communication strategies are by definition cooperative. A communication problem necessitates both interlocutors to negotiate until they reach a shared meaning. In Faerch and Kasper’s view, a problem can be solved through joint efforts of both interlocutors, but it originates in only one person



Use of communication strategies in a synchronous CMC environment 157

and it is up to that person to decide whether to find a solution by him- or herself or whether to appeal for assistance. Despite the fact that Tarone views strategies from a discourse analysis perspective and follows an interactional approach, and that Faerch and Kasper (1983) consider communication strategies as verbal plans within a speech production model, their taxonomies recognize a duality in strategy use. Strategies are usually classified as either reducing or achieving a message. Language learners can use strategies to adjust their message according to their linguistic resources by reducing or abandoning the message, or they can use strategies to manipulate their available resources to try to convey the intended message. Dörnyei and Scott (1997) provided a comprehensive review of the relevant research on communication strategies by comparing the major definitions and taxonomies. In addition to the already established achievement-reduction duality, whose strategies Dörnyei and Scott grouped together under direct strategies, and an expanded list of interactional strategies, they also included in their taxonomy stalling strategies, which they categorized as indirect strategies. These strategies are intended to buy the learner some time to think and keep the communication channels open. By adding a third category of strategies, Dörnyei and Scott extended the scope of their definition to include devices that are not strictly meaning-related. Although all the taxonomies just discussed vary in their terminologies, in their levels of specification, and in the approach they use (focus on the speaker, interactional, psycholinguistic), they nonetheless share similar concepts. Bialystok (1990) summarized this idea as follows: [T]he variety of taxonomies proposed in the literature differ primarily in terminology and overall categorizing principle rather than in the substance of the specific strategies. If we ignore, then, differences in the structure of the taxonomies by abolishing the various overall categories, then a core group of specific strategies that appear consistently across the taxonomies clearly emerges. (p. 61)

Another group of researchers, under the guidance of Kellerman and Bongaerts, located at Nijmegen University in the Netherlands, carried out a series of studies on communication strategies in the 1980s and 1990s. They also followed a psycholinguistic approach and argued that communication strategies are inherently mental procedures. Kellerman (1991; quoted in Dörnyei & Scott 1997) maintained that research on communication strategies should investigate the underlying cognitive processes leading to the use of communication strategies rather than simply describing the verbalizations of these processes in very detailed taxonomies which lack generalizability and are of doubtful validity. The Nijmegen group set out to design a taxonomy that is parsimonious, generalizable, and psychologically

158 Claudia R. Kost

plausible, and divided compensatory strategies (a subset of communication strategies, otherwise known as achievement strategies) into only two categories, conceptual (e.g., circumlocution and approximation) and linguistic (or code) strategies (e.g., morphological creativity, transfer). Because the Nijmegen group focused only on the investigation of lexical-compensatory strategies, their taxonomy seems sufficient to explore this specific research area. However, in order to explore a wider range of communication strategies which might be used in more general contexts, for example in less tightly structured discussions or role plays, their restricted taxonomy might not offer enough categories to be useful. For the most part, then, research on communication strategies is either approached via taxonomies, or through a primarily psychological approach. Researchers who use taxonomies focus on describing forms observed in the learner’s second language (L2) data, liberally expanding the categories of communication strategies, while making implicit inferences about the different psychological processes that produced them. They also favor the teaching of communication strategies, because these could “enable learners to bridge the inevitable gap between classroom interaction and various communicative situations outside the classroom, hereby increasing their communicative competence in a way which is specific for IL [interlanguage] communication” (Faerch & Kasper 1983: 56). Researchers following the psychological approach are opposed to teaching communication strategies as they see them as cognitive processes, and, to them, teaching strategies would mean teaching cognitive processing. They prefer to reduce the taxonomies to only a few categories and are primarily interested in exploring the cognitive processes that L2 learners use. However, it remains to be seen whether these different approaches are at all applicable to a computer-mediated environment. It might well be the case that the structure and dynamics of online communicative interactions are inherently so different that taxonomies are only partially helpful in dealing with the rich data that this environment provides.

Communication strategies and CMC Only a few studies so far have investigated the use of communication strategies in a CMC environment. In a longitudinal study, Chun (1994) investigated beginning German learners’ use of interactional features, discourse management, and complexity of expression over the course of two semesters in 14 computer networking sessions. She found that students employed a variety of discourse moves and communicative functions, such as initiating and expanding on a topic, asking and answering questions, requesting clarification, apologizing, giving feedback,



Use of communication strategies in a synchronous CMC environment 159

or greeting and leave-taking. Students interacted much more with each other, as opposed to interacting mainly with the teacher, as is typical for oral discussions in the regular classroom, and they also generated increasingly more complex sentences during the second semester. In two recent studies with intermediate learners of Spanish, Lee (2001, 2002) found that learners used a variety of communication strategies when they engaged in their weekly chat discussions. In small groups students discussed openended questions on everyday topics for approximately one hour per week outside of class time. Most often, when students negotiated meaning and form, they employed requests for help as well as clarification and comprehensions checks. In addition, they also used self-repairs to make their input comprehensible to their discussion partners. Smith’s (2003b) study investigated the question of communication strategy use and task type in a CMC environment. For five weeks, intermediate-low level ESL students used chat to complete different jigsaw and decision-making tasks once a week during class time. The study differentiated between the use of communication strategies in problem-free discourse, and the use of compensatory strategies to overcome lexical difficulty when navigating the tasks. Smith devised his own set of coding categories by combining elements from various existing taxonomies of communication strategies to be able to capture the richness of strategies used by his participants. He found that the most frequently used strategies in his study were substitution (i.e., use of abbreviated forms of a word), framing of a topic, fillers, and politeness markers. Furthermore, he noticed that the task type did not have an effect on the use of communication strategies, but it did have an influence on the use of compensatory strategies. The decision-making tasks seemed to elicit more compensatory strategies than the jigsaw tasks. For his investigation of compensatory strategies, Smith employed the Nijmegen groups’ taxonomy. In order to create situations that would elicit compensatory strategies due to linguistic breakdown, Smith infused some unknown lexical items into the students’ tasks. He observed that the learners used conceptual strategies most often (83%), which he defined as those in which “the participant manipulates the concept of the target referent in an effort to explain the item” (p. 34). Learners almost never opted to use linguistic strategies. Smith’s results differ markedly from Lee’s research on communication strategies and CMC which might be due to the fact that Lee used a very restricted set of categories to describe the communication strategies employed by her study participants, focusing strongly on strategies that facilitate negotiation of meaning, such as comprehension, clarification, and confirmation checks, as well as requests. By taking strategies such as framing a topic or substitution into account,

160 Claudia R. Kost

Smith was able to provide a richer picture of overall communication strategy use by intermediate language learners.

Tasks Tasks have long been acknowledged as an important feature of communicative language teaching (CLT) whose aim is to develop the learner’s ability to use language in real communication. In contrast to earlier language teaching methods, such as the Audiolingual Method which claimed the same goal yet was based on a view of language as a set of linguistic systems, CLT regarded language from a functional perspective and drew on Hymes’s (1972) theory of communicative competence. Nunan (1989) offered an early definition of communicative task that corresponds with CLT: “a piece of classroom work which involves learners in comprehending, manipulating, producing or interacting in the target language while their attention is principally focused on meaning rather than form” (p. 10). A commonly used typology for choosing tasks for instruction and research was devised by Pica, Kanagy, and Falodun (1993), who described tasks as having two recurrent features: goal and activity. Goal-orientedness means that participants are expected to arrive at an outcome and need to know what they have to accomplish through their actions, and activity refers to the fact that participants need to take an active role in carrying out a task. Pica, Kanagy, and Falodun (1993) defined five task types: jigsaw, information gap, problem-solving, decision-making, and opinion exchange, which differed from each other in the opportunities they offered regarding the comprehension of L2 input, giving feedback on production, and modifying output. The role plays used in the present study include features of decision-making and opinion exchange tasks, but because they were not strictly designed as such tasks, they do not comply completely with Pica et al.’s definition of these types. More applicable perhaps to the categorization of the tasks used in this study is Ellis’ (2003) recent definition of task: A task is a workplan that requires learners to process language pragmatically in order to achieve an outcome that can be evaluated in terms of whether the correct or appropriate propositional content has been conveyed. To this end, it requires them to give primary attention to meaning and to make use of their own linguistic resources, although the design of the task may predispose them to choose particular forms. A task is intended to result in language use that bears a resemblance, direct or indirect, to the way language is used in the real world. Like other language activities, a task can engage productive or receptive, and oral or written skills, and also various cognitive processes.  (p. 16)



Use of communication strategies in a synchronous CMC environment 161

Ellis furthermore differentiated between a focused task, aiming to induce the learner to process, receptively or productively, a specific linguistic feature, and an unfocused task, which, just like a focused task, “is designed to encourage the comprehension and production of language for purposes of communication” (p. 352) but without eliciting attention to any specific linguistic feature. With the exception of three role plays (#4: My Dream Car, #5: Spring Break, #9: Detective Story), the role plays designed for this study display all the characteristics of a task according to the above definition, and can be considered unfocused tasks. The three exceptions are either a little artificial (and not reflecting real-world communication enough as in #4) or specify the language structure to be used in the instructions (#4, #5, and #9) which does not comply with Ellis’ criteria for focused tasks. Given that the pedagogy behind this research study is rooted in communicative language teaching and used real live classes taught with this approach, the primary goal behind designing the tasks was to give learners the opportunity to practice real-live communication and to learn to function interactionally and transactionally in the target language. Because the goal was not to investigate whether task type affected the use of communication strategies, as, for example, in Smith’s (2003b) research, the role play tasks used in the present study might be considered a hybrid of different task types as defined in other studies. By designing web-based activities followed by role plays, meaningful tasks were created that encouraged learners to expand on the topic, ask questions, and elaborate as they saw fit. All tasks were done in pair- or group-work which encourages scaffolding and advancing of the ZPD, and offers opportunities for negotiated interactions. Role plays are clearly in line with CLT and seemed the best choice to provide learners with tasks that most closely resemble the real world and to elicit a broader range of language, hence possibly resulting in a variety of communication strategies.

The present study Research questions The goal of the present research was to describe the types of communication strategies that beginning learners of German use during synchronous online discussions. In contrast to the aforementioned studies on communication strategies in CMC, the present study did not make use of jigsaw and information-gap activities, or open-ended discussions. Rather, it used role plays that expanded on the topics covered in the regular class as the basis for the learners’ online discussions. Hence, this study investigated the following research questions:

162 Claudia R. Kost

1. What kind of communication strategies do beginning learners of German use when doing role plays in synchronous CMC? 2. How do learners negotiate meaning? 3. Do some of the discussed topics elicit more strategies than others?

Participants and setting The research was conducted during the spring semester of 2002 at the University of Arizona. Two intact second-semester German classes (n = 39) participated in the study. Students completed a background questionnaire at the beginning of the semester regarding their demographic information, personal language learning experience with German, as well as attitudes towards the use of technology in a foreign language class. Participants were mostly English native speakers (except for 2–3 students in each class), and about half the students in each class reported knowledge of additional languages. They were also similar with regard to access to computers, familiarity of using computers in the language classroom, and age (mean age of 21 years). The classes were taught by two experienced teaching assistants who were first-year students in the Master’s Program in German Studies. Both instructors were English native speakers with a similarly high level of proficiency in German. A more detailed description of the participants can be found in Appendix A. Students met four times per week in the regular classroom and one lesson per week in a state-of-the-art language lab that was specifically designed for both face-to-face communication and collaborative, computer-mediated communication. A total of 12 lab sessions took place during the semester. In the lab, students engaged in communicative web-based activities that consisted of an Internet search and an ensuing role play via chat. Both classes used the chat program IRC français, developed by James Hudson and Amy Bruckman at the Georgia Institute of Technology. This chat program provides students with easy access to diacritics (e.g., German Umlauts), a feature which was not supported or not that easily available in other chat programs. By using different channels in IRC, students can easily be assigned to different groups. As part of a larger study (Kost 2004), the proficiency level of all participants had been established through an oral interview and a timed in-class writing at the beginning and the end of the semester. The term proficiency is used in a modified sense here, and not strictly according to the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines. Given that second-semester German learners are usually between the Novice-High and the Intermediate-Low level on the Guidelines scale (Tschirner 1992, 1996), the researcher developed an adapted scale from the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines and



Use of communication strategies in a synchronous CMC environment 163

the ACTFL Performance Guidelines with more sub-levels designed to capture the learners’ differences when measuring oral and written proficiency (Appendices B and C). The adapted scale was pilot tested among several German instructors who rated oral and written samples that were not part of the larger research project to create a robust scoring tool. A third of the interviews and of the writings of the larger study was rated a second time by an experienced German teacher not otherwise involved in the study to establish interrater reliability. The interrater reliability was .82 for the oral interviews recorded at the beginning of the semester and .99 for the interviews at the end of the semester. The interrater reliability was .99 for both in-class writings. The issue of proficiency level will become important when the results concerning code switching are discussed.

Procedures The web activities were structured according to the same principles: two or three students worked together as a group whereby each group had access to its own computer. The instructors assigned group members at their discretion: sometimes they paired students up according to their language levels, sometimes randomly by drawing names from a hat. Obviously, this procedure might hold a potential for confounding variables which were not controlled in the present study. However, because this research took place in a class environment, it was decided to leave the grouping up to the instructors in order to minimize its effect on teaching. Students read the assignment, which gave them step-by-step instructions of how to proceed and which topics to cover in their Internet search, and then clicked on one of the provided links. At the end of the class, students used the chat program to engage in the assigned role plays for 10–20 minutes based on the information they had gathered in their web search.

Tasks All the communicative web-based activities that the students completed in the computer lab were developed by the researcher. The tasks usually consisted of a guided Internet-based information search, followed by a role play. Sometimes an activity was preceded by an online vocabulary-reviewing exercise from the textbook if it was assumed that the web activity would not take the entire class period. All tasks were designed to recycle already learned material from the chapter that was currently the focus of class work. The role plays elaborated on topics from the textbook Kontakte (Terrell, Tschirner, & Nicolai 2000: Chapters 5–8), and broadly covered living arrangements (Buying Furniture, Apartment Hunt), vacations (A

164 Claudia R. Kost

Weekend in …, My Dream Car, Spring Break), and food (Invitation for Dinner, Vegetarian: Yes or No?, Lunch at a Restaurant). The last topic focused on the detective story that was read in class. The instructions for the role plays can be found in Appendix D.

Procedures Transcripts from each chat session were stored on the lab’s server and printed out by the researcher after each session. Depending on students’ attendance during lab time and whether the topic required them to work in pairs or with two partners, each class formed 6–10 chat groups per chat session. In order to allow students to familiarize themselves with the new medium, transcripts of the first two weeks were excluded from this study. Transcripts of the third week could not be retrieved due to technical problems. The remaining nine chat sessions conducted in the two classes resulted in a total of 143 transcripts (class A: 68 transcripts; class B: 75 transcripts).

Coding All transcripts were coded according to Dörnyei and Scott’s (1997) taxonomy. In the present study, communication strategies were considered as discourse management tools: they were used to maintain a conversation as well as to avoid communication breakdown in interactions between learners. Communication and compensatory strategies were not differentiated. Dörnyei and Scott’s taxonomy was used because it provided the most comprehensive account of communication strategies compared to other taxonomies. They distinguish between direct, interactional, and indirect strategies. Both direct and interactional strategies were used to overcome problems due to deficient linguistic knowledge. According to Dörnyei and Scott (1997), direct strategies are mostly self-initiated strategies which “provide an alternative, manageable, and self-contained means of getting the (sometimes modified) meaning across” (p. 198). Most traditionally identified strategies, such as message abandonment, message reduction, circumlocution, approximation, word coinage, repair, and mime, fall into this category. Interactional strategies, such as appeals for help, comprehension checks, and clarification requests, characterize situations in which “the participants carry out trouble-shooting exchanges cooperatively” (p. 199), and mutual understanding is necessary for both interlocutors to execute their part of the conversation. Indirect strategies are not strictly problem-solving devices; rather, they create “the conditions for achieving mutual understanding:



Use of communication strategies in a synchronous CMC environment 165

preventing breakdowns and keeping the communication channel open” (p. 198), and include strategies such as fillers, repetitions, or feigning understanding.

Results and discussion Language production The first aspect that was noticeable in the analysis of the chat transcripts was the large amount of language the students produced in the short time they engaged in the online discussions. This positive characteristic of CMC had been observed previously in other studies (Beauvois 1992, 1995, 1998a; Kern 1995). In order to quantify this observation, the researcher counted all turns that appeared in the transcripts. According to Smith (2003a), a turn can be counted “each time there was a transfer of the ‘floor’ from one participant to the other” (p. 42). Thus, a turn in the analyzed transcripts might consist of single words, phrases, or even complete sentences, and might be 1–5 lines long. Table 1 shows a detailed display of the turns produced, with average number of turns per student in parenthesis. The total number of turns (5552) produced in all chat sessions during nine weeks resulted in an average of 17.7 turns per student per chat session. Given that we are often still faced with the question of how to encourage learners’ participation in the regular classroom in order to practice using the language, synchronous online discussions seem to be very well suited to achieve this goal.

Table 1.  Total turns in all chat sessions Date

Chat topic

Turns class A Turns class B Total turns

February 13 February 20 February 27 March 6 March 20 March 27 April 3 April 10 April 17

Buying Furniture Apartment Hunt A Weekend in… My Dream Car Spring Break Invitation for Dinner Vegetarian: Yes or No? Lunch at a Restaurant Detective story

268 (19.1) 136 (9.7) 340 (20) 315 (18.5) 375 (19.7) 322 (20.1) 412 (21.7) 540 (31.8) 217 (12.8)

305 (20.3) 238 (14) 333 (16.7) 230 (12.1) 222 (11.7) 367 (19.3) 252 (12.6) 286 (16.8) 394 (19.7)

Note: Parentheses show average number of turns per student per chat session.

573 (19.8) 374 (12.1) 673 (18.2) 545 (15.1) 597 (15.7) 689 (19.7) 664 (17) 826 (24.3) 611 (16.5) Total: 5552 (17.7)

166 Claudia R. Kost

Overall use of communication strategies The analysis of the chat transcripts shows that these second-semester learners of German used a wide variety of communication strategies to create meaning and to accomplish the assigned tasks in their online discussions. It is interesting to note that they only used direct and interactional strategies, but no indirect strategies at all. When considering the circumstances in which chat takes place compared to face-to-face conversations, this result is, however, not surprising: Chat partners usually do not see each other when chatting, so they do not feel the need to use fillers such as hmm to signal to their conversation partner that they are listening, or fillers such as well to gain time before responding because they are able to take that time before typing their response. They also do not seem to feel urged to feign understanding by uttering uh huh and instead just wait until their partner adds something to an utterance that might not have been entirely understood, or they ask for clarification. Tables 2 and 3 list all the communication strategies that were used in the chat sessions, recorded for each week. Although most of the strategies are easy to understand, some might need an additional explanation. When learners employ foreignizing, they use an L1 word (in this case English) and adjust it to the L2’s phonological or morphological rules, for example, “ich habe meine Suppe gespillt” (I spilled my soup; the English word spilled was adapted to German morphology and received the regular past participle marker “ge”+stem+“t”). The strategy of code switching was differentiated in marked and not-marked conditions. A marked condition was counted when learners indicated explicitly that they would engage in code switching, for example by using apostrophes or parentheses around the English word or phrase; the not-marked condition was registered when they simply switched between English and German without announcing the change. The researcher felt it was important to keep track of the different modes of code switching because they seemed to occur in different contexts. The instances in which code switching was marked in the chat conversation might indicate that students were aware that they are supposed to stay in the target language, but in order to keep the conversation going and get their message across, they briefly employed code switching. In cases where code switching was not marked, students might have been so involved in the discussion that they did not care about target language use anymore and quickly went back to English to convey their message or it might have other, additional reasons that will be discussed later. Similarly, the strategy asking for clarification was registered in either German or English, and again might show that students knew they were supposed to keep their conversations in German, because, for the vast majority of times, they used German to ask for clarification. This observation also demonstrates that students



Use of communication strategies in a synchronous CMC environment 167

Table 2.  Number of uses of direct communication strategies in all chat sessions 1 Literal translation Foreignizing Code switching (marked) Code switching (not marked) Self-rephrasing Self-repair (unsuccessful) Self-repair (successful) Other repair

2

Chat sessions 3 4 5  1

 1 12  3  5

6 4 1 3 8

 1

6

7

8

9

Total

 1  3 16

 1  1 20 21

 3  1 10 17

 2  2 10 30

   9    5   73 156    1   23   82    5

 1

 3 16

 8 21

12 19

 2  6

 1  7

 5 12

 2  8  4

 4  9

13  1

 3 14

Table 3.  Number of uses of interactional communication strategies in all chat sessions 1 Indirect appeal for help Comprehension check Own-accuracy check Ask for repetition Ask for clarification (in G) Ask for clarification (in E) Ask for confirmation Express non-understanding

Chat sessions 2 3 4 5  1

6

7

8

9

 1  1 1

 3 17  1

5

 1

1

 2 16

6

10  1

16  1

 1  1

12  1  1

3

16

1

 1

Total    2    1    1    5 101    4    4    3

utilize communication strategies and little gambits they are taught explicitly in the classroom. Most of the time, they either asked was ist …? (what is …?), was ist … auf Englisch? (what is … in English?) or was bedeutet …? (what does … mean?), thereby using a local indicator to identify the trigger explicitly. This clear tendency to signal their non-understanding through a local indicator, rather than a global or inferential indicator, corroborates findings in studies by FernándezGarcía and Martínez-Arbelaiz (2002) and Smith (2003a). Tables 2 and 3 illustrate that the most frequently used strategies by these second-semester learners of German were self-repair, asking for clarification, and code switching, in ascending order.

168 Claudia R. Kost

Table 4.  Self-repair behavior of students Type of repair

Number of successful attempts

Number of unsuccessful attempts

Spelling Grammar Lexical Item Punctuation Syntax

64 13  3  1  1

17  6 – – –

Self-repair Self-repair was used 105 times in all chat sessions, and it was distinguished between successful and unsuccessful attempts. The majority of all attempts was successful (78%). Table 4 provides more details about students’ repair behavior. As the raw numbers of self-repairs show, students mostly focused on spelling and grammar mistakes (usually morphology). They often reacted so quickly to correct their mistakes that there was no interruption by or transfer of the floor to the interlocutor. The following examples from two participants (known as J and M) demonstrate this rapid reaction. Spelling: J: Nein. Findest du eine Lampa? (No. Do you find a lamp? – lamp is  misspelled) J: Lampe* Grammar: M: Sie habe was wir brauchen. (They have what we need. – have is incorrectly conjugated) M: haben …

However, no patterns could be observed in terms of amount of self-repairs, success rate, and progression over the semester. Self-repairs were used in a fairly similar distribution across all nine recorded chat sessions. Monitoring and noticing of mistakes is a very important aspect of language learning. Researchers of second language acquisition theories (e.g., Schmidt 1993, 1994; Rutherford & Sharwood Smith 1988; Swain 1985) have repeatedly discussed the importance of awareness, consciousness raising, and noticing the gap in the language acquisition process. Swain’s Output Hypothesis purports that learners have to be pushed to make their output more precise, coherent, and appropriate. One prerequisite for this push is that the learners notice the gap between their own output and the target language in terms of structures and pragmatics. Even though early CMC studies (e.g., Kern 1995) claimed that accuracy issues were



Use of communication strategies in a synchronous CMC environment 169

not served well by the use of synchronous online discussions, more recent studies (e.g., Pellettieri 2000) have pointed out that chat can play a critical role in the development of grammatical competence. The large amounts of successful self-repairs in the current study and students’ self-reported answers (in a questionnaire used for a larger project of which the investigation of communication strategies is only a part) confirm that chat participants, indeed, engage in monitoring their own output so that they are able to notice mistakes and attempt to repair them.

Asking for clarification Of all the interactional strategies, asking for clarification was by far the most frequently employed strategy. Students either used German (101 times) or English (4 times) to ask for a translation of a word they did not understand or to request further explanation. Asking for clarification is probably the most efficient method to clarify instances of non-understanding. The speed of synchronous online conversations seems to lend itself to the increased usage of this particular strategy, more than to any of the other available interactional strategies. The negotiation episodes that were initiated by those instances of asking for clarification follow the model that Varonis and Gass (1985) developed. According to them, negotiation of meaning takes place in interactions between non-native speakers and native speakers when the conversation participants do not share a common background or have linguistic deficiencies. A negotiation routine consists of three obligatory phases (trigger, indicator, response) and one optional phase (reaction to the response). The following example illustrates a negotiation routine according to Varonis and Gass’ model. Excerpt 1 J: ich finde eine Bratpfanne und ein Universal-Topf. (I find a pan and a universal pot.) J: sie kostet 19,99 und 19,94 (it costs 19.99 and 19.94) A: Was ist eine Bratpfanne? (What is a Bratpfanne?) J: a cooking pan A: ah, sehr gut (ah, very good)

In this role play, students have to imagine they move into an apartment in Germany together and shop online to buy furniture, kitchen appliances, utensils, and everything else they need. Their limited budget necessitates discussion about what they can or cannot afford. The trigger in this case is a lexical item that is crucial to the ongoing conversation and the completion of the task, but unfortunately is unknown to participant A. She immediately asks for clarification (i.e., indicator),

170 Claudia R. Kost

using a simple question pattern that is also taught as a gambit in cases of nonunderstanding at the beginning of German instruction. Her signal of non-understanding explicitly identifies the trigger so that participant J can respond quickly with an English translation of the word. By reacting with “very good”, participant A acknowledges her understanding and signals that she is ready to resume the main line of the conversation again. Another excerpt from the same chat topic shows, however, that negotiation episodes during chat do not always develop in such a linear fashion nor are they as clear-cut as the first example. Excerpt 2 P: Hast du ein backofen? (Do you have an oven?) K: nein. Ich habe nicht kuche items.  (No, I don’t have any kitchen items. ) K: du? (You?) P: Warum? (Why?) K: ich kauft ein Photo-Wagen! (I buy a photo-stand!) K: Warum was? (Why what?) K: Photo-Wagen = entertainment center P: Warum du hast nicht kuche items? (Why don’t you have any kitchen items?) K: Ich habe kein Geld. Ich kaufe viele ithem fur main Wohnzimmer. (I have no money. I buy many items for my living room.) K: was kostet die Backofen? (How much is the oven?) P: Ah! Hast du eine Vorhange fur main Wohnzimmer? (Ah! Do you have curtains for my living room?) K: was ist eine Vorhange? (what is a Vorhange?) P: der backofen kostet 354,00. (the oven is 354.00) K: spitze! (great!) P: vorhange ist curtains P: Was ist spitze? (What is spitze?) K: nein, ich habe kein Vorhange, du? (no, I don’t have curtains, do you?) K: spitze=cool K: or gut (or good)

Despite the many mistakes in spelling, conjugation, and use of personal pronouns, participants P and K are able to understand each other and discuss what to buy for their imagined, common apartment. Whenever they engage in negotiation of meaning, it is due to unshared knowledge of certain lexical items. When reading the transcript, the conversation first seems chaotic and to jump all over the place. However, at a closer look, there are a number of topic strands that are all picked



Use of communication strategies in a synchronous CMC environment 171

up and concluded (the oven, why K does not have any kitchen items, the curtains), as well as the successful negotiation of meaning for Vorhange (curtains) and spitze (great, cool). It is actually quite amazing how the two chat partners can follow the different strands and keep adding more lines of meaningful communication. The number of times that participants used the strategy asking for clarification varied across the role plays. However, role plays #2, #4, and #8 elicited the fewest requests for clarification. Role play #2 (Apartment Hunt) stands out among all the role plays due to its overall very rare use of communication strategies. Not only were there very few (5) instances of asking for clarification, but students also did not make much use of the otherwise popular strategy of code switching (10 instances). The reason for this unusual behavior can be found in the duration of this chat session. Class A engaged in synchronous CMC for only about 10 minutes, thereby producing the shortest online discussion which, of course, also resulted in the fewest occurrences of any communication strategies. Role plays #4 (My Dream Car) and #8 (Lunch at a Restaurant), however, paint a different picture. In both role plays, an average number of communication strategies were used in comparison to the other role plays, but there were only very few requests for clarification. This paucity of clarification requests might be due either to a restricted and clearly defined topic, such as role play #4 in which students had to research their favorite car on the web and then try to sell it to their partners, or to the familiarity of the topic, such as a dialogue between wait staff and customer at a restaurant in role play #8. It also seems that students were quite homogeneous in their comprehension and usage of lexical items; apparently, they did not use many lexical items that their partners did not understand, thereby circumventing the necessity for many requests for clarification. Alternatively, in order to express more difficult content, they rather used code switching to ensure that their partners understood them. Hence, the situations in which asking for clarification was used as a communication strategy also seem to be topic-dependent, that is, more familiar topics or topics that were limited in scope elicited fewer requests for clarification as students relied more on common vocabulary that had been learned in class to express themselves. In the present study, negotiation of meaning was also initiated by asking for confirmation (4 times; 3.6%) and by expressing non-understanding (3 times; 2.7%). However, the vast majority of negotiation sequences were introduced through asking for clarification (105 times; 93.7%). As Table 5 illustrates, negotiation sequences were terminated at different stages. Of all negotiation episodes, 83% were completed in terms of Varonis and Gass’ (1985) model, consisting of at least a trigger, an indicator, and a response. Of these completed routines, slightly less than half also added the fourth stage, a learner’s voluntary reaction to the response, either thanking their partner for the response or otherwise indicating that

172 Claudia R. Kost

Table 5.  Completed stages of negotiation sequences Negotiation sequence

Total number (and percentages) of sequences terminated at this stage

Trigger → Indicator Trigger → Indicator → Response Trigger → Indicator → Response →  Reaction to Response Total

  19 (17%)   51 (45%)   42 (38%) 112 (100%)

the answer was understood and signaling that the conversation about the main topic could continue. The comparatively large number of instances in which the fourth stage (reaction to response) was completed corroborates what Smith (2003a) stated in a recent study: “It seems, then, that in a CMC environment learners feel highly compelled to bring the routine to some explicit closure, perhaps even more so than during face-to-face interaction” (p. 47). Even though the numbers in the present study are not as high as the results in Smith’s study, they nevertheless imply the same tendency. They also substantiate Smith’s claim that the optional fourth stage occurs more often in online discussions than in face-to-face interactions which Smith hypothesized to happen between 23%–35% of the time. However, there is quite a large difference between Smith’s (2003a) study, which showed that 82% of all negotiation routines consisted of four stages, and the present study, which showed 38% completing all four stages. The reason for this discrepancy might be task-related. Smith’s study investigated negotiation behavior in a task-based environment, more specifically making use of two jigsaw and two decision-making tasks into which unknown lexical items were interspersed. The participants had to negotiate these items in order to complete the task. This indispensable act of negotiating the meaning of the target items might have led participants to react to the responses more often than in cases where the focus of the task was not to a large extent depending on clarification of lexical items. That is to say: in cases where participants have to negotiate lexical meaning in order to complete the task, they feel more compelled to acknowledge a response than in cases where the conversation is not focused on finding out the meaning of these lexical items. This reasoning might also explain the higher number of unfinished negotiation sequences in the present study (17%) than in Smith’s study (6%) which did not interfere with the completion of the task (role plays), but might have had a negative impact on jigsaw and decision-making tasks that centered on lexical items. In his article, Smith (2003a) introduced an expanded model of negotiation of meaning in order to accommodate the different situation in a chat environment.



Use of communication strategies in a synchronous CMC environment 173

He claimed that an expanded model must allow for a delay between trigger and indicator, because synchronous online discussions lack turn adjacency. He called sequences in which there is a delay between the different stages of negotiation split negotiation routines, (see Excerpt 2 of the current study for a good example). Furthermore, he suggested two additional optional phases to Varonis and Gass’ model: confirmation and reconfirmation. In the confirmation phase, the participant either confirms or disconfirms the degree of understanding based on the provided response. The reconfirmation phase may consist of another acknowledgement of the response or of a thank you or praise, and is the final signal to return to the main conversation. These two phases, however, were not observed in the present study. Because the participants were non-native speakers of German, but shared a common language (English), they did not engage in lengthy explanations in German when non-understanding occurred, but rather provided a translation as response, then either acknowledged their understanding or did not, and moved on in their conversation. Hence, Smith’s expanded model with its additional phases of confirmation and reconfirmation seems much more applicable to non-native speaker discussions where there is no shared language, and to tasks whose focus is to negotiate and understand the meaning of unknown lexical items.

Code switching Code switching was by far the most frequently used strategy in the online discussions of these second-semester German learners. Code switching is defined here following Myers-Scotton (1993) as “the use of two or more languages in the same conversation, usually within the same conversational turn, or even within the same sentence of that turn” (p. vii). In all the transcripts, 229 instances of code switching were observed. Given the relatively low proficiency level of the participants and the large amount of language production, this number is very small. Of these 229 instances of code switching, 73 (32%) were marked or announced by the learners as code switching by putting the English word in parenthesis or apostrophes, and 156 times (68%), discussants just inserted an English word or phrase and then went back to German. As discussed earlier in this chapter, some learners marked their code switching to indicate that they knew they were supposed to stay in the target language, but in order to get a message across quickly, they briefly engaged in code switching. More than two thirds of the time, however, code switching was not marked, and a closer look at these instances is warranted. What was the underlying cause for not marking them? Laziness, lack of motivation, or time restraints might have

174 Claudia R. Kost

been contributing factors here, but are impossible to pinpoint after the fact. Other possible reasons include topic-related issues (e.g., topic familiarity, topic specificity, knowledge of vocabulary and structures required to accomplish the task) or the learners’ proficiency that might have led participants to code switch. Another look at Table 2 demonstrates that code switching occurred in every chat session; no steady increase or decrease could be observed over the semester. However, Table 2 also indicates that role plays #5, #7, and #9 elicited the most overall occurrences of code switching, and also (together with role play #4) the most occurrences of not-marked code switching. A look at the topics of these role plays might reveal the reason. In the chat session on role play #5, students were asked to relate their experiences over spring break, where they had gone, and what they had done. An open topic such as this one naturally invites the description of situations that most likely have not been discussed in the classroom before, resulting in the need of more difficult and probably unknown lexical items to express the learners’ individual and personal experiences. Thus, learners might have found increased code switching useful for expressing themselves. Similarly, the topic Vegetarian: Yes or No? (#7) asked students to discuss first some statistics that showed political beliefs and party affiliations, as well as gender, age and education level of German vegetarians, before they engaged in a role play to convince each other either to go to a vegetarian or to a non-vegetarian restaurant. Discussing the statistics and the ensuing argument about which restaurant to choose seemed quite challenging for students, necessitating perhaps the use of unknown lexical items, which led to increased code switching. In the last role play of the semester (#9), students were asked to pretend they were the two gangsters in a detective story read in class and to create a continuation of the story, discussing what had happened so far in the story and what they would do next. This topic, like the other two mentioned topics, also proved rather complex, and students most often reverted to the strategy of not-marked code switching to communicate. The other role plays assigned during the semester each dealt with a more specific context and situation, in comparison, and hence provided less opportunity for conversations that went much beyond the learners’ language level and their ability to express themselves in German. They also more closely mirrored what had been practiced in the regular classroom (in terms of vocabulary or structures necessary to accomplish the task) and might therefore have elicited fewer instances of code switching. These results suggest that the familiarity and specificity of an assigned topic has an impact on the amount of code switching that learners engage in. Another factor that might influence learners’ code switching behavior is their proficiency level. As mentioned earlier, the oral and written proficiency level of all participants had been established through oral interviews and in-class writing



Use of communication strategies in a synchronous CMC environment 175

Table 6.  Code switching by proficiency level Low proficiency Total occurrences 122 (53.2%)

Medium proficiency Total occurrences 56 (24.5%)

High proficiency Total occurrences 51 (22.3%)

Total Total occurrences 229 (100%)

marked not-marked marked not-marked marked not-marked marked not-marked 37 (51%) 85 (54%) 14 (19%) 42 (27%) 22 (30%) 29 (19%) 73 (100%) 156 (100%)

samples at the beginning and at the end of the semester. An examination of the chat transcripts showed that code switching was used by almost every learner in the two classes: 34 of the 39 participants (87%) engaged in various amounts of code switching over the course of the semester, ranging from 1–18 occurrences of not-marked code switching, and from 1–12 occurrences of marked code switching. Table 6 shows the distribution of both marked and not-marked cases of code switching across proficiency levels. Results clearly show that the majority of code switching (53.2%) was used by learners in the low-proficiency category. The remaining occurrences of code switching are almost equally distributed among medium- and high-proficiencylevel participants. It was hypothesized that the highly proficient learners would use not-marked code switching less frequently and instead would mark their code switching more often, thereby indicating that the code switching is an exceptional occurrence in their discourse. When comparing the medium- and the high-proficiency-level participants, this hypothesis appears to be confirmed, as the highly proficient learners show 19% of not-marked code switching and 30% of marked code switching versus 27% of not-marked and 19% of marked code switching by the medium-proficiency-level participants. The numbers in the low-proficiency category, however, seem to contradict completely the hypothesis in that 51% of all marked occurrences of code switching are designated as such by low proficiency level learners. A closer look at the distribution of marked and not-marked occurrences of code switching in the low-proficiency category and at these participants’ overall use of code switching sheds some light on these surprising numbers. Of the 13 participants in this category, only 7 learners marked any occurrences of code switching, whereas all 13 participants used not-marked code switching in their discourse. Of the 7 participants, only one seems to be an outlier in her use of marked code switching as she alone had 12 marked occurrences which constituted almost one third of all marked code switching in the low proficiency level. Her enormous use of marked code switching skewed the results in this category. If her results are disregarded, the amount of marked code switching is rather similar to the amount used by the highly proficient learners.

176 Claudia R. Kost

A further explanation for this behavior can be found in the pairing of the role play partners. An analysis of the composition of all chat session pairs that engaged in any kind of code switching shows that the way code switching was used (either marked or not-marked) had some kind of contagious effect on the role play partner. In several cases, when high- or medium-proficiency-level participants were paired up with low-proficiency-level learners for a chat session, the lowproficiency-level participant followed the lead of the more proficient partner and started marking code switching if the more proficient partner had done so. This phenomenon explains a number of instances of marked code switching among low-proficiency-level learners, and especially the case of the previously discussed outlier with the 12 occurrences of marked code switching. The data in the current study support the hypothesis that with increasing levels of proficiency (in a beginning language class), the amount of overall code switching used by chat participants to fill lexical gaps seems to decrease. With regard to the second part of the hypothesis (namely that participants with lower levels of proficiency use more not-marked code switching than their more proficient peers, and vice versa, that learners with higher proficiency mark their code switching more frequently than learners at the lower level of proficiency), this result can only be partially corroborated. Although there is a clear decrease in the use of not-marked occurrences of code switching from low to medium to high levels of proficiency (54% → 27% → 19%), the contagious effect of using marked code switching might have affected some of the low-proficiency-level participants to employ more marked code switching than they would otherwise have done following the example of their more proficient peers.

Results compared to other studies As has been pointed out in the review of literature, little research has been done so far on the use of communication strategies in online discussions. Lee (2001, 2002) found similar results in both of her studies, namely that her students favored comprehension checks, clarification checks, requests for help, and selfrepairs as the most frequently used strategies. Smith (2003b) reported that his students predominantly used substitution (abbreviated forms), framing of topics, fillers, and politeness formulations as strategies for conversation maintenance. He differentiated these strategies from compensatory strategies which are used when problems in communication have occurred, for example when encountering unknown lexical items infused into a task. Here, his students most often used conceptual strategies such as circumlocution and approximation.



Use of communication strategies in a synchronous CMC environment 177

Although results of the present study partially corroborate findings from Lee’s (2001, 2002) studies in that the participants in the present study also made wide use of asking for clarification and self-repair to maintain the conversation, they did not use requests for help. Instead, their most frequently used strategy was code switching which was reported in Lee’s studies with only a few occurrences and not at all in Smith’s (2003b) study. These differences in results are due to a number of factors. The present study investigated the use of communication strategies in a beginning language class, whereas the other studies examined intermediate language learners. The lower level of proficiency in the present study might have contributed to a concentration on very specific strategies (such as using a local indicator to signal non-understanding and to ask for clarification), and might have prohibited the use of more elaborate strategies (such as circumlocution and approximation) whose expression requires higher levels of linguistic ability. Similarly, the availability of a common language (English) for students in the present study, as opposed to the ESL students in Smith’s study, and the lower level of proficiency in the present study, as opposed to Lee’s Spanish students, were probably the reasons for the large amount of code switching that was observed in this study. Furthermore, the time pressure to complete a task and the tasks themselves were different in all the studies: Whereas Lee’s (2001, 2002) participants met in a chat room for 50 minutes per week outside of class time to discuss open topics related to subject matters covered in class, Smith’s (2003b) students engaged in jigsaw and decision-making tasks for one lesson per week in the lab during class time. In the present study, participants also used online discussions as part of their regular class time in the lab, but they only had 10–20 minutes to complete a role play task.

Conclusion The purpose of this study was to investigate beginning German language learners’ use of communication strategies in a synchronous computer-mediated environment. Chat transcripts produced over the course of one semester by second-semester learners of German were analyzed. Results indicate that beginning learners use a wide variety of communication strategies to maintain a conversation, to overcome linguistic problems, and to accomplish the assigned tasks. The most frequently used strategies were self-repair, asking for clarification, and code switching. The learners’ use of self-repair indicates that they were able to notice some of their own mistakes while chatting and were able to repair them. Research focusing on awareness, consciousness raising, and noticing the gap in

178 Claudia R. Kost

language learning (Rutherford & Sharwood Smith 1988; Schmidt 1993, 1994) has stated that monitoring one’s own output and noticing mistakes constitutes a crucial aspect of language learning. Online discussions seem to have the potential to elicit this behavior in conversation participants. Students were also able to negotiate meaning by asking for clarification of unknown lexical items or incomprehensible utterances. Negotiation episodes also seem to be topic-related, as more specific and restricted topics elicited fewer requests for clarification. In general, learners focused more on what they can say instead of what they cannot express. With regards to code switching, the findings of this study lend further support to the notion that code switching decreased as the proficiency level of the participants increased. The less proficient learners mostly did not mark or announce their code switching in any way, which would have indicated that this is an unusual occurrence in their discourse. The familiarity and specificity of an assigned topic also had an impact on the amount of code switching participants engaged in. In general, synchronous online discussions seem to be highly beneficial with regard to students’ language production, their ability to notice and repair mistakes, and their use of a variety of communication strategies. Obviously, the generalizability of the findings from this study is limited. Even though a large number of transcripts over a lengthy period of time was analyzed, the results may be particular to this specific group of second-semester German learners. Future research should investigate whether other learners at the same level also favor the same communication strategies as the two classes discussed here, whether different tasks might result in the use of different strategies, and whether negotiation routines among learners with and without a common language follow the same pattern. Another interesting aspect to pursue would be the discussed “contagious” effect between higher and lower proficiency level participants and what kind of pedagogical implications could emerge from this. Additional research should also be conducted in the area of explicit instruction of strategies in the language classroom to explore the effectiveness and transferability of these strategies to a synchronous computer-mediated environment.

References ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines. (1986, 1999). Yonkers, NY: American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. ACTFL Performance Guidelines for K-12 Learners. (1999). Yonkers, NY: American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages.



Use of communication strategies in a synchronous CMC environment 179

Abrams, Z. I. (2003). The effect of synchronous and asynchronous CMC on oral performance in German. The Modern Language Journal, 87(2), 157–167. Beauvois, M. H. (1992). Computer-assisted classroom discussion in the foreign language classroom: Conversation in slow motion. Foreign Language Annals, 25(5), 455–464. Beauvois, M. H. (1995). E-Talk: Attitudes and motivation in computer-assisted classroom discussion. Computers and the Humanities, 28, 177–190. Beauvois, M. H. (1997). Computer-mediated communication (CMC): Technology for improving speaking and writing. In M. Bush (Ed.), Technology enhanced language learning (pp. 165–184) (The ACTFL Volume on Technology). Lincolnwood, IL: National Textbook Company. Beauvois, M. H. (1998a). Conversations in slow motion: Computer-mediated communication in the foreign language classroom. The Canadian Modern Language Review, 54(2), 198–217. Beauvois, M. H. (1998b). Write to speak: The effects of electronic communication on the oral achievement of fourth semester French students. In J. A. Muyskens (Ed.), New ways of learning and teaching: Focus on technology and foreign language education (pp. 93–115). Boston, MA: Heinle. Belz, J. A. (2002). Social dimensions of telecollaborative language study. Language Learning & Technology, 6(1), 60–81. Retrieved July 1, 2006, from http://llt.msu.edu/vol6num1/belz/ default.html Belz, J. A. (2003). Linguistic perspectives on the development of intercultural competence in telecollaboration. Language Learning & Technology, 7(2), 68–117. Retrieved July 1, 2006, from http://llt.msu.edu/vol7num2/belz/default.html Belz, J. A. & Thorne, S. L. (Eds.). (2004). Internet-mediated intercultural foreign language education. Boston, MA: Heinle. Bialystok, E. (1990). Communication strategies: A psychological analysis of second language use. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Blake, R. (2000). Computer mediated communication: A window on L2 Spanish interlanguage. Language Learning & Technology, 4(1), 120–136. Retrieved March 20 2001, from http://llt. msu.edu/vol4num1/blake/default.html Chun, D. M. (1994). Using computer networking to facilitate the acquisition of interactive competence. System, 22(1), 17–31. Corder, S. P. (1978/1983). Strategies of communication. In C. Faerch & G. Kasper (Eds.), Strategies in interlanguage communication (pp. 15–19). London: Longman. Darhower, M. (2002). Instructional features of synchronous computer-mediated communication in the intermediate L2 class: A sociocultural case study. CALICO, 19(2), 249–277. Dörnyei, Z. & Scott, M. L. (1997). Communication strategies in a second language: Definitions and taxonomies. Language Learning, 47(1), 173–210. Ellis, R. (2003). Task-based language learning and teaching. Oxford: OUP. Faerch, C. & Kasper, G. (1983). Plans and strategies in foreign language communication. In C. Faerch & G. Kasper (Eds.), Strategies in interlanguage communication (pp. 20–60). London: Longman. Faerch, C. & Kasper, G. (Eds.). (1983). Strategies in interlanguage communication. London: Longman. Fernández-García, M. & Martínez-Arbelaiz, A. (2002). Negotiation of meaning in nonnative speaker-nonnative speaker synchronous discussions. CALICO, 19(2), 279–294.

180 Claudia R. Kost

Gass, S. M. (1997). Input, interaction and the second language learner. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Hudson, J. M. & Bruckman, A. S. (1999). IRC Français. Retrieved May 13, 2007 from http:// www.cc.gatech.edu/elc/ircfrancais/ Hymes, D. H. (1972). On communicative competence. In J. B. Pride & J. Holmes (Eds.), Sociolinguistics: Selected Readings (pp. 269–293). Baltimore, MD: Penguin. Kellerman, E. (1991). Compensatory strategies in second language research: A critique, a revision, and some (non-)implications for the classroom. In R. Phillipson, E. Kellerman, L. Selinker, M. Sharwood Smith, & M. Swain (Eds.), Foreign/ Second language pedagogy research: A commemorative volume for Claus Faerch (pp. 142–161). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Kelm, O. R. (1992). The use of synchronous computer networks in second language instruction: A preliminary report. Foreign Language Annals, 25(5), 441–454. Kern, R. G. (1995). Restructuring classroom interaction with networked computers: Effects on quantity and characteristics of language production. The Modern Language Journal, 79(4), 457–476. Kinginger, C. (2004). Communicative foreign language teaching through collaboration. In K. van Esch & O. St. John (Eds.), New insights into foreign language learning and teaching (pp. 101–113). Frankfurt: Peter Lang. Kötter, M. (2003). Negotiation of meaning and codeswitching in online tandems. Language Learning & Technology, 7(2), 145–172. Retrieved March 11 2006, from http://llt.msu.edu/ vol7num2/kotter/ Kost, C. R. (2004). An investigation of the effects of synchronous computer-mediated communication (CMC) on interlanguage development in beginning learners of German: Accuracy, proficiency, and communication strategies. PhD dissertation, University of Arizona, Tucson. Lee, L. (2001). Online interaction: Negotiation of meaning and strategies used among learners of Spanish. ReCALL, 13(2), 232–244. Lee, L. (2002). Synchronous online exchanges: A study of modification devices on non-native discourse. System, 30, 275–288. Long, M. H. (1983). Native speaker/non native speaker conversation and the negotiation of comprehensible input. Applied Linguistics, 4, 126–141. Long, M. H. (1996). The role of the linguistic environment in second language acquisition. In W. C. Ritchie & T. K. Bathia (Eds.), Handbook of research on language acquisition, vol. 2: Second language acquisition (pp. 413–468). New York, NY: Academic Press. Meunier, L. E. (1998). Personality and motivational factors in computer-mediated foreign language communication (CMFLC). In J. A. Muyskens (Ed.), New ways of learning and teaching: Focus on technology and foreign language education (pp. 145–197). Boston, MA: Heinle. Myers-Scotton, C. (1993). Social motivations for code-switching. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Nunan, D. (1989). Designing tasks for the communicative classroom. Cambridge: CUP. Payne, J. S. & Ross, B. M. (2005). Synchronous CMC, working memory, and L2 oral proficiency development. Language Learning & Technology, 9(3), 35–54. Retrieved March 11, 2006, from http://llt.msu.edu/vol9num3/payne/default.html Payne, J. S. & Whitney, P. J. (2002). Developing L2 oral proficiency through synchronous CMC: Output, working memory, and interlanguage development. CALICO, 20(1), 7–32.



Use of communication strategies in a synchronous CMC environment 181

Pellettieri, J. (2000). Negotiation in cyberspace: The role of chatting in the development of grammatical competence. In M. Warschauer & R. Kern (Eds.), Network-based language teaching: Concepts and practice (pp. 59–86). Cambridge: CUP. Pica, T., Kanagy, R., & Falodun, J. (1993). Choosing and using communication tasks for second language instruction and research. In G. Crookes & S. M. Gass (Eds.), Tasks and language learning: Integrating theory and practice (pp. 9–34). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Rutherford, W. & Sharwood Smith, M. (Eds.). (1988). Grammar and second language teaching: A book of readings. New York, NY: Newbury House Publishers. Schmidt, R. (1993). Awareness and second language acquisition. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 13, 206–226. Schmidt, R. (1994). Deconstructing consciousness in search of useful definitions for applied linguistics. AILA Review, 11, 11–26. Smith, B. (2003a). Computer-mediated negotiated interaction: An expanded model. The Modern Language Journal, 87(1), 38–57. Smith, B. (2003b). The use of communication strategies in computer-mediated communication. System, 31, 29–53. Sotillo, S. M. (2000). Discourse functions and syntactic complexity in synchronous and asynchronous communication. Language Learning & Technology, 4(1), 82–119. Retrieved March 20, 2001, from http://llt.msu.edu/vol4num1/sotillo/default.html Swain, M. (1985). Communicative competence: Some roles of comprehensible input and comprehensive output in its development. In S. M. Gass & C. G. Madden (Eds.), Input in second language acquisition (pp. 235–253). Boston, MA: Heinle. Tarone, E. (1977). Conscious communication strategies in interlanguage: A progress report. In H. D. Brown, C. A. Yorio, & R. C. Crymes (Eds.), On TESOL ’77 (pp. 194–203). Washington, DC: TESOL. Tarone, E. (1983). Some thoughts on the notion of communication strategy. In C. Faerch & G. Kasper (Eds.), Strategies in interlanguage communication (pp. 61–74). London: Longman. Tarone, E., Cohen, A. D., & Dumas, G. (1976). A closer look at some interlanguage terminology: A framework for communication strategies. Working Papers on Bilingualism, 9, 76–90. Terrell, T., Tschirner, E., & Nikolai, B. (2000). Kontakte: A Communicative Approach (4th ed.). Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill. Tschirner, E. (1992). Oral proficiency base lines for first- and second-year college German. Die Unterrichtspraxis, 25(1), 10–14. Tschirner, E. (1996). Scope and sequence: Rethinking beginning foreign language instruction. The Modern Language Journal, 80(1), 1–14. Varonis, E. M. & Gass, S. M. (1985). Non-native/non-native conversations: A model for negotiation of meaning. Applied Linguistics, 6(1), 71–90. Warschauer, M. (1995/96). Comparing face-to-face and electronic discussion in the second language classroom. CALICO, 13(2&3), 7–26. Warschauer, M. (1996). Motivational aspects of using computers for writing and communication. In M. Warschauer (Ed.), Telecollaboration in foreign language learning (pp. 29–44). Manoa, Hawai’i: Second Language Teaching & Curriculum Center.

182 Claudia R. Kost

Appendix A Information about participants Participants’ background Female Male

Class A 10 Class B 11

9 9

Mean age

Age range Familiarity with email, listserv, POLIS

Computer at home

22 20

18–47 18–25

17 yes, 2 no 18 yes, 2 no

15 yes, 4 no 14 yes, 6 no

Note: POLIS (Project for Online Instructional Support) is an experimental online support tool that provides an instructional resource for students on a course-by-course basis created at the University of Arizona.

Experience with and attitude toward computers Class A Class B I use a computer I feel comfortable using a computer Using a computer gives me more opportunities to read and write Learning how to use a computer is important for my career I use email to communicate with my classmates and friends I use chat rooms to communicate with other people I would enjoy using a computer to practice my language skills in German

4.50 4.56 4.06 4.39 3.28 1.72 3.89

4.32 4.32 3.82 4.00 3.36 2.55 3.59

Note: The responses to these questionnaire items were recorded through a five-point Likert scale, with 5 indicating the highest rating (e.g., always, strongly agree, or very) and 1 indicating the lowest rating (e.g., never, strongly disagree, or not at all). The table displays the mean values.



Use of communication strategies in a synchronous CMC environment 183

Appendix B German 102 analytic oral assessment scale Fluency Points Very fluent (exceptional for this level of instruction); language flows; no unnatural 17–15 pauses; wants to talk, offers information, gives detailed answers; very responsive and takes initiative in role play (too expensive, got no money, etc.). Quite fluent (good for the level of instruction), only slight stumbling or unnatural 14–12 pauses; says more than required; responsive and occasionally takes initiative in role play (too expensive, got no money, etc.). Some definite stumbling, but manages to continue and respond; speech somewhat 11–9 disjointed because of pauses; memorized chunks of language might be produced without hesitation. Speech frequently hesitant; sentences may be left uncompleted; slow answers; pro- 8–6 vides minimum information in responses; frequent enumerations; some one-wordanswers. Faltering speech (sehr stockend), very slow answers, very long pauses (conversation 5–3 is like “pulling teeth”). Speech totally disjointed; fragmentary.

2–0

Vocabulary Rich and extensive vocabulary for this level of instruction; very accurate usage.

17–15

Variety of vocabulary; occasionally lacks basic words, but generally accurate usage; 14–12 vocabulary mistakes do not affect meaning (e.g., wrong gender, wrong preposition); incorporates words in the interview that interviewer corrected or provided earlier. Word choice is appropriate and adequate for situation; few erroneous words which 11–9 sympathetic interlocutor could understand; some mistakes might lead to misunderstandings; some literal translation; sometimes at a lack of words which have been presented in class; incorporates some words in the interview that interviewer corrected or provided earlier. Some use of English or literal translations and invented words (interlocutor would 8–6 have to interpret to understand); limited vocabulary. Inadequate for situation; use of English or literal translations and invented words 5–3 (problematic for sympathetic interlocutor); very small and basic vocabulary. Very limited, basic vocabulary (e.g., colors, familiar objects); inaccurate usage.

2–0

184 Claudia R. Kost

Accuracy/Structure Points Very few mistakes; demonstrates exceptional control of grammatical forms (for 17–15 this level of instruction); uses complete sentences in answers (whenever appropriate); conjugates correctly in present tense (most of the time); uses auxiliary and participle in present perfect correctly (most of the time); uses grammar items correctly that go beyond simple sentence structures (e.g., modal verbs, comparative forms, subjunctive, present perfect, simple past, conjunctions, inverted word order, separable prefix verbs); frequently attempts complicated sentence structure; shows evidence of attention to mechanical errors even when these may not interfere with communication; self-corrections result in improved language use. Few mistakes which do not affect meaning; some control of grammatical forms; 14–12 attempts to use complete sentences in answers (whenever appropriate), conjugates correctly in present tense (most of the time); attempts to use auxiliary and participle in present perfect (e.g., overgeneralizes regular form, leaves out auxiliary or uses it incorrectly); often tries out grammar items that go beyond simple sentence structures with some success (e.g., comparative forms, modal verbs, subjunctive, present perfect, simple past, conjunctions, inverted word order, separable prefix verbs); attempts to self-correct primarily for meaning when communication breaks down; self-corrections often result in improved language use. Short answers; some enumerations; conjugation in present tense is inconsistent; uses 11–9 present tense (conjugated correctly most of the time) when present perfect is required; rarely attempts to use grammar items that go beyond simple sentence structures (e.g., comparative forms, modal verbs, subjunctive, present perfect, simple past, conjunctions, inverted word order, separable prefix verbs); mistakes often give unintended meaning; self-correction not necessarily results in improved speech; might attempt to self-correct for meaning when communication breaks down. Conjugation in present tense is often incorrect; uses present tense (correctly con- 8–6 jugated sometimes) when present perfect is required; uses same (simple) sentence structure most of the time; often uses infinitives; mostly enumerations; meaning frequently obscured by grammar mistakes. No sentence structure; some memorized chunks; mostly infinitives; errors fre- 5–3 quently interfere with comprehension. Only isolated words; errors interfere strongly with comprehension.

2–0

Pronunciation Correct pronunciation and intonation; very few mistakes which do not impede 17–15 interlocutor’s comprehension. Very few mistakes, might have problems with a few specific words; meaning is 14–12 clear. Some mispronunciation, but sympathetic interlocutor is able to understand; native 11–9 language influences pronunciation. Pronunciation strongly influenced by native language; pronunciation problems in- 8–6 terfere with comprehension; problematic for sympathetic interlocutor. Pronunciation problems manifest themselves throughout speech; meaning fre- 5–3 quently obscured by poor pronunciation; only partially comprehensible (even to sympathetic interlocutor). Mostly incomprehensible.

2–0



Use of communication strategies in a synchronous CMC environment 185

Comprehension Points Does not request or need rephrasing by the interlocutor; responds appropriately to 17–15 all cues (e.g., Wie geht’s?– Es geht mir gut!; Schmeckt’s?– Ja, es schmeckt sehr gut!; Das kostet $3.50– Hier sind...) and asks back Wie geht’s?; uses a variety of communication strategies to sustain conversation that is related to familiar topics. May ask for clarification and rephrasing by the interlocutor; responds appropriately 14–12 to some cues (gets Wie geht’s?– Es geht mir gut!/ Gut!; plus one of the other two cues); may use paraphrasing, question-asking, circumlocution, and other strategies to avoid communication breakdown. Rarely asks for clarification or rephrasing by the interlocutor; responds appropri- 11–9 ately only to cue Wie geht’s?– Gut! with one-word answer; may use limited range of communication strategies (paraphrasing, question-asking, circumlocution) to avoid communication breakdown. Seems to have problems understanding simple questions by the interlocutor; does 8–6 not ask for clarification or rephrasing by the interlocutor; attempts to clarify meaning by repeating words or reverting to English (gives interviewer the question in English which s/he thinks s/he has been asked); primarily uses facial expressions and gestures to indicate problems with comprehension. Seems to have serious problems to understand interlocutor; misunderstandings oc- 5–3 cur frequently; only responds after interlocutor translates question (does not offer own idea about what question meant); relies heavily on facial expressions and gestures to indicate comprehension problems. Does not seem to understand interlocutor.

2–0

186 Claudia R. Kost

Appendix C Holistic rating scale for writing assignments Description Points Provides appropriate response to the writing prompt, very detailed, lots of informa- 17–15 tion; long text which flows and is comprehensible; uses rich and extensive vocabulary very accurately; successfully uses complicated sentence structure (not just S-VO; inverted word order, conjunctions, separable prefix verbs, modals); word order and subject-verb agreement are correct most of the time; spelling and punctuation are mostly accurate; some evidence of cohesive devices; uses auxiliary and participle in present perfect very accurately. Provides appropriate response to the writing prompt; length is appropriate; detailed 14–12 answer; good amount of information is provided; text flows and is comprehensible; uses variety of vocabulary; generally accurate usage; vocabulary mistakes do not affect meaning; frequently attempts (with partial success) to use complicated sentence structure (not just S-V-O; inverted word order, conjunctions, separable prefix verbs, modals); word order and subject-verb agreement are often correct; spelling and punctuation are often accurate; uses auxiliary and participle in present perfect correctly most of the time. Provides generally appropriate response to the writing prompt; length is appropri- 11–9 ate; amount of information provided is appropriate; main ideas are comprehensible; word choice is appropriate and adequate for situation; some literal translation; might attempt complicated sentence structure (not just S-V-O; inverted word order, conjunctions, separable prefix verbs, modals) sometimes; word order and subjectverb agreement are inconsistent; spelling and punctuation are inconsistent; uses auxiliary and participle in present perfect partially successful (e.g., overgeneralizes regular form, leaves out auxiliary or uses it incorrectly). Provides partially appropriate response to the writing prompt; length is adequate, 8–6 but brief; minimal amount of information provided; some ideas are incomprehensible/ don’t make sense; uses limited vocabulary and invented words; uses mainly simple sentence structure; word order, subject-verb agreement, spelling, and punctuation are inconsistent; meaning might be obscured by grammar mistakes; rare use of present perfect forms. Provides inappropriate response to the writing prompt; length is inappropriate (=too 5–3 short!); insufficient amount of information provided; a number of ideas are incomprehensible/don’t make sense; uses very small and basic vocabulary; uses simple sentence structure; word order, subject-verb agreement, spelling, and punctuation are very inconsistent; some memorized chunks; grammar mistakes frequently interfere with comprehension; no use of present perfect forms. Provides almost no text.

2–0



Use of communication strategies in a synchronous CMC environment 187

Appendix D Description of role plays The following are the translated instructions for the used role plays. In the original study, the instructions were in German and posted on a webpage, and the entire class would go through the text together to ensure that everybody understood the task before pairs or groups would engage in the actual task. Role play 1: Buying furniture Shopping by mouse click: You are new at your German exchange university and you want to share an apartment with another student. You don’t have any furniture and also no time to spend hours shopping for it in the city. You will shop for furniture online. Together, you have 2000 euro. Make a list: 1 What kind of furniture do you need for your apartment? 2. What does the furniture look like? (color, wood or plastic, big/small) 3. How much does it cost? Do a role play and discuss with your partner what furniture you’ll buy for each room. What is important for you? You both have to agree with the decisions. Role play 2: Apartment hunt 1. Imagine you want to study in Germany for a year. You can’t decide whether you’d rather live in a dorm or in an apartment. First go to the webpage of a dorm in Augsburg (Bavaria). Click on all photos and read the information about the room: How much is a room? How big is the room? How many rooms are there in this dorm? Etc. Then go to the webpage of a newspaper. Click on Apartment Hunt and try to find an apartment which is not too expensive. Remember: You are poor students! 2. Since apartments are scarce in Germany, you have to apply and do an interview with the landlord or landlady. Now write a list with questions that you could ask the landlord or landlady or the administration in the dorm. Which positive aspects could you mention about yourself so that you will get the room/apartment? Questions… About myself… How much is the room? quiet How far is it to the university? non-smoker … … 3. Do a role play: one student plays the landlord/landlady, and the other one plays the student who is looking for a room/apartment. Role play 3: A weekend in ... Imagine you spend a weekend in Germany with two friends. You want to see a lot, but you have very different hobbies and interests. One of you would like to go to the theater, another person would like to visit all the sights in the city and attend a concert, the third person has only food and drinks on their mind and maybe a movie! However, you decided that you want to do everything together this weekend. Try to agree on an agenda that makes everyone happy! 1. Go to one of the following webpages and find information that you are interested in. Try to stay in the role that was assigned to you.

188 Claudia R. Kost

2. Do a role play and tell the other people in your group what you would like to do this weekend. Through discussion with your friends, try to find a common agenda for the weekend. Bremen (Northern Germany) Wiesbaden (Southwestern Germany) Augsburg (Southern Germany) Role play 4: My dream car Imagine you won the lottery and you can finally buy the car that you’ve always dreamed of. You like German cars quite a lot and research various webpages. 1. Find the car that you like best. Your partner also decides in favor of one car. 2. Compare your two cars now and describe what is better or worse. Use comparative and superlative forms, e.g., “The BMW goes 220 km/h.” – “The Mercedes is faster.” 3. Write a paragraph about your dream car (in comparison to other cars): Describe the advantages of your dream car: what is more beautiful, better, or more modern than in other cars? Here are some webpages of German cars: BMW, Audi, VW, Mercedes Benz, Opel, Porsche. Role play 5: Spring break What did you do for spring break? Do a role play with your partner about spring break. 1. Use all the verbs from the list that your instructor gives you and write down questions. 2. Do an interview with your partner. You can either talk about your own vacation or invent some “dream vacation”. 3. Don’t forget to use present perfect when talking about the past. Role play 6: Invitation for dinner Imagine that you are inviting some friends for dinner. You want to eat something really good (not just beer and pizza!). Your partner helps you prepare this evening. Do a role play and discuss the following points: 1. What would you like to cook? You want to offer a 4-course meal: appetizer, salad, main course, dessert. Be careful so that everything fits together well! 2. Who will go shopping and where do you best buy everything? 3. Who of you will prepare which dish? 4. What kind of beverages will you have? Don’t forget the designated drivers! Role play 7: Vegetarian: Yes or no? 1. Click on the following webpage and look at some statistics and diagrams about meat consumption and vegetarianism. Which advantages and disadvantages can eating meat and living as vegetarian have? Make a list. Eating Meat Eating Vegetarian Advantage (+) Disadvantage (–) Advantage (+) Disadvantage (–) … … … … 2. Choose a role: Person A: You like to eat meat and want to go to the restaurant Hubertus. Click on the menu and make a list with good ideas and examples why person B should go



Use of communication strategies in a synchronous CMC environment 189

with you to this restaurant. Person B: You are vegetarian (you don’t eat meat) and want to go to the restaurant Hakuin. Click on the menu and make a list with good ideas and examples why person A should accompany you to this restaurant. 3. Now do a role play with your partner. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of both restaurants and try to convince your partner to go to YOUR restaurant with you. Role play 8: Lunch at a restaurant Imagine you are traveling with friends in Germany. It is 12 o’clock and you are hungry. You want to eat in a restaurant or in the university cafeteria. 1. Look at the online menu of one of the restaurants and decide on the dish you like to eat. 2. Do a role play with your partner (customer-waiter/waitress) including the following: order food, complain about something you didn’t like, ask for the bill, pay, leave a tip, etc. Role play 9: Detective story [Students read the mini-detective novel Ein Mann zu viel at the end of the semester. It is a short, 26-page, graded easy-reader level one published by Langenscheidt. It tells the story of a young photo journalist who unknowingly takes a photo of a drug deal and receives a letter threatening his life. He enlists the services of a private detective and, together, they devise a plan to bring down the drug dealers.] “One Man Too Many”: Imagine that you are the two gangsters in the book Ein Mann zu viel. You feel like somebody took a photo of you when you were talking. Do a role play. Be creative! Person A: You followed Mr. Hofinger when he visited Mr. Müller. You heard what they talked about. Tell your gangster-friend what you heard. Person B: You went to Petra Weiser’s apartment and searched through it. Tell your gangsterfriend what you found in the apartment and what you took with you. 1. Discuss together what Mr. Hofinger did and why you wrote him a note (use past tense for this). 2. Also discuss what you should do now so that the police won’t find you (use future tense for this).

Online discourse strategies A longitudinal study of computer-mediated  foreign language learning Nelleke Van Deusen-Scholl Yale University

Based on computer-mediated (CMC) data collected over two semesters in a beginning- and advanced-level German language sequence, this study investigates the discourse strategies employed by students in online interactions with their peers and with their instructors and seeks to explain how these strategies can contribute to the foreign language learning process. The findings suggest that insights from CMC learner data can be applied to an increasingly individualized pedagogy that is sensitive to individual students’ strengths and weaknesses, takes into consideration different learning styles, and targets specific communicative needs. In this study, there was significant variation in the extent to which the learners availed themselves of the opportunities for practice through CMC and their use of discourse and communication strategies. The more successful learners generally produced more language of greater syntactic complexity, actively sought feedback and correction, were more aware of their own learning, and engaged in more self-reflection than the less successful students. They also made frequent attempts to practice the language and incorporate newly acquired structures and vocabulary into their (online) conversations. Though the findings are preliminary, they underscore the benefits of a data-driven approach to foreign language teaching and learning.

As technology has been more centrally integrated into foreign language instruction over the past decade or so (cf. Chapelle 2003), computer-mediated communication (CMC) has gained much attention for its potential benefits to both research and pedagogy (e.g. Kern, Ware, & Warschauer 2004; Lafford & Lafford 2005; Payne & Whitney 2002; Thorne & Payne 2005). Blake (2005) noted that CMC can be particularly useful in promoting collaborative exchanges, but cautioned that such interactions – whether in the classroom or online – critically depend on sound

192 Nelleke Van Deusen-Scholl

pedagogical design. In this chapter, I follow up on an earlier study conducted at the University of Pennsylvania which examined how instructors and students become engaged in the collaborative co-construction of learning mediated by online communication (Van Deusen-Scholl, Frei, & Dixon 2005). The findings from that study suggested that instructors’ pedagogical choices, such as scaffolding and cycling of in-class and online interactions, help establish a learning environment in which students’ communicative needs become the focus of instruction (cf. Levy & Kennedy 2004). This approach creates an authentic context of practice in which the instructional sequence is no longer exclusively or primarily based on the topics presented in a textbook, but emerges from the interactions among students and instructors. The present study is based on data collected over two semesters in a beginning- and an advanced-level German language sequence. It is part of a longitudinal learner corpus of CMC interactions. Whereas the previous study addressed the larger pedagogical issues of a technology-mediated learning context, it did not focus specifically on the actual discourse produced by the students. Capturing the online data yields a rich source of authentic, student-produced discourse in a computer-mediated environment and provides a unique opportunity to investigate the language learning process over a period of time. Using a discourse analytical approach, I take a closer look at how individual learners availed themselves of the interactional opportunities provided by CMC, and consider the following questions: 1. What types of discourse strategies do students employ in technology-mediated interactions? 2. How do these strategies contribute to foreign language learning? 3. How can insights from CMC learner data be applied to an increasingly individualized pedagogy that takes into consideration individual students’ strengths and weaknesses, identifies different learning styles, and targets specific communicative needs? I begin by outlining some of the recent research in the area of technology and foreign language learning.

. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2005 AILA Convention. I would like to thank Christina Frei and Edward Dixon of the University of Pennsylvania for their many contributions to this ongoing project and for sharing their creative insights on pedagogy and technology. Thi Vuong Poerner provided invaluable assistance with data collection and analysis. I also wish to express my appreciation for the helpful comments from two anonymous reviewers.



Online discourse strategies 193

Computer-mediated communication and data-driven pedagogy In a recent article, Ware and Kramsch (2005) cited an early study by Breen and Candlin to underscore the potential of technology-mediated instruction for a more interactive approach to language pedagogy: Ultimately, online teaching confronts teachers with the challenge posed almost 25 years ago by Breen and Candlin (1980), when they dared to suggest that a syllabus cannot be drawn up ahead of time, but has to emerge retroactively from the communicative needs of the moment: “Language learning may be seen as a process which grows out of the interaction between learners, teachers, texts, and activities” (p. 95). Content within a communicative curriculum “would not necessarily be prescribed by purposes but selected and organized within the communicative and differentiated process by learners and teachers as participants in that process (p. 102).” (p. 200)

There is an emerging interest in this type of data-driven learning and a number of recent studies have addressed corpus-based approaches to foreign language teaching and learning (cf. Belz 2004; Belz & Vyatkina 2005; Granger 2002). Seidl­hofer (2002), for instance, points out that “... use of learners’ own previously produced discourse in data driven learning increases both the authenticity of the task and the learners’ motivation to engage with it” (p. 220). Some examples from recent research include Belz and Kinginger’s (2002) study of address forms in German in the context of a telecollaborative model of foreign language learning and Belz and Vyatkina’s (2005) work on pragmatic competence. Technology is also having a profound impact on the roles of teachers and learners by creating a more equal learning environment in which instructors and students collaborate in the construction of knowledge (cf. Kern, Ware, & Warschauer 2004; Lee 2004; Van Deusen-Scholl, Frei, & Dixon 2005; Warschauer 2001, 1997). Thorne and Payne (2005), in their review of emerging technologies, observed that the selective and thoughtful use of SCMC, blogs, wikis, podcasting, device-agnostic CMC, and intelligent online environments holds the potential to transform L2 teaching/learning and the roles engaged in by teachers and students in the collective process of development” (p. 389). Among the new technological tools, particularly CMC has received much attention by researchers (e.g. Beauvois 1997; Lafford & Lafford 2005). Synchronous and asynchronous CMC has been described as “a conversation in slow motion” (Beauvois 1992) and as “a form of prespeech” (Abrams 2003), which affords the learner the benefit of additional time to think and to plan the discourse, generally resulting in an increase in language output and a decrease in anxiety (cf. Chun 1994, 1998; Kern 1995; Lamy & Goodfellow 1999). A majority of studies has looked at synchronous CMC (SCMS), in

194 Nelleke Van Deusen-Scholl

particular written – and to a lesser degree oral – chat (Jepson 2005; Tudini 2003). Sotillo (2000), however, points out that “asynchronous and synchronous CMC have different discourse features which may be exploited for different pedagogical purposes” (p. 82). Asynchronous tools, such as threaded discussions, may allow students more time to plan their writing and “focus on both form and meaning” (Sotillo 2000: 107). A productive area of investigation has focused on the role of technology in the second language (L2) acquisition process and on opportunities for meaning negotiation in a technology-mediated environment (cf. Blake 2000; Kitade 2000; Payne & Ross 2005; Payne & Whitney 2002; Pellettieri 2000). Following the model for meaning negotiation outlined in Varonis and Gass (1985), Smith (2003b), for example, found that there was an influence of task type on the degree to which learners engaged in negotiation in non-native speaker chats. Jepson (2005) focused on repair moves and identified differences between non-native speaker voice and text chats. Tudini (2003) noted a greater degree of self-repair in learner-only chats as compared with native-speaker-learner chats. Several studies have compared CMC discourse with face-to-face interactions (e.g. Warschauer 1996), whereas others have addressed the question of whether or to which degree certain types of CMC are equivalent to oral interaction and to which extent they may be useful in assisting learners in gaining oral proficiency. Abrams (2003) noted, for instance: It is possible that long-term use of CMC (over several semesters or years) – with the increased opportunities for interaction this medium provides – may indeed prove to have significant benefits for the development of oral communicative competence.  (p. 165)

Blake (2005) reports similar findings in his study of a Spanish distance course for beginning learners. Vandergriff (2006) looked specifically at how L2 learners built “common ground” and found no differences between CMC and FTF interactions. Very few studies have thus far applied a discourse analytical perspective to CMC communication. Chun (1994) found similarities between CMC discourse and oral and written interaction, whereas Smith (2003a) investigated communication strategies and found that “learners use a wide range of communication strategies during CMC, similar in many ways to those found in face-to-face interaction” (p. 43). Sotillo (2000) compared synchronous and asynchronous modes of discourse and found evidence for greater syntactic complexity in asynchronous interactions. I next turn to a discussion of the data and participants selected for the present study.



Online discourse strategies 195

Participants and data collection One often-mentioned advantage of CMC is that online interactions can be automatically archived and thus remain easily available for further study and analysis, whereas spoken classroom data are ephemeral and can only be preserved by audio- or videorecordings (cf. Blake 2000; Warschauer 1997). We have collected an extensive corpus of CMC data over a period of three years which contains both online text and voice interactions by beginning and advanced learners of German. These archived data can be used for a number of different purposes: (a) they allow instructors to assess student learning and target instruction better to specific student needs while the course is offered, that is, to experiment with datadriven learning; (b) the data can be used for program evaluation and articulation of levels, as they provide a more comprehensive assessment of the students’ level of proficiency than, for example, oral interviews or completion of a set textbook chapters; and (c) it is possible to track the language development of either individual students or an entire class over a period of time and thus gain insights into the process of language acquisition. Few CMC studies have as yet taken a longitudinal approach. Of the four studies discussed in Payne and Ross (2005), none was more than one semester in length and all used an experimental or quasi-experimental design in which CMC sessions functioned primarily as an intervention intended to elicit specific data. By contrast, the CMC data used for this study are from courses that had integrated technology as part of the regular class assignments. They thus reflect the authentic interactions in the language classroom, which provides a naturalistic context for a discourse analytical approach. Table 1 presents an overview of the total amount of CMC data collected over the course of two semesters for all the students enrolled in a first-year and a thirdyear German course sequence in the Fall of 2004 and the Spring of 2005. The table lists four types of CMC: threaded discussions, chats, emails, and WIMBA voice boards, for each of the four courses, broken down further into plenary (i.e. whole class), group (3 or 4 students), or paired sessions. The Beginning German sequence used a wide variety of CMC, whereas the Advanced German sequence primarily employed the threaded discussions. This difference can be ascribed to the different pedagogical purposes and practices in these classes: the emphasis in the beginning sequence is primarily on providing opportunities for oral and written communication, a focus on grammatical form, and developing basic vocabulary skills. In the advanced classes, however, the main purpose was to develop academic language skills in both spoken and written German. The threaded discussions in the advanced classes served as a forum where students could develop their arguments as a preparation for in-class

196 Nelleke Van Deusen-Scholl

Table 1.  CMC data overview First-semester German

Second-semester German

Fifth-semester German

Sixth-semester German

Number Number Number Number Number Number Number Number Threaded of  of  of  of  of  of  of  of  discussions  (asynchronous) threads postings threads postings threads postings threads postings Plenary    1 Group    1 Chats (synchronous) Plenary Group Paired w/ NS Email exchanges (asynchronous) WIMBA voice boards  (asynchronous)

124   63

2 –

131 –

4 4

165   49

 5 15

318 162

 9  2 –

  31    2    7

– – –

– – –

79

133

–

–

   2

   1

–

–

discussions and as a practice for more formal written essay assignments (cf. Weasenforth, Biesenbach-Lucas, & Meloni 2002). CMC tools, including email, discussion forums, chats, and voice boards, were used in the beginning German class to develop the students’ communicative skills and to focus on accuracy and form. CMC was integrated in a number of sequenced activities that involved in-class presentations, online interactions, in-class debriefings and out-of-class assignments. As McGroarty (1998) pointed out, “the introduction of new technologies entails changes in both social relations and time allocations that affect the entire instructional process, not only the particular sessions during which the innovative technology is employed.” Students also used CMC for peer-editing purposes by uploading their assignments and essay draft to a discussion forum, which enabled them to read each other’s work and provide peer feedback (cf. Sengupta 2001; Swain, Brooks, & Tocalli-Beller 2002). All activities listed in Table 1 – with the exception of emails and the paired chat with the native speaker – were mandatory and formed part of the ongoing class assignments. They were also included in the assessments as part of the class participation, writing, and homework assignment grades. In order to gain a longitudinal perspective, only those students who continued from the Fall to the Spring semester were selected for this study. For the beginning class, 11 students (10 female and 1 male) continued out of a group of 15 (11 female and 4 male). For the advanced class, 10 (9 female and 1 male)



Online discourse strategies 197

students remained in the Spring out of an original group of 16 (12 female and 4 male) students.

Online discourse and communication strategies in Beginning German In this section, I discuss some of the discourse and communication strategies that the beginning students employed in their online interactions with each other, their instructor, and with a native speaker. As the overall data presented in Table 1 indicate, the use of CMC provided ample opportunities for student interaction and for increased output, which conforms to the findings reported in previous studies on the benefits of CMC over face-to-face communication. Kern (1995), for instance, found both an increase in output and in morphosyntactic complexity, whereas Chun (1994) similarly noted improvement in morphological complexity (cf. also Beauvois 1992, 1997; Kelm 1992; Pellettieri 2000; Smith 2003b). Much of the earlier literature, however, focused on group interaction through the use of various forms of synchronous CMC (SCMC), and few studies have as yet addressed individual differences in learning through online mediated forms of (synchronous and asynchronous) communication (cf., for instance, Belz & Kinginger 2003; Belz & Vyatkina 2005; Ware & Kramsch 2005). The first section of the chapter focuses on the individual discourse strategies among the 11 continuing students in Beginning German. If we look at the individual students’ contributions to the threaded discussions and the emails, we can see significant variation in their output. Table 2 breaks down the number of “interactive” emails that the students sent to their instructor in German and the number of postings to the plenary threaded discussions each semester. The total word counts per student are included as well as an indication of their total CMC output. The number of emails per person ranges from just 1 in first-semester German to 31 in second-semester German. On average, each student in our sample wrote 6 emails to the instructor in the Fall and nearly 11 in the Spring, that is, nearly double the number, with an average number of words of 216 in the Fall and 278 in the Spring, an increase of nearly 30%. For the posts made to the threaded discussions, the number ranged from 1 to 9, with word counts ranging from 78 to 1037 per posting. The average number of posts to the plenary threaded discussions in firstsemester German was 7, with an average word count of 148. For second-semester German, the students averaged 10 posts for the two topics that were assigned for the course, with an average word count per student of 536 words, a nearly four-fold . “Empty” email messages, i.e. ones that were just sent to attach an assignment but which did not contain an accompanying message, were not included in the count.

198 Nelleke Van Deusen-Scholl

Table 2.  Emails and posts per individual student for Beginning German First-semester German Emails Student3 Number Word count Anna James Joan Kate Laurie Lydia Marjorie Melinda Norah Sarah Susan

 1  2 10  7  5  6  3  1 22  5  2

  41   97 106 357 134 353   19   31 979 181   80

Second-semester German

Posts Number Word count 8 5 5 8 5 9 7 5 7 6 7

128 117 227 122   78 235 142   89 184 146 164

Emails Number Word count  2  2 15 12 18  2  5  8 20 31  4

  30   34 432 721 267 112 203 236 762 181   80

Posts Number Word count 7 3 1 5 7 5 7 7 9 6 8

  448   380   222   427   385   499   634   530   739   590 1037

increase compared with the previous semester. With the exception of one student (Joan), all the students increased their contributions significantly over the two semesters. A number of possible reasons can be given for this increase in output: (a) the students had acquired sufficient language skills to express themselves with increasing effectiveness in their written communication; (b) they became gradually socialized into a learning environment where online interactions were the norm and were considered an important component of classroom contributions; (c) through the threaded discussions, the students established rapport and engaged in an exchange of personal information (cf. Dixon, Frei, & Van Deusen-Scholl 2004); (d) use of CMC provided the students with increased opportunities to communicate in authentic contexts (e.g., they used email to send excuses to the instructor about absences or missed assignments; they shared information about their families and about social activities in the threaded discussions); (e) a highly autonomous learning environment may be particularly beneficial for those students who are exceptionally motivated or who are quite comfortable in taking risks, challenging them to explore the range of interactional opportunities available to them. Our data furthermore indicated that quantity of output should not be regarded as the most significant factor in identifying the more successful learners, but rather the extent to which the students used the range of communicative resources available to them inside and outside the classroom, the strategies they used to sustain successful communication, and their level of awareness of their own learning. . The students’ names have been changed to ensure anonymity.



Online discourse strategies 199

Table 3.  Emails and codeswitching First-semester German Student

Total number of words

Anna James Joan Kate Laurie Lydia Marjorie Melinda Norah Sarah Susan

  41   97 106 357 134 353   19   31 979 181   80

Second-semester German

Number of German Total number words (%) of words   19    2   21 152   41    3   17   24 344 103    2

(46%) (2%) (20% (42%) (30%) (1%) (89%) (77%) (35%) (56%) (3%)

  30   34 432 721 267 112 203 136 762 986   99

Number of German words (%)   27   30   19   47 181   28   85 126 569 823   69

(90%) (88%) (4%) (7%) (68%) (25%) (41%) (92%) (74%) (83%) (69%)

There were significant individual differences in the discourse strategies that the students used in their online interactions. Codeswitching, for instance, was used by a number of students from the very beginning of the first semester. While the threaded discussions were primarily in German, the emails generally showed a combination of English and the target language, as is shown in Table 3. The percentages of German versus English words in the emails varied widely by individual and by semester, ranging from 1% to more than 90%. Overall, however, the amount of German in the emails increased from 36% in the Fall to 58% in the Spring semesters. Among the most productive students, Norah and Sarah, in particular, appeared to make an effort to communicate as much as possible in the target language. Codeswitching served a number of different functions. Some of the students simply inserted German words and phrases whenever possible as a way to try out new vocabulary or simply to engage in language play, as is shown in Example 1: Example 1. Email from Kate on November 14, 2005 Prof D., Tut mir leid! (I am sorry) I do not have the other German professor’s email address, but ich moechte (I would like) to let you know that I have not had a chance to finish her homework assignment. My sorority commitment (as ditsy as it may sound) has taken over my life until Mittwoch (Wednesday). I was at the sorority house from 6pm until 5am tonight and ich muss schlafen (I must sleep) before a 9:30 meeting. I hope you understand and I will try and make it up as soon as I return to your class. I know it sounds like a silly thing

200 Nelleke Van Deusen-Scholl

to be putting above class, but it is this eine Woche (one week) and then I will re-claim my academic and personal life. Bis Mittwoch. Danke. (Till Wednesday. Thank you).

In this email, Kate appears to use codeswitching as a strategy to deflect any reprimand from her instructor about missing class by using the target language in a light-hearted way; it may also signal an attempt to show her continued interest in the course and commitment to the language. By contrast, in Example 2, Norah, a first-semester student, is trying to convey a rather complex email message to her instructor in the target language, but gives up halfway through and switches to English as she does not yet master the syntactic and lexical skills necessary for this type of message. She ends her email, however, with an appropriate greeting in German, and thus frames the message as a way to reaffirm her commitment to communicate in the target language. Example 2. Email from Norah on October 19, 2004 Lieber Professor D., Danke schoen fuer alles Ihre Arbeit mit unserer Hausaufgabe. (Thank you for everything your efforts on our homework) Ich glaube, alles die Studenten und die Studentennin in der Kurs sind wir erstaunt (I believe everything the students [M]and students [F-plural error] in the course are amazed) by how much effort you make on our behalf, especially with these written assignments that require so much correction. Thank you for all the corrections and especially the explanations. I am attaching my corrected email. I hope I understood all the changes you indicated. Bis Mittwoch, (Till Wednesday)

In a subsequent message, she adopts a similar strategy but apologizes in advance for her lack of time to write in German and switches to English. This type of codeswitching suggests that the opportunity to plan the discourse also plays an important role in the students’ decision to write in the target language, as particularly in the beginning classes composing even a brief email message may be perceived as a writing task, as evidenced by Norah’s use of the word ‘Brief’ (letter). Example 3. Email from Norah on October 25, 2004 Guten Abend. (Good evening) Entshuldigung – Ich habe keine Zeit fuer diesen Brief im Deutsch schreiben. (My apologies – I don’t have time to write this letter in German) Hope your conference was “toll.” (fun) I stopped by the German office at around 11:30 and my workbook was not there. Please let me know when it is in your mailbox and I will try again then. Danke (Thank you) – Norah



Online discourse strategies 201

The extent to which the students used the target language and took advantage of the opportunities for communication practice with their instructor and their peers appeared to correlate with their overall level of success in the class, although this relationship would need to be confirmed with more extensive data and analysis. The more successful students did not necessarily write more email messages, but they made greater attempts to write in the target language and also sought more opportunities for feedback and correction. Sarah, for instance, was a highly successful and extremely motivated student who – though she only wrote five emails during the first semester – attempted to switch to German early on, as shown in Example 4. Example 4. Email from Sarah on October 28, 2004 Liebe Herr D., Ich bin nicht am Mittwoch in der Klasse. Entschuldigung! Heute habe ich das GRE in Washington D.C. Ich bin sehr glücklich weil es fertig ist. Haben Sie mehr Hausafgaben für mich? Ich habe den Lehrplan aber geht es mehr Hausaufgaben von die Klasse? Sarah P.S. Please send me any corrections to my German email since I always feel completely unsure when I’m writing anything from scratch. Thanks! (Dear Mr. D. I will not be in class on Wednesday. Apologies! I have the GRE in Washington, D.C. I will be happy when it’s done. Do you have more homework for me? I have the syllabus but is there more homework for class?)

Sarah frequently asked for corrective feedback from her instructor and then attempted to incorporate it in her writing. The instructor responded to her emails and other written work over the course of the semester with suggestions and feedback. After he received the following email, for instance, which contains an error in the um-zu+INF construction, he wrote back to her with suggestions and examples for using this construction appropriately. Example 5. Email from Sarah on November 15, 2004 Liebe Herr D., Ich habe meine Hausaufgabe eingebringen. Für eine Erinnerung werde ich nicht am Mittwoch in der Klasse sein, weil ich nach California gehe zu Universitäte besuchen. Bis bald ! (I brought my homework. I want to remind you that I will not be in class on Wednesday, because I am going to California to visit a University. See you soon!)

202 Nelleke Van Deusen-Scholl

In a later email, written during the following semester, Sarah incorporates this construction appropriately, even though it had not been formally introduced in class. Example 6. Excerpt from email from Sarah on March 18, 2005 Lieber Herr D., Diese Woche ist sehr schlecht. Meine Schwägerinnen sind am Dienstag von Berlin und Phoenix in Philadelphia um mich zu besuchen. Ich glaube auch, dass ich am Mittwoch nach New York um Doktorprogramm zu besuchen gehen muss. (...) (This week is very bad. My sisters-in-law from Berlin and Phoenix are in Philadelphia on Tuesday to visit me. I believe too, that I have to go to New York on Wednesday in order to visit a doctorate program.)

This example suggests that students were able to acquire grammatical skills as a result of the communicative needs that arose in the interactions and not just based on formal instruction. Sarah’s discourse strategies contrast sharply with those of James, who made minimal attempts to interact with the instructor via email (just two emails per semester). Most of his messages were written in English and were mainly intended to hand in his assignments, and not to interact with or seek feedback or language input from his instructor. His very last email, though, is interesting in that it reflects his interest in – and perhaps his motivation for – learning the language, although up to that point he had not show any extraordinary efforts or initiative: Example 7. Email from James on April 6, 2005 Hallo Herr D., Ich finde das Webseite für das Stadt “Wertheim.” Am 1989 und 1990 habe ich ins Wertheim gewohnt. Ich denke, dass Sie es interessant finden könnten. http:// www.wertheim.de/ Tchüss! (Hello Mr. D. I have found the web site for the city of Wertheim. I lived in Wertheim in 1989 and 1990. I think you will find it interesting. See you later! James)

Sarah was extremely successful in the course and attained a perfect score for the final oral interview, administered by a different instructor, whereas James ended . Her instructor reports that she also took a summer course through the Goethe Institute and was placed at what was then a High-Intermediate level of instruction, which now corresponds approximately to level B.2 of the European Framework of Reference for Languages which characterizes the learners as “Independent Users” who: can understand the main ideas of complex text on both concrete and abstract topics, including technical discussions in their field of specialization. They can interact



Online discourse strategies 203

up in the low average range, which may indicate that use of CMC could play an important role in the development of oral skills in face-to-face, classroom situations, or both (cf. Abrams 2003) Beauvois 1997; Blake 2000; Payne & Whitney 2002). However, as Thorne and Payne (2005) pointed out, future research must further examine “the possibility of cross-modality transfer between SCMC use and oral language production” (p. 374). Although threaded discussions and email exchanges offered opportunities for grammar feedback and practice of written skills, synchronous chats, which were scheduled toward the end of the second semester, were more conducive to practice of oral discourse. Tudini’s (2003) study reported on a series of chat sessions in which learners of Italian were paired up in a public chat room with native speakers. She asserted that “chatting with NS [native speakers] in a chat room where only the target language is spoken provides an authentic and purposeful crosscultural experience which is otherwise limited to the language teacher, members of the local community or other learners” (p. 157). The chats in this study were set up under more controlled conditions than those described in Tudini’s study the students were invited to schedule an individual online appointment outside of class with a native speaker of German with whom they were not familiar, a graduate student of linguistics at their university; the chats were presented as an optional practice for the oral interview, and seven students, all part of the continuing group in our study, took advantage of this opportunity; the chats were set up within BlackBoard and were archived as part of the course. Each of the students spent about 30 to 45 minutes chatting one-on-one with the native speaker on a topic of their choice. Again, we observed significant differences with respect to the students’ interactional strategies. Savignon and Roithmeier (2004) noted that “... strategic competence in CMC includes the development of learning strategies as well as communication strategies and, as holds true in other modes of communication, is with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without strain for either party. Students will be able to produce clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects and explain a viewpoint on a topical issue giving the advantages and disadvantages of various options. (http://www.goethe. de/ins/us/was/lrn/stf/enindex.htm) This would validate our assessment of this student as highly successful. . Although the chats were set up originally to collect data for a graduate student project, the instructor presented it as an opportunity for additional practice for the final oral interview and incorporated it as an optional activity into the curriculum. Given that the students reacted extremely positively to the experience, this oral interview has been continued as a mandatory activity in subsequent classes.

204 Nelleke Van Deusen-Scholl

inextricably tied to the development of grammatical, discoursal, and sociolinguistic or sociocultural features of communicative competence” (p. 267). Example 8 is excerpted from a chat with James. When the communication breaks down, he does not attempt to repair the conversation and easily abandons the topic after the native speaker, Theresa, suggests moving on. He thus misses an opportunity for modified output and does not try to self-correct: Example 8. Excerpt from chat between James and Theresa on April 15, 2005 James: Theresa: James: Theresa: James: Theresa: James:

Es hat eine Mann. Der Mann ist boese. There’s a man. The man is evil. Es gibt einen Mann, ja. There’s a man, yes. Er probiert sich er Leben. He tries his life. Er versucht was? He tries what? Ich tut mir Leid. Ich vergesse eine Wort. I’m sorry. I forget a word. SIe haben ein Wort vergessen. Kein Problem Wir koennen ueber etwas anderes reden. Was machen Sie heute abend noch? You forgot a word. Not a problem. We can talk about something else. What are you doing this evening? Heute Abend, ... Tonight, ...

James does not respond to Theresa’s corrective feedback and offers an apology in response to her request for clarification rather than attempt to come up with the word. When the native speaker offers him the option of abandoning the topic, he immediately changes the direction of the conversation and thus loses an opportunity for learning. Anna, however, successfully manages to solve the communication breakdown and continue the conversation, as shown in Example 9: Example 9. Excerpt from chat between Anna and Theresa on April 12, 2005 Anna: Theresa:

Ich komme aus das Land. I come out of the country. Ich komme aus dem Land. I come from the country.

. Theresa is a pseudonym for the native speaker who conducted the online chats with the second-semester students.



Online discourse strategies 205

Anna: Theresa: Anna: Theresa: Anna:

Ich leibe in einen Ort nicht. I don’t live in a town. Sie meinen, Sie kommen vom Land? You mean, you come from the country(side)? sudzentral Pennsylvania. Woher kommen Sie? Southcentral Pennsylvania. Where do you come from? Ich komme aus Berlin. Waren Sie schon einmal in Berlin? I am from Berlin. Were you ever in Berlin? Ja, ich komme vom Land. Nein, ... Yes, I come from the country(side). No, ...

The breakdown in this example derives from the confusion about the expression aus das Land, which the student intends as ‘I come from the country (as opposed to the city). Theresa at first interprets it as country (in the sense of nation), but when Anna clarifies her statement by saying that she does not come from the city (as opposed to the country), she realizes what Anna means and recasts the sentence as Sie kommen vom Land? Anna adds the region where she is from and maintains topic continuation by asking the native speaker where she is from. Because this is an asynchronous chat, she does not catch up with Theresa’s correction until her next turn and deftly manages simultaneously to recast her original statement in the proper grammatical form and continue the conversation by answering the native speaker’s next question. The speakers thus cooperatively repair the communication breakdown while maintaining the conversational flow. Norah, who in her other CMC interactions uses opportunities for self-correction and feedback, utilizes similar strategies in her chat with the native speaker. Examples 10 and 11 show how she obtains grammatical and lexical feedback without communication breakdown. Example 10. Excerpt from chat between Norah and Theresa on April 23, 2005 Theresa: Norah: Theresa: Norah:

Sind Ihre Soehne noch klein? Are your sons still small? Ja und nein. Der alter, der 15 Jahre alt ist, glaube dass er Gross ist aber er macht keine Hausaufgabe! Yes and no. The older one, who is 15 years old, believes that he’s big, but he doesn’t do any homework. der aeltere, ja. The older one, yes. Ja, ich weiss nicht wie mit meimen AELTERE Sohn machen. MEINEM Yes, I don’t know what to do with my OLDER son. MY

206 Nelleke Van Deusen-Scholl

Theresa:

ich weiss nicht was ich mit meinem Sohn machen soll. I don’t know what I should do with my son.

After Theresa corrects her, Norah continues the topic without interrupting the conversational flow, but capitalizes the word to signal that she has noticed the correction. The native speaker then recasts the entire sentence which contains multiple errors. In another example, Norah uses quotation marks to indicate that she does not know a particular word. Example 11. Excerpt from chat between Norah and Theresa on April 23, 2005 Norah: Theresa: Norah:

Ich bin “several” Mal nach Frankreich gegangen und einmal nach Spanien. I went “several” times to France and once to Spain. Viele meiner Freunde machen Feldstudien, wobei sie viele Menschen interviewen muessen. mehrere Male oder mehrmals A lot of my friends do field work, for which they have to interview a lot of people. several times or several times. danke. Ich bin mehrmals nach Kanada gegangen. Thanks. I went several times to Canada.

After Theresa offers two suggestions, Norah immediately picks up on one and continues the topic. She does not self-correct but rather incorporates the new vocabulary in the conversation. This strategy occurs several times throughout the chat, and allows her to learn and practice new vocabulary in the context of an authentic conversation. Sarah, as noted earlier, actively seeks corrections and asks for clarification in her emails to the instructor. She also does this several times in her chat with Theresa, as can be seen in the following Example 12: Example 12. Excerpt from chat between Sarah and Theresa on April 8, 2005 Sarah:

(...) Naechste Jahr, gehe ich zu UCLA fuer einem PhD Programm. Next year, I will go to UCLA for a Ph.D. program.

. The second capitalized word in Example 10 simply indicates a correction of a spelling error that she made earlier in the sentence.



Online discourse strategies 207

Theresa: Sarah: Theresa:

Ah! Ich glaube, mein Mitbewohner ist in dem selben Programm wie Sie. Er heisst C. Ah! I believe my roommate is in the same program as you. His name is C. kann man “gehe” benutzt oder gibt es ein besser Wort? can you use “gehe” or is there a better word? Ja, man kann “gehen” benutzen. Ich gehe an die UCLA fuer ein PhD Programm. Yes, you can use “gehen”. I go to UCLA for a Ph.D. program.

Theresa first recasts the question and corrects one of the verb forms (‘benutzen’ should be an infinitive) and then models Sarah’s original statement. Sarah then continues the conversation and several turns later acknowledges the explanation with an expression of thanks. She is obviously aware of grammatical and lexical gaps in her own linguistic system and seeks to fill these gaps by seeking help and actively practicing her skills. She explicitly acknowledges the opportunity to practice with a native speaker in an email to her instructor after she has completed her chat: Example 13. Email from Sarah on April 8, 2005 Lieber Herr D., Ich habe das Gesprach heute mit T. gemacht. Sie koennen es jetzt im Blackboard sehen. Ich war ein bisschen nervioes, aber sie war sehr nett und geduldig. Danke fuer die Opportunitaet! (Dear Mr. D., I had my conversation with T. today. You can look at it now in BlackBoard. I was a bit nervous, but she was very nice and patient. Thanks for the opportunity!)

Melinda follows a similar strategy in her chat with the native speaker, as shown in Example 14: Example 14. Excerpt from chat between Melinda and Theresa on April 12, 2005 Melinda: Theresa: Melinda:

(...) Dann gehe ich in die Klasse. then I go to class gehe ich in den Unterricht. I go for instruction Ich habe Klasse fuer Griechisch, Latein, und Deutsch. I take classes in Greek, Latin, and German

208 Nelleke Van Deusen-Scholl

Theresa: Melinda: Theresa: Melinda:

Kurse in Griechish, Latein, und Deutsch. Welches ist Ihr Lieblingskurs? courses in Greek, Latin, and German. What is your favorite course? Danke. Wann benutzt man “Klasse”? Thanks. When do you use “class”? Ein Klasse ist meist nur die Gruppe der Studenten (oder Schueler in der Schule) A class is usually just a group of students or pupils in a school Mein Lieblingskurs is Griechisch, weil die Sprache sehr schwer und schoen ist. My favorite course is Greek, because the language is very difficult and beautiful.

Melinda is not clear about the connotation of the word Klasse (class) in German, which is mainly used in the primary and secondary school context. While the conversation continues, Theresa sorts out the intended meanings (first suggesting Unterricht (instruction) then Kurse (courses) and provides an explanation in response to Melinda’s explicit request for clarification. Melinda then continues with her response to the native speaker’s question. This type of discourse organization (i.e. a question-answer sequence interrupted by an insertion sequence intended to clarify a lexical or grammatical point) occurred frequently in the data (cf. Smith 2004). The findings appear to support those reported in Tudini (2003) who found that “the data also provide some evidence of the ability of chat discourse to promote learner noticing of errors and attention to form: lexical and structural difficulties appear to be the principal triggers for negotiation and modification of interlanguage in these interactions, as described in previous synchronous CMC literature” (p. 156). In addition to seeking lexical or syntactic clarification, a few students also requested explicit linguistic feedback, focusing on syntactic and morphological rules, as can been seen in the following Examples 15–19: Example 15. Email from Norah on November 18, 2004 Liebe Professor D. (Dear Professor D.] Hier ist meinen dritten Versuch! [‘Here is my third attempt’] (I know that this is der Versuch (the [Masc.] attempt) but I am not sure if, even though Versuch is in the subject, whether mein (my) and dritte (third) are treated as adjectives & put in the genitive??? Haben sie verstanden dass ich dieser Grammatik (die Grammatik); aber ist diese, dieses oder dieser) sehr schwer finde? Schoenes Wochenende! (did you understand that I find this grammar



Online discourse strategies 209

(this grammar [nom]; but is this [nom], this [gen] or this [dat] very difficult? Have a good weekend!)

Sarah and Susan, both Classical Studies majors, also seek this type of explicit linguistic feedback, presumably because they are trained in grammatical analysis and possess the appropriate metalinguistic skills to articulate their questions. In Example 16, Susan notices Theresa’s correction and confirms her observation by asking whether the verb is reflexive. Example 16. Excerpt from chat between Susan and Theresa on April 15, 2005 Susan: Theresa: Susan:

Ich glaube, dass ich mit meinem Freund treffen werde. I think I will meet with my friend dass ich mich mit meinem Freund treffen werde.** that I will meet [REFL] with my friend treffen ist reflexiv? meet is reflexive?

In Example 17, Susan is not sure about the grammatical gender of the word that she uses, but picks up immediately on the reason for the recast by the native speaker. Theresa and Susan also negotiate the correct spelling of the grammatical term that Susan attempts to use. Example 17. Excerpt from chat between Susan and Theresa on April 15, 2005 Susan: Theresa: Susan: Theresa:

... in einem Wohnung. in a [DAT-MASC] house in einer Wohnung. in a [DAT-FEM] house Wohnung is feminenn? ach, feminen house is feminine [sp] ? eh, feminine [sp] Ja, feminin ... Yes, feminine

In Example 18, Sarah makes a word order error and then elicits feedback on the correct placement of adverbials. Example 18. Excerpt from chat between Sarah and Theresa on April 8, 2005 Sarah: Theresa:

Ich habe geplant, dass wir zusammen am Wochenende sind (...) I planned that we together would be for the weekends (...) Ich habe geplant, dass wir am Wochenende zusammen sind (...) I planned that we would be together for the weekend (...)

210 Nelleke Van Deusen-Scholl

Sarah:

Danke. Ist das “time manner place”? Thanks. Is that “time manner place”?

Obviously not all students possess this type of metalinguistic awareness nor am I suggesting that developing it should be part of a communicative classroom approach, but for those students who employed this as a strategy to discuss specific grammar points or to confirm their intuitions about lexical or morphosyntactic rules, it appeared to help them become more aware of their language use. In some instances, we found evidence that they later used a particular form correctly, but whether such explicit strategies contribute to L2 acquisition would need to be confirmed with more systematic data. Finally, a number of the students used frequent self-corrections and indicated this correction orthographically to alert the native speaker; this is a convention commonly employed in instant messaging (IM) exchanges or chats, where it is used to signal typographical errors and mistakes. Here in Examples 19–20, however, it is extended to grammar issues: Example 19. Excerpt from chat between Susan and Theresa on April 15, 2005 Susan: Theresa: Susan: Theresa:

Und du? Was studierest du? and you? What do you study? Ah. Eh studierst** study ja. =) Ich studiere Sprachwissenschaft. yes. I study linguistics.

Example 20. Excerpt from chat between Susan and Theresa on April 15, 2005 Susan:

Was ist deine Lieblingsrestaurant hier? dein** What is your [M/F] favorite restaurant here? your’ [N]

The more successful learners in the Beginning German sequence thus availed themselves of the opportunities for practice through CMC, used a wide variety of discourse strategies, produced generally more language and more complex sentence structures, actively sought feedback and correction, and appeared more aware of their own learning than the less successful students. They also made frequent attempts to practice the language and incorporate newly acquired structures and vocabulary into their (online) conversations.



Online discourse strategies 211

Table 4.  Contributions to threaded discussions by individual students Fifth-semester German

Sixth-semester German

Student

Posts

Words

Posts

Words

Carmen Cara Cody Dana Ellen Jody Myriam Mara Maureen Paul

  12   11    8    9    9   25    8   10   10   11 113

  964 1304   627   685   687 1504   538 1194   646   847 8996

  17   20    4   20   15   26   15   13   15   15 160

  1550   1748    428   1383   1221   2283   1188   1438   1299   1046 13584

Academic discourse and pragmatic competence in Advanced German A final issue that emerged from our data was the question of pragmatic awareness, which was of particular relevance to the Advanced German class focusing on acquisition of academic discourse and pragmatic competence. In this course, the students used threaded discussions to develop their thoughts, plan their writing, exchange ideas, reflect on their readings, and expand on the in-class discussions. Table 4 shows the total number of contributions per student to these plenary threaded discussions. The mean number of postings for the fifth semester German course was 11 with an average word count of 899; the mean number of postings for the sixth semester German course was 16 with an average word count of 1358, which represents a significant overall increase in output of 45% in the number of posts and 51% in the number of words. This increase can be ascribed to a number of factors: the students are gaining confidence in their own writing, they are engaged in the subject matter, and they are becoming more confident in their ability to discuss academic and literary topics. At the advanced level, the hybrid (i.e. oral/written) discourse mode of the threaded discussions thus functioned as a bridge toward the development of formal written academic language, which was evident from both the total amount of written output and the syntactic complexity of the contributions. This development conforms to Sotillo’s (2000) findings that asynchronous discussions were more syntactically complex and allowed more planning time for well-thought out responses than synchronous interactions. As the instructor emphasized use of the formal address form in academic contexts (e.g. by consistently addressing her students with Sie and insisting that

212 Nelleke Van Deusen-Scholl

they use this form in formal discussions), it was anticipated that the online data might show a high incidence of formal pronoun use, but that was not the case. In the first semester, students used the formal pronoun only 3 times out of a total of 8996 words, compared with 41 uses of du, and just 23 times in the second semester (out of 13584 words), compared with 32 uses of du. The students seemed to view the context of the threaded discussions as one in which they primarily address their peers as the intended audience, which would favor the informal address form. However, they seldom addressed each other directly but rather used the postings as semiformal essays, expressing their views with such formulaic expressions as meiner Meinung nach (in my opinion), conveying a written rather than an oral mode of communication. Recent research in this area has underscored the potential of computer-mediated communication for expanding the opportunities for social interaction and broadening discourse options (cf. Belz & Kinginger 2002, 2003; Kinginger 2000). In particular, telecollaborative exchanges (cf. Belz 2003; Fürstenberg 2003; Fürstenberg et al. 2001; Ware 2005; Ware & Kramsch 2005) or networked local interactions with native speakers (cf. Lee 2004) may create the conditions that promote development of pragmatic competence. The instructor can to some extent manipulate the online interactions to trigger use of a more formal style for the purpose of, for example, increasing students’ awareness of the formal and informal address forms and the contexts in which they are used (cf. Belz & Kinginger 2003). This explicit pedagogical strategy could be observed, for instance, in the chats that the beginning learners held with the native speaker. Theresa consistently addressed the students with the formal pronoun and while most students employed the informal pronoun in return, several alternated between du and Sie, perhaps and one of the students responded with Sie and a few varied between the two forms, perhaps unsure of the status of their interlocutor. One student, however, apparently took her cue from the native speaker and maintained the formal address form throughout the interaction. Example 21 represents the beginning and the end of their conversation: Example 21. Excerpt from Chat between Lydia and Theresa on April 21, 2005 Theresa: Lydia: Lydia: Theresa:

Wie geht es Ihnen? How are you? Es geht mir gut. Und Ihnen? I’m fine. And you? (...) Ich wuensche Ihnen viel Erfolg beim Deutschlernen I wish you much success in learning German



Online discourse strategies 213

Lydia:

Und sie! Es war sehr schoen! And you. It was very nice!

The native speaker-nonnative speaker chats may provide better opportunities for focusing on pragmatic awareness than the threaded discussions (cf. Sotillo 2000). For the advanced students, engaging them in a great variety of interactive discourse tasks and promoting authentic communication with native speakers might better target acquisition of pragmatic competence. Ideally, this approach should be taken from the beginning levels of language study onward.

Conclusion Pedagogically appropriate use of CMC within a classroom context provides many opportunities for meaningful interaction and authentic communication. Instructors can use CMC to address the specific communicative needs of the students as they arise, rather than teach on the basis of artificial sequences as they are presented in textbooks whether they are grammar-based or communicatively-oriented. CMC offers a wide range of discourse options to learners for practicing communication, ranging from informal to formal, from oral to written, and from planned to unplanned discourse. In answer to research question 1, it appeared from our data that the more successful learners shared a number of strategies and showed similarities in the extent to which they used these strategies; for example, they a. selected a wide array of CMC resources for communication and interaction beyond the classroom; b. produced more language through a variety of CMC modes (email, threaded, discussions, chats, etc.); c. attempted to communicate primarily in the TL; d. sought opportunities for correction and feedback from both peers and instructor; e. used a variety of communication strategies to maintain conversational flow and avoid communication breakdown; and f. displayed a high degree of metalinguistic awareness. With respect to the second research question, the analysis of Sarah’s use of discourse strategies suggested that there is a correlation between consistent strategy use and successful language learning, although the findings from the present study should be regarded as preliminary and would need to be confirmed with a more systematic and comprehensive analysis. It is not clear from our data what role the instructor plays in stimulating the use of these strategies or whether

214 Nelleke Van Deusen-Scholl

affective factors such as attitudes and motivation play a more important role in learner success. It appears, however, that a learning environment that provides a rich array of technology-mediated communicative resources creates student interest and enhances their participation. Whereas the quantity of output per student appeared to have less impact than the way in which the resources were used, the analysis of research question 3 revealed that instructors played an important role in guiding the pedagogical choices that built on the students’ strengths and were targeted to their communicative needs. Data collection for this project is ongoing and we intend to create a learner corpus that might allow us to perform a more robust analysis of specific strategies identified in this study. A number of questions emerged from this study that have been touched on in the current literature but would need to be addressed more fully: 1. (How) does use of CMC promote oral proficiency and how does it contribute to transfer of skills from online to face-to-face interactions (e.g. Thorne & Payne 2005; Abrams 2003)? 2. What are the implications of a technology-mediated approach to teaching for curriculum development, course design, and articulation of levels? 3. How can CMC be used to expand the range of discourse options available to the students to promote development of pragmatic competence (e.g. Belz & Kinginger 2003; Belz & Vyatkina 2005)?

References Abrams, Z. I. (2003). The effect of synchronous and asynchronous CMC on oral performance in German. The Modern Language Journal, 87, 157–167. Beauvois, M. (1992). Computer-assisted classroom discussion: Conversation in slow motion. Foreign Language Annals, 25(5), 525–534. Beauvois, M. (1997). Computer-mediated communication: Technology for improving speaking and writing. In M.D. Bush & R. M. Terry (Eds.), Technology-enhanced language learning (pp. 165–184). Lincolnwood, IL: National Textbook Company. Belz, J. (2003). Linguistic perspectives on the development of intercultural competence in telecollaboration. Language Learning & Technology, 7(2), 68–117. Belz, J. (2004). Learner corpus analysis and the development of foreign language proficiency. System, 32, 577–591. Belz, J. & Kinginger,C. (2002). The cross-linguistic development of address form use in telecollaborative language learning: Two case studies. Canadian Modern Language Review, 59(2), December 2002, 189–214. Belz, J. & Kinginger, C. (2003). Discourse options and the development of pragmatic competence by classroom learners of German: The case of address forms. Language Learning, 53(4), 591–647.



Online discourse strategies 215

Belz, J. & Vyatkina, N. (2005). Computer-mediated learner corpus research and the data-driven-teaching of L2 pragmatic competence: The Case of German modal particles. CALPER Working Papers Series, No. 4. The Pennsylvania State University, Center for Advanced Language Proficiency Education and Research. Blake, R. (2000). Computer mediated communication: A window on L2 Spanish interlanguage. Language Learning & Technology, 4(1), 120–136. Blake, R. (2005). Bimodal CMC: The glue of language learning at a distance. CALICO Journal, 22(3), 497–511. Breen, M. & Candlin, C. (1980). The essentials of a communicative curriculum in language teaching. Applied Linguistics, 1, 89–112. Chapelle, C. (2003). English language learning and technology. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Chun, D. (1998). Using computer-assisted class discussion to facilitate the acquisition of interactive competence. In J. Swaffar, S. Romano, P. Markley, & K. Arens (Eds.), Language learning online: Theory and practice in the ESL and L2 computer classroom (pp. 57–80). Austin, TX: Labyrinth Publications. Chun, D. (1994). Using computer networking to facilitate the acquisition of interactive competence. System, 22(1), 17–31. Dixon, E., Frei, C., & Van Deusen-Scholl, N. (June 2004). Technology enhanced foreign language teaching and learning practices. Paper presented at the 2004 CALICO annual conference. Fürstenberg, G. (2003). Reading between the cultural lines. In P. Patrikis (Ed.)., Reading between the lines: Perspectives on foreign language literacy (pp. 74–98). New Have, CT: Yale University Press. Fürstenberg, G., Levet, S., English, K., & Maillet, K. (2001). Giving virtual voice to the silent language of culture: The CULTURA Project. Language Learning & Technology, 5 (1), 55– 102. Goethe Institute Washington. Levels of courses and examinations at the Goethe Institute. http://www.goethe.de/ins/us/was/lrn/stf/enindex.htm. Accessed June 26, 2007. Granger, S. (2002). A bird’s-eye view of learner corpus research. In S. Granger, J. Hung, & S. Petch-Tyson (Eds.), Computer Learner Corpora, Second Language Acquisition and Foreign Language Teaching (pp. 3–33). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Jepson, K. (2005). Conversations – and negotiated interaction – in text and voice chat rooms. Language Learning & Technology, 9(3), 79–98. Kelm, O. (1992). The use of synchronous computer networks in second language instruction: A preliminary study. Foreign Language Annals, 25(5), 441–454. Kern, R. (1995). Restructuring classroom interaction with networked computers: Effects on quality and characteristics of language production. The Modern Language Journal, 79(4), 457–476. Kern, R., Ware, P., & Warschauer, M. (2004). Crossing frontiers: New directions in online pedagogy and research. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 24, 243–260. Kinginger, C. (2000). Learning the pragmatics of solidarity in the networked foreign language classroom. In J. K. Hall & L. S. Verplaetse (Eds.), Second and foreign language learning through classroom interaction (pp. 23–46). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Kitade, K. (2000). L2 learners’ discourse and SLA theories in CMC: Collaborative interaction in internet chat. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 13(2), 143–166. Lafford, P. & Lafford, R. (2005). CMC technologies for teaching foreign languages: What’s on the horizon? CALICO Journal, 22(3), 679–709.

216 Nelleke Van Deusen-Scholl

Lamy, M-N. & Goodfellow, R. (1999). “Reflective conversation” in the virtual language classroom. Language Learning & Technology, 2(2), 43–61. Lee, L. (2004). Learner’s perspectives on networked collaborative interaction with native speakers of Spanish in the U.S. Language Learning & Technology, 8(1), 83–100. Levy, M. & Kennedy, C. (2004). A task-cycling pedagogy using stimulated reflection and audiconferencing in foreign language learning. Language Learning & Technology, 8(2), 50–68. McGroarty, M. (1998). Constructive and constructionist challenges for applied linguistics. Language Learning, 48, 591–622. Payne, J. S. & Ross, B. M. (2005). Synchronous CMC, working memory, and L2 oral proficiency development. Language Learning & Technology, 9(3), 35–54. Payne, J. S. & Whitney, P. J. (2002). Developing L2 oral proficiency through synchronous CMC: Output, working memory, and interlanguage development. CALICO Journal, 20, 7–32. Pellettieri, J. (2000). Negotiation in cyberspace: The role of chatting in the development of grammatical competence. In M. Warschauer & R. Kern (Eds.), Network-based language teaching: Concepts and practice (pp. 59–86). Cambridge: CUP. Savignon, S. J. & Roithmeier, W. (2004). Computer-mediated communication: Texts and strategies. CALICO Journal, 21, 265–290. Seidlhofer, B. (2002). Pedagogy and local learner corpora. In S. Granger, J. Hung, & S. PetchTyson (Eds.), Computer learner corpora, second language acquisition and foreign language teaching (pp. 213–234). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Sengupta, S. (2001). Exchanging ideas with peers in network-based classrooms: An aid or a pain? Language Learning & Technology, 5(1), 103–143. Smith, B. (2003a). The use of communication strategies in computer-mediated communication. System, 31, 29–53. Smith, B. (2003b). Computer-mediated negotiated interaction: An expanded model. The Modern Language Journal, 87, 38–57. Smith, B. (2004). Computer-mediated negotiated interaction and lexical acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 26(3), 365–398. Sotillo, S. (2000). Discourse functions and syntactic complexity in synchronous and asynchronous communication. Language Learning & Technology, 4 (1), 82–119. Swain, M., Brooks, L., & Tocalli-Beller, A. (2002). Peer-peer dialogue as a means of second language learning. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 22, 171–185. Thorne, S. L. & Payne, J. S. (2005). Evolutionary trajectories, internet-mediated expression, and language education. CALICO Journal, 22(3), 371–397. Tudini, V. (2003). Using native speakers in chat. Language Learning & Technology, 7(3), 141– 159. Vandergriff, I. (2006). Negotiating common ground in computer-mediated versus face-to-face discussions. Language Learning & Technology, 10(1), 110–138. Van Deusen-Scholl, N., Frei, C., & Dixon, E. (2005). Co-constructing learning: The dynamic nature of foreign language pedagogy in a CMC environment. CALICO Journal, 22(3), 657–678. Varonis, E. M. & Gass, S. (1985). Non-native/non-native conversations: A model for negotiation of meaning. Applied Linguistics, 6, 71–90. Ware, P. (2005). “Missed” communication in online communication: Tensions in a GermanAmerican telecollaboration. Language Learning & Technology, 9(2), 64–89.



Online discourse strategies 217

Ware, P. & Kramsch, C. (2005). Toward an intercultural stance: Teaching German and English through telecollaboration. The Modern Language Journal, 89, 190–205. Warschauer, M. (1996). Comparing face-to-face and electronic discussion in the second language classroom. CALICO Journal, 13(2), 7–26. Warschauer, M. (1997). Computer-mediated collaborative learning: Theory and practice. The Modern Language Journal, 81, 470–481. Warschauer, M. (2001). Online learning in second language classrooms. An ethnographic study. In M. Warschauer & R. Kern (Eds.), Network-based language teaching. Concepts and practice (pp. 41–58). Cambridge: CUP. Weasenforth, D., Biesenbach-Lucas, S., & Meloni, C. (2002). Realizing constructivist objectives through collaborative technologies: Threaded discussions. Language Learning & Technology, 6(3), 58–86.

Negotiating meaningfulness An enhanced perspective on interaction  in computer-mediated foreign language  learning environments Jonathon Reinhardt University of Arizona

Research in second language acquisition (SLA) in computer-mediated  interaction using an interactionist framework finds negotiation for meaning (NfM) to occur in native speaker (NS) and non-native speaker (NNS) and in NNS-NNS synchronous electronic exchange (chat). Research in foreign language learning (FLL) in telecollaborative environments using socio-cognitive frameworks finds development of communicative and intercultural competence to occur in chat as well. To the end of exploring the complementarities of the two approaches, after reviews of relevant literature, this chapter conducts analyses on the same data produced by two dyads in Telekorp, the Telecollaborative Corpus of German and English. First, NfM sequences found in two chats are analyzed using an expanded NfM taxonomy. In the very few NfM sequences found to occur, self-noticing and use of task-appropriate responses are observed, implicating the affordances provided by the computer-mediated environment. The data are then re-analyzed using a socio-cognitive framework, which allows for the consideration of negotiation of face and solidarity, that is, interpersonal meaningfulness from the participant’s perspective. In this way, socio-cognitive interpretation is shown to enhance, rather than contradict, an NfM analysis, a stance supported by an ecological heuristic.

As foreign language educators around the world use computer-mediated communication (CMC) tools in their classrooms, researchers relate that practice to theories of second language acquisition and development (SLA) by using a variety of

. For the sake of simplicity, the term SLA will be used to refer to the processes of second/foreign/other language acquisition/development/learning. See also Block (2003).

220 Jonathon Reinhardt

contemporaneous frameworks and approaches to analyze CMC discourse. This diversity in approach may result from the interdisciplinary origins and natures of the concerned players and the history of technology vis-à-vis second language (L2) learning (Lam & Kramsch 2003). CMC has roots in computer science and communication studies, whereas studies in SLA and in foreign language learning (FLL) have roots in cognitive science and applied linguistics. These scattered origins and their resultant epistemological and ontological commitments and debates are reflected in the evolving discussion over the use of CMC in FLL and application of SLA theory to the field (Atkinson 2002; Chapelle 1997; Harrington & Levy 2001; Kern, Ware, & Warschauer 2004; Ortega 1997; Salaberry 1999; Thorne & Payne 2005). Taking an experimental, quantitative approach, researchers informed by the interaction hypothesis (Long 1996) have sought evidence of negotiation for meaning (NfM) in native speaker (NS)-non-native speaker (NNS) and NNS-NNS chat (Blake 2000; Blake & Zyzik 2003; Kötter 2003; Lee 2001; Pelletieri 2000; Smith 2003; Sotillo 2005; Toyoda & Harrison 2002; Tudini 2003; see Abrams 2006 for a recent overview). NfM is seen to “facilitate acquisition because it connects input, internal learner capacities, particularly selective attention, and output in productive ways” (Long 1996: 451–452). Similarly, utilizing a variety of commensurable theories, researchers informed by a socio-cognitive perspective (Atkinson 2002; Belz 2002a; Kern & Warschauer 2000) have adopted a more qualitative approach, exploring the development of communicative competence in cross-cultural telecollaborative learning environments (Belz 2002a; Belz & Kinginger 2002; Belz & Kinginger 2003; Belz 2006; Furstenberg, Levet, English, & Maillet 2001; Hanna & deNooy 2003; Kern 1998; Kinginger 2000; Kramsch & Thorne 2002; Lee 2004; O’Dowd 2003; see Lomicka 2006 for a recent overview). By using heuristics from both approaches to analyze the same CMC interactions, I argue for the complementarities of the two perspectives as applied to interaction in computer-mediated language learning environments. Although comparing the two approaches has been likened to comparing apples and oranges (Gass 1998), the two are not entirely incompatible from an ecological viewpoint (van Lier 2004: 142). As an NfM analysis makes explicit, the role of transactional or ideational meaning, a socio-cognitive interpretation of the interaction illuminates the role of interpersonal meaningfulness from the participant’s perspective. The purpose of this dual approach is to offer insight into the relationship between research epistemology and pedagogy, thereby informing the future design of classroom-based computer-mediated language learning environments. . These terms are also not without controversy, but are used in this context again for the sake of simplicity. See Firth and Wagner (1997).



Negotiating meaningfulness 221

To this end, I first present a review of studies on FLL in CMC that use negotiation analytical frameworks, followed by a detailed analysis using of two NfM sequences in two chats produced by two pairs of students, two Americans and two Germans engaged in a telecollaborative partnership (Belz & Kinginger 2002; Warschauer 1997). This analysis is be followed by a review of studies on FLL in CMC-based intercultural exchange that use a socio-cognitive approach, followed by a reinterpretation of the NfM analysis using a socio-cognitive approach. The chapter concludes with a discussion of issues made relevant by the analyses.

Negotiation for meaning in CMC environments Following the application of computer-mediated classroom discussion in foreign language classrooms (Chun 1994; Kern 1995), interactionist studies looking at NfM in CMC environments have proliferated, and a number have found several common themes. Several studies sought to prove the existence of NfM in chat and to relate it to classroom task type for instructed SLA (e.g. Blake 2000; Pellettieri 2000). Some have focused on the role of NS interlocutors and to what extent their presence promotes NfM, and many have noted the tendency for expanded reaction routines in chat exchanges (e.g. Smith 2003). Although most have used Varonis and Gass’ (1985) four-stage NfM model (trigger → indicator → response → reaction to response), some have expanded it (e.g. Smith 2003), while others have proposed and applied new taxonomies and frameworks (e.g. Toyoda & Harrison 2002). Several studies have looked to prove that NfM occurs in chat and to examine the influence of task type on these occurrences. For example, Pellettieri (2000) considered the development of grammatical competence of L2 Spanish learners in chat environments. By applying Varonis and Gass’ (1985) model to chat transcripts of students completing a variety of tasks to promote form-focused interaction and modified output, she found that NfM does, in fact, occur. Pellettieri emphasizes that task design is crucial, finding that jigsaw-type tasks work best for creating communication breakdown that, in turn, requires that negotiation be repaired. Blake (2000) also found that NfM took place in the CMC chats of 50 L2 Spanish learners, especially during jigsaw-type tasks, although negotiations were more lexical than syntactic in nature. Like Blake, Smith (2003) employed Varonis and Gass’ model to study the CMC interactions of 28 ESL learners in order to determine the extent to which computer-mediated NfM resembles faceto-face NfM. He found that negotiation occurred about one third of the time. Decision-making tasks resulted in a greater number of negotiations than jigsaw tasks, contrary to the findings of Pica, Kanagy, and Falodun (1993), until adjusted

222 Jonathon Reinhardt

for target versus incidental lexical items, in which case jigsaw tasks elicit more incidental NfM. Finally, Blake and Zyzik (2003) found NfM in heritage speakerNNS chat dyads, who completed a two-sided jigsaw task in an anonymous chat. The transcripts were then analyzed using Varonis and Gass’ model, as well as for instances of output that indicated noticing. Thirty negotiation events were identified: 24 lexical, 4 grammatical, and 2 pragmatic confusions, and three-quarters of those events were resolved by the heritage speaker partners. Including Blake and Zyzik’s (2003) study on heritage speakers, several studies focus on the role of native speaking interlocutors in chat-based tasks. Blake (2000) noted that, in his study, the one NS-NNS interaction triggered fewer negotiations than the NNS-NNS interactions, and implied that this result was unfortunate because the learners enjoyed the experience immensely and even requested interactions with native speakers for future tasks. In contrast, Toyoda and Harrison (2002) found that NfM can occur in CMC environments with NS-NNS pairings. Using a custom-designed online Japanese learning environment, NNS learners chatted with NS of Japanese on a variety of topics for seven sessions of one hour each over the course of a semester. Tudini (2003) also found that online NS-NNS interaction can promote NfM. She found evidence of implicit negative feedback (recasts) even in the task-free environment of open-ended chat, although it was lower than in CMC interactions restricted to specific learning tasks. Sotillo (2005) found that advanced NNSs provided learners with corrective feedback more frequently than American NS interlocutors, perhaps because NSs were following American politeness norms. Many NfM studies of chat find a larger number of ‘reaction-to-response’ utterances than predicted by face-to-face studies. Pellettieri (2000) noted with surprise that only 7% of the routines (9 of 122) did not include a reaction to response like yes, I understand, good, ok, I’m sorry, or thank you to signal acknowledgment of an interlocutor’s help. She speculated that this tie up portion of the exchange is even more necessary in CMC than in face-to-face conversation because of lack of visual cues. In his study, Smith (2003) found that 82% of routines included a reaction to response, a percentage that is much higher than in face-to-face NfM studies, and found that the data even “reveal a strong tendency for learners to carry on negotiation routines well past this reaction to the response stage” (p. 49). He speculated that this reaction to response stage, which “largely serves the purpose of closing out the negotiation routine” (p. 49), is reached so often because CMC “removes, or at least reduces, many of the para- and nonlinguistic aspects of faceto-face speech that facilitate verbal communication” (p. 47). Researchers have also developed their own methods and taxonomies to assess NfM in chat. Lee (2001) looked at the type of communication strategies NNS employed to facilitate NfM by analyzing 12 small groups of 40 intermediate Span-



Negotiating meaningfulness 223

ish learners throughout a semester as they chatted on loosely structured teacherdefined topics. Using an expanded taxonomy for NfM, she found requests as well as clarification, comprehension, and confirmation checks, as well as use of English, approximation, and invented words. Toyoda and Harrison (2002) conducted their study by categorizing each conversational unit involving a communication breakdown according to nature of the trigger. This study resulted in a taxonomy of trigger types on the word-level (recognition of new word, misuse/misunderstanding of word, pronunciation/typing error), the sentence-level (grammatical error, inappropriate segmentation, abbreviated sentence), and the discourse level (sudden topic change, slow response, intercultural communication gap). Smith (2003) elaborated on Varonis and Gass’ NfM model to account for the weakness in their model exposed by CMC, that is, the excess of reaction-to- response utterances. A flow-chart-like model operates according to polarity (+/–), so that plus or minus reaction-to-response can be explicit or implicit, the latter being a situation where the learner would employ either a ‘test deduction’ or a ‘task appropriate response’ to achieve positive understanding. In other words, in the case of the latter, if the uncomprehending student replies such that the interlocutor (or the researcher) does not note an interruption in discourse flow, it is presumed that meaning has been successfully negotiated. O’Rourke (2005) also focused on the influences of the CMC environment on NfM, noting the high number of hybrid signal types (indicators) in NS-NNS tandem MOO interactions, beyond simple clarification requests or confirmation checks. He expanded the NfM model to consider signal in terms of direct and indirect types. He found a predominance of direct signals, which he speculated might relate to the CMC setting and the shared learner status of the interlocutors, because in nonpedagogical situations, such directness would presumably be “regarded as face-threatening” (p. 449).

The current study of negotiation for meaning from an interactionist approach Informed by the above studies, the current study was performed on chat interaction data from a telecollaborative partnership between two dyads of language learners, two Germans of advanced English proficiency partnered respectively with two Americans of high-intermediate and advanced German proficiency. Research questions mirror those of the reviewed studies, broadly asking to what extent NfM occurs in NS-NNS computer-mediated chat and what kind of expanded taxonomy might account for the negotiations found in those chats.

224 Jonathon Reinhardt

The analysis used data from Telekorp: the telecollaborative corpus of German and English (Belz 2006). Telekorp is comprised of the computer-mediated student interactions of six semesters of German-American telecollaboration (Belz & Kinginger 2002; Warschauer 1997) between an intermediate German class at a large university in the United States and an English teacher training course at a teacher training college in Germany. Students participated in progressively complex joint projects involving parallel readings of texts, email- and chat-based discussion, and website construction, and were instructed to use both English and German equally yet freely. The two dyads chosen for the analysis were Kendra, an American heritage speaker of advanced German partnered with German Manfred; and Seamus, an American speaker of high-intermediate German partnered with a German heritage speaker of advanced English, Margit. These two particular dyads were chosen because the American participants produced relatively large amounts of German in comparison to other American students, and because their proficiencies were advanced enough to preclude issues of asymmetry in production (Blake 2000; Tudini 2003; Varonis & Gass 1985). After choosing the dyads, the researcher calculated each participant’s total number of words in both languages and percentage of total production for each chat. Informed by previous research, especially Varonis and Gass’ (1985) NfM model and Smith’s (2003) notion of ‘task-appropriate response’, the researcher identified all of the negotiation sequences in the chats (see appendix) and conducted an initial grounded analysis to develop a functional taxonomy appropriate for the data. Subcategories were developed that provide specific description of a turn’s interactional function and allowed for further functional analysis (see Table 1). For example, ‘self-noticed’ triggers are a subtype of ‘trigger,’ and ‘selfcorrection’ is a sub-type of ‘response.’ Both ‘indicators’ and ‘responses’ can be of the subtype ‘request,’ ‘request elaboration,’ or ‘meta-comment.’ In the case where a new or corrected form was used instead of a reaction to response, it was considered a ‘task-appropriate response’ (Smith 2003). Because of space limitations, sample sequences for further analysis were chosen for presentation, one from . The development of the corpus was funded, in part, by a United States Department of Education International Research and Studies Program Grant (CFDA No. 84.017A). The corpus owes its existence to the efforts of Julie Belz and numerous research assistants, including the author, who is grateful to Dr. Belz for permission to use the data. . All names are pseudonyms, although they are consistent across publications using Telekorp. Seamus’ computer-mediated language play has been documented in Belz and Reinhardt (2004); other publications using data from Telekorp include Belz (2002a); Belz and Kinginger (2002); Belz and Kinginger (2003); Belz (2004); Kinginger and Belz (2005); and Belz and Vyatkina (2005).



Negotiating meaningfulness 225

Table 1.  Expanded negotiation for meaning taxonomy Self-noticed: error is noticed by the producer of the error, as evidenced by meta-comments and/or modification attempts in subsequent turns. 2. Indicator/ Self-correction: modification to self-noticed trigger by producer of the error. response Request: signal for interlocutor assistance. Request elaboration: elaboration to request by requester. Meta-comment: metalinguistic commentary, often indexing noticing. 3. Reaction- Regular reaction-to-response: signal indicating the end of the negotiation to-response routine, e.g. ‘thank you’ or ‘oh, I see’. Task-appropriate response: reaction that evidences uptake by integrating the negotiated form and/or by continuing the discourse flow. 1. Trigger

Table 2.  Kendra and Manfred: Number of words and negotiation sequences per chat Speaker Language

Chat 1

Chat 2

Kendra

  13 (2%) 705 (98%) 718 (44%)    5 882 (97%)   29 (3%) 911 (56%)    1

   9 (4%) 199 (96%) 208 (53%)    0 178 (98%)    4 (2%) 182 (47%)    0

English German Total words Negotiation sequences initiated (with German trigger) Manfred English German Total words Negotiation sequences initiated (with German trigger)

each dyad that best represented the focal points of analysis. These sequences were then categorized using the expanded taxonomy.

Kendra and Manfred Both Kendra and Manfred chose to use almost exclusively the language of their interlocutor, that is, the language they were learning, in both chats (see Table 2). Production was split about half and half in each chat. There were six negotiations in Kendra and Manfred’s first chat (see Appendix). Five were indicated by Kendra and were centered on German. They included a lexical self-correction, a syntactic self-correction, three requests for confirmation of lexical choice, and a direct request for meaning of a lexical choice by Manfred. The one sequence initiated by Manfred’s was triggered by a lexical choice by Kendra. There were no negotiations in the dyad’s second chat. Chat Excerpt 1 presents a sample NfM sequence, which, like the other sequences, is not of the prototypical type ‘trigger-indicator-response-reaction to response.’ It exhibits a complex, multilayered form, consistent with previous findings

226 Jonathon Reinhardt

Chat Excerpt 1.  Sample negotiation illustrating complex form and self-correction Turn Speaker Data 23

24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

Type

Subtype

Manfred yes I go to Heidelberg just 3 times a week and trigger an appartment would cost around 300 € = 300 USD Manfred That’s too expensive for me (not part of negotiation) Kendra (related to previous topic; not part of negotiation) indicator/ request/self-noKendra eine Meatwohnung*? (an apartment?) trigger ticed indicator request Kendra Meatwohnung*? Stimmt das? (apartment? is that right?) Kendra wie Meatwagen* (like rental car) indicator/ request elaboration/self-noticed trigger Manfred (related to previous topic; not part of negotiation) Kendra Mietwagen (rental car) response self-correction Kendra Ich habe es falsch geschreiben* (I have written response/ meta-comment trigger it wrong) Kendra geschrieben (written) response self-correction Manfred no, sorry, it’s called Mietwagen and Mietwoh- response nung reaction to task-appropriate Kendra Und eine Mietwohnung kostet 300 € pro response Monat? (and an apartment costs 300 € per month?)

Note. * indicates a misspelling.

on negotiation in CMC, with multiple triggers, indicators, and a task-appropriate response. Much of the negotiation involves Kendra actually correcting herself before Manfred replies. After Manfred’s initial trigger, she asks for confirmation of her understanding of the German word for his use of the word ‘appartment’ to be Mietwohnung. Although she misspells it, she offers a similar word with the same prefix miet (rental), which then seems to prompt her to notice her own mistake, perhaps from the new morphological context of the prefix, and she corrects herself, explicitly explaining her mistake. During this explanation, she again catches that she has misspelled ‘geschrieben’. Finally, after he corrects her original mistake, she smoothly integrates the object of negotiation into a task-appropriate response. As Pellettieri (2000) noted, in CMC environments “learners have the added advantage of the visual saliency of the model form, whether delivered explicitly or implicitly, which can allow even greater opportunities for a cognitive comparison of the new form against the speaker’s original utterance, which is also visible on the screen” (p. 81; see also Smith 2003: 39). The CMC technology, by immediately reifying her utterance on the screen in front of her, allows Kendra the opportunity



Negotiating meaningfulness 227

Table 3.  Seamus and Margit: Number of words produced (including percentage) and negotiation sequences initiated (with language of trigger) per chat Speaker

Chat 1

Chat 2

Chat 3

Chat 4

Chat 5

Seamus English German Total words Negotiation sequences initiated Margit English German Total words Negotiation sequences initiated

  43 (10%) 387 (90%) 430 (34%)    1 (G)

105 (25%) 315 (75%) 420 (35%)    0

  206 (28%)   527 (72%)   733 (40%)     0

  29 (14%) 184 (86%) 213 (33%)    0

  19 (26%)   55 (74%)   74 (39%)    1 (G)

589 (70%) 256 (30%) 845 (66%)    0

582 (73%) 213 (27%) 795 (65%)    0

1022 (93%)    81 (7%) 1103 (60%)     2 (E)

363 (83%)   74 (17%) 437 (67%)    0

  95 (83%)   20 (17%) 115 (67%)    0

to notice and reflect on her own production, and subsequently modify her own output (Swain 1995). Self-correction is considered a form of NfM here for several reasons. First, the initial trigger is marked with a question mark, followed by a direct request in turn 27 (‘is that right?’). To Kendra, Manfred’s delay in response may signal silence, because without visual paralanguage, she cannot know his intention. In any case, the time gap (Crystal 2001) provides her the opportunity to notice the visual trace of her own utterance, question it, and correct herself. Although self-correction may occur in spoken discourse, in this case, it was only made salient because it was written. It is interesting to note that meat and miet sound identical, so in a spoken exchange this negotiation would probably not have occurred.

Seamus and Margit To a lesser extent than the other dyad, Seamus and Margit chose to use primarily the language of their interlocutor, that is, the language they were learning, in all five chats (see Table 3), albeit with a fair amount of code-switching. Margit produced about two-thirds of the language, although Seamus was still quite productive compared to participants in his class. The two learners spent extra time outside of class chatting with each other, producing more chats than were required. However, there were very few negotiations in Seamus and Margit’s chats (see Appendix). In the first chat, Seamus asks for confirmation of a German lexical choice; in the third chat Margit asks for confirmation of English lexical choices twice; and in the fifth chat Seamus makes a direct request for meaning of a lexical choice by Margit. There were no negotiations in the dyad’s second and fourth chats.

228 Jonathon Reinhardt

Chat Excerpt 2.  Sample negotiation illustrating textualized paralanguage and  task-appropriate response Turn Speaker

Data

Type

Subtype

141

Margit

trigger/indicator

request

142

Seamus

My dad’s a a slob??? don’t know the exact word..he’s very schlampig... haha

143 144

Seamus Seamus

ja (yes) meine ganze familie ist schlampig (my entire family are slobs)

textualized paralanguage (task-appropriate) response reaction to response task-appropriate

Chat Excerpt 2 presents a short NfM sequence from the dyad’s third chat, where Margit asks Seamus for confirmation of her lexical choice by the use of three question marks followed by a code-switch in turn 141. Seamus answers Margit’s request with laughter. Textualized paralanguage-like laughter in synchronous chat environments is an artifact of the written/spoken hybridity of the medium (Crystal 2001) and, in this case, could be considered a task-appropriate response because it could indicate to Margit that her lexical choice was appropriate. Seamus then responds with an affirmative ja, followed by an interesting appropriation of Margit’s choice of ‘schlampig’ as the German equivalent to slob. Although it is unknown if Seamus knew the meaning of schlampig previous to this exchange, his utterance in turn 144 might be considered a second task-appropriate response, as he seems to have noticed useful language in a sequence he did not initiate and smoothly appropriates it for his own use. Again, the CMC environment may provide the opportunity for this uptake, as the new item leaves a persistent, contextualized visual trace that may provide opportunities for noticing.

Summary of negotiation for meaning analyses Negotiation of meaning in telecollaborative tasks did occur, but to a lesser extent and with greater variety of form than in other more structured tasks. It tended to center on lexical items and did not impede communication or involve communication breakdown. The two sample chat excerpts presented demonstrate the unique qualities of the 11 NfM sequences found in the 7 chats, especially selfcorrection and task-appropriate response. Only 5.6% of the total turns (65/1153) . Note that slob is a noun whereas schlampig is an adjective, which may explain Margit’s hesitation. However, Seamus is proficient enough to notice this inequivalence, as he properly uses the German adjective. See also Belz and Reinhardt (2004) for analysis of Seamus’ play with the word Schlampe (tramp).



Negotiating meaningfulness 229

were spent in NfM sequences, the most being 20% in Kendra and Manfred’s first chat. This low number, in comparison to Smith’s (2003) 33%, for example, could be due in part to the open-ended nature of the telecollaborative task, which was to discuss topics and negotiate joint class projects. It could also be attributed to advanced proficiency levels, given that the participants would have been less likely to be unfamiliar with the vocabulary than would beginning proficiency students. The low number of NfM sequences could also be due to the persistent visual trace of an utterance in the CMC environment, which would allow the interlocutor unfamiliar with a vocabulary item time to notice, reread, contextualize, or perhaps even look a word up, without indicating that he or she did not understand. Further research is necessary to investigate this possibility. In confirmation of the findings of several of the previous studies reviewed, the analyses show that Varonis and Gass’ original NfM model as it was originally proposed may require extension or alteration for analyses of CMC environments. The very notions of triggers, indicators, and responses are problematized because of the persistent visual traces provided by CMC technology. The differences between triggers and indicators are blurred, as some turns act as both trigger and indicator to some participants who notice their own inaccuracies. Turn sequence order may be complicated because of time delay, multiple and overlapping topics, and textualized paralanguage.

Socio-cognitive perspectives on CMC in telecollaboration Implicit in any NfM analysis is the assumption that the meanings and forms being negotiated are primarily referential, ideational or transactional, centered on grammar and the lexicon; indeed, this is what most studies have found. It is difficult to consider the negotiation of pragmatic, interactional, or interpersonal meanings in an analysis that does not consider the context of situation and individual learner motivations and histories in interpretation. Even though consideration of these heuristics may allow interpretation to go beyond description, providing explanation of why learners use a variety of means to negotiate, the sheer number of variables required would most likely render a quantitative analysis unwieldy and impossible to generalize (Block 2003). To apprehend this interpersonal aspect of language learning, then, researchers have turned to a socio-cognitive approach. Kern and Warschauer (2000) see the roots of a socio-cognitive perspective in the Hymesian conceptualization of communicative competence, where language forms are understood as meaning resources. Learning is viewed “not just in terms of changes in individuals’ cognitive structures but also in terms of the social structure of learners’ discourse and activity” (p. 5). Computer-assisted language

230 Jonathon Reinhardt

learning in this perspective is to “provide alternative contexts for social interaction” (p. 13), where learners interact not with the technology itself, but rather with each other mediated by the technology. From a socio-cognitive perspective, a learner negotiates, or rather collaborates or co-constructs not only transactional meaning but also face, solidarity, and support (Block 2003) as well as broader notions such as identity and community participation. Research considers not only the transactional or representational function of language, but the interactional or interpersonal as well (Halliday & Hasan 1985), and may involve the use of multiple data sources and heuristics that are loosely borrowed from a number of social-related disciplines, including sociocultural theory, language socialization, and paradigms with their origins in ethnography and linguistic anthropology. Atkinson (2002), for example, explained that the object of socio-cognitive research goes beyond grammar, and may include politeness, presentation of self, perspective taking, language-in-context, participation structures, speech-as-interaction, and social indexicality. Because they do not use common theory and methods to the extent that interactionist studies on NfM do, socio-cognitive treatments of FLL in CMC environments do not necessarily share common findings, and instead focus on broader issues. As interactionists find pedagogical application of their principles in task design, socio-cognitivists find it in telecollaboration, the partnership of geographically separated classes involved in academic and intercultural exchange (Belz & Kinginger 2002; Warschauer 1997). The goals of a telecollaborative syllabus are to promote intercultural and self-awareness, expand discourse options, and encourage practice and participation through and in the target language and culture. Because these aspects are interdependent, they are not always treated as distinct from one another, and in the following literature review, there is much overlap. Furstenberg, Levet, English, and Maillet (2001) described their Web-based curricular initiative as targeting the development of student cultural literacy. They had French and American students complete word association and other semantic networking tasks in telecollaboration, exchanging ideas on social topics in an online discussion board as well as in class discussion. Student experiences were positive, as they developed insights into each other’s cultures. In contrast, Belz (2002a) reported mixed results in her socio-cognitive treatment of a telecollaborative exchange. She applied a social realist research framework (Layder 1993, in Belz 2002a) and sociocultural theory to a telecollaborative partnership between Germans and American students. The success of the telecollaboration . Sociocognitivists might object to this term, as it implies an endpoint and metaphorically discourages conceptualization of language learning as an ongoing, never-ending process.



Negotiating meaningfulness 231

was highly contingent on the structure (context and setting) of the interaction, on the one hand, and the agency (situatedness of the activity and participant psycho-biography) of participants on the other. O’Dowd (2003) confirmed Belz’s (2002a) mixed experience. He structured his syllabus for a Spanish-English email exchange project around tasks intended to promote intercultural communicative competence (Byram 1997 in O’Dowd: 120–121), including tasks similar to those of Furstenberg et al. (2001). Like many treatments of intercultural communication, O’Dowd’s study is theoretically grounded in the notion of ‘distancing’, or developing critical awareness of both the other’s and one’s own cultural practices by observation of ‘cultural faultlines’ from a ‘third place’ (Kramsch 1993). Several socio-cognitive treatments of telecollaboration explain learning goals in terms of participation in communities-of-practice. Kramsch and Thorne (2002) focused on CMC discourse as a global communicative practice, explaining how differing genre expectations can result in miscommunication. In a telecollaborative exchange, French students acting to build a community of truth were misunderstood by American students reacting to build a community of trust, as the online experience gave them an “illusion of proximity” that “called for engagement rather than requests for objective information or even the negotiation of foreign meanings and beliefs” (p. 98). Hanna and de Nooy (2003) comment on French cultural discourse practices in terms of genre, providing case-studies of four learners who attempted to participate in an online French newspaper forum with native speakers outside of class. The students who were able to negotiate cultural and generic rules in the forum, by entering with an apology for poor French and adopting an argumentative stance, were apprenticed into the community, whereas the students who transferred classroom generic expectations into the task, attempting to talk about themselves, were less accepted. There have also been several socio-cognitive studies of FLL in CMC that focus specifically on the development of communicative, specifically pragmatic competence. Sociopragmatic competence came to the fore as Kern’s (1998) French students implored the American students not to use the vous form (formal you) but rather the tu form (informal you). Kinginger (2000) explained how the expanded discourse options in telecollaborative environments provided her students the opportunities to develop pragmatic competence by providing them with multiple discourse options, including email and videoconferencing, in which to make pronoun choices. Belz and Kinginger (2003) argued that the tu/vous system is not rule-governed but “realized within particular social interactions according to complex, inherently ambiguous mappings of social indexicality” (p. 591), thus making it particularly well suited for a socio-cognitive perspective (see also Block 2003: 130 on the complementarity of interlanguage pragmatics with a socio-cognitive approach).

232 Jonathon Reinhardt

The current study: Data analysis from a socio-cognitive perspective Given that a central role of language from a socio-cognitive perspective is in “presenting and performing identities, or socially expressive versions of the self ” (Atkinson 2002: 527), a socio-cognitive approach is useful for considering negotiation of face, solidarity, support, and identity, which traditional interactionist analyses overlook (Block 2003). From a socio-cognitive perspective, these negotiations occur simultaneously with negotiation for ideational meaning. Brown and Levinson’s (1987) politeness theory provides an analytical framework for the understanding of human interaction as speech acts, where language is seen as not only the transactional exchange of information but also as the interactional development of social ties. Based on interactional sociologist Erving Goffman’s (1967) notions of face, politeness theory maintains that human communicative interaction is a constant interplay of redressing (potential) affronts to face, or face-threatening acts (see also Scollon & Scollon 1995). Positive politeness or involvement strategies (e.g. complements or expressions of solidarity) seek to address affronts to an interlocutor’s positive face, whereas negative politeness or independence strategies (e.g. avoidance of imposition) seek to address affronts to an interlocutor’s negative face. A socio-cognitive approach “necessarily entails the complementarity of sociocultural, ethnographic, and qualitative data sources on the one hand, and psycholinguistic, linguistic, and quantitative data sources on the other” (Belz 2002a: 61). In line with this approach, the following analyses consider biographical data on the participants gleaned from surveys, course work, and interviews, on the one hand, and the preceding NfM analyses as linguistic data on the other. The negotiation sequences are expanded to bring more contextual information into the analyses, allowing for reconsideration of the data from a socio-cognitive perspective. For this reason the data are presented in a single block, in contrast to the turn analysis of the NfM analysis. The purpose of these analyses is to illustrate how negotiation for ideational meaning occurs alongside negotiation for interpersonal meaning, or meaningfulness from the participant’s perspective.

Kendra and Manfred Kendra is a heritage speaker of German who had studied previously in Germany and had one of the highest proficiency levels in her class, according to her instructor. The content of her chat and emails indicates that she identified very strongly with European culture, wishing to live in Germany, at one point in the second chat stating: “Ich bin total unsicher ueber das Land. Ich will auf gar keinen Fall in



Negotiating meaningfulness 233

Amerika wohnen” (I am totally not sure about this country. In absolutely no case do I want to live in America) (turn 152). It is interesting that Manfred stated in the chat that he had a big American flag in his room, and that for him the United States was “a second home – I feel so comfortable there ....” (turn 129). This identification with the other culture on the parts of both chatters may explain the extreme distribution of language, where both barely speak their native languages at all. Chat Excerpt 3 is an expansion of Chat Excerpt 1. Manfred is discussing how he takes the train to his school in Heidelberg, because an apartment there is too expensive for him. In turn 25, Kendra replies to an earlier statement with a comment on how she disliked taking the train when she lived in Europe. In turn 26, Kendra asks for a clarification of the word appartment from Manfred, whether he means a rental apartment, perhaps because she knows that apartment to Europeans does not exclusively mean rental, as it often does in the United States (in contrast to condo). She elaborates her request in line 28 with ‘like rental car,’ and then corrects her own spelling, given this opportunity to notice her own output thanks to the visual trace of the chat. In line 31 she explains her mistake. Manfred however, by that time had probably sent his reply, commenting not on the content but on Kendra’s spelling. Kendra quickly integrates the correct spelling into a task-appropriate response, bringing the thread back to her original question in line 34. She explains the reasoning for her original question, that she wants to study in Germany again, and wants to know how expensive apartments are. Manfred then apologizes in line 41, perhaps in realization that his original response in line 33 was on the language rather than on the content. With politeness theory as a framework, a socio-cognitive interpretation can explain Kendra’s moves, considering Kendra’s identity as a near-expert heritage speaker. In asking her partner for elaboration in turn 27, she makes an imposition on him, and by offering elaboration in the subsequent turns, she lessens that imposition and increases her status as knowledgeable and equal user of German. She bothers to correct her form in lines 30–32, even though meaning is conveyed, as a negative face move. Her reply in line 34 is more akin to that of an expert speaker, who, it is reasonable to assume, would not provide a reaction-toresponse in the form of ‘thank you (for correcting my language)’ but an integrated task-appropriate response (or perhaps discourse-integrated response). This sort of response serves, again, to maintain face and re-establish equality with her interlocutor, showing herself as a competent partner, respectful of her interlocutor’s . Manfred’s reply in line 36 may indicate that his use of appartment in line 23 actually referred to just a single room. Kendra may have ended up believing that apartments in European cities are as cheap as in rural American college towns. Unfortunately, this observation was made after opportunity for interview with Kendra had passed.

234 Jonathon Reinhardt

Chat Excerpt 3.  Sample sequence illustrating negotiation of face Turn Speaker Data 23 24 25

26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

Manfred yes I go to Heidelberg just 3 times a week and an appartment would cost around 300 € = 300 USD Manfred That’s too expensive for me Kendra Ich fand es immer so schwer zu machen weil man im kalten Wetter traussend stehen muss und warten auf den scheiss Zug (I always found it so difficult to do because you have to stand outside in the cold weather and wait for the damn train) Kendra eine Meatwohnung? (an apartment?) Kendra Meatwohnung? Stimmt das? (an apartment? is that right?) Kendra wie Meatwagen (like rental car) Manfred I don’t like it either, but it’s for just one more year! I got almost 4 years now Kendra Mietwagen (rental car) Kendra Ich habe es falsch geschreiben (I have written it wrong) Kendra geschrieben (written) Manfred no, sorry, it’s called Mietwagen and Mietwohnung Kendra Und eine Mietwohnung kostet 300 Euro pro Monat? (and an apartment costs 300 Euro per month?) Kendra Ich moechte noch mal in Deutschland studieren... In Koeln (I want to study again in Germany…in Cologne) Manfred Yes, Heidelberg is one of the most expensive cities in Germany concerning the prices for room rental Manfred I love Colone Kendra Ich wollte eigentlich wissen wie teuer eine Mietwohnung war... (I actually wanted to know how expensive an apartment was) Kendra Meine Mietwohnung kostet genauso (my apartment costs exactly that) Kendra $300 pro Monat ($300 per month) Manfred Sorry! Yes, it’s around 300 $ a month

native, and her own heritage, language. Perhaps Manfred’s developing identity as an English instructor led to his first reaction of corrective feedback in line 33. The message to Manfred of Kendra’s face moves, however, is to respect her German identity; Manfred’s apology in line 41 may be a move acknowledging this developing identity.

Seamus and Margit Margit was an American-German (her father was American), studying to be an English teacher while holding a part-time job as an international flight attendant. Seamus was a German major planning to study abroad in Germany and become



Negotiating meaningfulness 235

Chat Excerpt 4.  Sample sequence illustrating negotiation of solidarity Turn Speaker

Data

137

Margit

138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146

Seamus Margit Seamus Margit Seamus Seamus Seamus Margit Seamus

147 148

Seamus Margit

My parents used to fight a lot, but now it seemes as though they have somehow “accepted” eachother... ha das ist gut manchmal (ha that’s good sometimes) they don’t fight over the little everyday things like toothpaste etc. yeah My dad’s a a slob??? don’t know the exact word..he’s very schlampig... haha ja (yes) meine ganze familie ist schlampig (my whole family are slobs) that used to drive my mom up the wall-she just leaves him alone now.. wir haben glueck dass wir alle gleich sind (we’re lucky that we’re all the same) yeah well to tell ya the truth- me too in most ways,,smile

a German teacher. He chatted quite often with his German girlfriend, whom he met while visiting Germany, and had a penchant towards online language play (see Belz & Reinhardt 2004, for other examples of Seamus’ playfulness). Although he was not a heritage learner, Seamus reported taking pleasure in learning and using German. According to a post-instruction interview, he also reported that he found Margit attractive when seeing her photo at the beginning of the semester. Play and flirtation could therefore be real motivations for Seamus. In Chat Excerpt 4, while Margit attempts to negotiate form in turn 141, Seamus responds with laughter (turn 142) and an integrated, task-appropriate response (turn 144), both of which are solidarity moves. In other words, he does not say ‘yes, that is correct’, but rather points out a commonality between them, that they both have ‘slobs’ in the family. Margit’s code-switch and desire to use the word schlampig instead of its equivalent slob may also be indexical of multicompetence (Belz 2002b; Cook 1991) as she chooses the word from her bilingual lexicon that is most exact. Moreover, this act may in itself index solidarity, as it appeals towards Seamus as a fellow bilingual. Margit made the only other NfM in the chat, regarding the spelling of a word, and in the remaining four chats, Seamus initiated the only other two NfM sequences. While each chatter primarily used the other language, it was not exclusive, and there was much code-switching, which has been studied as a means of solidarity building (Gumperz 1982: 65; Myers-Scotton 1993). Moreover, there were very few NfM sequences, and they were usually quickly integrated into the discourse with task-appropriate responses. Margit and Seamus chatted five times,

236 Jonathon Reinhardt

two of the chats were outside of class, and three of the chats were over 1200 words; however, there were very few NfM sequences overall. In contrast, Kendra and Manfred only chatted twice, both in class.

Summary of socio-cognitive analyses Conceptualized in terms of communication breakdown and repair, negotiation for meaning seems to be rare in advanced proficiency, NS-NNS telecollaborative exchanges. In contrast, negotiation for meaningfulness is prolific, as the participants attempt to create meaningful relationships with the other participants, the other language, and the other culture. Self-noticing and task-appropriate responses are phenomena that an NfM analysis might see as related to the computer-mediated environment. Here they are integrated into the discourse and can be seen from a socio-cognitive perspective to be motivated by the participants’ moves to establish and negotiate face and solidarity. The interpersonal purpose of self-repair may be to maintain face, whereas the purpose of discourse-integrated (task-appropriate) responses may be to negotiate negative face (as in Kendra’s case), or positive face, that is, solidarity (as in Seamus’ case). The result of these negotiations is evidenced in how much more the second dyad interacted overall than the first.

Discussion The purpose of the dual approach to these analyses was to illustrate the complementarities of an interactionist/negotiation for meaning approach to analysis with a socio-cognitive approach to interpretation. Epistemological differences between the two approaches, however, remain a barrier to further integration. For instructed SLA, NfM is an instructional goal because it is hypothetically connected to L2 acquisition, the ultimate attainment. For telecollaboration, intercultural exchange is a goal because it is hypothetically connected to foreign language development, a dynamic and ongoing process. The difference between the metaphors of ‘acquisition’ and ‘development’ are telling (Block 2003), in that the former implies ‘foreign language competence’ is something to have, while the latter implies ‘competent in a foreign language’ is something to become. The metaphor of ‘negotiation’ is also interesting to consider. In the American Heritage Dictionary (Morris 1969), the intransitive definition of negotiate is “to treat with another in order to come to terms or reach an agreement”, and its first transitive one is “to arrange or settle by conferring or discussing” (p. 879). The



Negotiating meaningfulness 237

term has a commercial quality about it, and implies that involved parties have a self-interested agenda in entering the process. The term also has a telos quality to it, in that completion or an end point is assumed, and that the ‘negotiation’ itself is not the normal state of things. Varonis and Gass (1985) in their early definition assume that there is one true ‘horizontal’ line of discourse moving ‘forward,’ and that negotiation only occurs when the interaction is ‘pushed down’, as they explain that an indicator “essentially halts the horizontal progression of the conversation and begins the downward progression, having the effect of ‘pushing down’ the conversation rather than impelling it forward” (p. 75). This definition assumes a ‘progressive’ and static-free communicative stream which negotiation must re-establish. It is also interesting that Varonis and Gass (1985: 88) borrowed the terms push down and pop back up from the contemporaneous computer science literature; although communication-as-conduit is a physical reality for the telecommunications industry, it is only an ontological metaphor for actual human communication (Lakoff & Johnson 1980; see also Reddy 1979, and Lam & Kramsch 2003). Van Lier (2000, 2004) offered an ecological heuristic for considering the commensurability of an interactionist account of the importance of negotiation for ideational meaning within a larger framework compatible with a socio-cognitive perspective. From an ecological viewpoint, negotiation and interaction can be understood in terms of ‘affordances,’ which refers to the opportunities or possibilities for action and development (both positive and negative) that a learning environment can potentially provide a learner (Gibson 1979, in van Lier 2004: 90). From this perspective, CMC technology provides affordances for noticing which learners may or may not perceive and act upon. Through the activity of interaction and negotiation, language is made available for further activity, as part of a cycle of constant renegotiation and reconstruction of both meaning and identity. As long as it is “tied to the self and the formation of identities” (van Lier 2004: 145), conversational interaction therefore provides the best environment for meaningful language learning.

Conclusion More than 30 years ago, Wagner-Gough and Hatch (1975) noted that, at the time, the lack of an adequate model for interaction among language learners was maybe in part “due to our interest in research that isolates language form from meaning” (p. 297). They called for the study of language in context, containing all the “variables (for both the learner and the native speaker) that give life, color and meaning to the learning process” (p. 298). In other words, an analysis of interaction can be

238 Jonathon Reinhardt

complete only when it considers the negotiation of all aspects of meaning making, including both ideational meaning and interpersonal meaningfulness. In response, this chapter has illuminated some synthetic possibilities between two approaches that are often put at odds with each other, the interactionist and the socio-cognitive, by showing how a socio-cognitive interpretation can enhance, rather than contradict, an NfM analysis. In the future, an ecological framework (van Lier 2004) may provide a heuristic for exploration of further synergetic potential.

References Abrams, Z. (2006). From theory to practice: Intracultural CMC in the L2 classroom. In L. Ducate & N. Arnold (Eds.), Calling on CALL: From theory and research to new directions in foreign language teaching (pp. 181–210). San Marcos, TX: CALICO. Atkinson, D. (2002). Toward a socio-cognitive approach to second language acquisition. The Modern Language Journal, 86, 525–545. Belz, J. (2002a). Social dimensions of telecollaborative foreign language study. Language Learning & Technology, 6, 60–81. Belz, J. (2002b). The myth of the deficient communicator. Language Teaching Research, 6, 59– 82. Belz, J. (2004). Learner corpus analysis and the development of foreign language proficiency. System, 32, 577–591. Belz, J. & Kinginger, C. (2002). The cross-linguistic development of address form use in telecollaborative language learning: Two case studies. Canadian Modern Language Revue/Revue canadienne des langues vivantes, 59, 189–214. Belz, J. & Kinginger, C. (2003). Discourse options and the development of pragmatic competence by classroom learners of German: The case of address forms. Language Learning, 53, 591–647. Belz, J. & Reinhardt, J. (2004). Aspects of advanced foreign language proficiency: Internet-mediated German language play. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 14, 324–362. Belz, J. (2006). At the intersection of telecollaboration, learner corpus analysis, and L2 pragmatics: Considerations for language program direction. In J. Belz & S. Thorne (Eds.), Internetmediated intercultural foreign language education (pp. 207–246). Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle. Belz, J. & Vyatkina, N. (2005). Learner corpus research and the development of L2 pragmatic competence in networked intercultural language study: The case of German modal particles. Canadian Modern Language Review/Revue canadienne des langues vivantes, 62, 17–48. Blake, R. (2000). Computer mediated communication: A window on L2 Spanish interlanguage. Language Learning & Technology, 4, 120–136. Blake, R. & Zyzik, E. (2003). Who’s helping whom? Learner/heritage-speakers’ networked discussions in Spanish. Applied Linguistics, 24, 519–544. Block, D. (2003). The social turn in second language acquisition. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.



Negotiating meaningfulness 239

Brown, P. & Levinson, S. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge: CUP. Byram, M. (1997). Teaching and assessing intercultural communicative competence. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Chapelle, C. (1997). CALL in the year 2000: Still in search of research paradigms? Language Learning & Technology, 1, 19–43. Chun, D. (1994). Using computer networking to facilitate the acquisition of interactive competence. System, 22, 17–31. Cook, V. (1991). The poverty of stimulus argument and multicompetence. Second Language Research, 7, 103–117. Crystal, D. (2001). Language and the internet. Cambridge: CUP. Firth, A. & Wagner, J. (1997). On discourse, communication, and (some) fundamental concepts in SLA research. The Modern Language Journal, 81, 285–300. Furstenberg, G., Levet, S., English, K., & Maillet, K. (2001). Giving a virtual voice to the silent language of culture: The Cultura project. Language Learning & Technology, 5, 55–102. Gass, S. (1998). Apples and oranges: Or, why apples are not oranges and don’t need to be. A response to Firth and Wagner. The Modern Language Journal, 82, 324–328. Gibson, J. J. (1979). The ecological approach to visual perception. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Goffman, E. (1967). Interaction ritual: Essays on face-to-face behavior. New York, NY: Doubleday. Gumperz, J. (1982). Discourse strategies. Cambridge: CUP. Halliday, M. & Hasan, R. (1985). Language, context, and text: Aspects of language in a socialsemiotic perspective. Oxford: OUP. Hanna, B. E. & de Nooy, J. (2003). A funny thing happened on the way to the forum: Electronic discussion and foreign language learning. Language Learning & Technology, 7, 71–85. Harrington, M. & Levy, M. (2001). CALL begins with a “C”: Interaction in computer-mediated language learning. System, 29, 15–26. Kern, R. (1995). Restructuring classroom interaction with networked computers: Effects on quantity and characteristics of language production. The Modern Language Journal, 79, 457–476. Kern, R. (1998). Technology, social interaction, and FL literacy. In J. A. Muyskens (Ed.), New ways of learning and teaching: Focus on technology and foreign language education (pp. 57–92). Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle. Kern, R., Ware, P., & Warschauer, M. (2004). Crossing frontiers: New directions in online pedagogy and research. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 24, 243–260. Kern, R. & Warschauer, M. (2000). Introduction: Theory and practice of network-based language teaching. In M. Warschauer & R. Kern (Eds.), Network-based language teaching: Concepts and practice (pp. 1–19). Cambridge: CUP. Kinginger, C. (2000). Learning the pragmatics of solidarity in the networked foreign language classroom. In J. Hall & L. Verplaetse (Eds.), Second and foreign language learning through classroom interaction (pp. 23–46). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Kötter, M. (2003). Negotiation of meaning and codeswitching in online tandems. Language Learning & Technology, 7, 145–172. Kramsch, C. (1993). Context and culture in language teaching. Oxford: OUP. Kramsch, C. & Thorne, S. (2002). Foreign language learning as global communicative practice. In D. Block & D. Cameron (Eds.), Language learning and teaching in the age of globalization. London: Routledge.

240 Jonathon Reinhardt

Lakoff, W. & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Lam, W. S. E. & Kramsch, C. (2003). The ecology of an SLA community in a computer-mediated environment. In J. H. Leather & J. Van Dam (Eds.), Ecology of language acquisition (pp. 141–158). Dordrecht: Kluwer. Layder, D. (1993). New strategies in social research. Cambridge: Polity Press. Lee, L. (2001). Online interaction: Negotiation of meaning and strategies used among learners of Spanish. ReCALL, 13, 232–244. Lee, L. (2004). Learners’ perspectives on networked collaborative interaction with native speakers of Spanish in the US. Language Learning & Technology, 8, 83–100. Lomicka, L. (2006). Understanding the other: Intercultural exchange and CMC. In L. Ducate & N. Arnold (Eds.), Calling on CALL: From theory and research to new directions in foreign language teaching (pp. 211–236). San Marcos, TX: CALICO. Long, M. H. (1996). The role of the linguistic environment in second language acquisition. In W. C. Ritchie & T. K. Bahtia (Eds.), Handbook of Second Language Acquisition (pp. 413–468). New York, NY: Academic Press. Morris, W. (Ed.). (1969). The American heritage dictionary of the English language. Boston, MA: American Heritage/Houghton Mifflin. Myers-Scotton, C. (1993). Social Motivations for Codeswitching. Oxford: OUP. O’Dowd, R. (2003). Understanding the “Other side”: Intercultural learning in a Spanish-English e-mail exchange. Language Learning & Technology, 7, 118–144. O’Rourke, B. (2005). Form-focused interaction in online tandem learning. CALICO Journal, 22, 433–466. Ortega, L. (1997). Processes and outcomes in networked classroom interaction: Defining the research agenda for L2 computer-assisted classroom discussion. Language Learning & Technology, 1, 82–93. Pellettieri, J. (2000). Negotiation in cyberspace: The role of chatting in the development of communicative competence. In M. Warschauer & R. Kern (Eds.), Network-based language teaching: Concepts and practice (pp. 59–86). Cambridge: CUP. Pica, T., Kanagy, R., & Falodun, J. (1993). Choosing and using communicative tasks for second language instruction. In G. Crookes & S. Gass (Eds.), Tasks and language learning: Integrating theory and practice. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Reddy, M. (1979). The conduit metaphor. In R. Ortony (Ed.), Metaphor and thought. Cambridge: CUP. Salaberry, R. (1999). CALL in the year 2000: Still developing the research agenda. Language Learning & Technology, 3, 104–107. Scollon, R. & Scollon, S. W. (1995). Intercultural communication. Oxford: Blackwell. Smith, B. (2003). Computer-mediated negotiated interaction: An expanded model. The Modern Language Journal, 87, 38–57. Sotillo, S. (2005). Corrective feedback via Instant Messenger learning activities in NS-NNS and NNS-NNS dyads. CALICO Journal, 22, 467–512. Swain, M. (1995). Three functions of output in second language learning. In G. Cook & G. Seidhofer (Eds.), Principles and practice in applied linguistics: Studies in honor of H. G. Widdowson (pp. 125–144). Oxford: OUP. Thorne, S. & Payne, J. S. (2005). Evolutionary trajectories, Internet-mediated expression, and language education. CALICO Journal, 22, 371–398.



Negotiating meaningfulness 241

Toyoda, E. & Harrison, R. (2002). Categorization of text chat communication between learners and native speakers of Japanese. Language Learning & Technology, 6, 82–99. Tudini, V. (2003). Using native speakers in chat. Language Learning & Technology, 7, 141–159. van Lier, L. (2000). From input to affordance: social-interactive learning from an ecological perspective. In J. Lantolf (Ed.), Sociocultural theory and second language learning. Oxford: OUP. van Lier, L. (2004). The ecology and semiotics of language learning: A sociocultural perspective. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Varonis, E. & Gass, S. (1985). Non-native/non-native conversations: A model for negotiation of meaning. Applied Linguistics, 6, 71–90. Wagner-Gough, J. & Hatch, E. (1975). The importance of input data in second language acquisition studies. Language Learning, 25, 297–308. Warschauer, M. (1997). Computer-mediated collaborative learning. The Modern Language Journal, 81, 470–481.

Appendix. Negotiation sequences Kendra and Manfred Chat 1. Sequence 1 Turn Speaker Data 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

Manfred yes I go to Heidelberg just 3 times a week and an appartment would cost around 300 € = 300 USD Manfred That’s too expensive for me Kendra (related to previous topic; not part of negotiation) Kendra eine Meatwohnung? (an apartment) Kendra Meatwohnung? Stimmt das? (apartment? is that right?) Kendra wie Meatwagen (like rental car) Manfred (related to previous topic; not part of negotiation) Kendra Mietwagen (rental car) Kendra Ich habe es falsch geschreiben (I have written it wrong) Kendra geschrieben (written) Manfred no, sorry, it’s called Mietwagen and Mietwohnung Kendra Und eine Mietwohnung kostet 300 Euro pro Monat? (and an apartment costs 300 Euros per month?)

242 Jonathon Reinhardt

Chat 1. Sequence 2 Turn Speaker Data 64 65 66 67

Ich habe starke Meinung (richtig?) ueber das Thema (I have strong opinion (correct?) about the topic) Manfred which one? I think yesterday I read all your e-mails Manfred No I think that’s ok. I think one of us has to have a strong one! Manfred :-)

Kendra

Chat 1. Sequence 3 Turn Speaker Data 83

84 85 86

87 88

Ich meine dass wir Ideen davon benutzen aber die meisten sollen aus unseren Kopfen (richtig?) kommen. (I mean we use ideas from it but most should come from our heads (correct?)) Kendra Ich muss meiner Lehrerin sagen was genau unser Thema ist ... (I have to tell my teacher exactly what our topic is) Kendra Was soll ich sagen? (what should I say?) Kendra Patritiotismus und Unterschiede zwischen den Amerikanischen und Deutschen Flaggen? (Patriotism and differences between the American and German flags?) Kendra geht das? (is that okay?) Manfred (Köpfen oder Koepfen) – yes most ideas must be out of our own heads, but we should fill in links etc. ((plural forms of ‘head’)) Kendra

Chat 1. Sequence 4 Turn Speaker Data 95 96 97

Kendra Hast du starke Meinungen darauf? (do you have strong opinions on that?) Kendra oder dazu8 (or on that) Manfred darüber ... I think so! (about that ... I think so!)

. In this exchange, Kendra is trying to produce the correct preposition that fits with Meinungen (opinions). See Belz (2004) for the development of da compound usage in this class.



Negotiating meaningfulness 243

Chat 1. Sequence 5 Turn Speaker Data 132

133 134 135 136

ich wollte nur wissen was fuer ein Vorbild von Amerika du hattest bevor du nach Amerika gegangen bist ... (I just wanted to know what kind of a model of America you had before you went to America) Manfred do you really mean “Vorbild”? Kendra Es tut mir leid ... Ein Bild habe ich gemeint (I’m sorry, I meant ‘picture’) Kendra was fuer ein Bild (What kind of a picture) Manfred I had a certain picture of the US – through the media, but especially because of my uncle

Kendra

Chat 1. Sequence 6 Turn Speaker Data 153 154 155

Kendra Man versteht nicht die Tatsachen, glaube ich (People understand not the facts, I think) Kendra Oops. Ich habe einen Fehler geschrieben (Oops. I wrote a mistake) Kendra Man versteht die Tatsachen nicht, habe ich gemeint (People don’t understand the facts, I think)

Seamus and Margit Chat 1. Sequence 1 Turn Speaker Data 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32

Seamus Seamus Margit Seamus Seamus Margit Seamus Margit Margit Seamus Seamus

ja, aber es ist nicht so erschrecklich (yes, but it’s not so scaring) habe ich das wort erfunden? (did I invent the word?) so, can u hear dead people too, smile.. erschrecklich? (scaring?) ja schon (yes of course) well, u don’t say erschrecklich ... was sagt man dann? (what do you say then?) u meant ... it’s not like a horror movie? es ist nicht so beängstigend, erschreckend ... (it’s not so frightening, scary) doch (on the contrary) aber not too scary

244 Jonathon Reinhardt

Chat 3. Sequence 1 Turn Speaker Data 80 81 82 83 84

Margit Seamus Margit Seamus Margit

it annoys me a lot das nervt mich auch (that annoys me too) how do u spell annoy? du hast es rightig geschrieben (you spelled it correctly) great-

Chat 3. Sequence 2 Turn Speaker Data 141 142 143 144

Margit Seamus Seamus Seamus

My dad’s a a slob??? don’t know the exact word .. he’s very schlampig... haha ja (yes) meine ganze familie ist schlampig (my entire family areslobs)

Chat 5. Sequence 1 Turn Speaker Data 2

Margit

3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Margit Seamus Seamus Seamus Margit Seamus Seamus

wir sind gerade am Durchdrehen .... grrrrrrr (we are just about going crazy here …. grrrrr) Neli just told me to get my butt back to work ... hmm was heisst durschdrehen? (hmm what does durchdrehen mean?) haha das stimmt! (that’s right!) we’re goin crazy haha so viel mut braucht es nicht (it doesn’t take so much courage)

Foreign language resistance Discourse analysis of online classroom  peer interaction Robin Worth

University of Wisconsin-Madison

In this chapter, the transcript from a classroom online chat session among students in a postsecondary Italian as foreign language course was analyzed to understand the different ways in which learners oriented to the language-learning activity. A subset of data from a broader critical ethnographic microanalysis of these learners, the chat data revealed diverse approaches to participation, making evident various forms of individual difference. Furthermore, the chatroom appeared to function as a kind of pedagogical safe house (Canagarajah 1997; Pratt 1991) in which resistance to several classroom discourses of power was expressed more explicitly than during normal face-to-face classroom interaction. The identification of these elements of power and resistance extend the context in which critical resistance to language learning has been examined, from the more commonly examined ESL and EFL classroom contexts to one in which the target language is neither dominant, global nor associated with linguistic or cultural imperialism.

There is no shortage of literature extolling the virtues of chat and other forms of internet-mediated communication (IMC) for language learning. In addition to bridging physical distances between interactants, IMC in both formal and informal language learning situations has been viewed as beneficial for affording anonymity in order to reduce the tension of face-to-face interaction (Chester & Gwynne 1998), allowing learners time to reflect before responding (Kitade 2000; Koonenberg 1994/1995; Ortega 1997; Pellettieri 2000), and other factors believed to reduce language learning anxiety and increase participation (Chun 1998; Kern 1995; Warschauer 1997). Chat, like other forms of IMC, however, is obviously not a language-learning panacea. Research has addressed the peculiarities of chat discourse and other forms of online interaction, such as its hybrid nature and its potential for misinterpretation (e.g., Kitade 2000; Magnan et al. 2004; Williams 2004). Attention

246 Robin Worth

has also focused on analyzing chat discourse in terms of interactants’ expectations of or attitudes toward chat as a learning tool (Belz 2003; Lantolf & Thorne 2006; Thorne 2000, 2003), indicating that the appeal and utility of chat may vary widely. When used as a research tool, chat and other forms of IMC can offer additional perspectives on classroom interaction, including opportunities for analyzing the dynamics of power and resistance in learning situations. Canagarajah (1997), studying the experiences of postsecondary minority students as they “develop[ed] literacy in the academic contact zone” (p. 174), investigated the coping strategies that a group of African-American students used to face “the challenges in dealing with institutional and discursive power” (p. 174). Specifically, he analyzed his students’ discourses in the email messages and electronic conferencing made possible in the computer-networked classroom they shared as part of an academic writing course designed to “enabl[e] them to cross discourse boundaries gradually and get acquainted with academic conventions” (p. 175). Because the students eventually were able to express themselves more freely than they were within the “public sites of the contact zone” (p. 176), Canagarajah referred to these spaces as safe houses, adopting a term that Pratt (1991) used in connection with postcolonial societies. As the course progressed, students used the safe houses to express their resistance to the threats to identity that they encountered in the academy. Subsequently, Canagarajah (1999, 2004) further developed the notion of safe houses in the context of ESL classroom situations. Paraphrasing Toohey (2000), Canagarajah noted that “there is more student agency and resistance displayed in off-task activities away from the teacher” (2004: 119), and thus sought to identify sites – pedagogical safe houses – where students felt free to express resistance and construct the new identities necessary for language learning. In his study of English learners in Sri Lanka, he examined glosses that students wrote anonymously in the margins of their shared textbooks, identifying pedagogical safe houses in this non-technology-based means of communication. These glosses often expressed opposition to the cultural norms and discourses communicated by their Western textbook. Similarly, Bloch (2004), who looked at Chinese speakers studying English composition, found that these students using Internet writing spaces composed alternative rhetorics of opposition and protest in the second language. Bloch, too, likened these writing spaces to pedagogical safe houses. This chapter presents an analysis of interaction in an online chatroom, a subset of the data from a larger critical ethnographic microanalytic study looking at resistance in the university Italian as foreign language (FL) classroom. In this particular language-learning context, the classroom online chat activity appeared to serve as a pedagogical safe house for at least some of the students, who, like the students in Canagarajah’s and Bloch’s studies, expressed resistance more explicitly than they did during normal face-to-face classroom interaction. In general, the



Foreign language resistance 247

chat data demonstrates how students oriented in a range of ways to a particular classroom task, underscoring individual differences. More specifically, the chat data reveals the presence of various dynamics of resistance against some of the discourses of power that were identified in this classroom.

Theoretical framework The analysis of this chat data, as in the larger study from which it originates, is informed on the most basic level by critical social theories, that is, by questions of identity, or identities, both public and private, and an examination of the dissonance between the two. Central to critical theories, are, of course, questions of power and its flipside, resistance, usually interrogating the ways that cultural institutions wield power to shape identities, dictating what is “normal,” “right,” or “true” and consequently empowering some individuals and marginalizing or oppressing others. Critical theories examine these processes of privilege and marginalization, and often think about the possibility of political action against these processes. Going beyond notions of power and resistance as monolithic force and counterforce possessed by, respectively, the empowered and disempowered, power and resistance are herein viewed as available means for constructing identity that vary situationally between and within individuals, over time, and to differing effects. This essentially Foucauldian view of power as a contextually specific means to impose a belief system (a discourse, Foucault 1972) and construct it as “truth,” by extension, admits theories of critical pedagogy (e.g., Bourdieu 1991; Freire 1970; Giroux 1983; Kanpol 1994) and critical applied linguistics (e.g., Pennycook 2001; Phillipson 1992). Specifically, this study adheres to views of power and resistance in language learning contexts as outlined by Canagarajah (1993, 1997, 1999, 2004). In other words, I, too, view power as ubiquitous and situational, but also find meaningful acts of resistance that are not always the conscious, consistent, and emancipatory-driven acts of opposition to social oppression that Giroux (1983), Kanpol (1994), or Hoy (2004) appear to require. Like Canagarajah, I agree that the teacher/researcher must “unravel the conflicting strands of student behavior in order that the more productive insights and strategies can be tapped for a critical pedagogy” (1999: 98). In other words, opposition of varying degrees of intentionality or purpose can profitably be viewed as resistance if its interrogation can lead to potentially empowering pedagogies, whether the resistant are conscious of that potential or not. Thus, responsibility for distinguishing between mere opposition and resistance falls to the critical teacher/researcher, who must then, through negotiation, develop pedagogies that are “ideologically liberating, as well as educationally meaningful” (Canagarajah 1999: 98).

248 Robin Worth

This study focuses on a context previously neglected in the literature on power and resistance in language learning contexts. The vast majority of work investigating such questions tends to examine English as a second language (ESL) and English as a foreign language (EFL) situations, the global spread of English, linguistic imperialism, and minority language issues, and this focus is obviously quite justified. The dynamics of power in these situations are apparent to critical thinkers; they are significant and can have great impact on the individual contexts, the various disciplines involved, language maintenance and rights, and the integrity of world cultures. Clearly, there is no understating their impact. Contexts that do not so acutely involve linguistic imperialism, dominant versus minority languages, or risk to the integrity of cultures have been roundly overlooked by critical perspectives on language learning. This research focuses on issues of power and resistance in the American university FL classroom, specifically in the case of a non-global or dominant language. Although the contexts and the stakes involved differ from the EFL/ESL contexts that critical researchers like Phillipson (1992), Pennycook (2001), and Canagarajah (1993, 1999, 2004) investigate, the effects of power are not inconsequential.

Context and framing of the larger study This study looks at issues of learner resistance in elementary Italian as FL classrooms at a large Research 1 institution in the Midwestern United States. This institution, like many, has a FL requirement for many of its undergraduate degree programs, and for a variety of reasons, Italian has become a language of choice for learners wishing to satisfy that requirement. When students, particularly those who are either uninterested in language learning, or who have previously been labeled by themselves or others as “unsuccessful” language learners, consult their advisors about the most expedient way to satisfy the FL requirement, they are often told to give Italian a try. Consequently, of the more than 40 languages taught on that campus during the academic year, Italian boasts the largest number of elementary learners, even larger than the enrollment in elementary Spanish courses, but the attrition rate is precipitous. In terms of the number of undergraduates completing majors in the various FLs, Italian ranks sixth, falling behind the commonly-taught languages (Spanish, French, and German), but also behind Hebrew and Russian, and until recently, behind Japanese and Chinese. Very few learners of Italian go on to complete a major in Italian despite the fact that Italy is among this institution’s most popular study abroad destinations, with three different programs of study offered in that country. On campus, moreover, each semester there are several sections of a course called Introduction to Italian



Foreign language resistance 249

for Speakers of Other Romance languages, an accelerated course that covers all the material of the first year in one semester. This course effectively removes from the regular first-year Italian program most of the students who are experienced, invested, or otherwise “good language learners.” The result is that the learners and the classroom dynamics in the traditional first-year Italian courses tend to be very different from those in other language programs at the same university. Learners of Italian report much higher rates for choosing their target language solely to fulfill the requirement than do their counterparts in other language programs, and are often not reticent about their lack of investment or enthusiasm for the language learning experience. These factors, as might be imagined, affect the classroom dynamic, the learning experience and, of course, the teaching experience. Because this factor is such a marked force in the Italian program, this study sought to understand better these learners’ experiences, beliefs and attitudes, and, consequently, to consider how learners’ personal histories mediate what happens in the classroom.

Methodology The overall study focused on one particular section (21 students and their instructor), of first-semester Italian for the entire 15 weeks of the Spring 2005 semester. By combining multiple data collection and analysis techniques, including daily observation and field notes, regular video- and audio-recording, individual and group interviews, document analysis, critical discourse analysis and survey procedures, this study employed a critical ethnographic microanalysis that sought to describe and catalogue the many ways these students appeared to resist the language learning process.

Data subset: Online interaction The online peer interaction analyzed in this study occurred during an in-class computerized chat session. For this activity, which was part of the standard curriculum across the entire multisection course, students were each given wireless Tablet PCs, were randomly divided into chat groups of 4 or 5, and online, they discussed pre-assigned topics within their groups. They were instructed to chat completely in the target language (TL), that is, Italian, and were aware that their instructor was logged into and monitoring all groups both to facilitate and moderate discussion. The data presented here is excerpted from the transcript of one group’s chat session, which took place in the 12th week of the semester.

250 Robin Worth

Analyzing chat data It is important to note some factors about analyzing chat data. As the literature (Kitade 2000; Magnan et al. 2004) has noted, the nature of language produced during chat and other online exchanges has qualities of both spoken and written language but is truly neither. It is something of a hybrid, and has qualities uniquely its own. Emoticons notwithstanding, chatspeak does not tend to reflect tone of voice, gesture, and other nonverbal cues which serve to convey meaning in face-to-face interaction. Likewise, chatspeak rarely demonstrates the planning, the organization, or the expository clarity of more traditional forms of written texts (Sotillo 2000). Because chatspeak is usually meaning-focused rather than form-focused, it tends to be marked with errors in form even when interactants are chatting in their first languages. Chat in a second or foreign language by novice learners is inevitably even more error-laden. Yet these differences between face-to-face talk and online chat do not mean that chat is not a “real” or legitimate form of communication. As Thorne (2003) has noted, Instant Messaging and other forms of IMC, which many undergraduates today have been using for the better part of their literate lives, can be an authentic communicative environment. He noted elsewhere (Lantolf & Thorne 2006: 253; Thorne 2000), however, that prior online experience can mediate investment and success during in-class uses of IMC, with the incumbent “potential to disenfranchise less experienced students.” Thus, chatspeak and other forms of IMC, which some researchers (Beauvois 1998; Bierema & Merriam 2002; Pratt & Sullivan 1996; Rozema 2003) have proposed as a more “egalitarian” forms of interaction, appear to have their own particular possibilities for empowering and marginalizing interactants. Chat as a research site offers certain benefits for analysis of interaction in that it provides an immediate transcript of the interaction, eliminating the need to transcribe audio- or video- recorded data. But because a chat transcript does not contain the level of interactional and contextual detail as does, for example, a very detailed transcription of a video-recorded interaction, its limitations must be kept in mind. Indeed, because the participants in the chat session in question in this study were physically together in the same classroom, there was also some occasional oral interaction that is not reflected in the transcript. For the most part, however, the room was silent except for the clicking of keyboards and occasional laughter in reaction to the written exchanges. Because of the potential for ambiguity in chat discourse and in order to help add validity to the interpretations in this study, data from some of the other collection methods used in the study will be presented to inform my interpretation of the interaction.



Foreign language resistance 251

Transcript The transcript presented here for analysis (see Appendix) was created from the original chat transcript, which is reported in the third column of the Appendix. It is exactly as posted by the participants, except that pseudonyms are used. The considerable number of errors in form have not been noted or corrected. The fourth column contains an English translation of the interaction as I interpreted it. For the most part, translating was very straightforward, but there were some cases, which I will discuss in my analysis, in which one or more participants’ intended meaning was unclear. Each turn is numbered in the first column, and in the second column, it is assigned a stanza and line number, following a modified version of Gee’s (1999) method of discourse analytic transcription in which each stanza represents a different conversational theme or topic. These divisions, too, are not always straightforward, as will be made evident. Moreover, because the nature of chat involves multiple participants who make posts sometimes simultaneously, a number of conversational threads can often become intertwined. Thus, stanzas often overlap; rarely are they clearly divided or completely distinct. Finally, the far-right column of the Appendix contains markers for several meaningful phenomena, the most common of which is CS for codeswitching.

Resistance through codeswitching The primary pedagogical objective for this classroom task was to give participants the opportunity for extended peer-to-peer conversation in the TL, that is, “practicing ‘speaking’” (Hall 2004) in an environment that is less face-threatening than traditional face-to-face classroom interaction (Chun 1998; Warschauer 1997). Although students were given topics to consider and prepare prior to coming to class, they were also told that they were free to allow the discussion to veer to other topics as long as they did so in the TL. They were aware that the instructor was logged into each chatroom to facilitate conversation and, implicitly, to monitor or enforce use of the TL. In the pedagogical planning of this course-wide activity, instructor monitoring was viewed as a means to help students who were having communication breakdowns, to stimulate conversation if it faltered, and to encourage students to use the TL consistently. The enhanced ability to enforce learners’ use of Italian in the chatroom is perceived as advantageous over face-toface small group work, which is notoriously hard to monitor and control (Blake 2000; Sotillo 2000).

252 Robin Worth

In this classroom, codeswitching between English and Italian was one means by which some students mediated, and often resisted, the course policy requiring that only the TL, Italian, be spoken in the classroom (Worth 2006, see the section “TL-only policy,” p. 136). Codeswitching in this classroom, and likely in others, served as a means of resistance in a context in which the insistence on TL-only use had been made clear. Classroom observation revealed many instances of students resisting classroom norms for interaction such as the demand to participate and to do so by using the TL, as revealed in Example 1. Example 1 1. Instructor: “Come stai oggi?” (How are you today?) 2. Evelyn: “Don’t call on me.” 3. Instructor: “Stai male?” (You’re unwell?) 4. Evelyn: “Really, dude, leave me alone.”

In this case, the student, Evelyn, simultaneously resists the TL-only policy as well as the demand for participation. But at other times, students are willing to participate, but not willing to attempt to communicate in Italian. In these cases, they appear to be resisting only the TL-only policy, as seen in Example 2. Example 2 1. Instructor: “Chi gioca a pallacanestro?” (Who plays basketball?) 2. Evelyn: “Gioca. I know what that means.” (‘Plays.’ I know what that means.) 3. Instructor: “Chi gioca con il computer?” (Who plays with the computer?) 4. Evelyn: “Me. That’s my thing.” 5. Instructor: “Giochi con il computer?” (You play with the computer?) 6. Evelyn: “I’ve got a game saved right now that’s waiting for me.” 7. Instructor: “Mi dispiace che dovevi venire a lezione.” (I’m sorry you had to come to class.) 8. Evelyn: “Yeah, whatever that means.” 9. Candy: “He says he’s glad you came to class.” 10. Instructor: “No, I’m sorry you had to interrupt your game to come to class.” 11. Evelyn: “So am I.” (Several students gasp, others laugh.)

In Example 2, Evelyn is clearly not resisting the invitation to participate, but she is unwilling to attempt to do so in Italian. Even with the prompts and recasts that the instructor offers during a lesson in which he intends for the students to practice using the verb giocare (to play), Evelyn resists his prompts and continues to interact in English, eventually drawing the instructor into the act of codeswitching as well. While codeswitching is just one of many ways students can enact resistance in the language classroom, it is of particular interest in the chat data reported herein.



Foreign language resistance 253

Other themes of resistance In the larger study, a number of themes of resistance were identified, many of which were expressed in the chat data presented here. In addition to resisting classroom norms for language use, such as the TL-only policy, certain learners resisted several teacher-imposed discourses and created and engaged in a counter-discourse that I refer to as “playing dumb” (Worth 2006: 192–222). Although they were all intelligent and articulate, some students would regularly engage in performances of incompetence, of failure to comprehend classroom events, and of the inability to speak any words of Italian. This counter-discourse, which was initiated by one or two students and eventually spread to many of the students in the class, was a means by which certain learners protected their identities as “successful student” when threatened by the possibility of an unsuccessful grade or outcome, or as “articulate individual” when silenced by the TL-only policy. Tim, the student who initiated the counter-discourse of “playing dumb” and who consistently performed it throughout the semester, explained the rationale of “playing dumb” during the final group member-check interview: If you shoot low in a class you’re not sure about, then you won’t let yourself down. (…) It was like, if I can skate out of here with a solid BC, I’ll be happier than all hell and I’m just gonna go on and graduate. Like, yeah, if you almost, I don’t know, dumb yourself down, you’ll be like, whatever. I’m not expecting an A. The letdown is a little ea- I mean, if you’re not expecting it, then no big deal.

In other words, Tim lowered his level of investment (“dumb[ed him]self down”) in order to protect his identity as a successful student in the event that he received a mediocre grade. Many other students expressed agreement with this strategy during the member-check session, and these attitudes were made evident by the ever-increasing popularity of the discourse over the course of the semester, a phenomenon that may well have contributed to a feeling of solidarity among the students (Worth 2006). Learner resistance in this classroom was also expressed in terms of opposition to a discourse imposed by T, the instructor, a discourse I came to refer to as “Italy is the best” (Worth 2006: 185). Throughout the semester, T often sang the praises of Italy and Italians, expressing his enthusiasm for the language, the country, and the culture while engaging in a practice typical of FL instructors, that of “ambassador of culture” (Nayar 1986: 13; see also Ryan 1998). Oftentimes, he would, perhaps jokingly, position Italy as superior to other countries or cultures, a practice that was opposed by at least some students, who viewed it as an alternate form of ethnocentrism. In the context of the online chat activity, as will be made evident, this discourse was rather explicitly opposed by a student.

254 Robin Worth

Participants in the chatroom There are 6 participants represented in this transcript: the 5 students in this chat group and the instructor, T, who was simultaneously monitoring this chatroom and four others. The following descriptive summaries about the participants come from classroom observation and interviews; quoted terms come from individual interviews with students at other times in the course. Kiki is a graduating senior majoring in Spanish. Italian is extremely easy for her. In normal classroom interaction, she tends not to participate in order to “give others a chance.” Nina is a sophomore who is viewed by others as extremely privileged and is well-liked by classmates. She is studying Italian to fulfill the FL requirement, she plans to study abroad in Florence, and misses class frequently despite a policy requiring attendance. Jennifer is a senior majoring in Spanish who is taking Italian for personal interest. She does not like to participate in class because when she’s “on the spot” she goes “blank.” Candy is a junior seeking to fulfill the FL requirement. Italian was recommended by her advisor. She enjoys class, has excellent attendance and is an eager participator. Dude, normally referred to as Tim, chose to log in using a nickname. I retain the name Dude in the transcript because it reflects an identity he chose to represent, and because it becomes part of the interaction reported. Dude/Tim is a junior majoring in economics, is very intelligent and articulate in English, but not greatly invested in studying Italian, which he is doing to satisfy the FL requirement. He reports feeling “older” and thus unable to “relate” to his classmates. He is 22 and the mean age in this section is 20.89. Signor T is the instructor. He is in his second semester of teaching experience as a graduate teaching assistant. He is American and his first language is English but he has lived, studied, and worked extensively in Italy and is highly proficient in Italian.

Data and analysis In this chat excerpt, there are arguably six conversational themes, or topics, which can be identified. I have distinguished them by stanza number and they can be summarized as: (a) Pietro’s restaurant as the site for a class dinner, (b) Summer plans, (c) Spain and Ireland, (d) Italy is more beautiful, (e) Ireland and Guinness, and (f) Ciao. The excerpt begins with Kiki affirming that everyone should go to . These brief descriptions of the five student members present only certain details that I deemed relevant to a better understanding of the interaction that took place in the chat. Because these very minimal descriptions may run the risk of inadvertently essentializing the individuals or portraying them in a very reductive way, I would like to clarify that they by no means imply a full description or representation of these students.



Foreign language resistance 255

Pietro’s for an end-of-semester class party. In turn 2, however, Nina introduces a new thread, or theme, asking, in Italian, what everyone is doing during the summer. Turns 3–6 continue the restaurant conversation. This intermingling of conversational threads is a typical pattern in chat, and reflects the time that interactants spend reading, reflecting on, composing, and posting contributions. In turn 7, Dude (as Tim chose to log himself in) contributes the codeswitched “I’m so lost.” Tim’s very first post immediately invokes the “playing dumb” discourse that, I believe, he had come to represent, and which I interpret as a means to resist investment. The log-in name he chose, Dude, also seems to support his performance of “dumb” or “class clown” identities. True to an already-established classroom pattern, he elicits laughter from Candy (turn 9). Tim had defied his classroom practice of using English only after others had initiated codeswitching, but if we view the chatroom as a type of pedagogical safe house, this breach of his own practice makes more sense. I would argue, in fact, that the disruption of his usual pattern of codeswitching serves as evidence of the notion of pedagogical safe house. Typically, Tim’s classroom patterns of discourse alternated between his classroom “dumb” identity and his outside-of-classroom “competent, experienced mentor-like” identity, a phenomenon which he evidences later in the chat (turns 24, 41, 49). Turn 7 seems to be the only evidence of “playing dumb” in this excerpt, possibly because once the interaction got going, Tim and others began to orient more to nonclassroom discourses and identities in the shelter of the safe house. Consequently, and in keeping with Thorne’s (2003) notion of classroom CMC interaction undertaken as if extraneous to the institutional setting, Tim may have felt safe to drop his “dumb” identity and instead to express his “mentor” identity. In turn 8, Nina repeats her question Che cosa sono voi che fate questa estate? (What are you [plural]) doing this summer?). Although this question related to one of the suggested topics given to the class in advance, Nina may well have had her own agenda for insisting on introducing it. In turn 10, Nina posts her question for the third time, this time in English (What are you doing this summer?), probably to insure that everyone understands what she is asking, but also effectively drawing attention to her question (she uses this technique again in turns 45 and 46). Her codeswitch was perhaps enabled by the safe house atmosphere, but classroom data demonstrated that Nina was never a vigilant adherent to the TL-only policy, especially when she wanted to make others aware of the details of her life. Her insistence on the theme of “summer plans” seems to reveal how she orients to this particular activity. It appears that for Nina, meaning making and group interaction are higher priorities than, for example, “practicing speaking” (Hall 2004) Italian. Her own agenda seems to be to make others aware of her rather enviable summer plans, an interpretation reinforced by the fact that Nina

256 Robin Worth

had a regular habit of discussing the particulars of her life to all who would listen each day before the bell would ring to start class. Various answers to Nina’s question are posted (turns 11, 12, 13) by Jennifer, Candy, and also by Kiki, who here begins her tendency to post much longer and more linguistically sophisticated contributions than her colleagues. In turn 14, Nina adds her own plans, Lavaro en Spain o Ireland (I’m working in Spain or Ireland), which seems to be the pay-off for insisting on the topic of “summer plans.” The three other female students respond enthusiastically (turns 15–18), ratifying Nina’s contribution, although it is possible that Jennifer’s post (“wow,” turn 15) was in response to Kiki’s summer plans (turn 13). In any case, Nina’s chat partners all react with enthusiasm, and Kiki also poses a follow-up question (cosa fai Nina? What are you doing Nina?, turn 17). Dude/Tim, who clearly is no longer “lost,” contributes an enthusiastic acknowledgement of Nina’s plans in turn 24 (Nina, irlandese e bellisimo. Nina, Ireland is really beautiful). It is at this point that Tim appears to make the identity switch from “dumb” to “experienced,” and posts the statement that will later culminate in Kiki’s explicit resistance to T’s discourse of “Italy is the best.” In this general passage (turns 17–25 and beyond), Kiki posts frequently and across conversational themes (indicated by stanza numbers), managing to simultaneously interact with many of her colleagues on a variety of topics. In so doing, she seems to be functioning in a sense as a mediator of this chat conversation, perhaps subtly exerting some power over the interaction. Among her colleagues, it appears to have the effect of stimulating conversation, encouraging interaction (turns 17, 21) and validating their contributions (turns 17, 20, 23, 25), although Jennifer does not post during this passage. We see Kiki’s adeptness at attending to multiple threads when Tim’s contribution about his summer plans (turn 19) posts later than those of his colleagues. In response to Tim’s plans (staying in City X for summer school), Kiki further engages him with che classe, Dude? (What class, Dude?, turn 21). Her question posts in the midst of her interaction with others about Ireland and Spain, which she simultaneously attends to (turns 20, 23, 25, 27). Kiki acknowledges Tim’s somewhat delayed response to Nina’s plans (Nina, irlandese e bellisimo, turn 24) and springboards from it to post anche spagna e bellisima! (Spain is really beautiful too!, turn 27). Kiki’s turn 27 is interesting in that she both acknowledges Tim’s post and poses a follow-up question to Nina (dove vai in spagna si vai? Where are you going in Spain if you go?). In this turn, she simultaneously posts her own opinion (Spain is really beautiful, too), builds off another’s post (Tim’s “Ireland is really beautiful, too”), mediates the conversation, encourages other interactants (posing a follow-up question to Nina), and, I would argue, she functions to build a sense of cohesion or solidarity, by specifically addressing two people (and implicitly, the others) in one post. By interacting with



Foreign language resistance 257

everyone, but also by merging their various posts, Kiki seems to foster a sense of group interaction within the chat, a dynamic that is not evident in the transcripts of the other chat groups, which tend to be marked by a series of parallel, but not integrated, one-on-one interactions. Moreover, it is by organizing the conversation and building this sense of solidarity that Kiki exerts power, and as the chat progresses, I will argue that she uses her agency to empower the group (at points, in opposition to T), not to empower herself in opposition to her colleagues. The turns in Stanza 3 focus on both Ireland (14, 16, 22, 24, 26) and Spain (14, 20, 22, 27). The chatroom participants express their enthusiasm for the countries and in addition to Nina’s intent to travel to one or both, Candy posts that she wants to go to Ireland (turn 26). Shortly thereafter T’s post of Italia e’ piu bella (Italy is more beautiful, turn 31) appears and thus begins the imposition of the “Italy is the best” discourse. It is at this point that the dynamic of the chat subtly shifts. Students had posted statements about countries they were enthusiastic about or thought were beautiful (lines 16, 20, 24, 27), but T’s contribution adds an element of comparison (Italy is more beautiful). By changing the dynamic of the chat from “appreciation of other countries” to “one country is better than the others,” T very explicitly imposes his “Italy is the best” discourse in relation to specific countries. It is as if his usual “truth” has been challenged by competing discourses about Ireland and Spain. Instead of merely promoting Italy, T is now positioning it in an undeniably superior place. Furthermore, T had posted very little during the chat, and consequently, his contribution gains additional attention due not only to his message, but his decision to intervene at this particular point. In line 35, Kiki responds with signor t, italia non e l’unico paese in Europa, (Mr. T, Italy isn’t the only country in Europe), a statement that seems to suggest the importance of the bigger picture, that Italy is not alone in Europe or the world, and by extension, he should consider the greater context and not view Italy as the sole culture of importance. His answer, in line 40, No, non e’ l’unico, ma e’ il paese piu bello! (No, it isn’t the only one, but it’s the most beautiful country!), indeed acknowledges Italy’s relation to other countries, but further privileges it. At this point, T has upped the ante again, switching from a comparison (Italy is more beautiful) to a relative superlative (Italy is the most beautiful). Kiki very articulately objects to T’s imposition of “Italy is the best” in line 47 when she writes non posso dire niente d’italia perche non ho avuto l’opportunita’ di viaggiare piu di Spagna e Portogallo. (I can’t say anything about Italy because I haven’t had the opportunity to travel to more than Spain and Portugal). It is here that Kiki appears to be opposing the discourse imposed by T, that is, the superiority of Italy over other countries or cultures. More than merely objecting, her post seems to imply that opinions should be based on experience (having traveled to a place), rather than expressed through unconditional blanket statements (Italy

258 Robin Worth

is the best). She cannot comment on Italy, not having traveled there, but defends her credibility by naming the countries she has visited. In so doing, she appears to imply that T, too, should only speak from experience. Moreover, she chooses, justifies (and perhaps recommends) silence (“I can’t say anything”) instead of, for instance, defending Spain. In so doing, she appears to be getting at the crux of critical thinking by valuing informed experience (traveling) and multiple possibilities (not the only country) as opposed to essentialization. I was not able to determine how committed T was to the “truths” he imposed about Italy during the chat. T’s statements may well have been banal or made in jest, but as it turns out, they represented a discourse that certain students had noticed and made me aware of during individual participant interviews just days before the chat. Jennifer, who happened to be in this particular chat group, had revealed to me the discontent that she and some other students felt regarding T’s continual promotion of Italy as the most beautiful, the most interesting, the best country in the world: It’s really annoying to at least a couple people I talk to regularly that T is like ‘Italian is the best language in the world’ and ‘Italy is the best country in the world’ and that, it just gets kind of annoying, but, but, I don’t know … because I don’t think any country is better than any other country.

Only days after Jennifer called my attention to this imposed classroom “truth” (which I later came to refer to as “Italy is the best”), this very discourse came into play during the chat. Furthermore, I believe the chat provided an opportunity for explicit opposition to it. Consequently, the multiple data sources in this study allowed me to consider statements made during classroom interaction with a more informed understanding of their meaning and importance, allowing what I believe are more credible discourse analytic interpretations. How T interpreted this resistance, or whether he was even aware of it, cannot be known from the transcript because he posted no further. Given that seven posts occurred between T’s final statement (turn 40) and Kiki’s statement of resistance (turn 47), T may have switched his attention to another chatroom before Kiki posted, he may have chosen to ignore it, or he may simply not have noticed it. Regardless of his awareness of or reaction to it, however, Kiki’s statement opposed T’s postings. His contributions to the chat were tangible evidence of a discourse of power that some students had recognized and, at least in two cases, rejected. Moreover, Kiki’s conscious opposition seemed more than reactive; in fact, it had all the markings of a narrowly-defined critical resistance. According to Hoy (2004), “to be critical, resistance must be able to identify its injuries and to articulate its grievances” (p. 6). Kiki was able to articulate her grievance. Her statement “Italy isn’t the only country in Europe” taken to its logical conclusion implies a



Foreign language resistance 259

remark such as: consider the bigger context (Europe) and stop positioning Italy as if it were the only country of value or importance. Moreover, she was able to make (veiled) suggestions regarding alternatives to T’s essentializing discourse. Returning to the transcript, we can also detect the negotiation of a related discourse, one which I refer to as “when you go there.” Throughout the semester, T often offered advice or suggestions for language use, cultural navigation, and other issues prefaced with the statement “When you go there (i.e., to Italy).” However, there were several students who revealed in their interviews that they had no plans for, nor ever intended to, travel or study in Italy. Perhaps not coincidentally, these same students were also unable to conceive of any benefits that they could derive from their study of Italian. In turn 33, Candy posts voglio andare a Italia anche (I want to go to Italy too) and we can not know whether the “too” is in support of T’s statement, or whether, more likely, it is a rejoinder to Candy’s own post in turn 26 (voglio andare a ireland, I want to go to Ireland). As Kiki’s opposition to T’s statements about Italy unfolds (turn 35), Candy again posts about Ireland, this time stating that she wants to study abroad there (ma, voglio studiare “abroad” in ireland, turn 37). Her use of the word ma (but) sets the statement in contrast with her previous post about wanting to go to Italy too. Thus although Candy initially seems to have conformed to the discourse of “When you go there” (turn 33), she then counters the discourse by preferring Ireland as her study abroad destination. It is as though T has positioned Italy and Ireland in competition with each other, and Candy delivers a serious blow against Italy and “When you go there” by naming Ireland as her choice for study abroad (turn 37). It is this shift that also signals a slight topic switch (5.1), which I’ve labeled “Ireland and Guinness.” No fewer than six posts express enthusiasm for Ireland or Guinness beer or both, with Candy, Kiki, Tim, and Nina all weighing in. Throughout Stanza 5, T and Kiki are simultaneously waging their “Italy is the best” dispute, which, in light of the interwoven Ireland and Guinness theme, further suggests that T’s discourse of “Italy is the best” is being threatened specifically by the consensus regarding the popularity of Ireland. Moreover, Kiki is engaging in both threads, posting un’amica . This particular discourse appeared to have the effect of positioning the study of Italian solely as preparation for study or travel in Italy. For those who did not share these goals, the course tended to be seen as directed toward learners other than themselves, and consequently they reported feelings of being marginalized or otherwise outside the circle of legitimate class members, and across the board had negative attitudes toward the course, and the language and its speakers. In essence, the imposition of the discourse of “when you go there” had the effect of short-circuiting the development of less ethnocentric attitudes, a typical rationale for the FL requirement. For a lengthier treatment of the imposition of and resistance to this discourse, see Worth (2006).

260 Robin Worth

mia studiava in Dublin fa come due anni (a friend of mine studied in Dublin two years ago, turn 39). In turn 41, Tim posts his longest contribution of the chat (bartending in irlandese e molti divertente. Dov’e amo Guiness? Bartending in Ireland is really fun. Where is I love Guinness?). Tim’s intended meaning for “Where is I love Guinness?” is problematic; I suggest he may have meant, “Who likes Guinness?” His chat partners appear to understand this meaning, given that Candy posts ahhh, guiness (turn 42), Jennifer posts non mi piace birre (I don’t like beer, turn 44), and Nina states imparerò amarlo (I will learn to love it, turn 45). Kiki’s answer (haha penos di si, haha I think so, turn 43) may be in response to this question, but may also be in response to Tim’s other statement in turn 41, bartending in irelandese e molti divertente (bartending in Ireland is really fun). These two statements as a virtual adjacency pair make sense if Kiki interpreted Tim’s statement as “bartending in Ireland would be really fun,” a meaning that would be contextually appropriate but one he would not have been able to express accurately in Italian, given that the conditional is not taught in the first-semester Italian course.

Themes of resistance Kiki’s statement in turn 43, haha penos di si, leads to an interesting detail. This statement includes a spelling error, which I would argue was merely a typographical error. Kiki corrects this error in turn 48 (*penso* di si), using a variation of the IM-speak convention of the asterisk (*), which indicates that the post is a correction of or modification to a previous post. However, this turn occurs after her long post in turn 47 that concludes the “Italy is the best” dispute. It is as though Kiki has made her statement of resistance, and then corrects her typo as if to strengthen her credibility, that is, to show that she is a competent user of Italian, that she is worthy to speak, and to deprive T of any grounds on which to criticize her. Kiki’s repair, as well as those made by Jennifer (turns 30, 52, 55), provide the only examples of self-correction. The only other example of repair occurs in turn 36, but it is an example of other-correction. T corrects the spelling of the verb . The convention of using the asterisk to draw attention to a correction is typical of notations used in chatspeak and other forms of online interaction in that they are rarely codified or systematically recorded in any sort of exhaustive catalogue. However, reference to this use of the asterisk is cited in Wikipedia: “In chatrooms and instant messaging, an asterisk is often used to correct a typo. Usage varies on whether the asterisk comes before or after the correction. For example:

User1: What do yuo think User1: *you User2: ?*” (retrieved 3/29/2006 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asterisk)



Foreign language resistance 261

lavorate which Nina had used in turn 34 (lavarate in europe, you [plural] work in Europe). However, other-correction (or in the terminology of conversation analysis, “other-repair”) is socially dispreferred over self-repair (Schegloff et al. 1977). Although it has been argued that norms for repair differ in the language classroom (e.g., Varonis & Gass 1985), Markee (2000) has shown that repair preferences in the language classroom are task dependent. Consequently, T’s correction of Nina’s error may have been negatively received by Nina or by others in the group, especially if these students had come to understand the chatroom as a safe house, beyond the boundaries of the institutional context and T’s right to correct. Moreover, Nina’s verb lavarate, which T corrects to lavorate, is problematic in meaning. If indeed lavorate was her intent, her post would mean “you (plural) work in Europe.” To whom she would direct such a statement (or imperative?) is unclear. Perhaps it was in response to Candy’s post of voglio andare a Italia anche (I want to go to Italy too, turn 33) or to Jennifer’s voglio andara a europa (I want to go to Europe, turn 29), both of which would require a singular verb. Perhaps it was directed to both of them simultaneously, although this possibility seems unlikely given many elementary Italian learners’ lack of facility with the concept of second person plural. In any case, T corrects the spelling of the verb form, but does not seem to have noticed its problematic meaning. By focusing strictly on form with an apparent disregard for meaning, T’s other-correction may have seemed, at least to the linguistically-aware Kiki, as additionally inappropriate or intrusive. Nina’s response to T’s correction, grazie, signor T (thanks, Mr. T, turn 38) may have been sincere or may have been sarcastic. We have no way of knowing her intent, especially given that the nature of chat prevents most nonverbal cues. If her intent was sarcastic, however, this particular post could represent an appropriation of Italian, which, in this classroom, was often achieved through exaggerated pronunciation (difficult if not impossible to attain during chat), sarcasm, or mockery (Worth 2006). Regardless of Nina’s intention, if Kiki perceived the correction negatively, it may have further spurred her to post her delayed self-correction in turn 48, to ensure her credibility and to ward off an other-repair by T. In any event, T’s contributions to this chat amounted to the imposition of an opposed discourse as well as a potentially offensive instance of repair. His presence in the safe house then may well have seemed like an intrusion, that is, he was not a legitimate participant. Moreover, his presence, or at least his type of participation, may have empowered students, particularly Kiki, to resist him. . Furthermore, Schegloff et al. (1977) found that the biggest exception to the norm of dispreferring other-repair was in parent-child interactions. T’s violation of this norm may even have had a perceived effect of infantilization.

262 Robin Worth

Countering the “Italy is the best” discourse, as I have already noted, is one theme of resistance in this chat session. Given that all the student participants in this chatroom had expressed the intent of going to Italy, it is not surprising that the discourse of “When you go there” specific to Italy does not seem to be resisted in the chat. Italy, however, does seem to have some formidable competition from Spain and Ireland. Indeed travel, particularly to Europe, was a major chat theme. Jennifer contributed her thoughts about going to Europe in turn 29 (voglio andara a europa, I want to go to Europe), and self-corrects her spelling of the verb “andare*” in turn 30. She calls explicit attention to her self-repair by implementing the asterisk. This explicit repair is the first of several examples of Jennifer’s tendency to self-correct (turns 52, 55). Her self-correction is one element that suggests that she has a different orientation to the chat activity than do her colleagues, one that is perhaps more in line with a focus on form or with “practicing speaking” (Hall 2004) Italian informed by a concern for grammatical accuracy. It is also notable that she never codeswitches. Her adherence to the goals of the activity as understood by the course curriculum and T (although they were never clearly communicated to the students), may suggest that in a sense, she did not view the chatroom as a safe house. In addition, her contribution to the threads occasionally seem rather delayed in comparison to those of her colleagues (turn 29, 50), perhaps due to her careful focus on form. Yet it does not seem to be the case that she was not attending to the posts of other students and T, given that her other turns were well embedded in the threads (turns 5, 15, 44). Indeed, she seemed to orient to the task as a legitimate peripheral participant (Lave & Wenger 1991). We can assume she was quite aware of the discourse of “Italy is the best,” given that it was she who had previously brought it to my attention during her individual interview. In fact, she seems to contribute a subtle statement of resistance in turn 50 when she posts vado a studiare in spagna (I’m going to study in Spain). At first glance, this post may seem to be almost a non sequitur, even given the interwoven nature of chat threads. But we can see that Jennifer was attending to the interaction because her previous post in turn 44 (I don’t like beer) was highly embedded in the Guinness beer thread. Thus, because it does not seem as if Jennifer were “lost” or unaware of the others’ posts, turn 50 seems more like a final attempt to claim her voice or claim “the right to speak” (Norton 2000: 8; see also Bourdieu 1991; Pavlenko 2004). Her act of agency in claiming her voice helps to underscore her presence as a legitimate, if peripheral, participant, a notion that will become even more noticeable in the final turns of the chat. Resistance toward classroom norms for language use, particularly through the use of codeswitching, was fairly obvious in this chat activity. Every student but Jennifer codeswitched to some extent, and the codeswitching served various purposes: to enable meaning-making, which at least for Nina, seemed to be a top



Foreign language resistance 263

priority; to resist the TL-only policy and express the counter-norm of “dumb” (Tim/Dude); and subsequently, to enable Tim’s “mentor” identity; and to utilize the space as a safe house. Indeed, if codeswitching can be seen as evidence of the safe house dynamic, it is interesting to note that after T’s first post (turn 31, taken as evidence of his intrusion into the students’ chat conversation), codeswitching falls off as compared to the interaction occurring before his intrusion. Evidence of his presence probably changed at least some of the interactants’ understanding of the space as safe house. Moreover, such a change seems to have been marked by different students in different ways: codeswitching dropped off, as mentioned; Tim essentially ceased to participate; Kiki communicated her resistance to T’s imposed discourse of “Italy is the most beautiful”; and Candy and others appeared to oppose the discourse of “When you go to Italy” by expressing plans for travel and study in Ireland.

Modes of participation Kiki’s personal history likely contributes to her ability to serve as a mediator, the role that helps co-construct her power in the chatroom. Having traveled and studied in Spain, she clearly has positive feelings about the country (Spagna!! turn 20), but she also conceivably brings a more worldly perspective to the chat. She has experienced living in other cultures and negotiating in a second language. It is probably a combination of her proficiency in Spanish, as well as her investment in FL learning, that contributes to her proficiency in Italian, which far exceeds that of her chat partners. Her proficiency in Italian undoubtedly contributes to her ability to be an extremely competent chat interactant, enabling her to post more often, on all conversational themes and likely with enhanced credibility. Kiki perhaps served as the old-timer in this particular community of practice (Wenger 1998), if we understand that community as a space where students communicate together in a shared second language, which they spoke at mostly minimal levels of proficiency. Although they may all have been studying Italian for the same length of time (12 weeks), the concept of communities of practice would suggest that their personal histories would allow them to appropriate the identities of user or speaker of Italian in different ways. Kiki, with her command of Spanish and familiarity with forging meaning in a second language, was conceivably the oldtimer at communicating in this context. She encouraged and engaged others, and perhaps in a sense even defended them from T’s intrusion. She provided models of usage and opportunities for interaction that facilitated the others in their interactions and conceivably helped them to learn. As the expert, she functioned to help the others in their zones of proximal development (ZPD; Vygotsky 1978),

264 Robin Worth

the “metaphor for observing and understanding how mediational means are appropriated and internalized” (Lantolf 2000: 17). Moreover, her mediation seemed to create a sense of solidarity in the safe house among the students, particularly as she, the peer-expert, resisted T’s discourse and replaced him, the teacher-expert, in the role of old-timer and facilitator. In the remainder of the interaction, we see in the final turns a nearly textbook example of Vygotskyan scaffolded learning. Jennifer, in turn 51, says goodbye to everyone, but misspells ciao. She tries again in turn 52, ostensibly attempting to self-correct her error in turn 51. However, she still misspells ciao. Candy and Nina both say good-bye, spelling ciao correctly, Nina’s sign-off command appears and Jennifer, likely having observed the proper spelling of ciao, posts the last turn of the interaction (turn 55), self-correcting ciao! accurately this time, and signs off, followed by Candy and Tim. This final portion of the interaction underscores that Jennifer, with her less numerous postings overall, was not necessarily opting out or failing to benefit from the chat activity and its goal of practicing Italian. Together with her earlier self-correction (turn 30), it appears that she oriented to the task of practicing Italian with a focus on form. The final turns, although they are very brief, support the idea that various forms of participation, whether central and active or silent and peripheral, can lead to language learning. Although Jennifer was mostly silent she still appeared to be quite engaged in the chat, and mostly functioned as a legitimate peripheral participant (Lave & Wenger 1991).

Assessing the activity Given this diversity in approaches to the chat activity, particularly in terms of modes of participation, a viable question is raised: How is such diversity accounted for, particularly in terms of assessment, in this classroom? The chat exercise, unbeknownst to the learners, was graded based on participation. The instructor counted the number of postings for each participant and assigned a grade accordingly. Such a system of evaluation assumes that all participants are engaged in the same type of active participation and interaction, that is, everybody has interpreted the nature of this exercise in the same way and has conformed to one particular understanding of “participation.” This system would presumably reward frequent participators such as Nina and Kiki, but penalize those who participated more peripherally. As Shohamy (2001) showed, assessment is inherently political, privileging some and marginalizing others. The form of assessment represented by this chat exercise clearly privileges certain forms of participation. The way in which it does so perhaps becomes more evident with a further analysis of the students’ forms of participation. Table 1 displays the breakdown of postings from this excerpt, counted with no regard for content, quality, or other issues.



Foreign language resistance 265

Table 1.  Total chat postings by participant Participant

Postings

Kiki Nina Jennifer Candy Dude/Tim Signor T

16 10 10 10  6  3

Table 2.  Postings by participant excluding final salutations Participant

Postings

Kiki Nina Candy Jessica Dude/Tim Signor T

16  9  9  7  6  3

Kiki’s participation, which I will analyze in more depth below, was not only substantial in quantity, but exemplified the (implicit) expectation of practicing Italian that T and the creators of this activity envisioned. Nina, Jennifer, and Candy, with 10 postings each, may have produced roughly the same quantity of chat, but qualitatively their individual interpretations of the chat exercise and their forms of participation were remarkably different. Nina codeswitched extensively (turns 10, 14, 22, 34, 46); Jennifer never did. Nina nominated topics (turns 2, 8, 10), and, to some extent, appeared to control the direction of the conversation when she insisted on introducing the topic of summer plans and went on to feed classmates information to which they reacted. Jennifer did not nominate topics, but tended to act as a respondent to the various threads or themes (turns 5, 11, 15, 29, 44). Nina’s postings tended to be longer than Jennifer’s and were present and dominant from the very beginning of the interaction. Of Jennifer’s 10 postings, 4 were grouped at the end of the chat, after Kiki had already logged off. If we compare the number of postings that occur before the final spate of ciao’s, Jennifer then had only 7 postings, just one more than Tim, as shown in Table 2. Of those 6 postings by Tim, 3 contained examples of codeswitching (turns 7, 41, 49) and there are no instances of self-correction. Jennifer, in contrast, had self-corrected in turn 30 and never codeswitched. This difference does not necessarily mean that Jennifer’s interaction is better than Tim’s, but it is indeed a different type of interaction. She clearly prefers a more reactive and peripheral participation that focuses on form; Tim seems to devote his attention less to form

266 Robin Worth

and more to meaning, switching from his “dumb” identity (“I’m so lost,” turn 7) to his experienced, knowledgeable identity (“Ireland is really beautiful,” turn 24; “Bartending in Ireland is really fun,” turn 41). As Table 2 shows, Kiki contributed the greatest number of postings to the chat. Clearly, however, it was not only the quantity of her turns but what she did within them that distinguished her. In the course of conforming to the task of “practicing Italian,” she appeared to concentrate on form, on meaning, on peer-to-peer interactional dynamics, and at the same time was able to resist T’s discourse of “Italy is the best.” All these facets in combination further empowered her statements of resistance. By means of linguistic capabilities far beyond those of her classmates, Kiki was able to communicate a complex idea articulately, nearly error-free, and in Italian. In other words, she was able to resist T’s discourse without violating the TL-only policy. Having done so in Italian, that is, the language that had prestige and legitimacy in this classroom, reinforced her message, further empowered her resistance, and appeared to afford her the credibility needed to usurp T’s role of expert. Yet in the end, by way of imposing his criteria for assessment, T exerted the ultimate exercise of power over this interaction. A lack of clarity in terms of the goals for this exercise undoubtedly contributed to the problematic means of assessment. T appeared to view the goal as “practicing speaking Italian” and that goal seemed to have as objectives quantity of speech (more posts) and, to a lesser degree, quality of Italian (grammatically error-free). Given that he did not assess the quality of the posts in terms of ideas or meaning being negotiated, that he corrected form (lavorate, turn 36) but not content, and that at the end he simply assessed overall quantity (counting posts and assigning a letter grade accordingly), he appears to have assumed that the students implicitly shared the same goals for the activity. Analysis of the transcript, particularly in light of forms of participation, however, suggests that they did not.

Conclusion Among the objectives of the larger study was the attempt to describe the many ways that FL learners may resist various elements of the language learning process. Called into question are a number of assumptions: that resistance occurs only among uninvested or unsuccessful language learners, that the only sort of valuable participation is active participation, that all learners in a given classroom share the same goals, and that assessment can legitimately be based on a single set of goals. Close analysis of interaction, including online interaction, offered insightful means of investigating the many competing dynamics that occur in the language classroom.



Foreign language resistance 267

By dissecting the forms of participation found in this chat exercise, my intent was to point out the many ways students orient to, undertake, and represent themselves in an online language activity, and how those differing orientations may be valued within a classroom. It is a flawed assumption that all students understand, negotiate, or enact participation in the same way. Rewarding or penalizing them accordingly is problematic, which again underscores the political nature of assessment. The analysis of this chat activity also called into question certain assumptions about the sources and foci of resistance in the FL classroom. Kiki’s example makes evident that resistance in the FL classroom is not solely the realm of uninvested or unsuccessful requirement learners. Perhaps because of her experience with cross-cultural thinking, she underscores the dangers of the sort of cultural promotionalism exemplified by “Italy is the best” in which FL teachers often (unwittingly) engage. The chat activity analyzed here involved only 5 students involved in a 25-minute chat on one day of an entire semester filled with activities. Yet, within that small space, much variety and diversity was evident, in terms of orientations to a task, modes of participation, and forms of resistance. These multiple forms of diversity, in addition to those traditionally considered (age, gender, ethnicity, etc.), and those typically discussed in relation to CMC (facets of computer literacy), also appear to be of meaningful importance. A consideration of power and resistance in the classroom allows the teacher/researcher another means for evaluating activities such as this chat exercise, and more importantly, for gaining insight into the dynamics that temper learning and all other social situations. With a better understanding of resistance to FL learning, steps can be taken to shape pedagogies that truly consider the goals and needs of learners and that make both the language learning experience and the language teaching experience more fruitful, more rewarding, and more empowering.

References Belz, J. (2003). Linguistic perspectives on the development of intercultural competence in telecollaboration. Language Learning & Technology, 7, 68–99. Beauvois, M. H. (1998). Write to speak: The effects of electronic communication on the oral achievement of fourth semester French students. In J. A. Muyskens (Ed.), New ways of learning and teaching: Focus on technology and foreign language education. Boston, MA: Heinle. Bierema, L. L. & Merriam, S. B. (2002). E-mentoring: Using computer mediated communication to enhance the mentoring process. Innovative Higher Education, 26, 211–227. . Indeed, I would extend to most or all types of FL classroom interaction the notion that students orient to the activity and represent themselves in various ways (Worth 2006).

268 Robin Worth

Blake, R. (2000). Computer mediated communication: A window on L2 Spanish interlanguage. Language Learning & Technology, 4, 120–136. Bloch, J. (2004) Second language cyber rhetoric: A study of Chinese L2 writers in an online usenet group. Language Learning & Technology, 8(3), 66–82. Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and symbolic power. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Canagarajah, A. S. (1993). Critical ethnography of a Sri Lankan classroom: Ambiguities in student opposition to reproduction through ESOL. TESOL Quarterly, 27, 601–626. Canagarajah, A. S. (1997). Safe houses in the contact zone: Coping strategies of African-American students in the academy. College Composition and Communication, 48, 173–196. Canagarajah, A. S. (1999). Resisting linguistic imperialism in English teaching. Oxford: OUP. Canagarajah, A. S. (2004). Subversive identities, pedagogical safe houses, and critical learning. In B. Norton & K. Toohey (Eds.), Critical pedagogies and language learning (pp. 116–137). Cambridge: CUP. Chester, A. & Gwynne, G. (1998). Online teaching: Encouraging collaboration through anonymity. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 4(2). Retrieved November 5, 2006, from http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol4/issue2/chester.html Chun, D. (1998). Using computer-assisted class discussion to facilitate the acquisition of interactive competence. In J. Swaffar, S. Romano, P. Markley & K. Arens (Eds.), Language learning online: Theory and practice in the ESL and L2 computer classroom (pp. 57–80). Austin, TX: Labyrinth. Foucault, M. (1972). The Archaeology of knowledge and the discourse on language. New York, NY: Harper & Row. Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Herder & Herder. Gee, J. P. (1999). An introduction to discourse analysis: Theory and method. London: Routledge. Giroux, H. (1983). Theory and resistance in education: A pedagogy for the opposition. South Hadley, MA: Bergin & Garvey. Hall, J. K. (2004). “Practicing speaking” in Spanish: Lessons from a high school foreign language classroom. In D. Boxer & A. D. Cohen, (Eds.), Studying speaking to inform second language learning (pp. 68–87). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Hoy, D. C. (2004). Critical resistance: From poststructuralism to post-critique. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Kanpol, B. (1994). Critical pedagogy: An introduction. Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey. Kern, R. (1995). Restructuring classroom interaction with networked computers: Effects on quantity and quality of language production. The Modern Language Journal, 79, 457–476. Kitade, K. (2000). L2 Learners’ discourse and SLA theories in CMC: Collaborative interaction in Internet chat. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 13(2), 143–166. Koonenberg, N. (1994/1995). Developing communicative and thinking skills via electronic mail. TESOL Journal, 4, 24–27. Lantolf, J. (2000). Introducing sociocultural theory. In J. Lantolf (Ed.), Sociocultural theory and second language learning (pp. 1–26). Oxford: OUP. Lantolf, J. & Thorne, S. (2006) Sociocultural theory and the genesis of second language development. Oxford: OUP. Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning. Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: CUP. Magnan, S., Farrell, M., Jan, M., Lee, J., Tsai, C., & Worth, R. (2004) Wireless communication: Bringing the digital world into the language classroom. In R. Terry, L. Lomicka, &



Foreign language resistance 269

J. Cooke-Plagwitz (Eds.), Heinle professional series in language instruction. Teaching with technology 1. Boston, MA: Heinle. Markee, N. (2000). Conversation analysis. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Nayar, P. B. (1986). Acculturation or enculturation: Foreign students in the United States. In P. Byrd (Ed.), Teaching across cultures in the university ESL program (pp. 1–13). Washington, DC: National Association for Foreign Student Affairs. Norton, B. (2000). Identity in language learning: Gender, ethnicity and educational change. London: Longman. Ortega, L. (1997). Processes and outcomes in networked classroom interaction: Defining the research agenda for L2 computer-assisted classroom discussion. Language Learning & Technology, 1(1), 82–93. Retrieved November 6 2006, from http://llt.msu.edu/vol1num1/ ortega/ Pavlenko, A. (2004). Gender and sexuality in foreign and second language education. In B. Norton & K. Toohey (Eds.), Critical pedagogies and language learning, (pp. 53–71). Cambridge: CUP. Pellettieri, J. (2000). Negotiation in cyberspace: The role of chatting in the development of grammatical competence. In M. Warschauer & R. Kern (Eds.), Network-based language teaching: Concepts and practice (pp. 59–86). Cambridge: CUP. Pennycook, A. (2001). Critical applied linguistics: A critical introduction. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Phillipson, R. (1992). Linguistic imperialism. Oxford: OUP. Pratt, E. & Sullivan, N. (1996). A comparative study of two ESL writing environments: A computer-assisted classroom and a traditional oral classroom. System, 29, 491–501. Pratt, M. L. (1991). Arts of the contact zone. Profession, 91, 33–40. Rozema, R. A. (2003). Falling into story: Teaching reading with the literary MOO. English Journal, 93, 33–38. Ryan, P. M. (1998). Cultural knowledge and foreign language teachers: A case study of a native speaker of English and a native speaker of Spanish. Language, Culture & Curriculum, 11, 135–153. Schegloff, E. A., Jefferson, G., & Sacks, H. (1977). The preference for self-correction in the organization of repair in conversation. Language, 53, 361–382. Shohamy, E. (2001). The power of tests: A critical perspective on the uses of language tests. London: Longman. Sotillo, S. M. (2000). Discourse functions and syntactic complexity in synchronous and asynchronous communication. Language Learning & Technology, 4, 82–119. Thorne, S. (2000). Beyond bounded activity systems: Heterogeneous cultures in instructional uses of persistent conversation. In S. Herring & T. Erickson (Eds.), The proceedings of the thirty-third Hawaii International Conference on Systems Science. New York, NY: IEEE Press. Thorne, S. (2003). Artifacts and cultures-of-use in intercultural communication. Language Learning & Technology, 7, 38–67. Toohey, K. (2000). Learning English at school: Identity, social relations and classroom practice. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Varonis, E. M. & Gass, S. M. (1985). Non-native/non-native conversation: A model for negotiation of meaning. Applied Linguistics, 6, 71–90. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

270 Robin Worth

Warschauer, M. (1997). Computer-mediated collaborative learning: Theory and practice. The Modern Language Journal, 81, 470–481. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge: CUP. Williams, L. (2004). Preparing students to use real-time chat in a language-learning environment. In R. Terry, L. Lomicka, & J. Cooke-Plagwitz (Eds.), Heinle Professional Series in Language Instruction. Teaching with Technology 1 (pp. 162–170). Boston, MA: Heinle. Worth, R. A. (2006). Learner resistance in the university foreign language classroom. PhD dissertation, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Appendix Transcript of chat activity, April 14, 2005 Turn Stanza/ Original chat transcript line

Translation

1

1.1

2

2.1

3 4 5 6 7 8

1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 2.2

9 10

1.7 2.3

I say we all go to Pietro’s (local restaurant) What are you (plural) doing this summer? I like the food. there Yes, agreed. Me, too. i’m so lost What are you (plural) doing this summer? haha, dude What are you doing this summer?

11 12 13

2.4 2.5 2.6

14 15 16 17 18 19

2.7 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 2.8

20 21 22

3.5 2.9 3.6

23 24

3.7? 3.8

io dico che tutti andiamo a Pietro’s Che cosa sono voi che fate questa estate? mi piace il cibo la’ <Jennifer> si, d’accordo anch’io i’m so lost Che cosa sono voi che fate questa estate? haha, dude What are you doing this summer? <Jennifer> lavoro lavaro, e tu? io vado a Chicago per lavorare, dare il GRE, e forse andare a field school per archeologia Lavaro en Spain o Ireland. <Jennifer> wow ireland!!! ooh! cosa fai Nina? that's awesome ahhh, io vado a X per classe

I’m working I’m working, and you? I’m going to Chicago to work, to take the GRE, and maybe to go to field school for archaeology. I’m working in Spain or Ireland. wow ireland!!! ooh! what are you doing Nina? that’s awesome Ahhh, I’m going (to stay) in City X for class. spagna!! Spain!! che classe, Dude? What class, Dude? Yes, bartending in Ireland or teaching Si, bartending in Ireland o English in Spain. teaching inglese in Spain. ahh ahh Nina, irelandese e bellisimo. Nina, Ireland is really beautiful.

Code

CS CS? CS

CS CS CS CS CS

CS



Foreign language resistance 271

25 26 27

3.9 3.10 3.11

28 29 30 31 32

2.10 3.12 3.13 4.1 2.11

33 34 35

3.14 3.15 4.2

36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47

48

49 50 51 52 53 54 55

che bene! voglio andare a ireland. anche spagna e bellisima! dove vai in spagna si vai? ahh … economia <Jennifer> voglio andara a europa <Jennifer> andare* <SignorT> italia e’ piu bella ahh. e per un credito di matematica? voglio andare a italia anche lavarate in europe signor t, italia non e l’unico paese in Europa <SignorT> lavorate in Europa

how nice! I want to go to Ireland. Spain is really beautiful too! Where are you going in spain if you go? ahh … economics. I want to go to Europe. to go Italy is more beautiful ahh.for one math credit?

I want to go to Italy too You (pl.) work in Europe (?) Mr. T, Italy isn’t the only country in Europe 3.16 You (pl.) work in Europe (correcting form of Turn 34?) But I want to study “abroad” in 5.1 ma, voglio studiare Ireland. “abroad” in ireland 3.17 grazie, signor T Thanks, Mr. T. A friend of mine studied in Dublin 5.2 un’amica mia studiava in two years ago Dublin fa come due anni 4.3 <SignorT> No, non e’ l’unico, ma e’ il No, it’s not the only one but it’s the most beautiful country! paese piu bello! Bartending in Ireland is really fun. 5.3 bartending in irlandese e molti divertente. Dov’e amo Guiness? Where is I love Guinness? (Who likes Guinness?) 5.4 ahhh, guiness Ahh, Guinness Haha I think so 5.5? haha penos di si 5.6 <Jennifer> non mi piace birre I don’t like beer 5.7 imparerò amarlo I’ll learn to love it 5.8 i will learn to love it? I will learn to love it? 4.4 non posso dire niente d’italia I can’t say anything about Italy perche non ho avuto l’opportunita’ di because I haven’t had the opportunity viaggiare piu di Spagna e Portogallo to travel to more than Spain and Portugal I think so 5.9 *penso* di si Instructor gives students verbal instructions to finish chats and sign off. *** Kiki has quit 5.10 yea, you will yea, you will 3.18? <Jennifer> vado a studiare in spagna I’m going to study in Spain okay, ciao everyone 6.1 <Jennifer> okay, chiao tutti 6.2 <Jennifer> chio ciao 6.3 ciao tutti ciao everyone 6.4 ciao! ciao! *** Nina has quit 6.5 <Jennifer> ciao! ciao! *** Jennifer has quit *** Candy has quit *** dude has quit

Note. CS = codeswitching; C = correction; SC = self-correction.

CS

SC

CS OC CS

CS

CS

SC

CS SC?

SC

part iv

Mediating social spaces

Using instant messaging interaction (IMI) in intercultural learning Li Jin

Appalachian State University

The chapter reports on an exploratory study investigating whether and how the use of dyadic instant messaging interaction (IMI) between beginning-level Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) learners and Chinese native speakers has positive impact on CFL learners’ intercultural learning. In the study, seven dyads discussed via instant messenger various topics in eight consecutive weeks to compare the intercultural similarities and differences between China and the United States. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected from an intercultural sensitivity scale, dyadic IMI transcripts, and interviews. The findings showed that CFL learners became more sensitive to intercultural differences and developed more confidence in intercultural communication as well as positive attitudes toward intercultural differences. Four features in IMI-based intercultural learning were identified: learners’ reliance on meaningful tasks, formation of hyper personal relationship, negotiation of language and culture, and reciprocal learning. It is argued in the study that instant messaging is a useful tool in intercultural learning for even beginning-level CFL learners if purposeful tasks are thoughtfully selected and developed.

Since the early 1990s, the advancement of computer-mediated communication technologies has impressed language researchers and practitioners with the potential for supporting language teaching and learning, such as lowering anxiety level, fostering participation in class discussions (Kern 1995; Sullivan & Pratt 1996), increasing language production (Beauvois 1992; Kelm 1992; Kern 1995), and enhancing cultural awareness (Warschauer 1997). Among the myriad of technologies now available, networked technologies such as email, discussion boards, and chat rooms are the most pervasive in the current foreign language curriculum. Amid numerous issues facing foreign language educators and researchers, there is an urgent need to integrate intercultural learning into regular foreign language classes. Since the 1990s, foreign language education stakeholders in the

276 Li Jin

United States (e.g. Belz 2002; Kramsch 1998) have realized that culture and language are inseparable. Culture is even emphasized as the core of foreign language curriculum, which yielded the publication of National Standards for Foreign Language Education: Preparing for 21st Century (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages 1996). Despite the wide acknowledgement of the inseparability of language and culture, sound pedagogical plans for the culture and foreign language learning are still lacking. Responding to the call for pedagogical solutions to culture learning and considering the advantages of networked technologies, many research projects (e.g. Belz 2002; Belz & Müller-Hartmann 2002; O’Dowd 2003) have been launched in recent years to investigate the application of networking technologies to language acquisition and intercultural learning through building telecollaboration between foreign language learners and native speakers of the target culture. However, the findings obtained in these studies are controversial and by no means exhaustive. First and foremost, it is still barely known whether and to what extent networked intercultural learning is helpful to improve students’ intercultural competences. Some studies (e.g. Furstenberg, Levet, English, & Maillet 2001) affirmed positive results – such as helping students develop an insider’s view of other culture – at the end of networked intercultural learning, although other studies (e.g., Belz 2002; Belz & Müller-Hartmann 2002), cautioned about pitfalls, such as communication breakdown caused by technological discrepancies, which are inherit in networking technologies used in intercultural learning. O’Dowd (2003) discovered both advantages and disadvantages of email-based intercultural learning. In addition, the majority of the recent intercultural telecollaboration projects (e.g. Belz 2002; Furstenberg et al. 2001) focused on telecollaboration between foreign language students in the United States and native speakers in France or Germany. Very few studies have been conducted to explore students’ intercultural learning in less-commonly-taught foreign language classes. Having noticed this gap, Belz (2003) pointed out the need for more projects on telecommunication between foreign language learners and native speakers of less commonly spoken languages, such as Chinese and Russian. This chapter reports on an exploratory study investigating the impact of a commonly used synchronous communication tool, instant messenger (IM), on university-level Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) students’ intercultural learning. The study was intended to investigate two issues: (a) whether instant messaging interaction (IMI) is useful in CFL students’ intercultural learning, and (b) the characteristics of IMI in CFL students’ intercultural learning.



Using instant messaging interaction (IMI) in intercultural learning 277

Theoretical frameworks Culture and intercultural communication competences Much literature on culture and intercultural communication competences exists from a variety of disciplines, e.g. anthropology and sociology. Scholars have different understandings of intercultural competences because of the different definitions of culture in different disciplines, for example, Hofstede’s (1994) “iceberg” and “onion” models, and Seelye’s (1984) “big C” (i.e. cultural products) and “little c” (i.e. behaviors and beliefs held by people from a certain culture). The current study adopted a more comprehensive definition of culture developed by Kaikkonen in 1991 (cited in Kaikkonen 1997), Culture is a common agreement between members of a community on the values, rules, norms, role expectations and meanings which guide the behavior and communication of the members. Furthermore, it includes the deeds and prod(p. 49) ucts which results from the interaction among the members.

This definition also sheds light on intercultural communication competences, that is, how people should behave and what knowledge they should have in order to carry out successful intercultural communication. Intercultural learning researchers (e.g. Bennet 1993; Risager 1998) have argued that learners should develop an understanding of how each behavior is understood in a particular cultural context, and that it is neither necessary nor possible to withdraw one’s native culture during intercultural communication. In other words, developing intercultural sensitivity and critical views of intercultural differences, and consequently sensitive intercultural communication behaviors, is the goal as well as competences that learners should be expected to develop. O’Dowd (2003) suggested that Byram’s (1997) model of intercultural communication competences is a representative model of the above-mentioned goal. The model explicitly explains the attributes of intercultural communication competences and provides discrete objectives of intercultural learning. The rational objectives for intercultural learning include knowledge, skills, and perspectives that foreign language learners should develop, based on the five intercultural communication competences identified in the model (Byram 1997), which are presented as follows: 1. “Attitudes of curiosity and openness, readiness to suspend disbelief about other cultures and belief about one’s own” (p. 57).

278 Li Jin

2. “Knowledge of social groups and their products and practices in one’s own and in one’s interlocutor’s country, and of the general processes of societal and individual interaction” (p. 58). 3. “Skills of interpreting and relating: ability to interpret a document or event from another culture, to explain it and relate it to documents or events from one’s own” (p. 61). 4. “Skills of discovery and interaction: ability to acquire new knowledge of a culture and cultural practices and the ability to operate knowledge, attitudes and skills under constraints of real-time communication and interaction” (p. 61). 5. “Critical cultural awareness/political education: an ability to evaluate, critically and on the basis of explicit criteria, perspectives, practices and products in one’s own culture and other cultures and countries” (p. 63). This model indicates that learners are expected neither to develop appropriate attitudes toward the target culture nor to become native-like, thus the native culture is not replaced by the target culture. Instead, learner are expected to find the third place between the native and the target culture (Crozet & Liddicoat 2000; Kramsch 1993) where learners can critically view and analyze various social phenomena with a distance from both their native culture and the target culture. With an attempt to help CFL learners to achieve this third place, the researcher, while helping instructor of the class to develop class activities throughout the semester, incorporated the five intercultural communication competences into the course materials and activities. In particular, all tasks employed in the IM-mediated intercultural communication were developed based on the five intercultural learning objectives proposed by Byram (1997). O’Dowd (2003) suggested that it is easier to witness the changes in learners’ sensitivity of intercultural differences than to assess learners’ development of intercultural communication knowledge and skills in a short period of time. Because the current study lasted only eight weeks, the focus of this project was placed on learners’ development of attitudes toward intercultural differences as well as their ability to interpret and relate phenomena in both cultures.

Intercultural learning and networked technologies According to Lave and Wenger (1991), “learning is an integral and inseparable aspect of social practice” (p. 31). Culture educators (e.g. Allan 2003; Kaikkonen 1997) particularly agreed that culture is learned in and through communication with people. A human learns his or her native culture by being a member of a community. Thus, intercultural learning can occur through intercultural communication. In different intercultural communication settings, the process of intercultural



Using instant messaging interaction (IMI) in intercultural learning 279

One’s own cultural environment

One’s own language

One’s own cultural standards

Conscious of one’s own identity grows

Widening of the picture of culture

Foreign cultural environment

Foreign language

Foreign cultural standards

Knowledge of foreign behaviors and culture grows

Figure 1.  Kaikkonen’s (1997) model of widening of the picture of culture

learning varies. Allan considered intercultural learning as a dynamic spiral process with a continuum expanding from learners’ awareness and understanding of other cultures, to acceptance and respect for cultural differences, and ultimately to learners’ appreciation and valuing other cultures, which leads to multiculturalism. In contrast, Kaikkonen (1997) argued that intercultural learning is a process of widening the learner's cultural scope, which is comprised of two sub-processes. In the first sub-process, learners gain awareness of the foreign cultural environment, learn the foreign language as well as develop acquaintance with foreign cultural standards. At the same time, in the second sub-process, they introspect and reflect on their own cultural identity by constantly comparing and contrasting their home cultural environment, language, and cultural standards with the counterparts in the foreign culture. These two sub-processes are intertwined and influence each other throughout the period of foreign language learning, which leads to the widening of students’ understanding of culture (see Figure 1 for an illustration). With the consideration of the goal of intercultural learning delineated earlier, the researcher employed Kaikkonen’s model to guide the understanding of the intercultural learning process that was presented during the current project, as well as to design the intercultural communication tasks that would create a learning environment for facilitating students to widen of their cultural view (e.g., tasks using word associations and reactions to situation in which learners were required to learn about Chinese culture as well as reflect on their native culture). The ideal intercultural learning environment as identified in various models (i.e. total immersion in a foreign cultural environment) is not accessible to all foreign language learners who are learning a foreign language in their home country. However, Internet technologies make it possible to connect foreign language students directly with native speakers of the target language. Recent years have witnessed an increasing number of intercultural learning projects in which learners are connected with native speakers of the target culture through telecollaboration

280 Li Jin

(Belz 2002; Belz & Müller-Hartmann 2002). It is expected that through the telecollaboration with native speakers of the target culture, language learners have authentic intercultural interaction experience, which hopefully yields successful intercultural learning as well as language acquisition. Currently, research in the area is focused on investigating the characteristics of telecollaboration. Some studies (Belz 2003; Belz & Müller-Hartmann 2002; O’Dowd 2003) have identified the elements of email exchange that lead to both successful and unsuccessful intercultural learning. O’Dowd found that learners who had “a receptive audience for the expressions of their own cultural identity” (p. 138), and who were sensitive to their partners’ needs and able to produce “engaging, in-depth correspondence” (p. 138) could build up a successful intercultural partnership through email exchange. Müller-Hartmann (2000), employing three case studies on email exchange, suggested that an effective task-based structure could promote intercultural learning through networks and provide an opportunity for students to analyze and reflect on their computer-based investigation with their teachers’ help and guidance. The technologies used in recent telecollaboration projects were mainly asynchronous tools such as email (e.g., Belz 2002, 2003; O’Dowd 2003) and discussion forum (e.g., Hanna & Nooy 2003). Less research has been conducted on using synchronous computer-mediated communication tools, especially instant messenger (IM), in intercultural learning. IM is a real-time communication technology that has been embraced by the younger generation of the information age. Software, such as AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), Yahoo! messenger, or MSN messenger, allows the creation of buddy lists, searching for message partners through interest groups or by the home country, and on-line/off-line status alerts. According to Wikipedia (n.d.), registered users of instant messaging tools, such as AIM, Yahoo! messenger, and MSN messenger collectively had more than 400 million registered users in February 2007. The number of IM users is continuously increasing every year. Although there is not yet a consensus on the usability of IM in education, the real-time interaction enabled by the use of various IM tools has attracted many educators and researchers. Students in some countries make frequent use of IM but probably less commonly for educational purposes. However, quick and informal discussions with native speakers may well prove useful in tandem or classroom exchanges. In a telecollaboration project on foreign language learning connecting American and French students, Thorne (2003) found that compared to email interaction, IM could provide an authentic conversational environment and thus enhance authentic personal engagement into the telecollaboration tasks. By allowing real-time discussion similar to face-to-face conversations, IMI helped



Using instant messaging interaction (IMI) in intercultural learning 281

learners move relationships to a more intimate level compared to asynchronous communication tools (i.e. email, discussion board). Despite researchers’ strong interest in IM technology and its many advantages, very few studies have been conducted to investigate whether IM is a viable tool in intercultural learning. This chapter reported on a study intended to explore the viability of IM use in a foreign language setting for developing students’ sensitivity and openness to intercultural differences. Two research questions were asked in this study: 1. Is IM an effective tool for intercultural learning? 2. What are the characteristics of IM-mediated intercultural learning in which CFL students in the United States were connected with native speakers of Chinese?

The study This study was conducted in an entry-level Chinese as a foreign language class at a public research-oriented university in the southeastern area of the United States during the fall semester of 2004. The class goal was to enhance students’ knowledge of Chinese language and culture as well as their skills in communicating in simple Chinese. The instructor of the class was a native speaker of Chinese with over 10 years of CFL teaching experience. The researcher was a facilitator of the class. The facilitating duties included collecting and designing class materials, answering students’ questions, and being a substitute when the instructor was out of town. Seven students volunteered to participate in the study. The project lasted eight weeks from the first week of October to the last week of November. Taking into account Byram’s model (1997) of intercultural communication competences, a series of tasks were designed to serve as a spring board for learners’ interaction. The tasks were adapted from the CULTURA project (Furstenberg, Levet, English, & Maillet 2001), the Tandem Network, and the Spanish-English-Email-Exchange project (O’Dowd 2003) by borrowing the task types, such as participants’ reactions to different situations, while incorporating topics that have high possibility to cause intercultural conflicting viewpoints, such as family and police. Students were provided an intercultural learning task each week. The detailed task types and schedule are displayed in Appendix A. Facilitative information and worksheets in each task were distributed via email to each participant and his or her partner at the beginning of each week. CFL learners were not mandated to use Chinese as their chat language due to their limited

282 Li Jin

proficiency in Chinese. Students who were able and willing to chat in Chinese were encouraged to use Chinese.

Participants There were two groups of participants: 7 American university-level students who were enrolled in the entry-level CFL class (NNSs) and volunteered to participate in the study, and 7 native speakers of Chinese, 6 of whom had been residents in the United States for less than 5 years (NSs) and 1 Chinese native speaker who was a doctoral student in a university in Wuhan, a metropolitan city in central China. All Chinese native speakers volunteered to help American students in this project with the understanding that all data would be only collected from the American students and that they would not be required to do the tasks unless they wanted to know more about the chatting topics. Prior to the study, each CFL learner was randomly paired with one Chinese native speaker. All participants’ background information is shown in Appendix B. All names are pseudonyms.

Data collection Several ethnographic techniques (Lincoln & Guba 1985) were employed to collect information needed to answer the research questions. The research techniques included a presurvey, which was administered at the beginning of the project and intended to collect information about participants’ prior experience with intercultural communication; transcripts of each dyad’s chat, which were saved and submitted through email to the researcher by each NNS after each IM chat session; a questionnaire adapted from the Intercultural Sensitivity Scale developed by Chen and Starosta (2000), which was administered after each IM chat session; two rounds of interviews with each American participant, one in the middle and the other at the end of the project; and the researcher’s reflective journals kept throughout the project. The detailed data collection schedule was provided in Appendix A. The presurvey and interview questions were developed by the researcher. The presurvey was used to find out participants’ prior experience with intercultural communication, particularly with native speakers of Chinese. The interview questions were developed to elicit information from each participant regarding his or her reflections on what had taken place during the IM-mediated intercultural learning and his or her perception of this learning experience. The number and the type of questions in each interview varied slightly, based on the infor-



Using instant messaging interaction (IMI) in intercultural learning 283

mation obtained from each participant’s IM chat transcripts and the results of the questionnaire. Interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed by two native speakers of English. The adapted Intercultural Sensitivity Scale (see Appendix C) contained 21 Lickert-scale questions, each of which was an attitudinal statement about intercultural differences and intercultural communication. Learners were required to choose from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Questions were divided into three groups: intercultural interaction engagement and attentiveness (questions 1–10), intercultural interaction confidence (questions 11–15), and respect for intercultural differences (questions 16–21). A descriptive statistical analysis was used to analyze participants’ scores on the questionnaire. The researcher also used the constant comparison method (Lincoln & Guba 1985; Miles & Huberman 1994) to identify and further categorize emergent themes from interview transcripts and chat scripts with regards to CFL learners’ perceptions of IM use in intercultural learning and the characteristics of IM communication during the process of CFL intercultural learning.

Findings and discussion To investigate the effectiveness of IMI as a pedagogical tool for intercultural learning in a foreign language class, the study took into account both the participants’ scores on the intercultural sensitivity scale and their perceptions about the use of IM in intercultural learning. It was hoped that the analysis of learners’ affective changes throughout the process of intercultural learning and of their changes in perceptions of the IM technology used in that learning could illustrate whether the IM interaction helped learners attain the goal of intercultural learning in the foreign language class. As for the characteristics of IM interaction during intercultural learning, a constant comparison method (Lincoln & Guba 1985; Miles & Huberman 1994) was used to first identify and then categorize the emergent themes from chat scripts and follow-up interview transcripts in terms of students’ perceptions about IM use in intercultural learning and the characteristics of IMmediated intercultural learning. This section contains two parts. The first reports on the effectiveness of using IM in intercultural learning based on the results from the questionnaire and those of learners’ perceptions; the second presents emergent themes of characteristics of IMI.

284 Li Jin

Table 1.  Intercultural sensitivity scale results Participant Interaction engagement Intercultural interaction Respect for intercultural and attentiveness confidence differences Mark Sandy Nancy Mike Jason

B

M

E

B

M

E

B

M

E

4 3 5 1 3

5 4 4 3 4

5 5 5 4 5

5 5 4 3 3

3 4 3 4 4

4 4 3 4 5

5 5 4 4 4

3 5 5 5 5

5 5 5 5 5

Note. B means at the beginning of the study, M in the middle, and E at the end of the study.

Effectiveness of IM in intercultural learning By administering the questionnaire at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of the project, the researcher obtained the scores of the CFL participants for inter­ cultural interaction engagement and attentiveness, for intercultural interaction confidence, and for respect for intercultural differences. To calculate participants’ scores in the three aspects respectively, the researcher first summed up their answers to questions in each category and then divided them by the number of questions in each category. Each participant’s averaged scores in the three aspects of intercultural sensitivity are presented in the Table 1. Dyads Bill and Zhao as well as Cathy and Shan dropped out in the middle of the study. Thus, their scores were not included in the table. Besides these scores, each participant’s reflection and explanations of his or her changes, reflected in the follow-up interviews after the second and third questionnaires, were identified and further compared with the scores by the researcher. By connecting each participant’s score changes with his or her own explanations, the researcher analyzed each participant’s development of intercultural sensitivity throughout the study. The following section contains detailed discussions about CFL learners’ development of intercultural sensitivity during the IM intercultural learning experience.

Intercultural interaction engagement and attentiveness: Steadily increasing Regarding their interaction engagement and attentiveness, the results show that all participants became increasingly engaged with intercultural interaction during the two-month interaction process. The majority of the participants (Mark, Sandy, Mike, and Jason) felt they were more attentive to their intercultural interaction compared to before they were involved in the intercultural learning.



Using instant messaging interaction (IMI) in intercultural learning 285

One participant’s (Nancy) scores showed some fluctuation during the learning period. She felt she was less sensitive to her partner’s subtle meanings during the intercultural interaction, compared to before she participated in the study. In the follow-up interview after the third questionnaire, she explained that she found that her Chinese partner had been very well acculturated in the American culture, which caused her to pay less attention to any possible culturally subtle meanings that might have been conveyed in her partner’s messages. Byram (1997) argued that students need to develop curiosity and openness to other cultures before they can achieve profound knowledge of the target culture and intercultural communication skills. In this case, the reason that Nancy became less sensitive is that she assumed her partner would not express culturally different opinions because he had been acculturated so well. However, she consciously realized that there was supposed to be some cultural differences between her and her partner, which in fact indicates her awareness and sensitivity to intercultural differences.

Intercultural interaction confidence: Fluctuating As for participants’ level of intercultural interaction confidence, the comparison of their scores at the beginning and end of intercultural learning showed that 3 out of the 5 NNSs (Mark, Sandy, and Nancy) became less sure of what to say when interacting with people from other cultures. Of the 5 participants, 2 (Mike and Jason) felt surer of themselves at the end of the project, compared to at the beginning. When the scores obtained in the middle of the project were taken into account, an interesting phenomenon was revealed. Among the 3 participants who felt less confident about intercultural interaction, 1 male participant, Mark, felt uncertain in the middle of the project whereas he felt strongly confident about himself at the beginning and moderately confident at the end of his intercultural learning. On the other hand, although both Mike and Jason experienced uncertainty about intercultural interaction at the beginning and became more confident throughout the intercultural learning, it seems they experienced different learning processes, which is reflected in their score changes throughout the study: Jason felt increasingly confident while Mike’s confidence level remained stable in the second half part of the intercultural learning process Despite the fact that 3 out of 5 participants did not develop more confidence throughout the intercultural learning process (shown in the scores obtained through the Intercultural Sensitivity Scale), the follow-up interviews revealed that these participants still developed a certain level of intercultural communication confidence during the IM-based intercultural learning. In the follow-up interviews,

286 Li Jin

Mark, Sandy, and Nancy revealed that they had become more aware of intercultural communication and more self-reflective during their intercultural interaction experience. Nancy said: “cause I felt intercultural communication was not so easy as I thought earlier. I never talk to a person from other cultures before … But I am now more aware of the cultural differences.” Mark explained that “My wife is an American and I am a Trinida. I thought I already understood intercultural communication. But when I chatted with my Chinese partner, I felt I was still not sure how to communicate …” . The ethnographic information shows that none of the participants had exposure to Chinese culture prior to this study. However, given that most of them grew up in a so-called multicultural environment in the United States, they felt quite confident in their behaviors in intercultural interaction at the beginning of the project. In other words, students tended to overestimate their intercultural interaction ability. During the real-time encounter with their Chinese partner, the participants realized that the intercultural communication was not as they imagined. Feeling out of control, Sandy and Nancy experienced uncertainty about their role and their reactions in intercultural interactions. In addition, whereas Sandy and Nancy’s confidence levels stayed unchanged, Mark gained some confidence at the end, compared to in the middle of the project. These changes further illustrated that learners went through different developmental paths during intercultural learning. There were mainly two types of learners. The first type over-estimated their intercultural communication competences, such as Mark and Sandy. They did not realize the complexity of intercultural communication until they interacted with people from other cultures, which caused uncertainty as to how diverse situations should be handled. With accumulated experience, the learners developed competence and felt more certain of appropriate responses during intercultural interactions. The second type of learners, such as Nancy, over-estimated the difficulty of intercultural communication. They tended to assume that intercultural communication would be too complicated to handle prior to their involvement. However, once they participated in direct interaction with people from other cultures, they discovered that people from different cultures shared similar feelings in some aspects, which increased their confidence in intercultural interaction. These learners also tended to generalize their experience to all intercultural communication situations, which yielded a blind confidence.

Respect for intercultural differences: Moderately increasing Comparing learners’ attitudes toward intercultural differences at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of the project, the scores show that all 5 participants had a moderate increase (usually from level 4 at the beginning to level 5 at the



Using instant messaging interaction (IMI) in intercultural learning 287

end) of respect for cultural differences. One participant, Mark, experienced some uncertainty in the middle of the project while staying at level 5 both in the beginning and at the end. In the follow-up interview, Mark explained that “in the middle, I felt that I didn’t know so much about Chinese culture. I felt I might not have enough respect for cultural differences. But the more I talked to my partner, the more I felt I had respect for the differences between Chinese culture and my own culture.” According to Kaikkonen’s (1997) intercultural learning process model, this result clearly shows that Mark was experiencing a period of “widening his picture of culture” (p. 49). He started to gain consciousness of knowledge about the target culture. He thought respect for cultural differences was connected with knowledge about the difference between two cultures. Although this perspective is not necessarily true, it illustrates that Mark became more open and curious about the target culture as the IM exchange continued. Overall, despite some negative data, the analysis of the questionnaire responses and the follow-up interview transcripts indicated that all NNSs developed certain level of intercultural sensitivity throughout their IMI with their Chinese partner. They became more certain about their roles and appropriate responses during intercultural interactions. Their awareness of the differences between the target culture and their native culture grew and more critical reflection upon their native culture was undertaken. Their attitudes toward intercultural differences turned positive. They even thought more critically and became more self-reflective about the intercultural differences, which is a significant intercultural communication competence contended in Byram’s (1997) model.

Learners’ perceptions about IM use in intercultural learning The CFL participants’ perceptions about IM also were taken into account to analyze the effectiveness of IM as an intercultural learning tool. The interview data with all 7 participants throughout the study were included during this analysis. By using the constant comparison method (Lincoln & Guba 1985; Miles & Huberman 1994), the researcher first conducted a comprehensive review of all interview transcripts. Emergent themes about participants’ perceptions about IM in intercultural learning were tentatively identified. Next, themes that are relevant to one another were grouped into distinctive categories. Lastly, themes in and across each category were constantly compared and contrasted to eliminate redundancy. The final categories are displayed in Table 2. As shown in Table 2, all 7 participants revealed that IM was a very convenient communication tool for them. For example, Mike said, “I am online 24/7. Instant Messenger is the most convenient tool for me to keep in touch with my friends.”

288 Li Jin

Table 2.  Perceptions about IM use Perceptions Access Casual Private Instant Hyper-personal Schedule convenience chat chat interaction relationship inconvenience Participants 7/7

3/7

1/7

7/7

3/7

2/7

They used it to communicate with their friends, family, and even strangers they met online. All expressed that the use of IM did not cause extra burden to their regular language learning. For example, Jason said, “I am online anyway. I leave my messenger on even when I am not using my computer.” Of the 7 participants, 3 mentioned the relaxing atmosphere inherent in IM chat even the first time they talked with their Chinese partner. In IM chat, there were few constraints on the completeness of sentences and the content to be discussed. For example, Nancy said laughingly, “I don’t have to type the complete sentences. My partner understood me anyway. I even misspelled a lot. He didn’t mind.” One participant, Sandy, compared the IM chat with public chat rooms. She said, “I got lost easily when chatting with people in a public chat room. But in IM chat, I have a more private space to share with my partner. This helped me follow through and concentrate on what my partner said.” All participants revealed that instant responses from their partner enabled by IM chat made their conversations fun and evoked more and further interaction. Of the 7 participants, 3 expressed their excitement about the quickly established friendship with their Chinese partners although they never had face-to-face meetings. Despite her ultimate failure in contacting her Chinese partner, Cathy praised her first intercultural chat, “We became instant friends. He said he would help me with everything.” This finding is consistent with the IM interaction feature that Thorne (2003) discovered in an intercultural telecollaboration project connecting students of French in a university in the U.S. and engineering students in France. He observed that intercultural synchronous communication fostered “hyperpersonal engagement” (p. 47) in the tasks which led to the establishment of “authentic interpersonal relationship” (p. 48). Participants also encountered inconveniences inherent in IM chat. Participants also noticed the disadvantages of IMI in intercultural communication. Bill complained that his partner was barely online. Sandy explained the reason that she used email rather than IM to contact her partner by saying that “I had to work the first two weeks of the semester. I really didn’t have time to use IM. Email made things easier.” Although there are a plethora of studies on identifying advantages and disadvantages of IM use in workplaces and general educational settings (e.g. Cohn 2002; Farmer 2003), there are very few well-established studies with interest in



Using instant messaging interaction (IMI) in intercultural learning 289

investigating benefits and drawbacks inherent in IM for language acquisition and intercultural learning. There is scarcity of research on setting standards for technology integration in intercultural learning as well as on students’ attitudes toward using certain types of technology in their learning (e.g. Thorne 2003). The interview data in this study reveal that learners held primarily positive attitudes toward the use of IM in their intercultural learning, despite their recognition of the inconvenience inherent in IM. In other words, the pleasure and convenience that learners felt while using this technology in learning overrode the inconvenience they may have encountered. Learners’ motivation may bolster their consequent cognitive development. Hence, at the level of affective acceptance, it can be proposed that IM is a promising tool for intercultural learning.

Four main features of IM-mediated intercultural learning The constant comparison method (Lincoln & Guba 1985; Miles & Huberman 1995) also was used to identify main features in IM-mediated intercultural learning from the interview transcripts and IM chat transcripts. To investigate the main features of IM-mediated intercultural learning, the researcher undertook several steps. First, the researcher did an overall review of all interview data. Important features that were mentioned by interviewees were grouped into distinct categories. Then, the categorized features or themes were constantly compared and contrasted to ensure that none of the categories were redundant. The IM chat transcripts from each dyadic interaction were first divided into episodes based on the focus of discussion (i.e. the topics during each IMI session). Then, the line numbers were marked in front of each IM turn. Each participant’s conversation features, such as the content of discussions and the way participants talked to each other, were identified. Finally, the features identified from the interview transcripts were triangulated with those from the IM chat transcripts. The conflicting features were further reviewed with the researcher’s reflection journals and debriefed with the participants until consistent features were identified. Based on the analysis, four features of IM-mediated intercultural learning were identified: use of meaningful tasks, formation of hyper personal relationship, negotiation of language and culture, and reciprocal learning. Examples and further discussions about each category are presented in the following sections.

Meaningful tasks as conversation focus The IM chat transcripts throughout the study showed that most CFL participants overwhelmingly relied on the tasks assigned for each week’s intercultural

290 Li Jin

interaction. For most learners, these tasks provided topics in their conversations with their Chinese partner. The analysis of interview transcripts confirmed this finding. For example, in one interview, Mark said, “Sometimes I didn’t know what to talk about. Then I just asked my partner what he thought of the assignment for that week.” In addition to using the tasks to initiate and maintain conversations, both learners and their Chinese partners consciously and subconsciously used them to keep their conversation on-task. The following conversation episode was taken from the fifth interaction between Nancy and Mu (typos during the chat were not revised to present the original conversation flows). Nancy and Mu spent 30 turns greeting each other and talking about recent TV shows, summer plans, Spanish-version MSN, and foreign language learning experience before Mu finally directed the conversation back to the task by asking whether Nancy received the task topic that the researcher had distributed earlier. In the follow-up interview, Nancy confessed that “if Mu didn’t mention our task, I would have spent the whole chat time talking about my life, haha …” 1 Mu (Mu): did Li Jin give you any new topic? 2 Nancy (N): yeah I didn’t look at it 3 N: i think it’s something you need ot think over so we can discuss it  some other time if you like i’ll type it up for you 4 Mu: ok 5 N: respond to the following hypothetical situations, saying how you  would react, state the first hting you would think/feel or do.

The assigned tasks not only guided participants’ conversations, but also served as prompts for self-reflection. In the following conversation, Sandy and Qun were comparing the different phenomena in the United States and China, which was the task assigned in week 4. 1 Qun (Q): but I observe one thing about Americans 2 Q: They are surely getting heavier and heavier! No offense here, just a fact. 3 Sandy (S): true 4 S: all of the sugar in our food 5 Q: they need to do something about fast food industry 6 S: there are restaurants everywhere 7 S: something I agree with from the website though is the idea of change 8 Q: ok 9 S: Americans are always buying new cars 10 S: always buying things 11 S: if it’s broke there are surely many more to be bought at a store



12 Q: 13 S: 14 Q: 15 S:

Using instant messaging interaction (IMI) in intercultural learning 291

I noticed that when I first came here: you just keep buying stuff and throwing them away. yep and China is helping this in a big way! just look at Walmart. I think Americans even view their relationships that way ... that’s why we have such high divorce rates.

As shown in the above episode, when her partner Qun gave his observation about American people’s increasing body size; Sandy explained that factors causing American people to gain weight might be eating more sugar and going to restaurants more frequently. Having noticed that the underlying desire for changes was driving people’s social behaviors, she extended the topic to a brief analysis of Americans’ ever-changing relationships. As for Mark, it seems he used the assigned tasks as conversation guidelines as well as self-reflection prompts. In the interview, he reflected that “I think tasks are very important. I can go back to check if I did what I was expected to do. They made me think more.” At the outset of the study, participants were informed that the tasks assigned for each week served only as the springboard from which they could extend to more interesting and diverse topics about Chinese culture. In other words, a taskbased approach was not initially adopted in this study. However, most learners opted for sticking to preset topics due to the reasons disclosed above. Thus, accomplishing the task pre-assigned in each week was considered an important goal of most intercultural interactions undertaken throughout the study. Reviewing Bredella’s (1992) study (cited in Müller-Hartmann 2000) on intercultural learning process, Müller-Hartmann (2000) observed that tasks can initiate possible negotiation of meaning, which is central in a dialogic intercultural learning process. Candlin (1987) also affirmed that the exchange between self and others can be enhanced by tasks that allow learners to grow awareness of their own personalities and social roles as well as those of their peers. With a focus on negotiation of meaning in intercultural learning, Müller-Hartmann identified and emphasized that four task properties (activity, setting, teacher and learner roles, and learners’ personal interaction) are essential for successful intercultural learning through asynchronous email exchanges. The eight tasks (see Appendix A for a list of the tasks) employed in the current study were developed based on Byram’s (1997) model of intercultural communication competence. In this model, the objectives of intercultural learning include curiosity and openness to intercultural differences, knowledge of social behaviors and cultural products in different cultures, skills of interpreting and relating, skills of discovery and interaction, and critical awareness of intercultural

292 Li Jin

differences. The first and fifth tasks were designed for learners to gain awareness of their native culture and cultural identity. The second task was for them to gain awareness of the target culture. The third, sixth, and eighth tasks were intended to help learners gain awareness and knowledge of discrete cultural interpretations of similar cultural phenomena in both cultures. In the fourth task learners gained sensitivity about how their own culture was perceived by people from other cultures. The seventh task was for learners to gain awareness of how Chinese people perceive their own culture and to be able to reflect on how people interpret their own cultures. Providing real-life scenarios from both the target culture (Chinese) and the native culture (American), these tasks were intended to yield interesting and thought-provoking interactions between the learner and their Chinese partner. A great amount of meaning negotiation occurred between each dyad, which will be further discussed later as another significant feature of IM-mediated intercultural learning. Besides thoughtful development, another essential attribute of successful intercultural learning is the particular IM environment. IM enabled simultaneous message exchange between the learner and his or her Chinese partner. According to Werry (1996), synchronous interaction maximally imitates face-to-face immediate communication in terms of the quantity and quality of information exchanged. Considering the fact that these Chinese learners were still beginners and most Chinese counterparts were advanced English users, the researcher suggested that all participants use English as the exchange language with a purpose to lower participants’ anxiety level. However, with lack of prior experience in intercultural communication, especially in an electronic setting, most learners drew on the task assigned for the first week to initiate the conversation. For some learners, the lack of familiarity with both the target culture and the online intercultural interaction mode resulted in a reliance on topics provided in tasks to maintain their conversations throughout the semester. In addition, in the interview, participants also revealed that the provision of meaningful tasks reduced their anxiety in the online intercultural interaction. Gudykunst (1995) asserted that the wider the cultural gap between two interlocutors, the greater the level of anxiety and uncertainty. Chinese and Anglo-Saxton American culture are distinct in many aspects, such as the perception of friends and social interaction. The availability of pre-assigned topics and tasks helped reduce learners’ anxiety, which in turns encouraged more negotiation of meaning and critical thinking during intercultural learning.



Using instant messaging interaction (IMI) in intercultural learning 293

Establishment of hyperpersonal relationship Reanalyzing the study on intercultural learning between French learners and their counterparts in France, Thorne (2003) discovered that the authentic communication between foreign language students and native speakers enabled in synchronous (i.c. IM) fostered students’ “hyperpersonal engagement” (p. 47) in the tasks, which consequently moved the relationship from task-related collaboration to “authentic interpersonal relationship” (p. 48). This relationship also appeared in the intercultural interaction between CFL learners and their Chinese partners in the current study. Derived from Thorne’s terms, the relationship is called hyperpersonal relationship in this chapter, which particularly refers to the friendship quickly established over synchronous communication. Because the relationship was established even before the dyads knew each other profoundly, it was usually fragile and transient, compared to regular interpersonal relationship established in face-to-face conversations. The hyperpersonal relationship particularly existed between Cathy and her Chinese partner, Shan, who was located in China. During the very first intercultural interaction between Cathy and Shan, Shan explicated their friendship at the 13th turn, 1 2 3 4

Cathy (C): “I would like to visit China sometimes in the future”. Shan (S): “because we are good friend, I hear you are a viet girl?” C: “yeah, I’m from Vietnam” S: “Wellcom you, i will introduce our everything to you.”

After hearing Cathy express her interest in learning Chinese and visiting China in the future (line 1), Shan immediately extended his cordial welcome to Cathy. In the follow-up interview, Cathy confirmed their friendship, “We are friends. We’ve become friends since the very first chat.” Given this friendship was claimed in a very short time, it is distinct from regular personal relationships. In Thorne’s study, the hyper personal relationship between an American female student who was learning French and a French male student who was learning English was described as between a common pen-pal friendship and male-female flirtatious relationship. As for Cathy and Shan, there was no direct or indirect hint of any unusual flirtatious exchanges although this was also a male-female conversation. However, their relationship is still considered a hyper personal relationship because of the short span of time (merely one-hour online chat) taken to establish the unusually close relationship, especially from the traditional Chinese cultural perspective. The fast-established connection between Cathy and Shan created certain illusions about each other, that is, finding a cross-cultural soul mate.

294 Li Jin

However, fast-established friendships also may cause potential problems that unexpectedly erupt under center situations due to the lack of profound mutual understanding and unrealistic expectations for each other. Both Shan and Cathy were excited about having a close friend in another culture. They were eager to know more about each other. But before long, Cathy’s mid-term week was approaching. As an undergraduate, Cathy had to take many midterms. So she cancelled several prearranged online chat appointments with Shan. After several cancellations, Shan became furious about Cathy’s unfriendly behavior. Having no knowledge of the stress and anxiety that an American undergraduate might feel during midterms, Shan, a doctoral student in a Chinese university, thought Cathy was intentionally avoiding him. So he refused to reply to all later email from Cathy in which she requested to set new chat times. Many intercultural learning studies (e.g. Thorne 2003; Ware 2005) have investigated underlying cultural and linguistic factors during intercultural communication that cause communication breakdown. The communication breakdown that occurred between Cathy and Shan is more than an interaction discontinuity. It is rather a relationship discontinuity. Through a follow-up personal communication with the researcher, Shan confessed that he had very high expectations for his friendship with Cathy because this was the first time he had a cross-cultural friend. But Cathy’s cancellation, which is a typical strategy used by Chinese girls to avoid a man, made him upset. Feeling hurt and offended, Shan decided to withdraw from the friendship. Therefore, this relationship discontinuity is caused by both intercultural misunderstanding and inappropriate expectations in online communication.

Negotiation of language and cultural meaning Many computer-assisted language learning (CALL) researchers (e.g. Chun 1994; Kern 1995) have discovered that in electronic discussion settings, second language learners are more active in terms of language production and feedback provision than they are in class. In other words, learners conduct more negotiation of meaning (Long 1996; Ortega 1997) in a CMC environment than in face-to-face interaction. Researchers (e.g. Long 1996; Pica & Doughty 1985) working within an interactionist approach to SLA agree that second language learners’ strategies of negotiation of meaning include clarification requests, comprehension checks, confirmation checks, repetitions, and recasts. In this study, the same behaviors in terms of negotiating language meaning were observed. Given that the goal of this class was to develop students’ intercultural understanding, these students placed



Using instant messaging interaction (IMI) in intercultural learning 295

more focus on the negotiation of cultural meaning. For example, in the following episode, Mark and Ling were talking about Chinese characters: 1 Ling (L): we have rule for each character. 2 Mark (M): you mean which strokes are to be made first right? 3 L: yes 4 M: Li Jin told us about this – she said that her father told her if you cannot follow the order of the strokes then you are not chinese 5 L: this is exactly what i mean.

In line 2, Mark did a confirmation request in order to ensure his understanding about Chinese character writing rules was correct. In another episode as shown below, Mark and Ling were talking about some special cultural phenomenon in China: In the episode, Ling made a confirmation request (in line 3) to make sure what Mark was asking in line 2. 1 L: 2 M: 3 L: 4 M:

there is one thing which is the most famous in Fujian is human smuggling. what exactly is that? u mean human smuggling? yes – smuggle them to where?

During the intercultural interaction, negotiation of language meaning occurred as well. In this project, CFL learners and their Chinese partners mainly used English to communicate. Thus, some Chinese native speakers were not sure if they delivered the information about Chinese culture correctly in English, which resulted in frequent comprehension checks. For example, in the following episode, Shan was not confident in his English proficiency. He checked whether his American counterpart could understand what he had talked about. 1 S: sorry, my english poor, can you understand my writing? 2 C: yeah I understand.

Some patterns of negotiation of meaning, such as overwhelming use of confirmation checks and comprehension checks, were observed in synchronous dyadic interaction-based intercultural learning. Most of the negations focused on cultural meanings of words and phrases. The findings resonate with Kötter’s (2003) findings of negotiation of meaning in online tandem environments, which indicates that a synchronous one-to-one interaction environment supports negotiation of cultural meaning and thereby enhances intercultural learning.

296 Li Jin

Reciprocal learning This characteristic of IMI is interrelated to an earlier identified important characteristic of IM-based learning – hyperpersonal relationship. As discussed earlier, instant response, one-to-one interaction, and the casual chat environment nourish the establishment of a fast, intimate relationship between the cross-cultural interlocutors. As for the purpose of learning, CFL learners did not treat their cultural counterpart as merely cultural informants, but as a learning buddy. For example, in the follow-up interview at the end of semester, Nancy said, “We learned from each other. I don’t think this is just a one-way knowledge-delivery.” In addition, during the intercultural interaction, CFL students were not content with just being a cultural knowledge recipient. They turned increasingly conscious about their own cultural identity, which was shown particularly in the task of cultural idiom sharing. CFL learners were willing to share their own knowledge with their cultural counterparts. For example, Mark shared a stark amount of slang and idioms from his culture. The following episode shows one idiom sharing between March and Ling.   1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9

M: L: L: M: M: M: L: L: M: 10 M: 11 L: 12 M:

“a corbeau cannot eat sponge cake” why? (no data) that is a saying!! corbeau is a french word that we use in our language it is a carrion eater – a bird that eats dead things is it a kind of bird? ic and sponge cake is a light cake usually made with frosting so the saying means that people with no class cannot appreciate certain things i guess so i think that this one is a mean saying

Recent years have seen a proliferation of integrating telecollaboration in foreign language education (Belz 2002). A growing body of research has focused on the learning process and products through online interaction. Many researchers (e.g. Belz 2002; Müller-Hartmann 2000; O’Dowd 2003) agree that online interaction benefits foreign language learners’ language and intercultural learning through negotiation of meaning. This study provided one positive example of learning that occurred through synchronous dyadic intercultural interaction. However, one crucial difference between this study and other intercultural learning projects lies in CFL learners’ cultural counterparts. This group of inter-



Using instant messaging interaction (IMI) in intercultural learning 297

actants was informed at the outset of the project that they were expected to serve as Chinese cultural informants for their respective IM interlocutors. In addition, since the majority of the NSs had been in the United States for a while, none of them intended to act as a learner of American culture. CFL learners also shared this vision of the roles that were played by their Chinese interlocutor during the intercultural learning process. Despite the shared vision, reciprocal or mutual learning occurred in IM interaction, as shown in the conversation between Ling and Mark discussed previously. The CFL learners were rather willing to share their own culture with their Chinese partners. This willingness can be considered an intent to reinforce friendship by exposing oneself to a friend, which is a peculiar characteristic of IMI. The learners’ growing awareness of self and native culture during intercultural interaction was reflected as well in the conversations. However, CFL learners’ willingness to sharing thoughts and feelings is also reinforced by the interest in other cultures on the part of some Chinese interlocutors, such as Ling who kept asking for more details about the idioms Mark provided. In sum, four major features (meaningful tasks as conversation focus, hyper personal relationships, negotiation of language and cultural meaning, and reciprocal learning) emerged from the analysis of the IM-mediated intercultural learning in the current study, which was developed based on Byram’s (1997) model of intercultural communication competences and on Kaikkonen’s (1997) model of culture widening in foreign language learning. Researchers (e.g. Werry 1996) investigating online interaction have pointed out that the absence of visual cues and other paralinguistic information in text-based CMC might bring extra pressure to online interactants. Research (e.g. Maynor 1994; Werry 1996) has identified several strategies that people use to accommodate inconvenience in online chat, such as reduplication of letters or punctuation marks to imitate pitch and use of underlining, italics, and bold print to emphasise important information. The current popularity of smiley features provided in various online communication tools enables optimal imitation of physical communication. However, very limited smiley use was observed in the chat transcripts. Despite myriad types of smiley features provided in various IM tools, the most frequent smiley features used by CFL learners and their Chinese interlocutors was a simple smiling face. Other features, like excitement, frustration, or surprise, were rarely used. This reduced amount of use might be attributed to intercultural interactants’ precaution about intercultural misunderstanding of smiley use. The use of smiley faces in IM-based intercultural communication would be a very interesting future research topic. Research on IM use in foreign language practice is still in its infancy. The application of this new technology to intercultural learning in a foreign language setting, even to a broader second language learning context, merits closer investigation. Due to the limited number of participants in the current study, the

298 Li Jin

findings reported in this chapter may not represent all CFL learners’ cognitive and affective changes in IM-mediated intercultural learning. More longitudinal studies, both quantitative and qualitative, are needed to explore further whether the use of IM is viable and effective in foreign language classes with learners of different languages and at different proficiency levels. More attention needs to be focused on the process of IM-mediated intercultural learning to determine what exact factors influence learners’ learning and development in this environment. With the ever increasing number of users, IM application in education, particularly in foreign language education, is very promising in terms of the theoretical and pedagogical contributions.

Conclusion O’Dowd (2003) argued that simply throwing students into networked intercultural interaction did not necessarily lead to intercultural learning. CALL researchers (e.g. Chapelle 2001; Salaberry 2001) warned that a sound pedagogical plan should be integrated with technology use. To evaluate whether IMI is a viable tool for intercultural learning in a foreign language class, it is inevitable to take into account the goal of the CFL class and the students’ affective attitudes toward the use of technology. Given that this was an entry-level CFL class and students’ proficiency in Chinese language and culture was very limited, the goal of the intercultural learning was to provide alternative opportunities for students to have authentic encounters with the target culture as well as to enhance their sensitivity to intercultural differences. Chapelle (2001), a pioneer in setting evaluation standards for CALL tasks, proposed that technologies used in a CALL task should be practical to allow the task to succeed. The findings of the exploratory study showed that learners involved in the IM-mediated intercultural learning became increasingly sensitive to intercultural differences and engaged in critical thinking and self-reflection. Learners also expressed positive commentary about the use of IM in intercultural learning. Despite the fact that the findings may not reveal the full picture of IM-based intercultural learning due to the limited number of participants, the researcher believes that it is helpful and welcomed by students to use IM in intercultural learning with the goal of increasing students’ intercultural sensitivity of intercultural differences and their awareness of own cultural identity. It is hoped that the four features of IM interaction for intercultural learning identified in the study will help broaden researchers’ and educators’ understanding of applications of IM in second or foreign language learning environments.



Using instant messaging interaction (IMI) in intercultural learning 299

Acknowledgement I wish to thank Sally Magnan for her careful review of this chapter. I appreciate all the comments and suggestions. I also owe thanks to all my participants in the study.

References Allan, M. (2003). Frontier crossings: Cultural dissonance, intercultural learning and the multicultural personality. Journal of Research on International Education, 2(1), 83–110. American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. (1996). National standards for foreign language education: Preparing for the 21st century. New York, NY: National Standards in Foreign Language Education Project. Beauvois, M. H. (1992). Computer-assisted classroom discussion in the foreign language classroom: Conversation in slow motion. Foreign Language Annals, 25(5), 455–464. Belz, J. A. (2002). Social dimensions of telecollaborative foreign language study. Language Learning & Technology, 6(1), 60–81. Retrieved September 24, 2003, from http://llt.msu. edu/vol6num1/BELZ/ Belz, J. (2003). Linguistic perspectives on the development of intercultural competence in telecollaboration. Language Learning & Technology, 7(2), 68–117. Retrieved August 13, 2003, from http://llt.msu.edu/vol7num2/belz/default.html Belz, J. A. & Müller-Hartmann, A. (2002). Deutsch-amerikanische Telekollaboration im Fremd­ sprachenunterricht – Lernende im Kreuzfeuer der institutionellen Zwänge [GermanAmerican telecollaboration in foreign language teaching – Learners in the crossfire of institutional constraints]. Die Unterrichtspraxis/Teaching German, 35(1), 68–78. Bennett, M. (1993). Towards ethnorelativism: A development model of intercultural sensitivity. In M. Paige (Ed.), Education for the intercultural experience (pp. 21–71). Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural Press. Byram, M. (1997). Teaching and assessing intercultural communicative competence. Bristol, PA: Multicultural Matters Ltd. Candlin, C. N. (1987). Towards task-based language learning. In C. N. Candlin & D. Murphy (Eds.), Language learning tasks (pp. 5–22). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall International. Chapelle, C. (2001). Computer applications in second language acquisition: Foundations for teaching, testing and research. Cambridge: CUP. Chun, D. M. (1994). Using computer networking to facilitate the acquisition of interactive competence. System, 22, 17–31. Chen, G. M. & Starosta, W. J. (2000). The development and validation of intercultural communication sensitivity scale. Human Communication, 3, 1–15. Cohn, E. (2002). Instant messaging in higher education: A new faculty development challenge. Retrieved June 10, 2006, from http://www.ipfw.edu/as/tohe/2002/Papers/cohn2.htm Crozet, C. & Liddicoat, A. J. (2000). Teaching culture as an integrated part of language: Implications for the aims, approaches and pedagogies of language teaching. In A. J. Liddicoat & C. Crozet (Eds.), Teaching languages, teaching cultures. Melbourne: Language Australia.

300 Li Jin

Farmer, R. (2003). Instant messenger- Corporative tool or educator’s nightmare! NAWEB proceedings. Retrieved August 12, 2005, from http://naweb.unb.ca/proceedings/2003/PaperFarmer.html Furstenberg, G., Levet, S., English, K., & Maillet, K. (2001). Giving a virtual voice to the silent language of culture: The CULTURA project. Language Learning & Technology, 5(1), 55–102. Retrieved in September 24, 2003, from http://llt.msu.edu/vol5num1/furstenberg/ Gudykunst, W. B. (1995). Anxiety/uncertainty management theory: Current status. In R. L. Wiseman (Ed.), Intercultural communication theory (pp. 8–58). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Hanna, B. E. & Nooy, J. (2003). A funny thing happened on the way to the forum: Electronic discussion and foreign language learning. Language Learning & Technology, 7(1), 71–85. Hofstede, G. (1994). Cultures and organizations: Intercultural cooperation and its importance for survival. London: Harper Collins. Kaikkonen, P. (1997). Learning a culture and a foreign language at school: Aspects of intercultural learning. Language Learning Journal, 15, 47–51. Kelm, O. R. (1992). The use of synchronous computer networks in second language instruction: A preliminary report. Foreign Language Annals, 25, 444–454. Kern, R. G. (1995). Restructuring classroom interaction with networked computers: Effects on quantity and characteristics of language production. The Modern Language Journal, 79(4), 457–476. Kötter, M. (2003). Negotiation of meaning and codeswitching in online tandems. Language Learning & Technology, 7(2), 145–172. Kramsch, C. (1993). Context and culture in language teaching. Oxford: OUP. Kramsch, C. (1998). Language and Culture. Oxford: OUP. Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991): Situated learning. Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: CUP. Lincoln, V. & Guba, E. (1985). Naturalistic Inquiry. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Long, M. H. (1996). The role of the linguistic environment in second language acquisition. In W. Ritchie & R. Bhatia (Eds.), Handbook of second language acquisition (pp. 413–468). New York, NY: Academic Press. Maynor, N. (1994). The language of electronic mail: Written speech? In G. D. Little & M. Montgomery (Eds.), Centennial usage studies (pp. 48–54). Tuscaloosa, AL: Alabama University Press. Miles, M. B. & Huberman, A. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis. (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Müller-Hartmann, A. (2000). The role of tasks in promoting intercultural learning in electronic learning networks. Language Learning & Technology, 4(2), 129–147. Retrieved April 24, 2003, from http://llt.msu.edu/vol4num2/muller/ O’Dowd, R. (2003). Understanding the “other side”: Intercultural learning in a Spanish-English e-mail exchange. Language Learning & Technology, 7(2), 118–144. Retrieved August 26, 2003, from http://llt.msu.edu/vol7num2/odowd/ Ortega, L. (1997). Processes and outcomes in networked classroom interaction: Defining the research agenda for L2 computer-assisted classroom discussion. Language Learning & Technology, 1(1), 82–93. Retrieved February 17, 2005, from http://llt.msu.edu/vol1num1/ ortega/default.html Pica, T. & Doughty, C. (1985). The role of group work in classroom second language acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 7, 233–248.



Using instant messaging interaction (IMI) in intercultural learning 301

Risager, K. (1998). Language teaching and the process of European integration. In M. Byram & M. Fleming (Eds.), Language learning in intercultural perspective. Approaches through drama and ethnography (pp. 242–254). Cambridge: CUP. Salaberry, M. R. (2001). The use of technology for second language learning and teaching: A retrospective. The Modern Language Journal, 85(1), 39–56. Seelye, H. (1984). Teaching culture: Strategies for inter-cultural communication (revised edn). Lincolnwood, IL: National Textbook Company. Sullivan, N. & Pratt, E. (1996). A comparative study of tow ESL writing environments: A computer-assisted classroom and a traditional oral classroom. System, 29, 491–501. Thorne, S. (2003). Artifacts and cultures-of-use in intercultural communication. Language Learning & Technology, 7(2), 38–67. Retrieved August 25, 2003, from http://llt.msu.edu/ vol7num2/thorne/ Ware, P. (2005). “Missed” communication in online communication: Tensions in a GermanAmerican telecollaboration. Language Learning & Technology, 9(2), 64–89. Warschauer, M. (1997). Computer-mediated collaborative learning: Theory and practice. Modern Language Journal, 81(3), 470–481. Werry, C. C. (1996). Linguistic and interactional features of Internet Relay Chat. In S. C. Herring (ed.), Computer-mediated communication: Linguistic, social and cross-cultural Perspectives (pp. 47–64). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Wikipedia. (n.d.). Instant messaging. Retrieved June 10, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Instant_messenger

302 Li Jin

Appendix A Overview of tasks and schedule Timeline

Activities

Description

Participants volunteer to join the study. Participants are asked to fill up a presurvey. Questionnaire Intercultural Sensitivity Scale.

Sept. 4th Participants week choosing Pre-survey

Oct.

1st week

2nd week

3rd week

4th week

Aims Participants are chosen.

Getting information about the participants. Getting to know learners’ intercultural awareness level. American students use IM to Students become familiar In-class  discussion have an in-class discussion with using IM to exchange about the image of the United ideas for academic purpose States and Americans abroad. and reflect on their culture. Introductory Students introduce themAmerican students and their interaction selves with their Chinese Chinese partners get to know partner. Then they discuss each other and exchange each with their partner what their other’s perspectives of the life is like in America and other culture. what may be different if they visited China. Word  Students write the associaAmerican students become association tions of the words provided in aware of the different interthe task sheet from a perspec- pretations of cultural practices and products members tive of an American. They then discuss their answers of two cultures have. with their Chinese partners who have their answers from a perspective of a Chinese. Students read text extracts Text extracts American students become taken from various foreign 1 and IM aware of different perceptions writers about the United discussion about America from members States and Americans. Then of other culture. students exchange their ideas with Chinese partners. Questionnaire Intercultural Sensitivity Scale. Getting to know learners’ intercultural awareness level. Open-ended Based on students’ IM The researcher asks American conversation recordings, the students’ feeling about the exinterview 1 change and the intercultural researcher interviews each student. learning.



Using instant messaging interaction (IMI) in intercultural learning 303

Nov. 1st Situation  week reaction

2nd week

3rd week

4th week

Dec. 1st week

Students complete the situation reaction, and discuss with their Chinese partner.

Students become aware of the different interpretation of practices by members of different cultures. Explaining American students explain in Students look at the link idioms Chinese the meanings of vari- between idioms and cultural ous idioms from American values in both cultures. culture. Students read text extracts Text extract Students get to know how taken from American jour2 and IM others and Chinese themnals or books about China discussion selves look at China and and Chinese and have in-class Chinese culture. discussion about their own view of China and Chinese. Then they discuss these with Chinese partner. Points of view Both American students Discussion of the story leads and their Chinese partners to comparison of moral values compare their reaction to a in both cultures. fictitious story that brings up issues of morality. Questionnaire Intercultural Sensitive Scale. Getting to know learners’ intercultural awareness level. Open-ended Based on students’ IM conThe researcher asks students’ versation recordings and the perception of the exchange interview 2 results from questionnaires, and the intercultural learning the researcher interviews each and explores reasons why students have those perceptions. student.

Appendix B Participants’ background NNS

Age

Sex

Home language

Country NSs born

Age

Sex

Years in the U.S.

Mark Sandy Nancy Mike Cathy Bill Jason

25 23 21 22 21 25 23

M F F M F M M

English/ English English English/Korean English/Vietnamese English English/Cantonese

Trinidad U.S. U.S. U.S. Vietnam U.S. Canada

32 32 29 26 29 28 34

F M M M M F F

4 4 4 3 0 in China 4 2

Ling Qun Mu Yang Shan Zhao Li

304 Li Jin

Appendix C Questionnaire: Intercultural Sensitivity Scale  (Adapted from the Intercultural Sensitivity Scale developed  by Chen and Staresta 2000) Below is a series of statements concerning intercultural communication. There is no right or wrong answer. Please work quickly and record your first impression by indicating the degree to which you agree or disagree with the statement. Thank you for your cooperation.

5 = strongly agree 4 = agree 3 = uncertain 2= disagree 1= strongly disagree

(Please put the number corresponding to your answer in the blank before the statement.) ___ 1. I enjoy interacting with people from different cultures. ___ 2. I tend to wait before forming an impression of culturally-distinct counterparts. ___ 3. I am open-minded to people from different cultures. ___ 4. I often give positive responses to my culturally different counterpart during our interaction. ___ 5. I don’t avoid those situations where I will have to deal with culturally-distinct persons. ___ 6. I often show my culturally-distinct counterpart my understanding through verbal or nonverbal cues. ___ 7. I have a feeling of enjoyment towards differences between my culturally-distinct counterpart and me. ___ 8. I am very observant when interacting with people from different cultures. ___ 9. I try to obtain as much information as I can when I interacting with people from different cultures. ___ 10. I am sensitive to my culturally-distinct counterpart’s subtle meanings during our interaction. ___ 11. I am pretty sure of myself in interacting with people from different cultures. ___ 12. I feel at ease to talk in front of people from different cultures. ___ 13. I always know what to say when interacting with people from different cultures. ___ 14. I can be as sociable as I want to be when interacting with people from different cultures. ___ 15. I feel confident when interacting with people from different cultures. ___ 16. I think people from other cultures are narrow-minded. ___ 17. I don’t like to be with people from different cultures. ___ 18. I cannot tolerate the values of people from different cultures. ___ 19. I cannot tolerate the ways people from different cultures behave. ___ 20. I would not accept the opinions of people from different cultures. ___ 21. I think my culture is better than other cultures.

Transcultural communication in open Internet environments and massively multiplayer online games Steven L. Thorne

The Pennsylvania State University

This chapter examines online gaming and open Internet environments as informal settings for second language (L2) use and development. The text begins by contextualizing communication technologies use within broader demographic, historical, and sociological frameworks. This discussion suggests the existence of a deeply problematic school-world divide between the goals and processes of conventional institutionalized schooling on the one hand and students’ increasingly mediated interpersonal, recreational, and professional lives on the other. Two categories of online interaction are then explored: (a) various cases of Internet-mediated intercultural communication that largely, or fully, occurred outside of instructed L2 classroom settings, and (b) a case study of multilingual transcultural communicative activity occurring in the massively multiplayer online game, World of Warcraft. The case studies suggest that these contexts are sites of frequent and highly meaningful communicative activity for participants. In conclusion, an argument is made for continued exploration of new media genres of language use and their selective inclusion into instructed L2 pedagogy, processes, and curricula. What attracts people most, it would appear, is other people.

(Whyte 1988)

Learning through living online People learn all the time – increasing their capacity to function autonomously as well as productively in groups and developing ways to present themselves competently and contingently across diverse activity setting. Formalized educational activity, of course, is a powerful contributor to development, but so too are lived experiences in less explicitly structured environments. Processes variably described

306 Steven L. Thorne

as informal learning (Sawchuk 2003), apprenticeship (Lave 1988), language socialization (Ochs 1993), and becoming a particular kind of person over time (e.g., Lave & Wenger 1991), may include explicit instruction, but also encompass a wide array of participation in non-instructed culturally organized activity. Building on a review of published research and presentation of a preliminary case study of intercultural communication in a massively multiplayer online gaming environment, I will suggest that engagement in freely chosen Internet environments provides developmentally productive opportunities for learning. This essay explores second and foreign language (L2) use in such non-institutional contexts and specifically focuses on digitally mediated communicative practices that are distinct from, or at the boundaries of, the modernist project of formal education. This essay is partitioned into three parts: (a) contextualizing communication technology use within broader historical and sociological frameworks and acknowledging the growing disconnect between the goals and methods used in school and students’ increasingly mediated interpersonal, recreational, and professional lives; (b) Internet-mediated intercultural activity, focusing on an instance of interaction that was sparked within a formal educational setting but subsequently evolved independently; and (c) language use in virtual environments and massively multiplayer online gaming. Throughout the essay the iterative theme will be the implications and potentialities for learning additional languages (L2s) through activities mediated by Internet communication and gaming environments.

Questions and challenges ‘Who cares?’ When pondering non-instructional uses of Internet resources as sites of L2 use and development, theorists and practitioners might ask many questions. A first might be – who cares? How would knowing more about personal and social uses of the Internet help L2 educators with their in-class efforts? Indeed, the bulk of educational research – that focused on second language acquisition (SLA) and otherwise – examines development and learning within the tightly bounded confines of classrooms. Yet demonstrably, life and learning are not composed of isolated or strictly isolatable moments and spaces (e.g., Leander & Lovvorn 2006; Roth et al. 2005). Student use of the Internet, both in and out of school, is expanding rapidly, and with this expanded use comes participation in and exposure to communicative genres that are substantially different from pre-digital epistolary conventions



Transcultural communication in open Internet environments 307

(e.g., Crystal 2001; Herring 1996; Thorne & Payne 2005; Werry 1996). Although access to communication and information technology is still unequally distributed across geopolitical regions and social classes (see Castells 2004; van Dijk 2005; Warschauer 2003), Internet user populations continue to expand around the world. At this point in history, more than a decade beyond the wide-spread diffusion of the world wide web (in the mid 1990s), it has become cliché to engage hyperbole when attempting to describe the magnitude of the Internet’s transformative effects on local and global communicative practices, yet recent demographic trends empirically substantiate hyperbolic phenomena. As of June 10th 2007, there are estimated to be well over one billion (1,133,408,294) Internet users globally. Among world regions, North America retains the greatest percentage of Internet penetration (69% of total population), followed by Oceana/Australia (54.4%) and Europe (39.4%). Somewhat surprising, however, is that the largest absolute number of Internet users currently reside in Asia (409,421,115) (from Internet Use Stats, www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm). To revisit the essential message of Internet pioneer Tim Berners-Lee (1998), the demographic shifts in Internet growth suggest that the Internet is less a technological fact than a social fact, and one that is mediated in large part by textual language use. All of this suggests that within language education, Internet-mediated communication is no longer a proxy activity or practice environment, but is itself the real thing – the medium through which we perform social and professional roles and through which we engage in interpersonal and informational activity.

The usage-based identity of Internet communication tools The second question asks why learners frame (and perform) communication differently when doing them on the Internet, an issue I have addressed in earlier work on L2 education and Internet use (Thorne 2000, 2003; Kramsch & Thorne 2002). Focusing on the interpenetrations between micro-interactional activity and macro-social and cultural structures, this research examined social and formal educational uses of Internet communication technologies. Log file transcripts and ethnographic interviews provided evidence that for a number of students, the discursive framing of Internet-mediated L2 educational activity was strongly influenced by their prior socialization into non-educational digitally mediated speech communities. In other words, Internet communication styles marking high competence were first established in social uses of the medium, which in turn informed how students communicated when in Internet-mediated instructional settings. Though prior research on computer-mediated communication (CMC) use in L2 contexts (e.g., Beauvois 1998; Chun 1994; Warschauer 1997)

308 Steven L. Thorne

had provided important descriptive analyses of uses of CMC for educational purposes, this work was limited by its lack of attention to school-exogenous and macro-cultural processes also at work (although see Warschauer 1999). For many L2 technology researchers (as well as Internet users themselves), the variable meanings and affiliative significances of the Internet are masked by the doxa, or takenfor-grantedness, of its use in routine, everyday cultural practice (e.g., Bourdieu & Eagleton 1992). To help clarify this situation, I proposed an analytical framework for the study of Internet mediation that drew upon and expanded theoretical treatments of mediation and interactivity system analysis (Thorne 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006a; see also Engeström 2001; Lantolf & Thorne 2006). Although artifacts do possess a functional identity that affects communicative dynamics and patterns, in situ, artifacts such as Internet communication tools are meaningfully and differentially defined by their historical patterns of use, the majority of which now arguably involve non-instructional environments and purposes. What students do online and outside of school involves extended periods of language socialization, adaptation, and collective transformation that result in highly complex, modality and interlocutor specific language practices (e.g., Thorne 2003; Thorne & Black, in press; Werry 1996; for a distinctive example involving online gaming, see Steinkuhler 2006). Within the context of formal educational CMC L2 use, a phenotypic approach frames in-class digital interaction within the larger context of participants’ prior and everyday use of Internet communication tools. Internet communication tools, like all human creations, are cultural tools (e.g., Cole 1996; Nardi 1996; Wartofsky 1979) that carry interactional and relational associations, preferred uses (and correspondingly, dispreferred uses), and expectations of genre-specific communicative activity. In this sense technologies are structured and structuring forms of culture (e.g., Bødker 1997; Bourdieu 1990) that will have variable meanings and differing mediational influences across communities. I wish to underscore, however, that while Internet communication tools carry the historical residua of their use across time, patterns of past use inform, but do not determine, present and future activity (just as gender or social class do not determine present and future activity). Rather, what I have recently come to call the cultures-of-use framework for addressing research and pedagogical innovation in Internet environments (Thorne 2003, 2006a; Thorne & Black, in press) provides an axis along which to perceive and address issues of genre conflict, variation, and alignment (see also Kramsch & Thorne 2002; Thorne, forthcoming). Extensions of this line of research will be further discussed below.



Transcultural communication in open Internet environments 309

Deepening school-world divide A significant challenge to the viability of institutional forms of education is its limited capacity to respond and reform in relationship to a rapidly changing world. This issue is strikingly salient in view of the dissonance between top-down processes and pedagogies that operate in formal learning environments and the bottom-up life experiences, many Internet-mediated, of students in secondary and university environments (e.g., Lankshear & Knobel 2003). This relevance gap has been confirmed in recent research by the Pew Internet and American Life Project (Levin & Arafeh 2002) based on focus groups (136 students in gender-balanced and racially diverse clusters) and voluntary participation data (200 students who submitted online essays describing their use of the Internet for school). The 2002 Pew report revealed that although nearly all students used the Internet as a regular part of their educational activities, we know little about how they actually use it for schoolwork or about how its use might substantively inform school policies, practices, and pedagogies. As Internet users expand numerically and geographically, and as Internet information and communication tools continue to evolve, research and pedagogical innovation involving Internet use and language education must continue to adapt in response to new populations, communication tools, and emerging communicative needs.

Review of research Open Internet environments and L2 Use People have interests, passions, hobbies, idols, fetishes, problems, addictions, and aspirations that they want to communicate, share, argue about, and bond over. The Internet has created compelling opportunities to engage in all of the above (and more) through contributions to fan fiction sites (Black 2005, 2006), discussion fora associated with online newspapers (Hanna & de Nooy 2003), and fan websites (Lam 2000, 2004; Lam & Kramsch 2003). To begin with a project that most closely relates to instructed L2 learning, Hanna and de Nooy (2003) reported on four students of French who participated in public Internet discussion fora associated with the Parisian newspaper Le Monde. Hanna and de Nooy’s rationale for opting to use public discussion fora, rather than more conventional approaches such as telecollaboration partnerships or tandem learning, was to move students entirely outside of the relative safety of explicitly educational interactions where participants occupy the institutionally bounded subject position of student or learner. Le Monde discussion fora, by contrast, exist to support argumentation

310 Steven L. Thorne

and debate about mostly contemporary political and cultural issues. One forum in particular, labeled Autres sujets (other topics), included a wide range of participants and topics and was selected as the venue for the study. The French foreign language learners in Hanna and de Nooy’s study were David and Laura, both American, and Eleanor and Fleurie from England. Each student’s opening post to the Autres sujets forum was analyzed and followed for the number and content of the responses received. Each of the four students positioned themselves as learners of French, but they differed in their approach. Eleanor and Fleurie created new, stand-alone messages on the forum, with the respective subject lines Les Anglais (The English) and Une fille anglaise (An English girl). In the content of their posts, Eleanor and Fleurie both made explicit requests for help to improve their French. They received a few cordial as well as abrupt replies, each of which suggested that the need to take a position in the ongoing discussion. Neither did and both disappeared from the forum. In contrast, the other two students, David and Laura, both opened with a response to another message, de facto entering into a turn exchange system as their messages were marked by the subject line header of the message they had responded to (e.g., Réf: Combattre le modèle américain – Fight the American model). They also each began by apologizing for the limitations of their French language ability. Hanna and de Nooy interpret this apology as a clever strategy that “reinstates certain cultural borders” and that provided them with “a particular speaking position” (p. 78) that may have yielded advantages in the debate culture of the forum. It was critical that immediately following their language apology gambits, Laura and David each contributed position statements on the themes of racism and cultural imperialism. David, in fact, primarily used English in his posts, but with coaching and support from other participants, he maintained a presence on the forum, suggesting that “neither politeness nor linguistic accuracy is the measure of intercultural competence here” (2003: 78). Rather, in the circumstances of the Le Monde discussion fora, participation in the genre of debate appeared to be the minimum threshold for continued participation. This study confirmed that mutual benefit, or at least the presence of minimally passable amusement value, is necessary to sustain longer term interaction. From an instructional perspective, encouraging (or requiring) students to participate in non-educationally oriented online communities would involve coaching them to recognize appropriate genres and contributions to activity, and subsequently, helping them to engage in discussion that does not ultimately privilege “the self … as the exotic little foreigner/the other” (Hanna & de Nooy 2003: 73). Hanna and de Nooy’s study illustrated that participation in open and thematically oriented Internet communities supports the very processes that L2 education ostensibly seeks to provide, such as the use of language as a resource



Transcultural communication in open Internet environments 311

for ongoing identity formation and personally meaningful communication in the service of goals extending beyond ‘practice’ or ‘learning’ in the restrictive senses associated with institutional settings. In related research investigating diaspora and immigrant youth engaged in non-academically structured uses of the Internet, Lam (2000, 2004) documented ethnographically a number of developmental trajectories. One individual, an immigrant from Hong Kong, had struggled with English, been tracked as a low achieving student, and expressed significant trepidation about English, the language of his new home in the United States. In high school, however, he began to explore the Internet, developed a web site devoted to the Japanese pop (J-pop) singer Ryoko, and started to converse over email and SCMC with a number of other J-pop fans. This process was mediated largely in English but also included transcultural expressive features such as emoticons, web page design, and elements from other languages (e.g., Chinese). Participation in a vibrant online community elevated Almon’s confidence and enhanced his capacity to use a genre of English appropriate to online communication. As Almon’s semiotic repertoire expanded, he developed the ability to construct a complex online identity and to build and sustain meaningful relationships. Commenting on the differences between Almon’s developmental progress in English in school and in the Internet peer group, Lam and Kramsch (2003) argued that although Almon’s textual identity on the Internet was a positive and empowering discursive formation, his position in the U.S. high school “is also symbolically constructed, this time as a low-pride ‘low-achiever’” (p. 155). In other words, as Lam and Kramsch note, the sophisticated genre of English language use Almon demonstrated online may not meet the selection criteria necessary to pass the high school exit composition test. This case presents a number of challenges to the conventional goals and processes of language education, such as the rigidity of the gate keeping mechanisms of high stakes testing, the disconnect between the prescriptivist epistemology of schooling and language use that is appropriate in other contexts (Internet-mediated and otherwise), and what should or could be done to leverage, and perhaps formally acknowledge, a plurality of communicative practices that are currently considered stigmatized linguistic varieties. In an age marked by transcultural and hybrid genres of communication, these issues will increase in intensity and complexity and must necessarily inform the L2 educational frameworks of the future.

Internet-mediated intercultural second language education The use of Internet technologies to encourage dialogue between distributed individuals and partner classes proposes a compelling shift in L2 education, one that

312 Steven L. Thorne

moves learners away from simulated classroom-based contexts and toward actual interaction with expert speakers of the language they are studying. The conceptualization of L2 learning and use as foremost a process of intercultural communication, in both online and offline contexts, has received significant attention in recent years (e.g., Belz & Reinhardt 2004; Belz & Thorne 2006a, 2006b; Brammerts 1996; Byram 1997; Furstenberg et al. 2001; Kinginger 1998, 2004; Kramsch 1998; O’Dowd 2003; Sercu 2004; Thorne 2003, 2006). Indeed, with greater Internet access across more of the world, it has been suggested that Internet-mediated intercultural communication constitutes a “second wave” of computer-mediated L2 pedagogy (Kern, Ware, & Warschauer 2004: 243). Research on Internet-mediated intercultural language learning has documented numerous cases of pragmatic and linguistic development seen as consequences of participation in significant, meaningful, typically age-peer personal relationships (e.g., Bez & Kinginger 2003; Kinginger & Belz 2005). The case I will now describe comes out of research (data and analysis drawn from Thorne 2003) involving a student in a University level a fourth-semester French grammar course participating in an exchange with University students in France. The portion of this case study that I relate here, however, occurred entirely outside of the organized exchange and hence is relevant to the theme of language learning in non-institutional uses of Internet communication tools. In a post-semester interview, the student in question described a transition that began with frustration over the slow start to her telecollaborative partnership but which evolved into prolific flurries of communication when the interaction shifted to the use of instant messaging (IM). The student reported that the first IM interaction went on for nearly 6 hours and included the use of both English and French. Subsequent to this one, the interactions continued in 20- to 30-minute sessions, often twice or three times per day. Two issues are highly salient – the shift to IM, which is the clear communication tool of choice for peer interaction among university-aged youth in the United States (e.g., Shiu & Lenhart 2004), and the subordination of French language study as an educational activity to the use of French (and English) for the building of a personally meaningful relationship (per Hanna & de Nooy 2003, discussed above). Not discounting the importance of the flirtatious nature of this relationship, the American student reported that her linguistic and pragmatic performance in French had improved. Through interaction with and goading from her French key pal, the American student eventually gained command of appropriate tu-vous pronoun use, a facility that had eluded her throughout years of French study. More dramatically, the American student had always thought of herself as “horrible” at French grammar and had little confidence in her capacity to carry out meaningful communication in the language.



Transcultural communication in open Internet environments 313

When asked about the specific linguistic gains arising from her interactions with her French interlocutor, she made the following remarks: Interviewer: Kirsten: Interviewer: Kirsten:

What else beside the tu/vous stuff did he help you with? Usage of “au” versus “en” versus “dans” versus “à” versus, you know, that kinda stuff. A more in-depth vocabulary, for sure. … it’s kind of nice to have a human dictionary on the other end too ... I was like “how am I supposed to say?” like for example .... So the “de” and “à” thing, “de la campagne,” “à le cité,” whatever, stuff like that. I was like “wow,” you know, eeeeeee [vocalization of glee; laughs]. Because I couldn’t get that from a dictionary. That’s something you have to have a little help with, yeah? Yeah, yeah, and how am I supposed to learn it? That’s not in the grammar books, you know [laughing], expressions like that, and other things. It was fun.  (Thorne 2003: 50–51)

In these excerpts, the American student described the interaction that allowed her access to the French prepositional system that she stated she “couldn't get … from a dictionary” and that was “not in the grammar books.” Many French language students have successfully developed the ability to use French prepositions of location from grammar texts or instructor-provided grammar explanations. This student, however, seemingly required interpersonal mediation, specifically from a desirable age-peer who was willing to provide immediate corrective feedback as part of an ongoing social relationship. The student provided an extended description of her outside-of-class email and IM transcripts and was able to point to specific instances that demonstrated what she perceived as an expanded competence to communicate in French. The following IM excerpt has not been orthographically modified (though certain turns have been removed to save space). K (Kirstin) is the American student; O (Oliver) is her French interlocutor (both are pseudonyms).   1.   2.   3.   4.   5.   6.   7.   8.   9. 10.

O: O: K: K: K: O: O: K: O: K:

by the way, I don’t know what smart means? … smart means .. hmmm how to describe that intelligent I mean what does intelligent mean? no I know what the word means it’s the same thing but I’m not sure I grasp the idea ooh..

314 Steven L. Thorne

11. K: 12. O: 13. K: 14. O: 15. O: 16. K: 17. O: 18. K: 19. O: 20. K: 21. O: 22. K: 23. O: 24. K:

hmmm kind of philosophical huh? yeah.. you know.. aux Etats-Unis nous avons deux type d’intelligence [in the United States we have two types of intelligence] vraiment? [really?] Je veux savoir!!! [I want to know!] il y a “l’intelligence des livres” et “l’intelligence dans la vie” [there is “book smart” and “life smart”] donc l’intellignece des livre c’est le savoir? [therefore book intelligence is knowledge?] oui.. et l’autre est “common sense” [yes.. and the other is “common sense”] on peut lire beaucoup et savoir beaucoup de choses tout en étant stupide je suis d’accord [one can read a lot and know a lot of things and be stupid at the same time I agree] oui! [yes!] cool le “common sense” est… par example, j’ai une amie qui sait beaucoup des choses.. mais elle a mis METAL dans le microwave.. [“common sense” is… for example, I have a friend who knows a lot of things.. but she put METAL in the microwave..] oups [oops] elle n’a pas de “common sense” [she doesn’t have “common sense”]

Kirsten provided her own analysis of this dialogue. References to the IM transcript are shown in parentheticals [line #]. Kirsten: The first couple of lines of this [transcript], there’s a particular example and I’ll show you ... Here’s where, this was the true part, where I was like, “wow, I really have learned a lot of French!” (line 1) “By the way, I don’t know what smart means.” Smart means intelligent, like, I made the translation, I was like, but that’s stupid that he didn’t know that because intelligent is the same word in both languages! (line 6) “But what does intelligence mean.” And he’s like (line 7) “no I know what the word means,” like [ventriloquating Olivier] “come on stupid,” I’m like, yeah (line 8) “it’s the same thing.” And he said, (line 9) “but I’m not sure I grasp the idea.” And I said (lines 10–11) “ohh” “hmmm.” And he said (line 12), “kind of philosophical.” And I said (line 13) “yeah,” and then I went into French. And I was [laughing] so proud of myself. And I, you know, then I wrote, (line 13) “aux Etats-Unis nous avons deux type d’intelligence,” right, like life smart and book smart, and then he’s like (line 15), initially glossing Oliver’s message in English then referring to the French], “I have got to know this!!! Je veux savoir!!!” with three exclamation points and that was like, that was the beginning of my explaining in French,



Transcultural communication in open Internet environments 315

and I was like “wow!” .... That was the first one we, that was the first time that I was like, “I made a connection in French.” I was so proud. It was like, “wow, that’s me, in French, and he understood me!”  (Thorne 2003: 52)

Kirsten explained the significance of this portion of her first three-hour IM session with Oliver as a threshold moment in her confidence to communicate in French. A combination of the use of her habitual, everyday Internet communication tool of choice – IM – and Kirsten’s tremendous enthusiasm for Oliver created the conditions for interpersonal communicative possibility that Csikszentmihalyi has described as “flow activity” (1990, see also Egert 2003; Thorne 2003). In Csikszentmihalyi’s sense, flow involves manageable engagement that challenges physical or mental abilities. High challenge situations, such as Kirsten's threshold experience as a first time successful communicator in French, induce a heightened sense of engagement. Absorption in the activity, rather than a selfconscious focus on an eventual product, results in “a harmonious rush of energy ... which comes as close as anything can to what we call happiness” (Csikszentmihalyi 1993: xiii–xiv). Csikszentmihalyi also describes the importance of immediate feedback, such as that possible in IM interaction, to the attainment of a flow state of consciousness. I would like to suggest a linkage between flow activity and the Vygotskian and activity theoretical characterization of development. Csikszentmihalyi describes flow as a complex activity that stretches current abilities. Flow states of consciousness are most likely to be experienced when people can control their immediate social-material conditions, or as Csikszentmihalyi proposes, that “make it possible to adjust opportunities for action to our capacities” (1993: xiv). This notion aligns well with Vygotsky’s (1978) zone of proximal development and provides a succinct description of the developmental context-activity from the participant’s perspective. Within the Vygotskian framework, development involves actively resolving contradictions through a process of changes in the locus of control necessary to regulate thinking. Object-regulation indicates instances when artifacts in the environment regulate or afford cognition/activity. Other-regulation describes mediation by an expert or more capable peer. Selfregulation indexes an action that an individual can accomplish with minimal or no external assistance (for SLA related applications of this approach, see Lantolf & Thorne 2006, 2007). Kirsten’s reported flow state of optimal performance suggested the following developmental sequence. She stated a general inability to learn French through object-regulation resources such as grammar texts. Through her IM interactions with Oliver, however, Kirsten benefited from other-regulation, examples of which were the explicit linguistic assistance and confidence producing enthusiasm for her French language use. Other-regulation made possible a threshold experience

316 Steven L. Thorne

during which Kirsten was able to self-regulate and participate in extended and unrehearsed dialogue in French. In essence, out of class and intrinsically motivated IM use supported flow activity. Kirsten herself realized her new found capacity for self-regulation when she stated, “that was the first time that I was like, ‘I made a connection in French.’ I was so proud. It was like, ‘wow, that's me, in French, and he understood me!’” (Thorne 2003: 53). Similar to findings in the research reported above (e.g., Hanna & de Nooy 2003; Kramsch & Lam 2003), this case study suggests that interpersonal dynamics within digitally mediated non-institutional environments enable personally relevant engagement, which in turn can be associated with a range of potential developmental trajectories.

Gaming and L2 learning Gaming and virtual environments Increasingly, online games and virtual environments are coming to the attention of education researchers and practitioners (for a review, see Squire 2003; see also Steinkuehler 2004). They have been argued to provide the opportunity for immersion in linguistic, cultural, and task-based settings (Gee 2003). Gaming is closely related to virtual environments such as Second Life, a three-dimensional visually rendered world within which structured and unstructured social, professional, and work activity occurs. However, a few important distinctions need to be made. To take Second Life as the example of a virtual environment, the computer-enabled environment itself does not provide a comprehensive ontology – this is produced by the human players themselves in the form of the objects and cultures they create and the interactions and talk they produce together. Second Life as a virtual world does not explicitly structure action and interaction and neither is there a substantial presence of non-human (computer-generated) characters. Within gaming environments, by contrast, non-human player characters (NPCs) play critical roles such as giving help and assistance, providing instructions for goal-directed tasks (called quests or missions), acting as antagonists in battle, and providing functional services such as, within the game World of Warcraft (to be discussed below), banking, skills and profession training, transportation, selling goods and materials, armor repair, and the like. In essence, in both gaming and virtual environment settings, player-to-player communication and interaction is foundational, but gaming involves much more highly structured and goal-directed activity. Here, I will restrict the discussion to gaming and will focus primarily on a case study examining intercultural communication within World of Warcraft.



Transcultural communication in open Internet environments 317

Gaming and L2 use One variety of gaming involves interaction within pre-programmed (but sometimes customizable) environments. A best selling example is The Sims, a game that simulates the routine, and even the mundane, activities and responsibilities of everyday life. The Sims is now produced in a number of languages. In an informal assessment of The Sims as a foreign language learning tool, Purushotma (2005) found that the vocabulary and tasks comprising the game were highly aligned with the content of conventional foreign language course content. The difference between instructed foreign language learning and a game like The Sims, suggests Purushotma, is that exposure to the target language is always linked to carrying out tasks and social actions, which concomitantly embeds vocabulary and grammatical constructions in rich associative contexts. A second variety of virtual play involves multiplayer social interactive gaming environments, many of which are historically rooted in the online role-playing cultures of MOOs (multi-user domain, object oriented). MOOs are constructed social spaces that continually evolve in the sense that individuals can augment the size and number of object-features of the MOO environment by creating new prose-delineated conversation spaces and virtual objects (such as furniture, notes, signs, and interactive programs, called ‘bots’, that respond to textual input). The intense interpersonal nature of non-educational MOOs prompted Kern to describe them as “electronically mediated social environments” (1998: 81). MOO use in L2 education is still occurs (e.g., Schneider & von der Emde 2000), especially by practitioners of a variety of intercultural L2 education called tandem learning (e.g., O’Rourke 2005; Schweinhorst 2004; for a comparative description of various intercultural L2 pedagogies, see Thorne 2006a). However, social and role-playing MOOs, especially in comparison to their considerable popularity in the 1990s, have been largely replaced by massively multiplayer online videogames (or MMOGs, see Steinkuehler 2006). MMOGs are Internet-accessed environments that are immensely popular, especially among adolescents and young adults but also for ‘youths’ more advanced in years. In many ways, MMOGs are deeply educational in the sense that gamers must learn to negotiate complex scenarios, be socialized into culturally specific discursive formations, and be capable of negotiating play in realtime with game-driven characters as well as other co-present gamers. MMOGs log players’ activities, such as completing a quest, solving a puzzle, carrying out tasks, or engaging in battle, magic, or the use of in-game professional trade skills. In this way, there is an ontogenetic developmental component to the gamer’s online character such that the character becomes more powerful (or “levels up”) based on experience. In addition, gamers can accumulate (virtual) property,

318 Steven L. Thorne

commodities with set exchange values within a given MMOG, and in some instances, properties and commodities with exchange value recognized by nongaming global capital (e.g., in-game resources such as weapons, currency, and even completely developed high-level characters that can be bought and sold in online grey markets). Many MMOGs are multilingual and involve thousands of gamers from around the world. However, with World of Warcraft in particular, there has been a recent shift toward nation-state and language specific domains that serve the function of concentrating together speakers of a given language. The advantage of this development for second language learners is that with the installation of language packs (available for Chinese, English, French, German, Korean, and Spanish), the interface, game-generated language, and players one would likely encounter would be language specific. The drawback is that multilingual interactions, such as the one described in the case study below, now will be less common.

Intercultural collaboration in World of Warcraft The most popular MMOG at the time of this writing (January 2007) is World of Warcraft (or WoW, produced by Blizzard Entertainment), which currently has a customer base of over 8.5 million worldwide. WoW is a graphically elaborate and visually elegant online realm that supports voice and text propositions from game-generated characters. Human gamers can act on the environment and with other human and game-generated characters and can communicate with one another using an in-game multi-channel synchronous chat tool as well as with an asynchronous mail application (see Nardi, Ly, & Harris 2007). As of June 2006, Mmogchart.com reports that WoW holds 52.9% of the global MMOG market share. What opportunities exist in MMOGs like WoW for language use and language learning? In a descriptive and exploratory effort to assess this question, the interaction described below will examine one instance of intercultural communication between two WoW gamers, one from North America (Meme) and the other from Ukraine (Zomn). Both of the character names are pseudonyms. This brief case study is limited to one in-game conversation between two gamers, but it is suggestive of intercultural communication that is reported to occur frequently on WoW and other transnational gaming sites (Thorne 2006b). Meme, the North American gamer, set the context of the interaction as follows: This started in this one valley off to the side of a zone I was in. I was hunting baby dragons for exp [experience points] when another higher-level character came along and started killing them too. I sent them a message asking why they were hunting them since they wouldn't get much exp off them anymore,



Transcultural communication in open Internet environments 319

and they said they wanted leather. I then worked out a deal with them that they would just skin the stuff I killed so I could get the exp and they would get the leather, and then they messaged me with this.

As Meme’s contextualization of the action at hand indicates, interaction in even battle-focused role-playing games also includes collaboration and negotiated division of labor in the carrying out of complex actions. Note that acronyms are translated within brackets. Otherwise, the text of this opening sequence has been unaltered.   1.   2.   3.   4.   5.   6.   7.   8.   9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23.

Zomn: Meme: Zomn: Meme: Zomn: Meme: Meme: Zomn: Meme: Zomn: Meme: Zomn: Meme: Zomn: Meme: Meme: Meme: Zomn: Meme: Zomn: Meme: Zomn: Zomn:

ti russkij slychajno ? ? nwm :)) sry [sorry] what language was that? russian :) was going to guess that you speak english well? :)) where r u [are you] from ? USA, Pennslyvania im from Ukraine ... ah nice, do you like it there? dont ask :))) at least i can play wow :)) haha it is fun indeed, I have a friend from ukraine actually :)) so what did hes says about it ? he liked it actually, he moved here when he was about 10 I went to high school with him but his mom hated it there ic /// [I see] so how old are you? do you go to school? im 21 .. law academy ... ah nice, want to be a lawyer then? sry for my english but ill try to do my best :(( yeap :)))

The dialogue between Meme and Zomn begins with a case of mistaken linguistic identity, but this mistake in turn provides an opportunity for both parties to build alignments and to enact what Kramsch (1999) has described as an intercultural stance. In particular, Meme describes a friendship with a Ukranian. Zomn, the more advanced player by experience, affirms their shared passion for WoW. Meme and Zomn are still discussing school and interests when Meme initiates the following sequence:

320 Steven L. Thorne

24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36.

Meme: Zomn: Meme: Zomn: Meme: Zomn: Meme: Meme: Zomn: Zomn: Meme: Meme: Zomn:

kak dela? :))) normalno :))) if I may ask, what did I say haha, I’m not quite sure how r u :) /// what does normalno mean? good? i sad goooooood :))) alright =) do you speak any languages besides russian? yeap ... english :)) ... n studing spanish .. per aspera ad astra :) ? through our endevours, to the stars =) nice phrase i like it too

At the very start of this short conversation with Zomn, Meme had contacted a Ukranian high school friend using AOL Instant Messenger and had asked him how to say something appropriate in Russian. This overlapping use of multiple information and communication tools, very common among sophisticated Internet users (and particularly youth, see Thorne & Payne 2005) is a representative example of what Jones (2004) describes as polyfocality – the use of multiple semiotic resources in near simultaneity. This result was posted as line (24) above. Zomn provides the appropriate adjacency pair, responds to Meme’s question about knowing other languages (31), then in line (33) posts the Latin proverb, per aspera ad astra, which Meme is able to translate, producing what likely was an unexpected but shared perspective that good things are won through hard work, a sensibility that fits well with the challenges each was experiencing in advancing their character development within WoW. The discussion continued for approximately 100 more turns and shifted seamlessly between two tracks – one generated areas of mutual interest (popular music such as Blink 182) and questions about life goals and pursuits, the other involved negotiating their immediate collaborative actions and more general strategies related to leveling up their characters within WoW. There were also a few overtly pedagogical exchanges suggesting potential opportunities for language learning through relationship building and mutually beneficial ingame actions. In the first, Meme has again used IM to contact his Ukranian friend for phrases he could use. Note that certain turns have been removed. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41.

Meme: Meme: Zomn: Meme: Meme:

Ya lublui fceu v moy popoo do you get any exp off of these if you kill them? if so lets party lets .... for 3k sounds good, so what did what i said before mean? i was just asking my friend from ukraine what to say



42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52.

Transcultural communication in open Internet environments 321

Meme: Zomn: Meme: Zomn: Zomn: Meme: Meme: Zomn: Meme: Zomn: Meme:

and don't know what it means it wasnt right ... but kinnda ‘kiss my ass’ haha are you serious? i’m going to kill him, sorry about that ahhh np :)))) [no problem] u can kill him now :)))) yeah, I will once I get home, he’s in my hometown and I’m off at college tell him that u got an interpriter now :) will do haha is ‘interpriter’ right ? :(( it’s actually interpreter, but that was close

This seemingly prosaic excerpt from the larger strip of talk (totaling 140 lines) includes many of the elements conventional L2 classrooms seek to encourage, such as drawing from external resources for the production of experimental L2 production (Meme’s outside assistance from his Ukranian friend via IM), Meme’s Russian language utterance (line 37) and request for a comprehension check (lines 41–42), and Zomn’s evaluative judgment “it wasn’t right …”) and translation in line 43. This segment is followed by a successful repair sequence initiated by Meme (lines 44–50) that overlaps with Zomn noticing a probable orthographic problem in his spelling of ‘interpriter’ (line 51) and Meme’s overt correction and closing of the sequence with an encouraging softener, “but that was close” (line 52). I submit that the interactive features evident in the speech exchange system (e.g., Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson 1974) represented in this spate of online discourse form a quite impressive context for language learning. First, the conversation was naturally occurring and unconstrained by the fabricated (if also developmentally useful) communication characterizing much instructed setting discourse. The matrix language for this interaction was English but three languages (including the Latin aphorism) were used in total. The transcript illustrates reciprocal alternations in expert-novice status wherein both participants provided expert knowledge, language-specific explicit corrections, made requests for help, and collaboratively assembled successful repair sequences. From an ethnomethodological perspective, the social order assembled by this dyad illustrates significant opportunities for both producing new knowledge and refining existing knowledge in the areas of language use (English for Zomn and Russian for Meme) and WoW associated game strategy (not discussed in this essay, but see Thorne 2006b). Finally, an enduring affiliative bond appears to have been established that pertained to continued intra-game activity as well as to outof-game social networks.

322 Steven L. Thorne

Evidence for this bond was displayed in the following leave-taking sequence (lines 53–62, below). The two players agree to add one another to in-game friends lists, proleptically sanctioning the possibility for future intra-game interaction. In (lines 58–59), Meme indirectly indexes his prior exposure to a few common Russian words, and presumably the relationship with his Ukrainian childhood friend, by asking Zomn to check his spelling of the Russian word for goodbye. In response, Zomn suggests a more suitable and peer-register alternative (#60). 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62.

Zomn: Zomn: Meme: Zomn: Zomn: Meme: Meme: Zomn: Meme: Meme:

:) .. dont u mind if i add u to friend list ? yeah :) go ahead, i’ll add you too and we can group again sometime sure :)) nice too meet u // you too, I forget how to spell goodbye in russian, dasvidania? Is that sort of close? it is right ... or ... just ‘poka’ alright, thanks see ya

In an uncorroborated but interesting follow-up to this episode, during an informal conversation with the American student, he mentioned a strong interest in starting Russian language courses. He also reported that another student in his dorm, a highly enthusiastic gamer, had already begun to study Chinese with the primary goal of more fully participating in Chinese language-mediated game play. For the growing number of individuals participating in MMOG environments, the international, multilingual, and task-based qualities of these social spaces, where language use is literally social action, may one day make them de rigueur sites for language learning. Or somewhat ironically, but suggested by the American student’s comment above, perhaps interest in foreign language study will become in-part driven by students who wish to enhance their gaming skills and affiliative capabilities in these largely language organized action-scapes.

Discussion Many developmentally productive processes occur within the institutional spaces of modern formal education. This review of published research and preliminary sharing of a MMOG case study support the argument that discourses of institutionalized instruction and of learning-through-engagement discourses in freely chosen Internet environments can share attributes such as negotiation, repair sequences, explicit corrective feedback, and requests for assistance (see also Sin-



Transcultural communication in open Internet environments 323

clair & Coulthard 1975). In other ways, however, research on informal learning suggests the more radical notion that knowledge production can and does occur outside of conventional expert – novice configurations. In research on informal learning among adults working together on computer-literacy skills, Sawchuk (2003) has suggested that “learning need not be productive of the social order and it need not be rooted in a pedagogical discourse constituted in and constituted of a hierarchy of power and knowledge. Rather, it can be seen as a potentially open process, and in some sense, fundamentally democratic” (p. 304). In the instances of Almon (i.e., Lam & Kramsch 2003), Kirsten (i.e., Thorne 2003), and the two WoW gamers, the social accomplishment of language development involved symmetrical or reversible relative positions of mastery, or both, across interactional sequences. Language learning was not an end in itself. Rather, the desire to build expressive capacity was driven by its use value as a resource for creating and maintaining social relationships that were meaningful in the participants’ lives. In this sense, certain developmental trajectories occurring in informal learning environments may only be possible in self-selected activity marked by the establishment of relatively egalitarian, and situationally plastic, participation structures. Research on learning in non-institutionalized digital environments is in its relative infancy. Further research is needed that narrowly documents what Brouer and Wagner (2004) describe as “collections of phenomenological similarity” that serve as resources for the construction of “intersubjective meaning in social life” (p. 31). Future work in this area should help to highlight the evolving contours of possibility for language development in the transcultural spaces of non-institutional online environments. As a final point, the rise in mediated communication suggests that for many students across the world, performing competent identities in second and additional language(s) may now involve Internet-mediation as or more often than face-to-face and non-digital forms of communication. This observation is not meant to valorize Internet use in any way. On the contrary, my point is that with increasing opportunity to choose and engineer Internet mediation for developmental purposes, the responsibility to make informed decisions is more critical now than ever before. Hence a necessary project sitting squarely in front of language educators and researchers is to imagine ecologically relevant participation frameworks that would encourage, with minimal subversion, active participation in developmentally constructive Internet-mediated discourse. Attendant to this ambition, however, is the willingness to acknowledge that certain forms of knowledge and performance historically at the foundation of the academy may become obviously anachronistic as the real world benchmarks for competency across communicative genres and registers shift to reflect the qualities of increasingly mediated forms of discourse.

324 Steven L. Thorne

References Beauvois, M. H. (1998). Write to speak: The effects of electronic communication on the oral achievement of fourth semester French students. In J. A. Muyskens (Ed.), New ways of learning and teaching: Focus on technology and foreign language education. Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle. Belz, J. A. & Reinhardt, J. (2004). Aspects of advanced foreign language proficiency: Internet-mediated German language play. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 14(3), 324–362. Belz, J. A. & Thorne, S. L. (Eds.). (2006a). Internet-mediated intercultural foreign language education. Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle. Belz, J. A. & Thorne, S. L. (Eds.). (2006b). Introduction: Internet-mediated intercultural foreign language education and the intercultural speaker. In J. Belz & S. L. Thorne (Eds.), Internet-mediated intercultural foreign language education (p. iix–xxv). Boston, MA: Thomson Heinle. Berners-Lee, T. (1998). What the semantic web isn’t but can represent. Retrieved June 10, 2005, from http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/RDFnot.html Black, R. W. (2006). Language, culture, and identity in online fanfiction. E-learning, 3(2), 170– 184. Black, R. W. (2005). Access and affiliation: The literacy and composition practices of English language learners in an online fanfiction community. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 49(2), 118–128. Bourdieu, P. (1990). The logic of practice. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Bourdieu, P. & Eagleton, T. (1992). Doxa and common life. New Left Review, 191, 111–121. Brammerts, H. 1996. Language learning in tandem using the Internet. In M. Warschauer (Ed.), Telecollaboration in foreign language learning (pp. 121–130). Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Second Language Teaching and Curriculum Center. Brouer, C. & Wagner, J. (2004). Developmental issues in second language coversation. Journal of Applied Linguistics, 1(1), 29–47. Byram, M. 1997. Teaching and assessing intercultural communicative competence. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Bødker, S. (1997). Computers in mediated human activity. Mind, Culture and Activity, 4(3), 149–158. Castells, M. (ed.) (2004). The network society: A cross-cultural perspective. Northampton, MA: Edward Edgar. Chun, D. (1994). Using computer networking to facilitate the acquisition of interactive competence. System: An International Journal of Educational Technology and Applied Linguistics, 22, 17–31. Cole, M. (1996). Cultural psychology: A once and future discipline. Cambridge, MA: Belknapp Press. Crystal, D. (2001). Language and the internet. Cambridge: CUP. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1993). The evolving self: A psychology for the third millennium. New York, NY: HarperCollins. Egert, J. (2003). A study of flow theory in the foreign language classroom. The Modern Language Journal, 87(4), 499–518.



Transcultural communication in open Internet environments 325

Engeström, Y. (2001). Expansive learning at work: Toward an activity theoretical reconceptualization. Journal of Education & Work, 14, 133–156. Furstenberg, G., Levet, S., English, K., & Maillet, K. (2001). Giving a virtual voice to the silent language of culture: The CULTURA project. Language Learning & Technology, 5(1), 55–102. Gee, J. P. (2003). What videogames have to teach us about learning and literacy. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Hanna, B. & de Nooy, J. (2003). A funny thing happened on the way to the forum: Electronic discussion and foreign language learning. Language Learning & Technology, 7(1), 71–85. Herring, S. (Ed.). (1996). Computer-mediated communication: Linguistic, social and cross-cultural perspectives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Jones, R. (2004). The problem of context in computer-mediated communication. In P. Levine & R. Scollon (Eds.), Discourse and technology: Multimodal discourse analysis (pp. 20–33). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Kern, R., Ware, P., & Warshauer, M. (2004). Crossing frontiers: New directions in online pedagogy and research. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 24(1), 243–260. Kinginger, C. (1998). Videoconferencing as access to spoken French. The Modern Language Journal, 82(4), 502–513. Kinginger, C. (2004).Communicative foreign language teaching through telecollaboration. In K. van Esch & O. St. John (Eds.), New insights into foreign language learning and teaching (pp. 101–113). Frankfurt: Peter Lang. Kinginger, C., & Belz, J. A. (2005). Sociocultural perspectives on pragmatic development in foreign language learning: Microgenetic case studies from telecollaboration and residence abroad. Intercultural Pragmatics, 2(4), 369–422. Kramsch, C. (1998). The privilege of the intercultural speaker. In M. Byram & M. Fleming (Eds.) Language learning in intercultural perspective. Cambridge: CUP. Kramsch, C. (1999). Thirdness: The intercultural stance. In T. Vestergaard (Ed.), Language, culture, and identity (pp. 41–58). Aalborg: Aalborg University Press. Kramsch, C. & Thorne, S. L. (2002). Foreign language learning as global communicative practice. In D. Block & D. Cameron (Eds.), Globalization and language teaching (pp. 83–100). London: Routledge. Lam, W. S. E. (2000). Second language literacy and the design of the self: A case study of a teenager writing on the Internet. TESOL Quarterly, 34(3), 457–483. Lam, W. S. E. (2004). Second language socialization in a bilingual chat room. Language Learning & Technology, 8(3), 44–65. Lam, W. S. E. & Kramsch, C. (2003). The ecology of an SLA community in computer-mediated environments in leather. In J. Leather & J. van Dam (Eds.), Ecology of language acquisition. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Lankshear, C. & Knobel, M. (2003). New literacies: Changing knowledge and classroom learning. Buckingham: Open University Press. Lantolf, J. P. & Thorne, S. L. (2006). Sociocultural theory and the genesis of second language development. Oxford: OUP. Lantolf, J. P. & Thorne, S. L. (2007). Sociocultural theory and second language acquisition. In B. van Patten & J. Williams (Eds.), Theories in second language acquisition. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Lave, J. (1988). Cognition in practice: Mind, mathematics, and culture in everyday life. Cambridge: CUP.

326 Steven L. Thorne

Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991). Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: CUP. Leander, K. & Lovvorn, J. (2006). Literacy networks: Following the circulation of texts, bodies, and objects in the schooling and online gaming of one youth. Cognition and Instruction, 24(3), 291–340. Levin, D. & Arafeh, S. (2002). The digital disconnect: The widening gap between Internet-savvy students and their schools. Washington DC: Pew Internet & American Life Project. Nardi, B. (Ed.). (1996). Context and consciousness: Activity theory and human-computer interaction. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Nardi, B., Ly, S., & Harris, J. (2007). Learning conversations in World of Warcraft. The proceedings of the 2007 Hawaii International Conference on Systems Science. New York: IEEE Press. Retrieved February 20, 2007, from http://www.artifex.org/%7Ebonnie/pdf/Nardi-HICSS. pdf Ochs, E. (1993). Constructing social identity: A language socialization perspective. Language and Social Interaction, 26(3), 287–306. O’Dowd, R. (2003). Understanding the “other side”: Intercultural learning in a Spanish-English e-mail exchange. Language Learning & Technology, 7(2), 118–144. O’Rourke, B. (2005). Form focused interaction in online tandem learning. CALICO Journal, 22(3), 433–466. Purushotma, R. (2005). You’re not studying, you’re just … Language Learning & Technology, 9(1), 80–96. Roth, W. M., Elmesky, R., Carambo, C., McKnight, Y. M., & Beers, J. (2005). Re/making identities in the praxis of urban schooling: A cultural historical perspective. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 11, 48–69. Sacks, H., Schegloff, E. A., & Jefferson, G. (1974). A simplest systematics for the organisation of turn-taking for conversation. Language, 50, 696–735. Sawchuk, P. (2003). Informal learning as a speech-exchange system: Implications for knowledge production, power, and social transformation. Discourse & Society, 14(3), 291–307. Schneider, J. & von der Emde, S. (2000). Brave new (virtual) world: Transforming language learning into cultural studies through online learning environments (MOOs). ADFL Bulletin, 32(1), 18–26. Sercu, L. (2004). Intercultural communicative competence in foreign language education: Integrating theory and practice. In O. St. John, K. van Esch, & E. Schalkwijk (Eds.), New insights into foreign language learning and teaching (pp. 115–130). Frankfurt: Peter Lang. Shiu, E. & Lenhart, A. (2004). How Americans use instant messaging. Pew Internet & American Life Project, Sept. 1, 2004. Sinclair, J. & Coulthard, R. (1975). Towards an analysis of discourse: The English used by teachers and pupils. Oxford: OUP. Squire, K. (2003). Video games in education. International Journal of Intelligent Simulations and Gaming (2)1. Retrieved January 15, 2007, from http://website.education.wisc.edu/kdsquire/manuscripts/IJIS.doc Steinkuehler, C. (2004). Learning in massively multiplayer online games. In Y. B. Kafai, W. A. Sandoval, N. Enyedy, A. S. Nixon, & F. Herrera (Eds.), Proceedings of the sixth international conference of the learning sciences (pp. 521–528). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Steinkuehler, C. (2006). Massively multiplayer online videogaming as participation in a Discourse. Mind, Culture, & Activity, 13(1), 38–52.



Transcultural communication in open Internet environments 327

Thorne, S. L. (2000). Beyond bounded activity systems: Heterogeneous cultures in instructional uses of persistent conversation. Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-33). Los Alamitos, IEEE Press. Thorne, S. L. (2003). Artifacts and cultures-of-use in intercultural communication. Language Learning & Technology, 7(2), 38–67. Thorne, S. L. (2005). Epistemology, politics, and ethics in sociocultural theory. The Modern Language Journal, 89, 393–409. Thorne, S. L. (2006a). Pedagogical and praxiological lessons from Internet-mediated intercultural foreign language education research. In J. Belz & S. L. Thorne (Eds.), Internet-mediated intercultural foreign language education (pp. 2–30). Boston, MA: Thomson Heinle. Thorne, S. L. (2006b). Interculturality and mediated social practices in Internet environments. Paper presented at American Association for Applied Linguistics, Montréal, Canada, June 19th, 2006. Thorne, S. L. (forthcoming). Mediating technologies and second language learning. In D. Leu, J. Coiro, C. Lankshear, & M. Knobel (Eds.), Handbook of research on new literacies. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Thorne, S. L. & Black, R. W. (in press). Language and literacy development in computer-mediated contexts and communities. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 27, (2008). Thorne, S. L. & Payne, J. S. (2005). Evolutionary trajectories, Internet-mediated expression, and language education. CALICO Journal, 22, 371–397. Van Dijk, J. (2005). The deepening divide: Inequality in the information society. London: Sage. Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Warschauer, M. (2003). Technology and social inclusion: Rethinking the digital divide. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Warschauer, M. (1997). Computer-mediated collaborative learning: Theory and practice. The Modern Language Journal, 81, 470–481. Warschauer, M. (1999). Electronic literacies: Language, culture, and power in online education. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Wartofsky, M. (1979). Models. Dordrecht: Reidel. Werry, C. (1996). Linguistic and interactional features of Internet Relay Chat. In S. Herring (Ed.), Computer-mediated communication: Linguistic, social and cross-cultural perspectives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Whyte, W. H. (1988). City: Rediscovering the center. New York, NY: Doubleday.

part v

Ethical ramifications of work in online environments

Online interactions and L2 learning Some ethical challenges for L2 researchers Lourdes Ortega and Eve Zyzik

University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa / Michigan State University

This chapter explores ethical challenges that arise when second language (L2) researchers investigate computer-mediated interaction in the service of second language learning. We adopt a broad definition of ethics and focus our discussion on a few key issues that we consider to be salient across L2 research programs but have received scant attention to date. First, we problematize some assumptions that are routinely made about the linguistic and cultural benefits of L2 computer-mediated interactions. We maintain that computer-mediated encounters between L2 learners and their interlocutors are not neutral, but rather constitute variegated sites in which complex participation patterns entailing use and non-use of the L2 (e.g., silence and lurking) and multiple layers of cultural negotiations and tension (e.g., intersecting global, online, and local cultures) are manifested. We then scrutinize the notion of culture as it has been applied in the L2 online interaction research, arguing for the inclusion of local communities as well as more recognition of the diversity of L2 learners who take part in research projects. Finally, we consider standards of ethical research conduct in online environments by examining informed consent, anonymity, validity, and researcher-researched relations. This discussion, which has received little attention in L2 studies, draws from the field of Information and Communication Technologies. Although we do not wish to propose answers to the many ethical dilemmas that arise in online L2 research contexts, we call for scholars to tackle difficult questions about the purposes and beneficiaries of our research. We hope to foster dialogue about the ethical ramifications of our approaches to research on computer-mediated interactions that are designed for varied L2 learning purposes and contexts.

During the last decade, the use of computer technology for the support of second language (L2) learning has continually attracted the interest of both researchers and practitioners. The ways in which such technologies have changed not only the op­portunities for L2 learning, but also the very nature of everyday communication

332 Lourdes Ortega and Eve Zyzik

and the educational contexts afforded to our students have been scrutinized in a variety of recent publications (Kern 2006; Kern, Ware, & Warschauer 2004; Thorne 2006; Thorne & Payne 2005). In contrast, one dimension of computer-mediated communication that has received relatively little attention from L2 researchers is the ethical one. In this chapter we understand the term ethical in at least two ways: contested questions surrounding the value or worth that guide research programs (Ortega 2005), and the more traditional concerns revolving around appropriate conduct of research involving human subjects. Our goal is to explore both areas, identifying key ethical challenges that arise in each when designing and researching online environments for L2 interaction and L2 learning. We will limit our scope to computer-mediated interaction between individuals and groups of users, and therefore we will not consider other potentially important computer applications in L2 research and teaching (e.g., the use of computerized glosses to promote reading comprehension). Within that domain, our discussion is relevant to interactions designed for pedagogical purposes (both those that occur during and outside of regular class time) as well as those in which interlocutors have no specific pedagogical aim (e.g., a public chatroom or a news group on the Internet). Many challenges could be examined with the purpose of reflecting on the social value of research conducted on L2 online interactions. For example, Kern (2006) argued that the most important task of L2 learning and technology researchers is to elucidate the communicative, social, cognitive, cultural, and educational implications of using computers to learn. He also contended that more emphasis needs to be placed on learner agency and teacher responsibility, and that much more attention to the “symbolic and prestige” dimensions of digital technologies is also needed (p. 189). By identifying these issues, he offered an excellent set of essential signposts for thinking ethically when planning, doing, and disseminating research on online interactions and L2 learning. However, we will be purposefully selective. Rather than provide a comprehensive survey of ethical research challenges, we have decided to offer a discussion of several issues that have not received attention to date, despite their salience across L2 research programs in which computer technology affords a medium for interaction. Thus, for example, the digital divide is clearly one of the most important ethical challenges posed by the use of technology, but precisely because it has received so much attention we will not treat this topic. Instead, we refer interested readers to a few key position papers: the 2003 special issue of Ethics and Information Technology on the topic (and particularly the pieces there by Couldry 2003, and Hacker & Mason 2003), Parayil (2005), and the discussion more tailored to language education concerns by Warschauer (2003). Conversely, we decided to include an exploration of ethical challenges in the conduct of research because, in the process of preparing this chapter, we discovered that little to no discussion has ensued in this area



Online interactions, ethical challenges 333

among L2 researchers, who also all too often fail to report the details for how the need for informed consent was approached in their studies, how the rights of participants were considered in the design, implementation, and reporting of their investigations, and so on. We begin with an examination of challenges that arise from tensions in how L2 researchers conceptualize four areas in the online environments they investigate: participation and productivity, intercultural learning, notions of culture, and images of interlocutors and learners. We then examine some ethical concerns regarding standards of research conduct, including consent, anonymity, reliability and validity, and researcher-researched relations. We hope to foster dialogue about the ethical ramifications of how and why we approach research on computer-mediated interactions that are designed for varied L2 learning purposes and contexts.

Tempering euphoric views of L2 online participation and productivity The power of computer-mediated communication (CMC) as an equalizer of participation structures has been a salient theme in much research on language learning and technology, particularly from cognitive and interactionist orientations. For example, this was one of the main arguments identified by Ortega (1997) in the existing L2 CMC research at the time. The claim is that the reduced availability of social cues in computer-mediated interactions temporarily suspends or at least minimizes pre-existing power differentials (e.g., between teacher and students, or among students from various backgrounds and personal predispositions), making online exchanges more equally distributed. This argument entails benefits from the perspectives of education and second language acquisition (SLA). From an educational standpoint, egalitarian participation structures are seen positively as enabling the democratization of education via dialogic communication; from an SLA perspective, egalitarian structures are said to bring about higher productivity and more complex discourse, both of which are seen as key ingredients for optimal L2 development. Ten years later, researchers still almost routinely make such claims. Admittedly, some of these benefits have been substantiated empirically, particularly the finding that more varied usage of the L2 is fostered online (e.g., Chun 1994; Kern 1995) without sacrificing certain traditional participation structures, such as negotiation episodes, which are thought to facilitate L2 learning in face-to-face contexts (e.g., Fiori 2005; B. Smith 2003, 2004). Although these are reasonable and interesting benefits of CMC that merit investigation, we would like to call for caution when using this kind of celebratory discourse about L2 CMC as an equalizer of communication and a panacea for L2 practice. From an ethical

334 Lourdes Ortega and Eve Zyzik

viewpoint, it is important to question the presentation of these benefits as simply ‘given’ by the technology or as automatically guaranteed. Several studies have contributed findings that mitigate such euphoric views of L2 online interactions, documenting something other than across-the-board benefits for participation and increased engagement with the L2. These findings include disadvantages in terms of anxiety provoked by the public visibility of textbased postings (Sengupta 2001), more equally distributed participation for one group but not the other (Fitze 2006), greater participation for some learners but exclusion of others (Jeon-Ellis et al. 2005), and even greater learning in the traditional face-to-face medium than online (Barr et al. 2005). Other L2 researchers have observed that, rather than neutralizing preexisting power differentials, online interactions simply perpetuate them. For example, Reeder et al. (2004) studied the participation patterns of students enrolled in a WebCT course on intercultural studies over 6 weeks and found that the aboriginal Canadian students in the class posted about three times fewer contributions to the WebCT forum than the rest of their peers, who included European Canadians and international students from diverse backgrounds. Another unexamined assumption is that productivity is an indication of engagement with the L2, whereas it is likely that this productivity may depend on the quality and not the quantity of the interactions that ensue online. For instance, what looks like interaction may be more like ‘serial monologues,’ as Pawan et al. (2003) noted of online threaded discussions designed to prepare teachers for distance education contexts. Edge (2006), however, provided a positive counter example of text-only synchronous chat interactions that were successful in facilitating what he calls cooperative development between in-service teachers. In the end, then, it is not the medium per se that can explain how positive qualities of participation and productive interactions are maximized. Aspects of the context and the agency of participants need also to be taken into account. Therefore, it is encouraging that recent research focusing on online interaction and participation is expanding to consider context and agency. For example, Vandergriff (2006) employed the theoretical notion of grounding as an alternative to non-understanding, the term preferred by interactionist SLA research (e.g., Gass & Mackey 2006), so as to be able to represent issues of language learning and negotiation of meaning from a less deficit-oriented perspective; and Warner (2004) argued for the inclusion of interaction that is non-referential but instead is generated around language play. With regard to ethics, the idea that participation is universally good for L2 learning may itself reflect ethnocentric views of education. Educational researcher Nicholas Burbules (2006) is critical of what he calls the “canonization of dialogue as a pedagogical ideal” (p. 107). He noted that the assumption that dialogic



Online interactions, ethical challenges 335

teaching is the best single pedagogical method rests on Western-centric views of education, as is evident in Plato’s use of the Socratic method (Kahn 1996), Habermas’ theory of communicative action (Habermas 1984), and Freire’s notion of dialogical teaching as liberating (Araújo Freire & Macedo 2000). These views tend to overvalue dialogue and participation over silence. Yet silence is of many kinds, and some silences may be culturally or situationally positive, for example, a sign of attentive listening, an opportunity to engage in ongoing inner speech, or perhaps a concerted choice to resist the pressure to become more attuned to norms or expectations of dominant group members. There is also a different reason for taking into account the value of silence and non-participation in L2 online interactions. Soroka and Rafaeli (2006) suggested that passive participation (i.e., lurking) is a legitimate form of participation that is likely related to a perceived need to first gain knowledge of the community of interactants before one feels ready to become an active participant (i.e., to de-lurk and begin posting messages). They concluded that there is a “need to understand lurking behavior not only to make people start participating or de-lurk, but also to be able to create virtual spaces that are pleasant and interesting to be in even for silent participants” (Soroka & Rafaeli 2006: 169). In L2 research, too, it may be important to focus not only on patterns and amounts of participation but also on virtual silences and low levels of interactivity and productivity in L2 online interactions of various kinds. To date, many CMC L2 researchers seem to assume that cultural differences that may well be important in face-to-face communication, such as valuing silence and reticence in some cultures, can be expected to become simply irrelevant when interacting online for the sake of L2 learning. This assumption promotes the euphoric view that the medium in and of itself will make everyone willing to participate and engage in what is seemingly taken as good language learner behavior (i.e., high levels of participation) online. In sum, we believe that ethically responsible research should question euphoric views of L2 technology-based interactions as inherently promoting egalitarian participation and optimal L2 productivity. Questions of participation, interactivity, productivity, and even patterns of silence and lurking need to be examined more in-depth and critically across technology mediums, activity designs, and communities of users. L2 researchers would do well to design their studies with an open mind as to what benefits, if any, are to be expected from computer-mediated interactions. This more cautious attitude towards understanding the benefits of online participation for L2 learning would likely result in researchers collecting multiple kinds of data and exploring mixed-research methodologies in order to be able to study issues of participation, reticence, cultural norms, and agency in online L2 interaction patterns.

336 Lourdes Ortega and Eve Zyzik

Problematizing intercultural learning in online interactions Another salient theme in the use of computer-mediated interactions is that it will promote cultural understanding by bringing the target culture closer to students who would normally have little or no contact with expert speakers of the language they are studying. Authentic communication and engagement with speakers of the target language has many potential benefits for L2 learners, such as promoting a sense of cultural curiosity (Abrams 2002), confronting stereotypes and prejudice (O’Dowd 2005; Sakar 2001), and reflecting on one’s own culture (Ware 2005). These learning goals and educational objectives are most salient in telecollaborative partnerships, which involve “the use of Internet communication tools by internationally dispersed students of language in institutionalized settings in order to promote the development of (a) foreign language (FL) linguistic competence and (b) intercultural competence” (Belz 2003b: 68). Telecollaboration as a platform for intercultural learning is a very active area of research, as evidenced by the numerous journal articles published in recent years (e.g., see the 2003 special issue of Language, Learning, & Technology; and the essays in Belz & Thorne 2006). Telecollaborations stand out as exemplary in several ways. First, cultural learning through computer-mediated interactions with distant groups is an idea that enjoys palpable relevance for L2 teachers as well as for students. In fact, some of the most influential telecollaboration projects were designed by teachers who searched for new ways of helping their students achieve better cultural understanding (Furstenberg et al. 2001; Kinginger et al. 1999; see also Bauer et al. 2006). Telecollaborations also promote contextualized and social views of language. For example, they help teachers and students put a greater value on pragmatic development, rather than just focusing on the narrow acquisition of discrete lexical items or grammatical structures. Finally, as a pedagogical site of interaction, telecollaborations have the potential to enable images of the self and of ‘the other’ that are less monolithic and more holistic and textured than the images promoted in more traditional representation modes, such as textbooks (e.g., Shardakova & Pavlenko 2004; see the next section for a more in-depth discussion of this issue). Despite the many positive aspects of telecollaboration research, we find that from an ethical viewpoint several issues merit deeper examination. In our view, the most prominent of these issues is that some studies promote an idyllic view, an unshakable assumption that collaborative projects necessarily result in the learning of cultural content, better knowledge of L2 pragmatics, and enhanced cultural understanding. A possible reason for this idealization, as Kramsch and Andersen (1999) astutely noted, is that Internet-mediated communication gives a deceptive sense of ‘immediate’ contact, which can lead to the assumption that



Online interactions, ethical challenges 337

contact between two persons from different cultures automatically results in enhanced cross-cultural understanding. Studies are now accumulating that problematize this assumption, showing that the cultural understandings promoted by telecollaborations can be superficial and at times may even lead to misunderstandings or disengagement (see review in Ware 2005). A telling illustration is offered by Kramsch and Thorne (2002), who captured the sense of alienation and disappointment that ensued between a group of French lycée students and a group of U.S. undergraduates during a telecollaboration project. The students in France implicitly oriented themselves toward the content of the exchanges, whereas the students in the United States held the implicit goal of establishing personal and relational bonds. The institutional constraints of the activity probably influenced these conflicting perceptions; the French students completed the assignments during class time and with the teacher as mediator, while the U.S. students did the assignments as homework and may have perceived the exchange as extending the boundaries of the official classroom. As a result of this discontinuity in genre schemata and institutional contexts, the U.S. students were put off by the factual, impersonal, and dispassionate communication style of the French students, perhaps construing such style as forthright unfriendliness and pomposity. As reported in several studies, unsuccessful telecollaborative partnerships can actually reinforce stereotypes and confirm negative attitudes that students had prior to the telecollaboration (Belz 2002; Meagher & Castaños 1996; O’Dowd 2003). Others have pointed out that more attention needs to be paid to the active roles teachers can play in addressing such weaknesses and dangers of telecollaborations and in mediating intercultural learning (Belz & Müller-Hartmann 2003; Ware & Kramsch 2005). We find the notion of third space that was first theorized in cultural studies by Bhabha (1994) an extremely useful tool that can enrich models of intercultural learning in the context of L2 learning. Burbules (2006) made the connection between Bhabha’s third space and computer-mediated interactions, arguing that networked spaces that support online interactions can become third spaces, which he described as follows: “A third space, communicatively speaking, is a zone in which semantic frames meet, conflict, and get attached with meanings neither original party intended or could have intended” (p. 114). Third spaces are not neutral or idyllic and do not guarantee that conflict and misunderstanding or disagreement are solved, but they open the possibility for alternative meanings to emerge: “The key idea here is not about bridge building, fusing, blending, or reconciling; it is about […] a disruption of ordinary meanings that leads to a new possibility […] third spaces are problematic and problematizing moments, risky and as prone to chaos, or even heightened conflict, as to producing new understandings” (p. 114).

338 Lourdes Ortega and Eve Zyzik

These and other tensions need to be acknowledged and addressed when designing telecollaborations as pedagogical projects and when researching them. Otherwise we risk the danger of perpetuating an idyllic and damaging view of computer-mediated interactions as inherently productive moments for bringing about intercultural understanding, rather than complex and contested sites for intercultural negotiation and reconstruction. We need more research that helps L2 teachers and students understand what critical cultural awareness (MüllerHartman 2000) is and how it can be developed, as well as how technology and telecollaboration projects can help with the important educational goal of nurturing empathy towards other cultures (Rubenfeld et al. 2007).

Complicating notions of culture in the study of L2 online communication Just as intercultural learning needs to be problematized in studies of computermediated L2 interaction, there is also an ethical need to embrace a more complex view of culture and to explore added layers of cultural complexity that are superposed online in several ways. Technology-mediated communication is never a culture-free zone or a zone where cultural differences become neutralized or irrelevant, as sometimes portrayed in the literature. Echoing Hanna and de Nooy (2003), we agree there is good reason to be “suspicious of the assumption of the flattening out of cultural difference” (p. 72) by merely using technology or a medium like the Internet. Cultural differences do not disappear in online interactions. Rather, they are creatively transformed by different users. First, the Internet and other forms of communication technology originated in and are imbued with Western, English-speaking, and middle and upper-middle class values espoused by highly educated and highly literate populations (Ess 2002; Walther 1996). If it is true that there are generations of young people who have grown up with technology and claim an interconnected persona and highly technologized identities (Mcmillan & Morrison 2006; Thorne 2003), we cannot forget that these generations are privileged and that primary access to technology is severely unequal depending on geographic location and class membership (Parayil 2005; Powell 2007; Stanley 2003). Furthermore, many competent users of technology may have had “a reluctant entry into the computer age” (B. Q. Smith 2004: 51) in the sense that they may have experienced socialization into technology as a site of conflict and covert colonization, even when benefits have also been experienced. Second, cultural values and social identities are never fixed but rather are constructed and reconstructed (and are made less or more relevant) depending on interlocutors, purposes, and contexts (Kubota 2004; Norton 2006). That is, it



Online interactions, ethical challenges 339

would be mistaken to assume that, if preexisting social and cultural identities do not flatten out mysteriously with the introduction of technology, then they must deterministically play out in online interactions. Rather, new hybrid cultures may be negotiated and emerge out of the new interactional spaces afforded by technology, and new positive identities can be enabled that were not previously possible. Identity or the sense of self, which is always implicated in L2 interaction and communication, is greatly complicated once we consider online identities, cyber-identities, and the wired and mobile person. For example, studies of the use of email by L2 students with their professors show how the messages they send via asynchronous technology allow them to create an identity that shifts over time and becomes more competent (Chen 2006) or not (Biesenbach-Lucas 2005). With minority and heritage language learners, several studies document a creative use of the technology to construct identities that are often hybrid and that are also accompanied by linguistic innovation. Lam (2000, 2004) has shown this dual process of hybrid identity construction and linguistic innovation in her case studies of young Chinese immigrants in the United States, who were able to reposition themselves in a variety of ways and reclaim ownership of hybrid cultural and linguistic identities online. In another study, Bloch (2004) argued that Chinese contributors to an unmoderated Usenet group framed their English messages drawing on culturally hybrid discursive resources, often adopting very direct, allegedly Western ways of expression that are traditionally opposed to the Chinese Confucian rhetorical preference for harmony-preserving indirectness, but also deploying the Chinese genre of “pure talk” or ching tan, where philosophical controversies are structured into multiple-day rounds of exchanges between a host and a guest (Bloch 2004: 73). Similar innovative ways of renegotiating cultural or social identity online have been shown by Lee (2006) with Korean heritage language learners and by Warschauer et al. (2002) with young professionals in Cairo. The point to be made, from an ethical perspective, is that online interaction is never just about language, but about repositioning oneself and negotiating cultural, personal, and power differentials online. Perhaps the need to complicate notions of culture arises in part because the construct of culture itself has yet to be examined closely in the L2 learning and technology literature. Thus, for example, we noticed that the majority of telecollaboration research to date invokes Kramsch’s (2001) and Byram’s (1997) models of intercultural competence, concentrating on issues of cultural learning, and thereby implicitly assuming that we do know what ‘culture’ is and how it is related to language learning. Other strands of applied linguistic literature, however, have concentrated on debating how to define and capture the elusive notion of culture. This is the main thrust of ongoing discussions about the politics of difference, which draw from cultural studies and have achieved a considerable degree of

340 Lourdes Ortega and Eve Zyzik

sophistication in the field of TESOL, with the work of Atkinson (1999), Kubota (2004, 2006), and others. These scholars remind us of the dangers of adhering to views of cultures as essential and fixed, that is, externally given and with detectable boundaries. It may be fruitful to consider such discussions in the context of computer-mediated interactions because it is important not to underestimate the complexity of the many layers of cultures that intersect and emerge online, and the contested nature of culture more generally. Working with these more complicated notions of culture, researchers will find it necessary to plan L2 research on CMC and interpret findings about L2 online interactions with an acute awareness that unequal distribution of power in face-to-face encounters may still persist in online interactions, and that preexisting cultural differences may play out to the disadvantage of minority culture members. At the same time, researchers can also expect that individuals and groups can succeed in appropriating technology-mediated forums and creatively renegotiate their cultural values in the online interactions, often times resulting in hybrid cultural creations. In the end, the potential of online interactions for fostering linguistic as well as intercultural learning will not be fully understood unless L2 researchers confront the question of how global computer uses, emergent online cultures of users, and local cultures interact (Kern 2006; Thorne 2003; see also Ess 2002 for an illuminating L1 – but L2-sensitive – perspective).

Reexamining images of interlocutors and learners online Much of the published research on L2 learning and technology appears to be inhabited by images of native speakers as prototypical interlocutors and learners as one-dimensional people. These images do not match the realities of second and foreign language education in the United States and other parts of the world, and perpetuating them does a disservice to the teachers who turn to our research for guidance on how to engage in fruitful uses of technology for L2 learning. We believe these images are an ethical liability in need of redress in future research. With regard to interlocutors, the assumption is that so-called authentic online interactions should be, as much as possible, with interlocutors who are socalled native speakers. Particularly if the focus is on exchanges and interactions outside the classroom, most L2 CMC researchers choose to investigate learners who are asked to engage in activities with native-speaking interlocutors across national borders. This choice, whether intentional or unexamined, ignores much of the lively discussion in applied linguistics that has denounced the idealization of the native speaker as the privileged model and norm for L2 learning and as the single legitimate interlocutor (see, for example, Seidlhofer 2001). It also ig-



Online interactions, ethical challenges 341

nores poignant critiques of the notion that a fixed culture could ever be identified by or identifiable with so-called native speakers as a homogeneous group (see Ambadiang & García Parejo 2006). Researchers who help portray more diverse images of legitimate interlocutors in their L2 online studies are rare and for that reason notable. For example, Blake and Zyzik (2003) made the heritage speaker populations that inhabit our FL programs more visible by investigating CMC and interaction issues in exchanges between heritage and foreign language learners; and Lee (2004) designed a project involving interaction between foreign language learners of Spanish and Spanish-speaking teachers who were living in the United States rather than across our borders. The focus on international exchanges of most telecollaboration projects is a case in point. By making international dispersion a definitional feature of such projects, educators and researchers unwittingly reinforce the invisibility of immigrant communities living in the United States, who are speakers of the target languages in question and who often are regarded as being less than native, as it were, perhaps because their multicompetence is hastily misunderstood as incompetence (Cook 2002; Valdés 2005). Many have lamented the pervasive neglect of these U.S. communities, who remain untapped as a resource for the foreign language classroom and for society at large (e.g., Hornberger 2002; Ortega 1999; Reagan & Osborn 2002). In the context of technology, Thorne (2006) echoed similar concerns, noting that “intra-community resources remain largely untapped” (p. 9). We emphasize that well-designed telecollaborations implemented within the country could afford extraordinary educational benefits. Much of the rationale for hoping that telecollaborations will bring about intercultural learning and a reduction in stereotypes and prejudices rests with the classic Contact Hypothesis proposed in the 1950s by social psychologist Gordon W. Allport (1954). Simply put, opportunities for direct, personal contact with others can help reduce intergroup social prejudice because premature and superficial generalizations about a group must be reassessed in light of what is learned through actual (or virtual) contact with its members. If we consider that stereotyping and social prejudice are often at their worst when it comes to minority groups at home (because they are most immediate), it would seem that a crucial role for computer-mediated interactions in the L2 could be to bring learners into closer personal contact with members of communities inside the United States who speak the target language. Telecollaborations that interconnected our students with communities of target language speakers within the country would also provide for much needed exposure to linguistic and cultural diversity of the kind that is rarely available in the official classroom and in published textbooks. That is, computer-mediated interactions could redress the undesirable divide between classroom and community, so eloquently described by Reagan and Osborn (2002): “even where there

342 Lourdes Ortega and Eve Zyzik

are local opportunities for students to actually use the target language (Spanish in the Southwest, French in parts of the Northeast, and so forth) the language of the classroom tends to differ dramatically from the local variety, thus again emphasizing the Otherness of the classroom language, and minimizing its actual usefulness for students” (p. 9). Conversely, the images of students or learners that we see in many, although not all, accounts of computer-mediated L2 interactions tend to be impersonal and homogenizing. Yet, the diversity of knowledge, experiences, and cultural capital that different students bring into online encounters needs to be represented better and investigated in our studies, if they are to contribute knowledge that is useful to inform language education practices. For example, many so-called foreign language learners may be studying their third or fourth language, and such multilingual students surely come to online L2 encounters with a heightened sense of cultural awareness. Such are the cases of two of the third-year German college students described by Belz (2003a): Yoshie, a Japanese-English bilingual who had already studied in Berlin as a high school student, and Yen, a native speaker of Cantonese and English. They were multilingual, multicompenent language users who came to the classroom with sophisticated metalinguistic abilities and extensive cultural knowledge. The profiles of such students differ sharply from that of Lori, the focal learner described in Belz (2006), who came from a rural, workingclass background, had never traveled outside of the United States, and had essentially no contact with people from other cultures. Likewise, we must also consider the situation of heritage speakers who may enroll in our courses; for such learners, for example, telecollaboration may mean renewed contact with a culture that is not ‘foreign’ to them, although it may be viewed as an oppressive ‘higher’ culture (e.g., the culture of colonizers). It is important to study the varied affordances for intercultural (mis)understanding and cultural learning lived by learners who themselves bring multifarious notions and experiences of ‘culture’ and ‘the other’ to the telecollaboration. How do learners from diverse backgrounds and varied cultural capital contribute to and benefit from telecollaboration and other forms of computer-mediated interaction? We see it as an ethical imperative and an opportunity for L2 researchers who work with technology to examine critically the images of interlocutors and learners (often embodying images of other and self) that are privileged in L2 research on computer-mediated interactions. We hope in the future more L2 researchers design their studies in ways that help counter the bias of the native speaker as optimal interlocutor and add richness and diversity to the images of learners they study as well. Technology is used in language classrooms all over the world by learners like Yoshie, Lori, Yen, and many others. By placing the investigative lens on their diversity as much as on their shared commonalities, researchers working



Online interactions, ethical challenges 343

on L2 online interactions will be able to contribute knowledge that has greater potential to be useful in informing language education practices.

Elucidating ethical research conduct when investigating online L2 interactions In the remainder of this chapter we turn to an examination of a more traditional issue in research ethics, namely, standards of ethical research conduct. It is clear that traditional notions of informed consent, right to privacy, protection of identity, and protection of intellectual property take on a new complexity when communication technologies are the object of investigation. The added complexity holds whether the research proper is done online or whether the studies are conducted in a more traditional offline fashion but with the goal of illuminating interactions and communications that are mediated by technology. Researchers in the field of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have written a remarkably large amount about such issues. Just to illustrate, a journal since 1999 has featured many articles on this topic: Ethics and Information Technology, published by Springer in the Netherlands. The same year, a workshop was sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Institutes of Health in the United States that resulted in a widely consulted report on doing human subjects research on the Internet (Frankel & Siang 1999). By comparison, in the process of preparing this chapter we discovered that little to no discussion has ensued among L2 researchers about issues surrounding dilemmas in ethical research conduct online. We also found that all too often certain details were missing from many L2 reports, such as how informed consent was established (or why it was dispensed with), how the data were handled to avoid sensitive content and protect the interests of the student participants, or how the rights of participants were considered in the design, implementation, and reporting of studies. Thus, in this last section we would like to raise four challenges related to consent, anonymity, validity, and researcher-researched relations. We will not seek to offer definitive answers in our explorations. Much to the contrary, it will become obvious to readers that the biggest (and as yet unsolved) point of debate among ICT researchers is whether the study of digital technologies on the Internet should be counted as research in a public space (as assumed in much of the L2 research we examined), human subjects research (Frankel & Siang 1999; Jacobson 1999), archival research (Bassett & O’Riordan 2002; Walther 2002), or even creative arts research (Bruckman 2002). Moreover, all parties involved in the debate agree that the ethical, legal, and logistical consequences are considerably different depending

344 Lourdes Ortega and Eve Zyzik

on which one of these models researchers choose. Yet, there is also consensus that digital technologies are too diverse and the purposes and approaches for online research too heterogeneous for any one of these models of research conduct alone to be taken as preferable to the others or all-encompassing.

Informed consent online One complex issue is whether informed consent needs to be sought before online data are collected. Although we could not find explicit discussions on this issue by L2 researchers, our perusal of L2 CMC studies published in the last 10 years suggests that, in practice, most L2 researchers collect online interaction data without seeking consent of the participants who generated those interactions. For example, Jepson (2005) collected data through loitering, that is, by entering a chat room without participating or identifying himself. This author explicitly argued that loitering is “acceptable chat room protocol” (p. 84). In a modification of this approach, Tudini (2003) collected data by asking her own students to join and participate in a public chatroom (a non-pedagogical site) as part of a class assignment. Although not discussed in the report, it is implied that the students were not asked to disclose to the other chat participants that they intended to use the chat data for a class assignment, nor that their professor, in turn, would analyze these same data for research purposes. Can we accept that online text, voice, and video interactions can be simply recorded and analyzed in a research report without knowledge or consent from participants? On the one hand, Jepson is right in noting that loitering or lurking (reading without posting) are regular, accepted practices in bulletin boards, newsgroups, and emailing lists (Nonnecke & Preece 2003). On the other hand, there are no expectations among Internet users that the loiterers or lurkers will turn out to be researchers who want to capture and later dissect their postings. As teachers, we must also consider: Is it legitimate to ask our own students to join an online group with surreptitious intentions to collect data? Our students may find it beneficial to engage in chat for a well designed classroom assignment, and they may not mind the extra trouble to save a copy of the chat before exiting the room so we can obtain data for our research. But is it ethical to teach them by our own practice that no consent is necessary for Internet research (from them or from the other virtual participants)? Frankel and Siang (1999) and King (1996) noted that many in the field of ICT take the position that the chat environment and other such forums offered through the Internet for communication (e.g., newsgroups, Multi-User Dungeons, blogs, and so on) always constitute a public space, and as such there is no



Online interactions, ethical challenges 345

reasonable expectation of privacy. This position appears to have been implicitly adopted by Jepson (2005). Public spaces are not protected by human subjects research codes, and researchers are free to collect data in such contexts without the otherwise important requirements of informed consent and poststudy debriefing. A good indication of the ‘public’ status of digital spaces is, for example, that no chatrooms have membership requirements or restrictions on participating or identifying oneself. Hudson and Bruckman (2004) conducted an ingenious experiment to take an empirical look at the expectations of privacy that chat users do or do not hold. They found that across 137 chatrooms and 766 usernames, participants who were made aware of being studied responded with great hostility and expelled researchers from the chatroom between 56% and 72% of the time. Thus, there is reason to believe that Internet users do indeed expect – perhaps against all logic – that their interactions will remain private. If we are convinced that expectations of privacy are in fact felt by participants in digital spaces, we must understand the true ethical dilemma as going well beyond legal definitions of public and private contexts sanctioned by institutional review boards. Other ICT researchers have taken the position that online text-based research should be considered archival rather than human subjects research (Walther 2002). This position is in fact bolstered by a move to highlight the textuality of online products (i.e., the discourse produced and archived) rather than the processes of human activity in unfolding virtual interactions (Bassett & O’Riordan 2002). That is, rather than capitalizing on the metaphor of technological environments as a virtual space or a medium for human activity, these researchers favor a metaphor of technological environments as medium for the cultural production of texts. Some of the L1 CMC researchers who accept this model argue for the distinction of a fine but firm line between research involving asynchronous CMC texts, which are typically permanently and publicly archived and thus should be treated (they argue) as archival data, and the more human-subject-like spaces of synchronous exchanges online, which are more fleeting and hence can be considered human subjects research data. However, taking ephemerality as a criterion does not entirely solve the problem. As Jacobson (1999) noted, even synchronous CMC interactions are nevertheless fixed, since they are typed and appear in written form, and they are furthermore storable in the random access memory (RAM) of servers and users.

Anonymity in virtual interactions A second ethical challenge pertains to protecting online participants’ identity. The issue is less straightforward than it seems at first blush. On the one hand, and given

346 Lourdes Ortega and Eve Zyzik

the blurring of definitions of personality and identity online, some researchers feel that protecting anonymity may not be necessary because interactants online seem to be rather anonymous already in a number of ways. For example, they typically use one or more pseudonyms or usernames that conceal their true offline identity. The use of multiple usernames may make it even impossible to assume a one-toone correspondence between an offline person and a virtual persona. Furthermore, Internet users oftentimes disguise their virtual persona by providing fictive rather than faithful biographical details. However, Internet identities are all the more vulnerable precisely because any reader of a research report could conceivably use the public availability and archival capabilities of the Internet to retrieve cited data or even to trace down a digital person and join an online conversation that was the topic of published research. This identity search could be done, for example, for purposes of replication or longitudinal follow-up. In L2 research, the typical practice among L2 CMC researchers appears to be ensuring anonymity of participants by changing usernames or participant names for pseudonyms. In the wider field of ICT, too, the majority of researchers find it desirable to assign pseudonyms to all the information associated with the particular Internet site and participants’ identification in the collected data. This position, however, is not unanimous. Bruckman (2002) argued that Internet cultural materials (text, art) should sometimes be treated as the creative products of amateur artists. When they are treated in this way, she contends, recognition and copyrights, rather than privacy, are the ethical priorities to protect. A good example of such a case in applied linguistics publications is Hull and Nelson (2005). These authors presented an in-depth analysis of a multimodal self-biographical narrative clip, entitled Lyfe-N-Rhyme, which was created in the context of an educational program in Oakland, California. Neither in the article nor in the actual website is any attempt made to anonymize or disguise the identity of Randy Young, the creator of the digital multimodal clip. On the contrary, one of the goals of this research was to celebrate the young artists that were studied, and multimodality in their digital texts was analyzed as a manifestation of original art and self-expression. Other L2 CMC researchers may study self-expression, identity, and authorship of cultural production by their participants but nevertheless prefer to disguise their offline and online names (e.g., Kramsch, A’Ness, & Lam 2000; Lam 2004). In the end, then, how can researchers decide what is ethical in terms of online and virtual anonymity? We refer readers to the useful set of recommendations for making such decisions offered by Bruckman (2002). Her position is that online researchers should decide along a continuum from zero to heavy disguise, varying their decision on each occasion depending on the purposes of the research, the vulnerability of the population studied, and the right of participants to receive credit for their cultural creations and to be protected from harm.



Online interactions, ethical challenges 347

Issues of reliability and validity A third challenge regarding ethical research conduct concerns the validity of data collected online. Traditionally, the position of institutional review boards is that if a proposed research project does not provide warrants of validity and reliability, its benefits are questionable and thus not worth the inconvenience (let alone potential harms) it imposes on human subjects. Yet, it appears that the facility with which data are some times collected online works against researchers giving proper thought to striking a balance between imposition to subjects and benefits to be gleaned from the resulting new knowledge. A recent example of how this concern can play out in L2 CMC research is offered by Volle (2005). This researcher collected L2 Spanish data through computer-mediated interviews (i.e., voice conferences) with first-semester students enrolled in a distance course. Describing the research procedures, she cast some doubt on the validity and integrity of the data, candidly recognizing that these observations “raise serious questions about this assessment format’s validity and reliability” (p. 155). Volle openly discussed a range of problems. For example, based on certain audio signs during the voice teleconferences, she suspected that some participants were doing other work at the same time and that a few others were engaging in cheating behavior, such as consulting the textbook when asked questions about the L2. Possible distractions during data collection and poor technical quality of the audio data were also mentioned. These are more than technical glitches, however, and remind us of the ethical obligation of researchers to collect and produce the best quality of evidence possible, whether the data are collected online or offline.

Researcher-researched relations The final challenge regarding research conduct we would like to raise pertains to the relationship between the researcher and the people they research. We will briefly consider two sources of ethical tension. Many L2 researchers who investigate CMC questions are teachers studying their own classrooms, often in higher education contexts. This situation creates a new researcher-researched relationship superposed on an existing professor-student relationship that is characterized by power differential and high, long-term stakes. For example, one has to wonder whether students are ever truly free to deny their professors permission to use texts that they have produced as students, not research participants. It is tempting to assume our students by and large will have no objections to our collecting their email data or other records of electronic interactions, given that they have been produced as part of regular classroom life

348 Lourdes Ortega and Eve Zyzik

and are easily collected without inconveniencing anyone. Nevertheless, some students may fear negative consequences in their academic relationships with the professor in question if they wish to deny consent. We found that it was typical for L2 teacher-researchers to report how they sought informed consent from their students. For example, the students in the study by Biesenbach-Lucas (2005) were asked for consent by the teacher-researcher, who analyzed the regular emails they had sent to her over one semester. Nevertheless, we found fewer cases where CMC L2 researchers offered warrants to readers that consent from their student participants was truly voluntary. Chen (2006) reports on an interesting strategy to give the participant some agency over the collected data. In this two and a half year study, the graduate student and focal participant, Ling, was allowed to select the emails that the researcher would then analyze. In this way, what got under the analyst’s lens was only what the participant considered “appropriate and important to record” (p. 38) and the participant had some control over her interests and self-image. Unfortunately, little else is explained in this study regarding the relationship between the researcher and the researched, or how the student was approached, consent ensured, and reciprocation offered to her in the first place. Another source of ethical tension between researcher and researched may arise in the study of technological innovation that is brought into a community or classroom. In such studies, it is likely that the L2 researcher will take on the role of a technological expert, introducing the innovation him or herself and then investigating the impact of such acts on community members or on teachers and students, who will be positioned in the role of novices. For example, when new technologies are employed not so much to foster interactions but to support the maintenance and revitalization of indigenous, heritage, and immigrant languages, the individual with technology knowledge who wants to introduce the innovation is often an outsider. Is it ethical for outsiders to enter the indigenous, heritage, or immigrant communities and ‘enlighten’ them with the new technology? Villa (2002) raised these issues and proposed as a solution to train an insider in the technology and then let the insider do the actual implementation of the project with the community. A similar case of radical asymmetry can occur in classroom-based research where curricular innovations and educational change are studied. This asymmetry occurred, for example, in the four classrooms investigated by Warschauer (1999), who as a researcher negotiated permission (and provided support) to introduce technology in the regular classroom of a teacher who, in several of the four cases, was teaching with that technology for the first time. It would be desirable for L2 researchers to discuss strategies through which collaboration and reciprocation can be ensured in cases involving a researcheroutsider working with members of another community – including a classroom community – to introduce and study language use and language learning via new



Online interactions, ethical challenges 349

technologies (see Banks 1998, for a useful treatment of possible models for researcher-researched relations from the viewpoint of educational research). We should conclude our discussion about research conduct by reiterating our disclaimer that it is not our intention to suggest that there is a single answer to the many ethical dilemmas that online L2 researchers face. Rather, we want to call attention to the need to engage with the challenging decisions they have to make in order to conduct their research ethically and to discuss them openly in their reports. We believe these concerns are particularly important as we educate future generations of online researchers (Bruckman 2006). Closer scrutiny and clarity regarding choices L2 researchers make to ensure ethical research conduct online will be increasingly necessary, as we continue to study how L2 users act and interact in cyberspace, what texts and cultural artifacts they produce as a result of such virtual acts, and what learning accrues from those online interactions.

Conclusion There is little doubt that computer technology will continue to play a central role in L2 research in the future. Likewise, as technological applications evolve, many language teachers will increasingly look to these tools to promote linguistic development and intercultural learning among their students. In fact, in contexts of higher education and K-12 alike, teachers will need to understand and experiment with these technologies if they hope to minimize the generation gap that exists between themselves and their students, many of whom are digital natives, that is, individuals who have grown up in tandem with digital literacies and have been socialized in the use of the Internet from early childhood (Parks et al. 2003; Prensky 2001; Thorne & Payne 2005). It may well be that an ethical imperative for language teachers is to incorporate different forms of technology-mediated interaction into their existing practices in order to prepare their students for the very real (and indispensable) task of using the L2 in online environments. With respect to L2 research, too, investigating ways to support the optimal incorporation of technology in language education may turn out to be the most prominent ethical challenge in the future, given the centrality of technology to contemporary human activity, including learning and using multiple languages online. We applaud the innovative uses and applications of technology, and we see many potential benefits and immediate relevance to classroom practices. In this sense, we do share the infectious enthusiasm that transpires from much of the L2 learning and technology literature, and we agree that computer-mediated interactions have opened up new and fascinating possibilities for language education. However, we believe it is important to consider the ethical ramifications of

350 Lourdes Ortega and Eve Zyzik

how and why we approach research on technology-mediated interactions that are designed for varied L2 learning purposes and contexts, asking ourselves difficult questions about the purposes and beneficiaries of our research. In this chapter we have highlighted several challenges that are particularly salient to us and that merit further dialogue among those in the research community. Our intention is not to suggest that there is a single answer to the many ethical dilemmas that online L2 researchers face. But we hope to have convinced readers that raising difficult questions about the ethics of our research is indeed an integral part of our individual and professional responsibilities. We believe that engaging in ethical thinking as we plan, conduct, and report on our studies can help us improve the quality and impact of the new knowledge that is generated about computer-mediated L2 interactions.

References Abrams, Z. I. (2002). Surfing to cross-cultural awareness: Using Internet-mediated projects to explore cultural stereotypes. Foreign Language Annals, 35, 141–160. Allport, G. W. (1954). The nature of prejudice. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books. Ambadiang, T. & García Parejo, I. (2006). La cultura lingüística y el componente cultural en la enseñanza de lenguas no maternas: Observaciones sobre algunos paradigmas de la competencia cultural. Didáctica (Lengua y Literatura), 18, 61–92. Retrieved May 15, 2007, from: http://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/revista?tipo_busqueda=CODIGO&clave_revista=1522 Araújo Freire, A. M. & Macedo, D. P. (Eds.). (2000). The Paulo Freire reader. London: Continuum. Atkinson, D. (1999). TESOL and culture. TESOL Quarterly, 33, 625–654. Barr, D., Leakey, J., & Ranchoux, A. (2005). Told like it is! An evaluation of an integrated oral development pilot project. Language Learning & Technology, 9(3), 55–78. Banks, J. A. (1998). The lives and values of researchers: Implications for educating citizens in a multicultural society. Educational Researcher, 27(7), 4–17. Bassett, E. H. & O’Riordan, K. (2002). Ethics of internet research: Contesting the human subjects research model. Ethics and Information Technology, 4, 233–247. Bauer, B., deBenedette, L., Furstenberg, G., Levet, S., & Waryn, S. (2006). The Cultura project. In J. A. Belz & S. L. Thorne (Eds.), Internet-mediated intercultural foreign language education (pp. 31–62). Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle. Belz, J. A. (2002). Social dimensions of telecollaborative language study. Language Learning & Technology, 6(1), 60–81. Belz, J. A. (2003a). Identity, deficiency, and first language use in foreign language education. In C. Blyth (Ed.), The sociolinguistics of foreign language classrooms: Contributions of the native, near-native and the non-native speaker (pp. 209–250). Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle. Belz, J. A. (2003b). Linguistic perspectives on the development of intercultural competence in telecollaboration. Language Learning & Technology, 7(2), 68–117. Belz, J. A. (2006). At the intersection of telecollaboration, learner corpus research, and L2 pragmatics: Considerations for language program direction. In J. A. Belz & S. L. Thorne (Eds.),



Online interactions, ethical challenges 351

Internet-mediated intercultural foreign language education (pp. 207–246). Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle. Belz, J. A. & Müller-Hartmann, A. (2003). Teachers as intercultural learners: Negotiating German-American telecollaboration along the institutional fault line. The Modern Language Journal, 87, 71–89. Belz, J. A. & Thorne, S. L. (2006). Introduction: Internet-mediated intercultural foreign language education and the intercultural speaker. In J. A. Belz & S. L. Thorne (Eds.), Internetmediated intercultural foreign language education. Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle. Bhabha, H. (1994). The location of culture. London: Routledge. Biesenbach-Lucas, S. (2005). Communication topics and strategies in e-mail consultation: Comparison between American and international university students. Language Learning & Technology, 9(2), 24–46. Blake, R. J. & Zyzik, E. C. (2003). Who’s helping whom? Learner/heritage speakers’ networked discussions in Spanish. Applied Linguistics, 24, 519–544. Bloch, J. (2004). Second language cyber rhetoric: A study of Chinese L2 writers in an online usenet group. Language Learning & Technology, 8(3), 66–82. Bruckman, A. (2002). Studying the amateur artist: A perspective on disguising data collected in human subjects research on the internet. Ethics and Information Technology, 4, 217–231. Bruckman, A. (2006). Teaching students to study online communities ethically. Journal of Information Ethics, 15(2), 82–98. Burbules, N. C. (2006). Rethinking dialogue in networked spaces. Cultural Studies ←→ Critical Methodologies, 6, 107–122. Byram, M. (1997). Teaching and assessing intercultural competence. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Chen, C.-F. E. (2006). The development of e-mail literacy: From writing to peers to writing to authority figures. Language Learning & Technology, 10(2), 35–55. Chun, D. M. (1994). Using computer networking to facilitate the acquisition of interactive competence. System, 22, 17–31. Cook, V. (2002). Background of the L2 user. In V. Cook (Ed.), Portraits of the L2 user (pp. 1–28). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Couldry, N. (2003). Digital divide or discursive design? On the emerging ethics of information space. Ethics and Information Technology, 5, 89–97. Edge, J. (2006). Computer-mediated cooperative development: Non-judgemental discourse in online environments. Language Teaching Research, 10, 205–227. Ess, C. (2002). Computer-mediated colonization, the renaissance, and educational imperatives for an intercultural global village. Ethics and Information Technology, 4, 11–22. Fiori, M. L. (2005). The development of grammatical competence through synchronous computer-mediated communication. CALICO Journal, 22, 567–602. Fitze, M. (2006). Discourse participation in ESL face-to-face and written electronic conferences. Language Learning & Technology, 10(1), 67–86. Frankel, M. S. & Siang, S. (1999). Ethical and legal aspects of human subjects research on the Internet: A report of a workshop June 10–11, 1999. Washington, DC: American Association for the Advancement of Science. Retrieved May 15, 2007, from: http://www.aaas.org/spp/ sfrl/projects/intres/main.htm Furstenberg, G., Levet, S., English, K., & Maillet, K. (2001). Giving a virtual voice to the silent language of culture: The Cultura project. Language Learning & Technology, 5(1), 55–102.

352 Lourdes Ortega and Eve Zyzik

Gass, S. & Mackey, A. (2006). Input, interaction, and output in second language acquisition. In B. VanPatten & J. Williams (Eds.), Theories in second language acquisition: An introduction (pp. 173–196). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Habermas, J. (1984). The theory of communicative action: Vol. 1. Reason and the rationalization of society. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. [Original work published in German in 1981]. Hacker, K. L. & Mason, S. M. (2003). Ethical gaps in studies of the digital divide. Ethics and Information Technology, 5, 99–115. Hanna, B. & de Nooy, J. (2003). A funny thing happened on the way to the forum: Electronic discussion and foreign language learning. Language Learning & Technology, 7(1), 71–85. Hornberger, N. H. (2002). Multilingual language policies and the continua of biliteracy: An ecological approach. Language Policy, 1, 27–51. Hudson, J. M. & Bruckman, A. (2004). “Go away”: Participant objections to being studied and the ethics of chatroom research. The Information Society, 20, 127–139. Hull, G. A. & Nelson, M.E. (2005). Locating the semiotic power of multimodality. Written Communication, 22, 224–261. Jacobson, D. (1999). Doing research in cyberspace. Field Methods, 11, 127–145. Jeon-Ellis, G., Debski, R., & Wigglesworth, G. (2005). Oral interaction around computers in the project-oriented CALL classroom. Language Learning & Technology, 9(3), 121–145. Jepson, K. (2005). Conversations – and negotiated interaction – in text and voice chat rooms. Language Learning & Technology, 9(3), 79–98. Kahn, C. H. (1996). Plato and the Socratic dialogue. Cambridge: CUP. Kern, R. (1995). Restructuring classroom interaction with network computers: Effects on quantity and characteristics of language production. The Modern Language Journal, 79, 457–476. Kern, R. (2006). Perspectives on technology in learning and teaching languages. TESOL Quarterly, 40, 183–210. Kern, R., Ware, P., & Warschauer, M. (2004). Crossing frontiers: New directions in online pedagogy and research. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 24, 243–260. King, S. A. (1996). Researching internet communities: Proposed ethical guidelines for the reporting of results. The Information Society, 12, 119–127. Kinginger, C., Gourves-Hayward, A., & Simpson, V. (1999). A telecollaborative course on French-American intercultural communication. The French Review, 72, 853–866. Kramsch, C. (2001). Language and culture. Oxford: OUP. Kramsch, C. & Andersen, R. W. (1999). Teaching text and context through multimedia. Language Learning & Technology, 2(2), 31–42. Kramsch, C., A’Ness, F., & Lam, W. S. E. (2000). Authenticity and authorship in the computermediated acquisition of L2 literacy. Language Learning & Technology, 4(2), 78–104. Kramsch, C. & Thorne, S. (2002). Foreign language learning as global communicative practice. In D. Cameron & D. Block (Eds.), Globalization and language teaching (pp. 83–100). London: Routledge. Kubota, R. (2004). The politics of cultural difference in second language education. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, 1(1), 21–39. Kubota, R. (2006). Unfinished knowledge: The story of Barbara. In H. Luria, D. M. Seymour, & T. Smoke (Eds.), Language and linguistics in context: Readings and applications for teachers (pp. 107–114). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Lam, W. S. E. (2000). L2 literacy and the design of the self: A case study of a teenager writing on the Internet. TESOL Quarterly, 34, 457–482.



Online interactions, ethical challenges 353

Lam, W. S. E. (2004). Second language socialization in a bilingual chat room: Global and local considerations. Language Learning & Technology, 8(3), 44–65. Lee, J. S. (2006). Exploring the relationship between electronic literacy and heritage language maintenance. Language Learning & Technology, 10(2), 93–113. Lee, L. (2004). Learners’ perspectives on networked collaborative interaction with native speakers of Spanish in the U.S. Language Learning & Technology, 8(1), 83–100. Mcmillan, S. J. & Morrison, M. (2006). Coming of age with the internet: A qualitative exploration of how the internet has become an integral part of young people’s lives. New Media & Society, 8, 73–95. Meagher, M. E. & Castaños, F. (1996). Perceptions of American culture: The impact of an electronically-mediated cultural exchange program on Mexican high school students. In S. C. Herring (Ed.), Computer-mediated communication: Linguistic, social, and cross-cultural perspectives (pp. 187–202). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Müller-Hartmann, A. (2000). The role of tasks in promoting intercultural learning in electronic learning networks. Language Learning & Technology, 4(2), 129–147. Nonnecke, B. & Preece, J. (2003). Silent participants: Getting to know lurkers better. In C. Leug & D. Fisher (Eds.), From usenet to cowebs: Interacting with social information spaces (pp. 110–132). London: Springer. Norton, B. (2006). Identity: Second language. In K. Brown (Ed.), Encyclopedia of language and linguistics, Volume 5 (2nd ed., pp. 502–507). Oxford: Elsevier. O’Dowd, E. M. (2003). Understanding the “other side”: Intercultural learning in a Spanish-English e-mail exchange. Language Learning & Technology, 7(2), 118–144. O’Dowd, R. (2005). Negotiating sociocultural and institutional contexts: The case of SpanishAmerican telecollaboration. Language and Intercultural Communication, 5, 40–56. Ortega, L. (1997). Processes and outcomes in networked classroom interaction: Defining the research agenda for L2 computer-assisted classroom discussion. Language Learning & Technology, 1(1), 82–93. Ortega, L. (1999). Language and equality: Ideological and structural constraints in foreign language education in the U.S. In T. Huebner & K. A. Davis (Eds.), Sociopolitical perspectives in language policy and planning in the USA (pp. 243–266). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Ortega, L. (2005). For what and for whom is our research? The ethical as transformative lens in instructed SLA. The Modern Language Journal, 89(3), 427–443. Parayil, G. (2005). The digital divide and increasing returns: Contradictions of informational capitalism. The Information Society, 21, 41–51. Parks, S., Huot, D., Hamers, J., & Lemonnier, F. H. (2003). Crossing boundaries: Multimedia technology and pedagogical innovation in a high school class. Language Learning & Technology, 7(1), 28–45. Pawan, F., Paulus, T. M., Yalcin, S., & Chang, C.-F. (2003). Online learning: Patterns of engagement and interaction among in-service teachers. Language Learning & Technology, 7(3), 119–140. Powell, A. H. (2007). Access(ing), habits, attitudes, and engagements: Re-thinking access as practice. Computers and Composition, 24, 16–35. Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon. MCB University Press, 9(5), 1, 3–6. Reagan, T. G. & Osborn, T. A. (2002). The foreign language educator in society. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

354 Lourdes Ortega and Eve Zyzik

Reeder, K., Macfadyen, L. P., Roche, J., & Chase, M. (2004). Negotiating cultures in cyberspace: Participation patterns and problematics. Language Learning & Technology, 8(2), 88–105. Rubenfeld, S., Clément, R., Vinograd, J., Lussier, D., Amireauld, V., Auger, R., et al. (2007). Becoming a cultural intermediary: A further social corollary of second-language learning. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 26, 182–203. Sakar, A. (2001). The cross-cultural effects of electronic mail exchange on the Turkish university students of English as a foreign language (EFL). CALL-EJ Online, 3(1). Shardakova, M. & Pavlenko, A. (2004). Identity options in Russian textbooks. Journal of Language, Identity and Education, 3(1), 25–46. Seidlhofer, B. (2001). Closing a conceptual gap: The case for a description of English as a lingua franca. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 11(2), 133–158. Sengupta, S. (2001). Exchanging ideas with peers in network-based classrooms: An aid or a pain? Language Learning & Technology, 5(1), 103–134. Smith, B. (2003). The use of communication strategies in computer-mediated communication. System, 31, 29–53. Smith, B. (2004). Computer-mediated negotiated interaction and lexical acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 26, 365–398. Smith, B. Q. (2004). Teaching with technologies: A reflexive auto-ethnographic portrait. Computers and Composition, 21, 49–62. Soroka, V. & Rafaeli, S. (2006). Invisible participants: How cultural capital relates to lurking behavior. In IW3C2 (Ed.), Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on World Wide Web (pp. 163–172). New York: ACM Press. Retrieved May 15, 2007, from: http://www2006. org/programme/item.php?id=1018 Stanley, L. D. (2003). Beyond access: Psychosocial barriers to computer literacy. The Information Society, 19, 407–416. Thorne, S. L. (2003). Artifacts and cultures-of-use in intercultural communication. Language Learning & Technology, 7(2), 38–67. Thorne, S. L. (2006). Pedagogical and praxiological lessons from Internet-mediated intercultural foreign language education research. In J. A. Belz & S. L. Thorne (Eds.), Internet-mediated intercultural foreign language education (pp. 2–30). Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle. Thorne, S. L. & Payne, J. S. (2005). Evolutionary trajectories, Internet-mediated expression, and language education. CALICO Journal, 22(3), 371–397. Tudini, V. (2003). Using native speakers in chat. Language Learning & Technology, 7(3), 141– 159. Valdés, G. (2005). Bilingualism, heritage language learners, and SLA research: Opportunities lost or seized? The Modern Language Journal, 89, 410–426. Vandergriff, I. (2006). Negotiating common ground in computer-mediated versus face-to-face discussions. Language Learning & Technology, 10(1), 110–138. Villa, V. (2002). Integrating technology into minority language preservation and teaching efforts: An inside job. Language Learning & Technology, 6(2), 92–101. Volle, L. M. (2005). Analyzing oral skills in voice e-mail and online interviews. Language Learning & Technology, 9(3), 146–163. Walther, J. B. (1996). Computer-mediated communication: Impersonal, interpersonal, and hyperpersonal interaction. Communication Research, 23, 3–43. Walther, J. B. (2002). Research ethics in Internet-enabled research: Human subjects issues and methodological myopia. Ethics and Information Technology, 4, 205–216.



Online interactions, ethical challenges 355

Ware, P. (2005). “Missed” communication in online communication: Tensions in a GermanAmerican telecollaboration. Language Learning & Technology, 9(2), 64–89. Ware, P. D. & Kramsch, C. (2005). Toward an intercultural stance: Teaching German and English through telecollaboration. The Modern Language Journal, 89, 190–205. Warner, C. (2004). It’s just a game, right? Types of play in foreign language CMC. Language Learning & Technology, 8(2), 69–87. Warschauer, M. (1999). Electronic literacies: Language, culture, and power in online education. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Warschauer, M. (2003). Technology and social inclusion: Rethinking the digital divide. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Warschauer, M., El Said, G., & Zohry, A. (2002). Language choice online: Globalization and identity in Egypt. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 7(4). Retrieved May 15, 2007, from: http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol7/issue4/warschauer.html

Index

A Abrams, Z. I.  23, 28, 98n, 193, 194 academic discourse  211–3, 246 ACMC  see asynchronous CMC ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines  4, 276 affordances  75, 237 Agar, M.  79 agency  334 Allan, M.  279 Allport, G. W.  341 Ambadiang, T.  341 Andersen, R. W.  336–7 anonymity in virtual interactions  345–6 apprenticeship learning  62 Arafeh, S.  309 Araújo Freire, A. M.  335 artifacts  16, 61–2, 308, 315 asterisk (*) use  260 asynchronous CMC (ACMC)  17, 18f, 39, 194, 345 in instructed L2 environments  22, 23, 24, 26, 28, 32 Atkinson, D.  230, 232, 340 attractors  76, 78 audioconferencing  39 B Barr, D. et al.  334 Bassett, E. H.  345 Bates, E.  76 Baumann, U.  34 Beauvois, M. H.  22, 24, 57, 58, 154, 193 Beißwenger, M.  133

Belz, J. A.  29, 30, 38, 39, 193, 228n, 230–1, 232, 276, 342 Berners-Lee, T.  307 Bhabha, H.  337 Bialystok, E.  157 Biesenbach-Lucas, S.  348 Blake, R.  26, 59, 61, 191–2, 194, 221, 222, 341 blended learning  39, 93n1; see also face-to-face (FTF) communication; interpersonal and intercultural understanding Bloch, J.  246, 339 Block, D.  61, 230, 236 blogs  39 Bohlke, O.  22 bots  39, 317 Boxer, D.  37 Breen, M.  193 Briggs, J.  78 Bronfenbrenner, U.  64 Brookfield, S. 94, 96, 97, 103 Brouer, C.  323 Brown, P.  232 Bruckman, A.  345, 346 bulletin boards  see discussion forums Burbules, N. C.  334–5, 337 Byram, M.  30, 32, 94, 105, 277–8, 285, 287, 291–2, 339 C CALL (computer-assisted language learning)  65, 298; see also CALL/CMC research CALL/CMC research  47–67, 154–5 berry-bush metaphor  49

cartography metaphor  49 community metaphor  51 conduit metaphor  49 ecological approaches  54, 63–5 ethnographic research methodology  66 learner-as-apprentice metaphor  52 learner-as-machine metaphor  51–2 linguistic criteria  55, 56f magister metaphor  50 methodological criteria  54– 5, 56f microworld  50–1 pedagogue metaphor  50 psycholinguistic approaches  53, 58–61 sociocultural approaches  54, 61–3, 220 technological approaches  53, 56–8 theoretical criteria  53–4, 56f tool metaphor  51, 54 Cameron, L.  76 Camps, D. 96 Canagarajah, A. S.  246, 247 Candlin, C.  193, 291 Chao, T.  17 Chapelle, C.  53, 58, 59, 298 chat and chatrooms communicative setting  128– 32 dialogicity  130 discourse strategies  24–5, 26, 196t, 203–10, 212–3 lurking  344 privacy  345

358 Index

synchronicity and simultaneousness  129 topic-orientedness  146–7 transitoriness and publicness  131–2 whispering  131, 133 written or oral communication?  132–4, 142 see also communication strategies in synchronous CMC; learner resistance; negotiation for meaning chatbots  39, 317 Chen, C.-F. E.  348 Chen, G. M.  282, 304 Chinese as a foreign language (CFL)  see instant messaging interactions Chun, D. M.  24, 28, 33, 37–8, 153, 158–9, 194, 197 clarification requests  166, 167, 167t, 169–73, 178 CLT  see communicative language teaching CMC  see Computer-Mediated Communication co-construction 97–8, 107–9, 114, 115 code switching definition  173 in emails  199–201, 199t marked/unmarked  166, 167t, 173–4, 175–6, 175t negotiation for meaning  228, 235 and proficiency level  174–6, 175t as resistance  251–2, 255, 262–3 in synchronous CMC  166, 167, 167t, 173–6, 178 collaboration  5, 29, 63, 191–2; see also complexity and a CMC learning environment; discourse strategies; interpersonal and intercultural understanding; telecollaborative partnerships

communication strategies in synchronous CMC  6–7, 153–78 achievement strategies  156, 157 clarification requests  166, 167, 167t, 169–73, 178 code switching  166, 167, 167t, 173–6, 178 coding  164–5 comparisons with other studies  176–7 compensatory strategies  159, 164 conceptual strategies  158, 159 consciousness  156 cooperative strategies  156 definitions  153, 155–6, 157 direct/indirect strategies  157, 164–5, 166, 167t foreignizing  166, 167t interactional strategies  155– 6, 157, 158, 161, 164, 166, 167t language production  165, 165t linguistic strategies  158, 159 negotiation of meaning  154–5, 169–73, 172t, 178 oral proficiency  154 overall use of strategies  166–7, 167t participants and setting  162–3, 182 previous research  154–61 problem-orientedness  156– 7 procedures  163, 164 proficiency level  162–3, 183–6 reduction strategies  156, 157 research questions  161–2 results and discussion  165– 77 self-repair  167, 167t, 168–9, 168t, 177–8 synchronous interactions  153–4

tasks/role plays  159, 160–1, 163–4, 187–9 taxonomies  156–8 see also discourse strategies communicative language teaching (CLT)  160, 161 communities of practice  263 complexity and a CMC learning environment  5, 74–5, 79–90, 80t class dynamics: class 1  82f, 83–4, 87, 88 class dynamics: class 2  82f, 85–6 data  81–3, 82f face-to-face interaction  87 fractals  79, 80, 80t implications and conclusion  87–90 initial conditions  77–8, 79, 80t, 88 participation  87, 88 research context  81 resistance  88, 89 trajectories  79 see also complexity theory complexity theory  73–9 butterfly effect  77 chaotic, unpredictable  77–8 conceptual basis  76–7 dynamic, complex, nonlinear  77 grammaring  76 open, self-organizing, feedback-sensitive, adaptive  78 sensitive to initial conditions  77–8 strange attractors, fractal shape  76, 78–9 see also complexity and a CMC learning environment computer-assisted language learning (CALL)  65, 298; see also CALL/CMC research Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC)  15–16 affordances  75, 237



asynchronous CMC (ACMC)  17, 18f, 39, 194, 345 and data-driven pedagogy  193–4 definitions  17, 74, 154 device-agnostic CMC  74 interlocutors  17, 19f, 20, 222, 340–3 opportunities  16–17, 87 sociocultural approaches  220 synchronous CMC (SCMC)  17, 18f, 39, 153–4, 193–4, 345 see also CALL/CMC research Cononelos, T.  24 consciousness raising  22 consent  344–5, 348 Contact Hypothesis  341 Corder, S. P.  156 corrective feedback  201–2, 204–8, 222, 228, 260–1; see also self-correction critical social-constructivism (CS-C) 95–7, 114, 115 cross-cultural pragmatics  37–8 Crystal, D.  47–8, 66, 67, 126, 127, 128, 146 Csikszentmihalyi, M.  315 CULTURA project  33, 98, 281 cultural stereotypes  33–4, 37, 99, 110, 336, 337, 341 culture  277, 334–5, 338–40; see also intercultural competence; intercultural interactions; intercultural learning D data-drive pedagogy  193–4 De Nooy, J.  2, 34, 231, 309, 338 Desire 2 Learn (D2L) 97n4, 100, 103–4 Die Zeit  134; see also ZeitDebatte digital natives  2, 349 Dimitrov, V. 95 discourse strategies  7, 191–214 academic discourse  211–13, 246 Advanced German  195, 211–13

Index 359

Beginning German  195, 196, 197–210, 198t chat sessions  24–5, 26, 196t, 203–10, 212–13 CMC and data-driven pedagogy  193–4 code switching  199–201, 199t corrective feedback  201–2, 204–8 data collection  195–7, 196t, 214 emails  196t, 198t, 199–203, 199t linguistic feedback  208–10 participants  195–7 pragmatic competence  211– 2 self-repair  210 threaded discussions  195–6, 196t, 197–9, 198t, 203, 211, 211t WIMBA voice boards  196, 196t see also communication strategies in synchronous CMC discursive practice  2–3 discussion 94–5 discussion boards  see discussion forums discussion forums  6, 33–4, 37, 125–34, 146–7 comfort zones of orality  146, 147 communicative setting  126– 32 dialogicity  130 domains  127 graphic code  132, 143 and L2 learning  309–11 moderation  127 online communities  126 senders, lurkers and hosts  130, 335, 344 synchronicity and simultaneousness  129 threads  127, 129, 146 topic-orientedness  132 transitoriness and publicness  130–2

written or oral communication?  132–4, 142 see also threaded discussions; Zeit-Debatte domains  127 Dörnyei, Z.  157, 164 Doughty, C.  27, 59–60 Drösser, C.  145 Dussias, P. E.  25 dynamic systems theory  see complexity theory E eBay  127, 132, 133 Eberbach, K.  36–7 ecological approaches  54, 63–5 Edge, J.  334 Ellis, R.  160–1 email interactions discourse strategies  26, 196t, 198t, 199–203, 199t vs. instant messaging  63, 112 and intercultural learning  30, 32, 33, 280 emoticons  133, 143n19, 297 En Busca de Esmeraldas  60 Erickson, T.  125, 126 ethical challenges for L2 researchers 9–10, 331–50 anonymity in virtual interactions  345–6 definition  332 ethical research conduct  343–9 identity  339 images of interlocutors and learners  340–3 informed consent online  344–5, 348 intercultural learning  336–8 notions of culture  338–40 online participation and productivity  333–5 reliability and validity  347 researcher-researched relations  347–9 social value of research  332 technological innovation  348–9

360 Index

Ethics and Information Technology  332, 343 ethnographic research methodology  66 F face negotiation  233, 234, 236 face-to-face (FTF) communication  48, 67, 87, 197; see also blended learning; interpersonal and intercultural understanding Faerch, C.  156–7, 158 feedback corrective feedback  201–2, 204–8, 222, 228, 260–1 instant feedback  315 linguistic feedback  208–10 Fiori, M. L.  22 Fitze, M.  23, 28, 334 flaming 98 flow activity  315 focus on form  36, 262, 264, 265 foreign language learning  see second language (L2) learning foreignizing  166, 167t forum discussions  see discussion forums Foster, P.  20 Foucault, M.  247 Frankel, M. S.  343, 344–5 French as a foreign language  309–11, 312–6 FTF  see face-to-face (FTF) communication Furstenberg, G. et al.  33, 98, 230 G García Parejo, I.  341 Garson, J. W.  76 Gass, S. M.  8, 26, 27, 169, 171, 173, 194, 221, 224, 229, 237 Gee, J. P.  75, 251 genetic analysis  62 Genung, P. B.  89 German as a foreign language  see communication strategies in synchronous

CMC; discourse strategies; negotiation for meaning Giroux, H.  247 Gleick, J.  76, 89 Goffman, E.  232 Golato, A.  142 González-Bueno, M.  22 González-Lloret, M.  60–1 grammaring  76 grammatical accuracy  22 grounding  334 Gudykunst, W. B.  292 H Habermas, J.  335 Haeckel, E.  63 Hall, J. K.  251, 255, 262 Halliday, M.  230 Hanna, B. E.  2, 34, 231, 309, 338 Hansen, J. G.  87, 88 Harasim, L.  17 Harklau, L. 97 Harrison, R.  222 Hasan, R.  230 Hatch, E.  237 heritage language learners  339, 341–2, 348; see also native/ non-native speakers Hersh, R. H.  115 Higgins, J.  50 Hill, K. A.  74 Hiltz, S. R.  17 Hofstede, G.  277 Honeycutt, L.  87 hosts  130 Howe, N.  2 Hoy, D. C.  247, 258 Hu, W.  67 Hudson, J. M.  345 Huh, K.  53 Hull, G. A.  346 hybrid learning  see blended learning Hymes, D. H.  160 hyperpersonal relationship  29, 293–4, 296 I ICC  see intercultural communicative competence

identity anonymity in virtual interactions  345–6 hybrid identity construction  34–5, 339 identity development  109– 10, 114, 237, 247, 253, 255, 311 social identity 97 usage-based identity  307–8, 311 voice 95–6 individualized communication  143 inflectives  133 informal learning  305–7, 322–3 input hypothesis  58 instant messaging interactions (IMI)  8–9, 275–98 culture  277 data collection  282–3 effectiveness in intercultural learning  284, 284t vs. email  63, 112 and empowerment  250 findings and discussion  283–9 hyperpersonal relationship  29, 293–4, 296 intercultural communication competences  277–8 intercultural interaction confidence  285–6 intercultural interaction engagement and attentiveness  284–5 intercultural learning and networked technologies  278–81 learners’ perceptions of IM use  287–9, 288t main features of IMmediated learning  289– 98 negotiation of language and cultural meaning  22, 294–5, 320 non-institutional uses  312– 6 participants  282, 303



reciprocal learning  296–8 respect for intercultural differences  286–7 schedule  282, 302–3 study context  281–2 tasks as conversation focus  281, 289–92, 302–3 instructed L2 environments  4, 15–39 asynchronous CMC  22, 23, 24, 26, 28, 32 challenges  35–8 Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC)  15–20, 18f, 19f, 20t focus on form  36 follow-up  37 future directions  38–9 individual differences  36 intercultural competence  30–5, 31t, 37–8, 39 intercultural interactions  22, 24, 25, 26, 29–35, 31t, 36 intra-groups  22, 28, 30 linguistic competence  21t, 22–4, 25, 35, 36 MOOs  27, 38, 317 negotiation of meaning  21t, 25–7 oral proficiency  21t, 24–5, 28, 35 participation  23 pragmatic competence  21t, 28–30, 35, 36 SLA principles  20, 20t studies on use of CMC  21t, 22–35 synchronous CMC  22, 23, 24–5, 26, 27, 28–9, 34 tandem learning  27, 36 theoretical frameworks  35 turn-taking  23, 24 written proficiency  21t, 24–5, 28–9 Interactionist Theory  58–9; see also negotiation for meaning intercultural communicative competence (ICC) 94, 276, 277–8, 285, 287, 291–2, 339 intercultural competence  30–5, 31t, 37–8, 39, 277

Index 361

intercultural interactions  31t challenges  36 Contact Hypothesis  341 and L2 education  311–6 and linguistic competence  22, 24, 25 and negotiation for meaning  26 and pragmatic competence  29–30 see also instant messaging interactions; intercultural competence; intercultural learning; interpersonal and intercultural understanding intercultural learning email interactions  30, 32, 33, 280 ethical challenges for researchers  336–8 and networked technologies  278–81 Intercultural Sensitivity Scale  282, 283, 284t, 304 intercultural stances  319 interlanguage pragmatics  37 Internet relay chat  see chat and chatrooms; IRC français Internet use: open environments  9, 305–16 informal learning  305–7, 322–3 intercultural L2 education  311–6 open Internet environments and L2 use  309–11 polyfocality  320 school–world divide  309 usage-based identity  307–8, 311 ‘Who cares?’  306–7 see also online gaming interpersonal and intercultural understanding  6, 93–115 blended learning 93, 98–100, 111–3, 114–5 class  102–3 co-construction  107–9, 115 conclusions and implications  113–5

course description 93–4 critical social-constructivism (CS-C) 95–7, 114, 115 data  100 discussion 94–5, 97, 104 ground rules 97–8 identity development  109– 10, 114 intercultural understanding  105–7, 115 interpersonal growth  105–7, 115 online component: Desire 2 Learn (D2L)  103–4 predispositions  110–1 sociality and co-construction  97–8, 114 student perception of D2L use  104 students  100–1 survey  100, 110–1, 118–20 syllabus and assignments  102–3, 106–7n, 121–3 teacher  101–2 voice(s) 95–6 intra-groups  22, 28, 30 IRC français  162 Itakura, H.  33 Italian as a foreign language  see learner resistance Ivanič, R. 95–6 J Jacobson, D.  345 Jeon-Ellis, G. et al.  334 Jepson, K.  194, 344, 345 Johnson, R. J.  30, 32 Jones, R.  320 Joyce, E.  126, 130, 145 K Kahn, C. H.  335 Kaikkonen, P.  277, 279, 279t, 287 Kanpol, B.  247 Kasper, G.  37, 156–7, 158 Kellerman, E.  157 Kelm, O. R.  24 Kern, R. et al.  22, 23, 39, 48, 53, 56–7, 58, 65, 66, 75, 100, 197, 229–30, 231, 317, 332

362 Index

King, S. A.  344–5 Kinginger, C.  29, 30, 34, 193, 231 Kitade, K.  26 Knobel, M. 97 Koch, P.  126, 132, 133 Kost, C. R.  162 Kötter, M.  27, 295 Kramsch, C. et al.  30, 32, 33, 34–5, 39, 51–2, 193, 231, 307, 311, 319, 336–7, 339 Kraut, R.  126, 130, 145 Kubota, R.  340 L Lam, W. S. E.  311, 339 Language Learning & Technology  53 Lankshear, C. 97 Lantolf, J.  61–2, 89, 264 Larsen-Freeman, D.  76–7, 78, 80t Lave, J.  2, 79, 278 Le Monde: Autres sujets forum  309–11 learner resistance  8, 88, 89, 245–67 assessing the activity  264– 6, 265t, 267 chat data  250–1, 254–60 chat participants  254 code switching  251–2, 255, 262–3 context  248–9 critical resistance  258–9 focus on form  262, 264, 265 group interaction  257 identity construction  247, 253, 255 “Italy is the best”  253, 257–8, 262, 267 meaning making  255–6, 262–3 methodology  249 modes of participation  263– 4 online peer interaction  249 other-correction  260–1 pedagogical safe houses  246, 255, 263

“playing dumb”  253, 255, 263 and power  246, 247, 248, 250, 256–7, 258, 266 scaffolding  264 self-correction  260, 262, 264 themes of resistance  253, 260–3 theoretical framework  247– 8 transcript  251, 270–1 “when you go there”  259, 262 Leather, J.  76, 86 Lee, J. S.  339 Lee, L.  22–3, 36, 153, 159, 176, 177, 222–3, 341 Levin, D.  309 Levinson, S.  232 Liaw, M.  30, 32 linguistic competence  21t, 22–4, 25, 35, 36 linguistic feedback  208–10 Logo  50 Long, M.  59–60 Long, M. H.  153, 220 Lorenz-Meyer, L.  143 Luke, A. 95, 115 lurking  130, 335, 344 M Macedo, D. P.  335 Maloney-Krichmar, D.  126n, 143n20 Marcoccia, M.  127, 129, 130 mediation  61–2 memory  25, 62 Mercer, N.  81, 88 Merrow, J.  115 Meskill, C.  49, 50, 51, 52 message boards  see WebCT MMOGs (massively multiplayer online videogames)  317–8; see also World of Warcraft Moos, R. H.  100 MOOs (multi-use domain, object oriented)  27, 38, 317 Morris, W.  236 motivation  315–6

Müller-Hartmann, A.  32, 291 multiuser virtual realities  17 Murray, D. E.  17, 66 Myers-Scotton, C.  173 N native/non-native speakers (NS/NNS)  17, 19f, 20, 222, 340–3 Nayar, P. B.  253 negotiation for meaning (NfM)  7–8, 219–38 clarification requests  169– 73, 172t, 178 in CMC environments  21t, 25–7, 154–5, 194, 221–3 code switching  228, 235 corrective feedback  222 discussion  236–7 face negotiation  233, 234, 236 indicators/responses  224, 225t influence of task type  221–2 interactionist approach  220, 221, 223–9 Kendra and Manfred  224, 225–7, 225t, 229, 232–4, 236, 241–3 negative feedback  222 negotiation of solidarity  235 negotiation routines  169 negotiation sequences  224– 5, 241–4 reaction-to-response utterances  222, 223, 224, 225t role of NS interlocutors  222 Seamus and Margit  224, 227–8, 227t, 234–6, 243–4 self-correction  226, 227, 236 sociocognitive perspectives  229–36 taxonomies  222–3, 224, 225t terminology  236–7 triggers  224, 225t using instant messaging  22, 294–5, 320 negotiation process  60–1, 60f Nelson, M. E.  346



netspeak  47–8, 126, 143, 260 New York Times  144 newsgroups  127 Norton, B.  262 Noticing Hypothesis  58, 168 NS/NNS  see native/non-native speakers Nunan, D.  160 O O’Dowd, R.  32, 35, 36–7, 39, 231, 276, 277, 278, 280, 281, 298 Oesterreicher, W.  126, 132, 133 Ohta, A. S.  20 Oliva, M.  24 Ong, W.  16 online communities  51, 126, 143 online data as archival data  345 online gaming 9, 316–23 intercultural collaboration: World of Warcraft (WoW)  316, 318–22 and L2 use  317–8 MMOGs (massively multiplayer online videogames)  317–8 MOOs  317 pre-programmed environments  317 and virtual environments  316 oral communication  132–3, 146, 154 oral proficiency  21t, 24–5, 28, 35, 154, 194 O’Riordan, K.  345 O’Rourke, B.  27, 36, 223 Ortega, L.  333 Osborn, T. A.  341–2 Output Hypothesis  58, 168 P Papert, S.  50 paralinguistic features  24, 38, 39, 297 Parayil, G.  332 participation  144, 165 cultural differences  334–5 definition 97

Index 363

lurking  130, 335, 344 opportunities  16–7, 87 and productivity  23, 263–4, 333–5 and silence  335 see also learner resistance Pawan, F. et al.  334 Payne, J. S.  25, 74, 193, 195, 203 pedagogical safe houses  246, 255, 263 Pellettieri, J.  221, 222, 226 Petrie, G.  49 Pew Internet and American Life Project 02  309 Pica, T. et al.  27, 59, 160, 221–2 politeness theory  232, 233 Polkinghorne, D.  84 power and cultural difference  334– 5, 340 and learner resistance  246, 247, 248, 250, 256–7, 258, 266 pragmatic competence  21t, 28–30, 35, 36, 211–12, 231 Pratt, E.  23 Pratt, M. L.  246 Preece, J.  126n, 143n20 Preskill, S. 94, 96, 97, 103 psycholinguistic approaches  53, 58–61 Purushotma, R.  317 R Reagan, T. G.  341–2 Reeder, K. et al.  35, 334 Reinhardt, J.  228n reliability and validity of research  347 Remote Technical Assistance  59 researcher-researched relations  347–9 Ritter, M.  35 Roithmeier, W.  203–4 Rose, K.  37 Ross, B. M.  25, 195 S Salaberry, R.  22, 54 Savignon, S. J.  203–4

Sawchuk, P.  323 Schegloff, E. A. et al.  261 Schmidt, R.  58 Schneider, J.  38 Schönfeldt, J.  142 Schrage, M.  144 Schulz, R. A. et al. 96 SCMC  see synchronous CMC Scott, M. L.  157, 164 second language (L2) learning cognitive approaches  20, 20t Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC)  15–20, 18f, 19f, 20t discursive practice  2–3 and intercultural interactions  311–6 Second Life  316 Seelye, H.  277 Seidlhofer, B.  193 self-correction  167, 167t, 168–9, 168t, 177–8, 194, 210, 226, 227, 236, 260, 262, 264 Sengupta, S.  334 Sfard, A.  2 Shaffer, D. W. et al.  1 Shelley, M.  34 Shohamy, E.  264 Siang, S.  343 silence (lurking)  130, 335, 344 Sims, The  317 Smith, B.  26, 153, 159–60, 161, 165, 172–3, 176, 177, 194, 221, 222, 223, 224, 229 Smith, B. Q.  338 social learning  62 social networking sites  38, 51, 55 social-constructivism  see critical social-constructivism sociality 97 sociocognitive perspectives  229–36 sociocultural approaches  54, 61–3, 220 solidarity  235 Sotillo, S.  22, 28, 194, 211, 222 speech acts  28, 33, 232 sphere of interculturality  34 Starosta, W. J.  282, 304

364 Index

Strauss, W.  2 Sullivan, N.  23 Swain, M.  168 Sykes, J.  28–9 synchronous CMC (SCMC)  17, 18f, 39, 153–4, 193–4, 345 in instructed L2 environments  22, 23, 24–5, 26, 27, 28–9, 34 T Table Talk  127–8, 130 tandem learning  27, 36, 98, 317 Tandem Network  281 Tarone, E. et al.  155–6, 157 task-based learning  60 activity  160 in CMC environments  159, 194 definitions  160–1 focused/unfocused tasks  161 goal-orientedness  160 instant messaging interactions  281, 289–92, 302–3 and negotiation for meaning  221–2 role plays in synchronous CMC environment  163– 4, 187–9 typology  160 Taylor, P. et al.  100 teacher talk  23 technological approaches  53, 56–8 technological innovation  1–2, 66, 75, 348–9 telecollaborative partnerships  29, 63, 212 Telekorp  224 Terrell, T. et al.  163 Thelen, E.  76 third space  337

Thorne, S.  2, 29, 30, 32, 34, 39, 61–3, 74, 86, 193, 203, 231, 250, 255, 280–1, 288, 293, 307, 308, 312–6, 337, 341 threaded discussions  127, 129, 146 discourse strategies  195–6, 196t, 197–9, 198t, 203, 211, 211t ‘serial monologues’  334 Toohey, K.  246 topic-orientedness  132, 146–7 Toyoda, E.  222, 223 trajectories  79 Tudini, V.  26, 194, 203, 208, 222, 344 turn-taking  23, 24, 165 Turoff, M.  17 V Van Dam, J.  76 Van Deusen-Scholl, N. et al.  192 Van Lier, L.  54, 63–5, 74, 75, 76, 77, 83, 88, 89, 237 Vandergriff, I.  194, 334 Varonis, E. M.  8, 26, 27, 169, 171, 173, 194, 221, 224, 229, 237 videoconferencing  27, 34, 38, 39 Villa, V.  348 virtual environments  316 voice(s) 95–6 Volle, L. M.  347 Vollmer, G. 96 Von der Emde, S.  38 Vyatkina, N.  193 Vygotsky, L. S.  51, 54, 61, 62, 315 W Wade, E. R.  33, 37–8 Wagner, J.  323 Wagner-Gough, J.  237 Waldrop, M. M.  76

Walther, J. B.  345 Wang, Y.  27 Ware, P.  34, 193 Warner, C.  334 Warschauer, M. et al.  1, 3, 20, 22, 61, 75, 87, 229–30, 332, 339, 348 Watson-Gegeo, K. A.  73 Web 2.0  38–9 WebCT  74, 79, 80, 81 Wenger, E.  2, 79, 278 Werry, C. C.  292 Wertsch, J. V.  51 Whitney, P. J.  25 Whyte, W. H.  305 Wikipedia  17, 38 wikis  39 Wildner-Bassett, M.  75, 76, 81 WIMBA voice boards  196, 196t World of Warcraft (WoW)  316, 318–22 Worth, R. A.  252, 253 written communication  132–3 written proficiency  21t, 24–5, 28–9 Y Young, R.  2–3 Z Zeit-Debatte  127, 134–46 chatroom  146 forum structure  134–5 graphic code  143 instant messaging  143, 144, 146 Lounge as comfort zone of orality  133, 139–44, 145–6 moderation  135, 142n, 145 topic-oriented areas  135–8 Who serves whom?  144–6 zone of proximal development (ZPD)  62, 74, 263–4, 315 Zuss, M.  102 Zyzik, E.  26, 222, 341

In the AILA Applied Linguistics Series the following titles have been published thus far or are scheduled for publication: 4 3 2 1

Fortanet-Gómez, Inmaculada and Christine A. Räisänen (eds.): ESP in European Higher Education. Integrating language and content. vi, 282 pp. + index. Expected July 2008 Magnan, Sally Sieloff (ed.): Mediating Discourse Online. vii, 364 pp. Expected May 2008 Prinsloo, Mastin and Mike Baynham (eds.): Literacies, Global and Local. 2008. vii, 218 pp. Lamb, Terry and Hayo Reinders (eds.): Learner and Teacher Autonomy. Concepts, realities, and responses. 2008. vii, 286 pp.