The beginning of this entry should lead to an intuitive description comparing the use of Instant Message Vs Spoken Conversation (in person). I couldn’t make a table on this site. I therefore composed it in a word processor and took a screenshot to upload on the Google Site.
Since I have done a lot more instant messaging with no more than two speakers at once and very little chat room messaging; I am not confident about describing chat rooms even intuitively. I often found chatrooms too chaotic, fast-paced, and overwhelming.
One important thing to note, however, is that I was rarely able to engage in conversations or sender/receiver interactions with more than one or two other participants. I was a poor communicator both receptively and productively and I therefore wasn’t as immersed in interaction as my peers which gradually put me farther and farther behind the sociopragmatic learning curve. Until I was able to engage in emails, instant message conversations, and, eventually, blogs, I did not have much means to have frequent relations with people where I could develop my personal/social identity (Mills, 2011), become more sociopragmatically aware (Blattner & Fiori, 2011; Reinhardt & Ryu, 2013). I rarely had access (Holden & Sykes, 2012; Mills, 2011), but having grown up behind a computer, I did have digital literacy enough to (implicitly/explicitly) find a stepping stone for my L1 Sociopragmatic development.
Group conversations, even now, flow too quickly quite often as my mind unintentionally squirrels around through different thoughts that do connect, but in a way someone without my mental/neural structure would not compute so well. When I lose energy and cannot communicate rationally, I go silent and a little withdrawn unable to output. Instant messaging, emails, and blogs all allow me to attend to discourse more effectively and everything will be there for me to make sure I cover everything.
Writing became my first successful mode of communication, particularly when it was aysnchronous because I was able to review everything and revise as needed. It is not like I have always had a 100% success rate, of course, but it is now much higher compared to before. although in a way I cannot quantify. Somehow, writing and then, subsequently, modes like Instant Messaging, Blogging, and Emailing helped me improve my face-to-face conversation skills over a period of time. I am still also prone to pragmatic blunders, but less so if I get to spend time with my words before sending them (which computer mediated communication has enabled). Live, in-person, discourse is still very difficult and taxing for me, but I have fewer awkward/embarrassing moments than before.
I think, it is reasonable, therefore to apply this kind of communication to L2 learning. Some platforms, especially, do have the potential of revealing–to some extent– social and pragmatic conventions in ways similar to conversational/face-to-face interaction (Blattner & Fiori, 2011; Reinhardt & Ryu); such platforms include social media or wikis which a number of scholars discuss in their various works (Blattner & Fiori, 2011). They describe how interaction/communication has been influenced by (and is also influencing) technologies as they have emerged and evolved. These include mainstream online genres and their potential for enhanced language development through these genres to which they refer to as “bridging activities.”
Bridging Activities are awareness raising approaches (Thorne & Reinhardt, 2008; Blatttner & Fiori, 2011; Reinhardt & Ryu, 2013) for various sociopragmatic contexts and discourses as they address real-world daily use of communication in digital spaces. The ways in which Blattner & Fiori discussed sociopragmatic awareness raising through observation and analysis involved the use of Facebook and observing social groups (Spanish) and pay attention to patterns for greetings and leave taking (2011). Reinhardt & Ryu (2013) investigated Korean learners’ use of Facebook in spotting the use of honorifics where they found “flouting” of norms for specific effects such as humor. Both were sociopragmatic awareness raising studies, but like Mills (2011), Reinhardt & Ryu (2013) had their participants use fake profile accounts and they interacted. Each of these studies had varying limitations and degrees of success, but they all draw attention to not only how easily accessible many online technology assisted communicative genres are, but also their potential usefulness in social and language developments.
References
Blattner,, G, & Fiori, M. (2011). Virtual social network communities: An Investigation of language learners’ development of sociopragmatic awareness and multiliteracy skills. Calico Journal, 29(1), 24-43.
Holden, C. & Sykes, J., (2011). Leveraging mobile games for place-based language learning. International Journal of Game-Based Learning. 1(2), 1-18
Mills, N. A. (2011). Situated learning through social networking communities: The development of joint enterprise, mutual engagement, and a shared repertoire. CALICO Special Volume: Second Language Acquisition Theories, Technologies, and Language Learning (Eds., S. Thorne & B. Smith), 28(2).
Reinhardt, J., & Ryu, J. (2013). Using Social Network-Mediated Bridging Activities to Develop Socio-Pragmatic Awareness in Elementary Korean. International Journal of Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Teaching (IJCALLT), 3(3), 18-33.
Thorne, S. L. (2008). Transcultural communication in open internet environments and massively multiplayer online games. MEDIATING DISCOURSE ONLINE, magnan, sally sieloff, amsterdam: John benjamins, 2008, pp 305-327
Thorne, S. L., & Reinhardt, J. (2008). “Bridging activities,” new media literacies, and advanced foreign language proficiency. CALICO Journal, 25(3).
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