The assertion of identity and power via computer-mediated communication in the context of distance or web-based learning presents challenges to both teachers and students. When regular, face-to-face classroom interaction is replaced by online chat or group discussion forums, participants must avail themselves of new techniques and tactics for contributing to and progressing interaction, discussion, and learning. During student-only chat sessions, the absence of teacher-led, face-to-face classroom activities requires the students to assume leadership roles and responsibilities normally associated with the teacher. This situation raises the questions of who teaches and who learns; how students discursively negotiate power roles; and whether power emerges as a function of displayed expertise and knowledge or rather the use of authoritative language. In this descriptive study, we examine a corpus of task-based discussion logs among students of distance learning courses in English linguistics. The data reveal recurring discourse strategies used by students for the purpose of 1) negotiating the progression of the discussion sessions, 2) asserting and questioning knowledge, and 3) assuming or relinquishing power and responsibility. The data contribute to a better understanding of how working methods and materials can be tailored to distance learning students, and how such students can be afforded opportunities or even more effectively encouraged to assert their knowledge and authority.
Föreliggande rapport är ett resultat av det samverkansprojekt som Interkulturellt Utvecklingscentrum Dalarna, IKUD, vid Högskolan Dalarna tillsammans med Ludvika Kommun, finansierat av Länsstyrelsen i Dalarnas län, startade under senhösten 2020 för att skapa kunskap om etableringsprogrammet Samhällsorientering för nyanlända med olika språkbakgrund under förändrade villkor som digitaliseringen medförde under pandemiåret 2021. Syftet med projektet har varit att bidra med en forskningsöversikt om digital lärmiljö utifrån best practice-erfarenheter från nationell och internationell forskning och att, utifrån en fallstudie om SO (situationen i Ludvika), resonera kring praktiker i digitala lärmiljöer. Fokus ligger på interaktion i en digital lärmiljö. Interkulturella förhållningssätt är också ett centralt tema. Ytterligare en viktig aspekt som undersöks är hur bilden av Sverige och den nyanlända skapas och uttrycks i klassrumsinteraktionen utifrån SO-läromedlet (boken Om Sverige). Utifrån syftet med projektet presenteras i rapporten (1) en kort forskningsöversikt om digital lärmiljö baserad på nationell och internationell forskning, (2) reflektioner utifrån observationer i en digital undervisningsmiljö i Ludvika kommun i samband med samhällsorienteringen, samt (3) en analys av undervisningsmaterialet som användes på de observerade lektionerna.
In this study, we investigate how differences and similarities in opening and closing greetings in professional emails in academia manifest themselves in Danish and Swedish. Our data consist of a corpus of 595 emails (primary data) and two surveys with 1836 respondents (supportive data). An important result is that cultural values, e.g., ideals of equality, in both language areas are expressed through similar linguistic means, but that due to different historical developments, the specific encoding is not identical. Another result is that there is a much larger variety in closing greetings than in opening greetings in both languages, which can be derived from the communication situation where openings and closings and the elements within these serve different purposes.
This thesis takes as its starting point the proposal in Kayne (1994) that all syntactic structures are underlyingly spec-head-complement, and that they are right-branching. I will investigate this proposal taking data from English degree constructions, namely result clauses and comparatives. A comparison will be made between these constructions and English VPs, on which the majority of the phrase structure debate in the literature has been based. The evidence for left-branching and for right-branching in VPs will be considered, and similar evidence sought for degree constructions. We will see that VPs have a mostly right-branching structure, although left-branching structures are required in restricted circumstances. Also reason and manner adjuncts are argued to be right-adjoined to the VP node, a conclusion that is re-inforced by considering the constituency of VP adjuncts and some PP sequences noted by Jackendoff (1973). In degree constructions too, we argue that both left-branching and right-branching structures are necessary. My conclusion will be that Kayne’s proposal is too strong, even though it is ideal from the perspective of a minimalist approach to syntax.
Due to the lack of time for planning contributionsin online discourse, especially textchat,language is often economised. The strategies used have been considered by many authors,suchas,Werry (1996), Murray (2000), Lee (2002), and Lotherington and Xu (2004), among others,with both grammatical processeslike ellipsis and orthographical/morphological oneslikeclipping being discussed. Our presentation looksin more detail at these, and arguesthat they areevidence that an online community of practice (Lave andWenger 1991,Wenger 1998) hasformed. Our data comesfrom text chatlogsinvolving non-native speakers of English fromseminars on an MAintroduction to linguistics. One student is a speaker ofBangla and the restare speakers of Vietnamese. The chatlogs comesfrom student-only pre-seminars as well astheseminars with the teachers on the course.We will argue that ellipsis exhibitsfeatures ofinteraction like Intersubjectivity (Darhower 2002) and Greetings and Self-initiatedCorrection(Peterson 2009), and thus demonstrates a social cohesion among the students.Regardingorthographical/morphological economisation processeslike clipping, which we referto asreduced forms, we see evidence thatstudents are standardising the reduced formsthey use(Žegarac 1998).AsWenger (1998) argues, communities of practice involve a “sharedrepertoire”, and we argue thatreduced forms are part of thisrepertoire. Usersin onlinecommunities of practice use both ellipsis and reduced formsto create/maintain this community.As a result, they are also exhibiting social autonomy, a prerequisite for learner autonomy(Benson 2001).
In this article, we discuss strategies for interaction in spoken discourse, focusing on ellipsis phenomena in English. The data comes from the VOICE corpus of English as a Lingua Franca, and we analyse education data in the form of seminar and workshop discussions, working group meetings, interviews and conversations. The functions ellipsis carries in the data are Intersubjectivity, where participants develop and maintain an understanding in discourse; Continuers, which are examples of back channel support; Correction, both self- and other-initiated; Repetition; and Comments, which are similar to Continuers but do not have a back channel support function. We see that the first of these, Intersubjectivity, is by far the most popular, followed by Repetitions and Comments. These results are explained as consequences of the nature of the texts themselves, as some are discussions of presentations and so can be expected to contain many Repetitions, for example. The speech event is also an important factor, as events with asymmetrical power relations like interviews do not contain so many Continuers. Our clear conclusion is that the use of ellipsis is a strong marker of interaction in spoken discourse.
Online communities are both global in character, with potential members from all parts of the world, but also local in that the community itself decides on its practices, hence the coining of the term glocal. These practices include the adoption of discourse norms. There are many norms that characterise discourses, and the one focused on here is the reduction of the written form of a lexical item, which characterizes informal more spoken forms of language. This paper presents evidence that reductions are negotiated locally by online communities. The community analysed consists of students on an online MA programme in English Linguistics who are all non-native speakers of English. These students have little experience of Internet communication even in their native languages, and so they are unlikely to be greatly aware of native speaker norms for online discourse. The paper shows that the students negotiate these norms within the group and that crucially their native English-speaking teachers do not have a strong role to play in the adoption of reductions. A number of examples of reductions are presented that are under negotiation by the students. The role of the teacher is analysed as well, and it is shown that 28 students are more likely to adopt a different reduction from the one the teachers use. Thus, this is further evidence that English is not owned by native speakers, but by non-native ones.
The presentation focuses on the economisation of the English language in computer-mediated communication.Data is analysed from non-native English-speaking students on an online MA programme in English Linguisticsrun by a Swedish university. The data comprises text chatlogs from pre-seminar discussions involving thestudents only and seminars with their native English-speaking teachers on the introduction to English linguisticsthat is the first course on the programme. The students are mostly Vietnamese native speakers, apart from oneBangla speaker, and are inexperienced Internet users even in their native languages. Thus, they are unlikely tohave been aware of native speaker norms for Internet discourse. As a result, it is interesting to analyse thedevelopment of their language use in textchat.We analyse variations in students’ development of so-called reduced forms (reductions in orthography,morphology or formality of lexemes or phrases). The types of reduced forms in terms of word-class are analysedacross the introduction to linguistics course. Many more appear in more discussion-oriented topics like therelation between language and gender compared to more core theoretical linguistic topics like syntax. Thenumbers of functional and lexical categories is almost equal, with lexical categories slightly ahead. Regardingfunctional categories, interjections and pronouns are by far the most common. Given the oral and interactivenature of textchat, this is not surprising. Both variations regarding individual words for all students, andvariations in individual students’ reductions, are discussed. We find that in both cases students are regular intheir reductions, with similar processes appearing for individual words and for individual students, althoughthere is variation in the processes involved. Thus, this is evidence that textchat offers many opportunities forusers to individually economise their language.
This article presents a study of individual variation in computer-mediated communication. Different reduction processes, which reduce the formality and usually the orthographical form of an expression, are used at varying frequencies by non-native speakers of English in academic textchat seminars. Such processes are classified into four categories: clipping, homophone respelling, phonetic respelling, and mixed processes. It is demonstrated, by comparing the relative frequencies at which these processes are used, that most individuals actually follow the norm of the speech community by having frequencies within ±1 standard deviation of the mean frequency of each process for the Cohort. There is, thus, very little true variation in the form of outlier individuals. This result supports research into individual variation which argues that individuals may vary in their linguistic behavior, but generally follow community norms.
It is argued here that ellipsis in English is evidence of interaction between non-native textchat users. Examples where users develop discourse, give comments on and encourage one another, repeat parts of discourse, and correct themselves or one another are presented. Not too surprisingly, since the data comes from academic seminars, developing discourse is the most common function. Furthermore, we argue this is evidence that they have formed a community of practice, which helps to promote learner autonomy.
We present research that the use of ellipsis in English is evidence that users are interacting. Ellipsis is a linguistic phenomenon where we can leave something unsaid and the context allows us to supply the missing part. For example, when someone asks us a question like “Where did you see him?”, we do not need to give a full sentence answer like “I saw him over there”. The context of the question allows us to just give the relevant information that is the answer to the question where, i.e. “over there”. Since ellipsis is contextual in this way, we can suppose that the phenomenon is interactive by nature. Many strategies have been discussed in the literature which are used by speakers to interact, and this is an issue that is very much discussed in literature on computer-mediated communication. Peterson (2009) analyses data from textchats by Japanese learners of English and identified a series of strategies that show that interaction is taking place. These include back channel support (continuers), giving and seeking help, correction of self and others, and off-task discussion. Darhower (2002) discusses greeting/leave-taking, intersubjectivity (maintaining and developing a discourse topic) and use of a speaker’s first language (if not already the main language of the discourse). Repetition is discussed by Cogo (2009: 260), Suvimiitty (2012, chapter 7) and Mauranen (2012: chapter 7) in discourses involving speakers of English as a Lingua Franca. These strategies suggest that the learners are creating and maintaining social cohesion, and lead to the formation of discourse communities. We analyse data from textchat logs that come from my own corpus of seminar discussions from an online MA programme in English Linguistics, also involving non-native speakers of English. We show that the intersubjectivity, repetition, continuer and correction functions can be found in our data set, and we propose one more: comments. Intersubjectivity is by far the most common function as we might expect from seminar discussions, while continuers and corrections are very rare. The use of these functions clearly marks that students are interacting as members of a discourse community.
I discuss two types of language economy in Internet textchat discourse, ellipsis and reduced forms (such as clippings and informal phoneticised spellings). These are markers that a community of practice is being or has been formed. The data I analyse is textchat data from seminars with students on an MA in English Linguistics. Reduced forms are expected in Internet discourse and function as an in-group marker that the user is an experienced Internet user. I present additional evidence that learners are agents of the process of standardising the forms the community uses. Ellipsis is shown to function as a marker of interaction, and therefore that the community is a cohesive group. I show that the major functions of interaction that have been presented in the literature can be seen in ellipsis contexts. We can therefore conclude that both these types of reduced language are also evidence of a social autonomy that the learners have which is seen as a prerequisite for learner autonomy.
We argue here that using an economised language in computer-mediated communication is evidence that learners are autonomous. Data is analysed from text chatlogs in English, and we see evidence of such language in reduced forms like clippings. The use of these forms is evidence that a community of practice has formed. Crucially, also, the participants are leaders in the setting of reduced forms as discourse norms. Thus, we conclude that the learners are autonomous agents in their language learning.
This chapter presents an analysis of economised language in textchat data from non-native English-speaking students on an MA programme in English Linguistics. Previous research by the author demonstrated that forms clipped or otherwise reduced from their full version can be considered evidence that an Internet community of practice has formed. We argue here that this implies that the learners are exhibiting autonomy, and we also demonstrate that the same can be concluded for ellipsis. The functions of ellipsis are identified, which demonstrates that students are interacting, and therefore are at least in the process of forming a social learning community.
Attributable to the COVID pandemic, Zoom has become one of most widely used digital tools for online interaction. Schools and universities had to transition to wholly online teaching, and Zoom was one of the platforms used for real-time sessions. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate students' experiences of using tools like Zoom to see the positive and negative sides of videoconferencing for language learning. Students' and teachers' digital competence is an important factor that impacts online learning, and therefore students' experiences are analyzed in relation to the TPACK framework, which looks at teachers' digital competences and the intersections between their technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge (TPACK). It is found that especially the intersection between technological and pedagogical competences is sometimes lacking among teachers and is identified as the cause of a lot of negative experiences. Thus, the conclusion of this study is that such competences need to be developed by teachers.
This chapter takes up the issue of authenticity in language pedagogy. Traditional views of authenticity take the native speaker to be the primary authority for linguistic norms. Written standard language is especially highly valued here. It is argued herein that TELL environments are equally valid as learning environments, and that students can use the freedom they provide to develop their own locally negotiated cultural and linguistic norms. Evidence is provided that students on a net-based MA program develop their own norms for reducing language, and use them and other means to mark membership of a local TELL community. Thus, TELL is a rich and authentic environment for learners of English to become what is referred to as "language practitioners".
Data from academic seminars conducted through Skype textchat is analysed in this chapter, and the focus is on examples of how users mark community membership. Membership is marked explicitly by using pronominals and the metonymic use of the seminar group name. It is also marked implicitly by using reduced forms, which are stereotypical examples of a textchat speech style. I argue that these are markers of stance-taking, where community membership is recovered pragmatically as a weak implicature. Dis-alignment with the community is also seen, as individuals can also implicate their independence as setters of linguistic norms
In this article, identity practices by a group of Australian Fortnite content creators are analysed. These creators stream themselves playing the game and create videos for YouTube. Identity practices relate first of all to the game itself. The choice of avatar indexes the individual creator, especially when the avatar is used regularly or is specific to a creator. Choice of lexis in the form of jargon indexes the skill level and experience of the creators, with some indexing an identity as a skilful experienced player, and others indexing a less serious playing style. Finally, we have identified a commercial identity with creators indexing their brand as a creator through asking viewers to subscribe to their channel and support them. © 2024 Intellect Ltd Article. English language.
This article analyses the processes of reducing language in textchats produced by non-native speakers of English. We propose that forms are reduced because of their high frequency and because of the discourse context. A wide variety of processes are attested in the literature, and we find different forms of clippings in our data, including mixtures of different clippings, homophone respellings, phonetic respellings including informal oral forms, initialisms (but no acronyms), and mixtures of clipping together with homophone and phonetic respellings. Clippings were the most frequent process (especially back-clippings and initialisms), followed by homophone respellings. There were different ways of metalinguistically marking reduction, but capitalisation was by far the most frequent. There is much individual variation in the frequencies of the different processes, although most were within normal distribution. The fact that nonnative speakers seem to generally follow reduction patterns of native speakers suggests that reduction is a universal process.
I present a study of the use of reduced forms by students studying on a web-based MA programme. By reduced form, I mean that word-forms have been reduced in some way, for example in clipped forms like plane instead of airplane; but also the formality level can be reduced, for example with more phonetic spellings like woz instead of was. White (2011, forthcoming ) demonstrates that these learners who are novice Internet users in English reduced word forms because of their saliency in discourse and frequency of use. In this new study, I look at the development of reduced forms over an introductory course in English linguistics, seeing if particular forms have become standardised, see Žegarac (1998) for discussion of this term. What the standardisation process does is argued by White (forthcoming) to mark that a discourse community has formed. Thus, by using reduced forms, students are marking that they belong to a community of practice (Lave and Wenger 1991, Wenger 1998). We look at two types of examples. One are topic-specific items where there is a process of agreement among participants on a particular reduced form within a particular type of discourse. These are in fact a very local process of the kind argued to be central to the formation of communities of practice (Wenger 1998), and indeed can be local to particular topics, as the same reduced form can be related to different full forms (D referring to derivation in a discussion of morphology, or to the name of an individual Damian in a discussion of language and gender). Then there are more general items that are used in a wider range of topics and discourses. All these items can be subject to standardisation, we argue, although some items require a longer time to be standardised than is available during the short course analysed here. Very common discourse markers like please and thanks have been subject to standardisation, while less common ones like question have not, with competing forms still available.