Potencialidades de los sitios en línea para adquirir lenguajes sociales
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- LEER Y ESCRIBIR EN ESPAÑOL EN LA RED: APRENDIZAJE, RENOVACIÓN Y PROPUESTAS Fundación Comillas Viernes, 16 de diciembre Introduction
- A framework for “social languages”
- Implication for (foreign) language proficiency and the potential significance of participation in online sites or spaces
- Sociable game players becoming acquainted during collaborative online play
- A novice writer eliciting and managing feedback in an online fan fiction writing space
- Sakura Blossomz01 , wild-gurl , Sweet^-^Rose , DZ pals , Fire Light and Lily-Chan
- English-speaking learners of French participating within a French language public discussion space
- F rom “push” to “pull”: Social language within contexts of using platforms to access and attract
- Bibliography
| Potencialidades de los sitios en línea para adquirir lenguajes sociales
más allá de la competencia cultural previa (Potential of Online Sites for Acquiring Social Languages Beyond One’s Prior Cultural Competence) Colin Lankshear and Michele Knobel para el encuentro LEER Y ESCRIBIR EN ESPAÑOL EN LA RED: APRENDIZAJE, RENOVACIÓN Y PROPUESTAS Fundación Comillas Viernes, 16 de diciembre Introduction To talk about social languages in the way we will here is to focus on situated language/language in use, as distinct from an abstracted linguistic system on the level at which we may differentiate, say, Spanish from English from Russian from Chinese. From this latter standpoint we can “reify” Spanish or English and teach “it” in the sense of building vocabulary, studying Grammar and Syntax, working on accent, etc. Thus, when someone can demonstrate certain levels of mastery of this reified language on such dimensions we can say they have achieved proficiency (sometimes expressed as a measured score on some specialized test) in Spanish (or English, etc.), and even credential this level of mastery (e.g., international test scores of proficiency such as the TOEFL score; or a degree majoring in Spanish). To learn a language in this sense is to be able to demonstrate competence with the form of the reification; to manage formal features of the abstraction. Often, the assumption is that learners can then go off and put their knowledge “to use”. Ironically, the aspirational goal of teaching a language in a reified way, typically, is for the learner to become as like a “native speaker” of the target language as possible. However, even a cursory examination of the target language in its social contexts of use shows there is no single, unified, “always correct” way of being a “native speaker” in any language (Álvarez 2007; Thorne, Black and Sykes 2009). Indeed, it is well known that people who are successful in the formal study of reified language regularly do considerably less well making their knowledge of the language work for them in situated contexts of use (Álvarez 2007; Hanna and de Nooy, 2003). Social languages, by contrast, are all about language use in situated contexts. In his creative appropriation of Bakhtin’s early work on social language, James Gee (2004, 2005, 2012) describes social languages in terms of three ideas that are especially useful for the cases we want to explore here. According to Gee (2005), social languages can be understood as: 1. The language component of Discourses 2. “Whos-doing-whats” at the level of language within Discourses 3. Enacting versions of “Grammar 2” using selections among resources identified in “Grammar 1” A framework for “social languages” We will briefly outline these complementary ideas in turn. Together they provide the framework for discussing a number of cases that interest us. The language component of Discourses Discourse can be seen as the underlying principle of meaning and meaningfulness. We “do life” as individuals and as members of social and cultural groups—always as what Gee calls “situated selves”—in and through Discourses, which can be understood as meaningful coordinations of human and non-human elements. Besides people themselves, specific human elements of coordinations include such things as people’s ways of thinking, acting, feeling, moving, dressing, speaking, gesturing, believing, and valuing, and non-human elements include such things as tools, objects, institutions, networks, places, vehicles, machines, physical spaces, buildings, and so on. A person rushing an email message to head office as they hand their boarding pass to the airline attendant at the entrance to the aircraft boarding ramp is recognisable (to others and themselves) as a certain kind of person. In this moment she is part of a coordination that includes as its elements such things as the person herself, some way of thinking and feeling (maximizing time to get more done), rules (her smart phone must be switched off when the plane is leaving the gate), institutions (airports and air travel, the company they work for), tools (a phone, a network), accessories (a computer bag and compact travel bag), clothes (a suit, perhaps), language (facility with emailing concisely and accurately). These various elements all get and are got ‘in sync’ (Gee 2008: 155). The various elements simultaneously coordinate the others and, in turn, are coordinated by them (institutional requirements and timetables prompt the particular use of the phone during the last seconds before boarding; the email message makes a demand back on someone in the company; the meeting ahead has influenced choice of clothes—smart but comfortable; etc.). This “in sync-ness” tells us who and what that person is (such as, a business executive in the middle of a three-city day). As Gee puts it: “Within such coordinations we humans become recognizable to ourselves and to others and recognize ourselves, other people, and things as meaningful in distinctive ways” (1997: xiv). Humans and non-human elements move in and out of such coordinations all the time. Identities (of humans and non-humans alike) are chronicles of the trajectories of coordinations we move through, over time. Different coordinations call on us to think, act, believe, dress, feel, speak, relate in different ways to a greater or lesser extent. To know how to do this, when to do it, and that we should do it is the “nature” of living meaningfully. Another way of saying this is to say that we get recruited to Discourses as part of our “birthright” as social and cultural beings, and that in and through our social engagement with Discourses we each become identifiable as a particular kind of person (a trajectory and amalgam of “situated selves” that change as our purposes, contexts, and Discourse coordinations change) and learn to be a particular kind of person. A Discourse is a way of “being together in the world” for humans, their ways of thinking and feeling (etc.), and for non-human things, as well, such that coordinations of elements, and elements themselves, take on recognizable identities. “Discourse” names the patterning of coordinations, their recognizability, as well as that of their elements. (Gee 1997: xv) Discourses are of many kinds—schools and classrooms, sports, friendship networks, religious groups, clubs, gangs, academic disciplines, discussion lists, chatrooms, work and work places, weddings, funerals, families. They are made up by coordinations and they make coordinations and elements recognisable. Discourses are the stuff of meaning and meaningfulness; they constitute the “shape” and “order” of the world. We enact them and they enact us. To be in a Discourse is to be able to coordinate elements of that Discourse competently and to be coordinated by them competently. To say that social languages are the language component of Discourses focuses attention on “how people communicate who they are and what they are doing by the ways in which they put language to use” (Gee 2005: 15). That is, social languages are varieties of language that allow us to express different socially significant identities (e.g., talking and writing as a mathematician, doctor, or gang member) and enact different socially meaningful activities (e.g., offering a proof in mathematics, writing a prescription in medicine, demonstrating solidarity with a fellow gang member) (ibid.) “Whos-doing-whats” at the level of language The idea that social languages are “whos-doing-whats” at the level of language is another way of explicating the idea of “the language component of Discourses”. It makes explicit the fact that any instance of successful speech, like any instance of successful action, involves the accomplishment of two things: (a) one has made it clear who one is (in this particular instance; the identity one is being in the moment of speaking or writing); and (b) one has made it clear what one is doing (in this particular instance; the activity one is involved in) (see Wieder and Pratt 1990; cited in Gee 2012: 87). Moreover, we are all multiple in Gee’s sense that each and every person is “a great many different whos in different contexts” and, furthermore, particular forms or speaking and acting “can count as different things in different contexts”. Something that is successful or appropriate in one context may be inappropriate or otherwise have a very different significance in another context (e.g., with different people and/or in a different location or situation) (Gee 2012: 87). In other words, different social languages are means for accomplishing different whos and whats. But these differences are not accomplished by social languages alone. They are part of what Gee (2012: 90) calls a simultaneous interaction among:
Enacting versions of “Grammar 2” The third idea used by Gee to explicate social languages involves a distinction between two types of grammar. These are sometimes distinguished in terms of traditional/conventional/formal grammar, on one hand, and functional grammar (cf. Halliday 1978, 1985) on the other. The former is the grammar of languages as formal systems, and the latter applies to language in use. While the details of the respective grammars are complex, and the analytic and theoretical power of the distinction between them is impressive and far-reaching, the basic idea involved in the distinction between them is quite simple. Gee (2005: 41) identifies the first grammar in terms of “the traditional set of units likes nouns, verbs, inflections, phrases and clauses”. The second grammar, which Gee considers the more important grammar, comprises systems of “rules” by which language users in concrete situations use the various formal grammatical units (nouns, verbs, phrases, etc.) to create “patterns” within language-in-use. These “patterns” and their underlying “rules” give rise to recognized ways of signaling (or “indexing”) “whos-doing-whats-within-Discourses” (ibid.). As speakers and writers, says Gee, human beings (every one of us, every time we speak and write, and whether more or less consciously or more or less habitually) design our oral or written utterances to have patterns in them in virtue of which interpreters can attribute situated identities and specific activities to us and our utterances (2005: 41). Selecting among all the linguistic resources available, which fall into the various categories and subsystems identified in formal grammar, we choose items and combinations and put them together to signal who we are being (or trying to be) and what we are doing (or trying to do) discursively in that particular situation. These choices and selections – designs of language/linguistic designs – shape the social languages component of the “simultaneous interaction” among group memberships, social languages and contexts previously mentioned. Among the many examples Gee provides of social languages in action, perhaps the most vivid involves a young woman in one of his classes who believed she always spoke the same way to different people regardless of situation, since not to do this would be hypocritical. She thought she was always the same “me”, regardless of audience and context, speaking out of the same voice, in order to demonstrate and maintain integrity of self. To test this belief she decided to record herself talking about the same topic to her parents and her boyfriend, respectively. She spoke to her parents over dinner and to her boyfriend in a more intimate kind of interpersonal setting. The transcriptions of the two conversations are entirely different: the choice of vocabulary, the length of sentence and the ways sentences are constructed, the mode of address to her parents and boyfriend, and so on (Gee 2005: 38-39; Gee 2012: 88-90). The transcripts reveal the use of “school-like” language by the daughter in her interaction with her parents, displaying a rational persona as she advanced a judgment on the topic, and positioning her parents as listeners who were emotionally and socially detached from what she was talking about but, at the same time, cognitively engaged with the judgment she was articulating and with assessing her intelligence. With her boyfriend she was much more colloquial, involving him as a collaborator in making the meaning by leaving “gaps” that required him to make inferences, and expressing solidarity and affective involvement with him; that is, bringing him into the topic by saying how she hoped he would behave differently from one of the people in the narrative account being discussed. Gee explains these differences at the level of (social) language in terms of the young woman enacting two different versions of who she is being and that she is doing: In one case she is “a dutiful and intelligent daughter having dinner with her proud parents” and in the other case she is a girlfriend “being intimate with her boyfriend” (Gee 2005: 39). Implication for (foreign) language proficiency and the potential significance of participation in online sites or spaces Formal foreign language instruction has a long history of using stand-alone and networked technologies as instructional resources (cf. discussions in Lam 2000; Lam and Kramsch 2003, Thorne, Black and Sykes, 2009). Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL), for example, saw the establishment of language learning labs in many universities and colleges in the mid-1990s that were filled with all kinds of language-learning related software of the drill and skill kind (e.g., that focussed on grammar knowledge, vocabulary building, and suchlike). Much of the instructional model was expert-novice in design, where the teacher was the expert and the students were novices with respect to the target language, as well as with respect to how to learn or master the target language. As such, research focus on formal CALL instruction and on reified (or Grammar 1) language learning has tended to dominate foreign language learning studies. Nonetheless, a growing body of research provides us with interesting and insightful examples of how many people are learning “a language” by using it in a range of meaningful social contexts as part of being a particular “who” doing a particular “what” within a recognizable Discourse. From a “language in use” perspective, then, the ideal of being proficient in a foreign language, just as in one’s first language, is a matter of communicating successfully who we are and what we are doing, as an integral component of enacting our identities within Discourses, by “pulling off the patterns” successfully using the “rules” of Grammar 2. This draws heavily on the language resources by which a person might be considered proficient from the standpoint of learning a foreign language as a formal (Grammar 1) linguistic system, but goes considerably beyond it. Foreign social language proficiency cannot be acquired or learned out of curriculum, courses, books, etc. It can only be acquired as situated language. How much “carry over” there is at the level of social language proficiency from one natural language to another is an empirical cultural question, and an important one, but one that is beyond our scope and competence here—although some of our examples may illuminate some aspects of the question. Rather, what is important for present purposes is looking at some cases of situated language use occurring across different natural languages within Discourses mediated by online sites and services and, particularly, within contexts of participation in cultural affinities like fan practices and online game playing. This will involve looking at whos-doing-whats within contexts of participating in affinities using online components of affinity spaces with “multilingual” dimensions/opportunities, and observing how they enact “Grammar 2” in the process. Sociable game players becoming acquainted during collaborative online play Meme (from the US) and Zomn (from Ukraine) are two World of Warcraft players (Thorne 2008). World of Warcraft is a globally popular massively-multiplayer online game. In this particular case, Meme was hunting baby dragons inside the game in order to increase his experience points as part of being able to do and achieve more things within the game. After some time, he saw a higher-level player arrive and start to kill these baby dragons as well. This puzzled Meme because the higher-level player wouldn’t accrue much experience at all from his dragon-killing, so Meme sent him an in-game message, asking what he was doing. The higher-level player—Zonm—explained he was after the dragon skins for leather to craft things with (e.g., to sell for in-game currency, or to create new armour from etc.). Meme’s initial inquiry led them into an extended discussion that resulted in these two until-then-strangers “friending” each other within the game, and agreeing that Meme would continue killing dragons without having to compete against Zomn to do so, and would let Zomn skin the dead dragons in return (Thorne 2008: 318). Interestingly, their instant-messaged conversation included a discussion about Russian and English language uses. The following transcript segment (from Thorne 2008: 319) cuts in part way through their chat after Zomn had begun writing in Russian in the chat, mis-assuming that Meme was a Russian speaker. Surprisingly, Meme had a long-time friend who was also from the Ukraine and who was a fluent Russian speaker. While chatting with Zomn within the game, Meme opened up a separate instant messaging window and got in touch with his Russian-speaking friend and asked him for some phrases to use in his chat with Zomn: 37. Meme: Ya lublui fceu v moy popoo 38. Meme: do you get any exp off of these if you kill them? if so lets party 39. Zomn: lets .... for 3k 40. Meme: sounds good, so what did what i said before mean? 41. Meme: i was just asking my friend from ukraine what to say 42. Meme: and don’t know what it means 43. Zomn: it wasnt right ... but kinnda ‘kiss my ass’ 44. Meme: haha are you serious? i’m going to kill him, sorry about that 45. Zomn: ahhh np :)))) 46. Zomn: u can kill him now :)))) 47. Meme: yeah, I will once I get home, he’s in my hometown 48. Meme: and I’m off at college 49. Zomn: tell him that u got an interpriter now :) 50. Meme: will do haha 51. Zomn: is ‘interpriter’ right ? :(( 52. Meme: it’s actually interpreter, but that was close A number of things are going on—or being “indexed”—in this transcript: for example, the interlocutors as game players, as language users and experts, and as proficient online chatters. First, lines 38 and 39 signal how both are players well-versed in the World of Warcraft game. Meme’s use of “exp” does not need explanation for Zomn to understand that Meme is referring to “experience points”. Similarly, “let’s party” in this sense is an invitation to enjoy working together in killing the baby dragons—until they decide later to divide up roles into killer and skinner. Second, Lines 37, and 40 to 45 discuss Meme’s use of a Russian phrase given to him by his Ukrainian friend outside the game—and show how this friend tricked Meme into being rather rude to Zomn. Zomn acts as translator and points out that it wasn’t quite correct but the meaning was there nonetheless. Later, in a closing segment of the chat not included above, Zomn also suggests Meme can use “poka” to say goodbye—a “more suitable and peer-register alternative” (Thorne 2008: 320)—instead of the more formal “dasvidania”. The roles of language expert are exchanged in lines 51 and 52, when Meme types the correct spelling for “interpreter” in a supportive and friendly way (adding “but it was close” to take any sting out of the correction; interestingly, “feedback + encouragement” is a common interaction pattern in popular culture spaces online, see also Black 2008). Third, their linguistic choices show they are both “at home” with the language of online chat spaces through their use of casual, phonetically written language (e.g., line 43 and “kinda” instead of “kind of”), acceptable inattention to punctuation (e.g., lower case “I” in lines 38, 40 and 41; absence of an apostrophe in “its” in line 38), the use of recognisable text-speak abbreviations (e.g., “np” in line 45 to mean “no problem”; “u” instead of “you” in lines 46 and 49), and emoticons, that signal tenor or emotion in chat texts (e.g., :) is a happy smile; :)))) indicates a very wide smile; :(( signals deep unhappiness). In this example, Thorne (2008: 320-321) explains how much of what took place is precisely the kind of thing wished for in language learning classrooms. The chat was a naturally-occurring conversation sparked by overlapping and genuine interests and purposes. It wasn’t forced talk about a teacher-set topic (e.g., “What are your hobbies?” Or “Tell me about your country”). Meme cleverly pulled on an external resource in the form of his Ukrainian friend in order to support his own attempts at writing in Russian (interestingly, Meme later indicated to Thorne a strong interest in taking classes in Russian). Both chatters engaged in comprehension or accuracy checks with each other, suggesting that both found the chat space within the game to be a non-risky space to “try out” their language proficiency with experts. In addition, Zomn’s utterance in line 49, “tell him that u got an interpriter now :)”, signals solidarity with Meme as a fellow game player and language learner, and indexes himself as someone who can help Meme avoid being tricked into saying socially inappropriate things in Russian. A novice writer eliciting and managing feedback in an online fan fiction writing space The universe of anime-based fan fiction writing offers a range of examples of authors writing in a language that is not their first language, enacting strong identities as serious fans of different anime series, and navigating how to write “successful” fanfictions at the level of grammar, spelling, and plot and character development (Black 2008; Leppånen 2007; Thorne 2009; Thorne, Black and Sykes 2009). Anime-based fanfics use Japanese anime series and movie plotlines and characters to develop new storylines that build and innovate upon the originals in some recognizable way (Cassany 2010; Lankshear and Knobel 2012; Sanz Pinyol 2009). As such, anime fanfic writers attend to writing an engaging story that pays due honour to the original anime on which it draws while at the same time extending the original story in fresh and entertaining ways. Rebecca Black studied a number of anime fanfic writers over a three year period, including Tanaka Nanako and Cherry-chan. Nanako is a 16-year-old English language learner who had moved to Canada and begun learning English only 2 and half years prior to the start of Black’s study (see Black 2008, 2009). Admittedly, “Nanako is an exceptional case in that she has become an expert in design—more specifically, over time she has become very adept at networking in this space and has developed a considerable group of readers and avid followers to the extent that she now has over 6000 reviews of her 50 plus publicly-posted fanfiction texts” (Black 2007: 120). That being said, her large following of readers and reviewers and the ways in which she has worked at revising her stories—both in terms of plot and character development, as well as the linguistic features of each text—over the three years of Black’s study make her a ideal case for understanding social language in relation to becoming fluent in another language. For example, Nanako’s very first story posted to Fanfiction.net—an enormously popular online space for posting, reading, and reviewing fan fictions—was prefaced with the following author note: “A/N: Bonjour! This is my first Dark Magician and Dark Magician girl romance story, so please go easy on it ^^ Also, please excuse my grammar and spelling mistakes because English is not my first language. I might have some typ-os, so hopefully you guys can look over it ^^ I’m one of the worst class writers in fanfiction.net, so please don’t flame me!” (Black 2008: 56) In this note, Nanako signals she assumes people will find and read her work and that she has probably written her story with a very real audience in mind. Of course, writing within the popular Yu-Gi-Oh! anime and manga worlds does have the advantage of attracting almost by default a wide and willing audience. She also seems to understand some reviewers might be tough on the particular spin she’s given the relationship between two Yu-Gi-Oh! characters and points out this is her first such story written about these two characters—implying that reviewers should take this into account when responding to her story (Black 2008: 56). Claiming a humble position as a “worst class writer” also underscores how she would prefer positive reviews, rather than “flames” or scorching, insensitive critiques. Nanako also points out that English is not her first language and hopes that readers will excuse typographical errors and the like. Interestingly enough, however, she does start her note with a French greeting (“Bonjour!”), and referencing how English is not her first language may well serve to signal that she is actually adept in multiple languages. Moreover, she twice includes “manga-fied” emoticons (i.e., ^^, which is a variation on ^.^ or a manga creature where each ^ is an ear and the fullstop a nose, which in turn is a variation on :) ). These manga “smileys” index the anime fanship she shares with other Yu-Gi-Oh! fanfic writers and readers. Black (2007, 2008) found that Nanako took reviews of her work very seriously, and regularly revised stories based on readers’ feedback. This included explicitly apologizing for rushing stories and making mistakes with plotline development, grammar and spelling, and working hard to revise texts and re-posting these more polished texts quickly (Black 2008: 60). For example, as part of responding to a round of criticism from her readers, Nanako wrote: “so ermmm I’m gonna revise it n make it a better story (me ish takin in all da criticizes from da reviewers) yesh I kinda rushed on it, screwed up the plot, lotsa grammatical errors..” (Black 2008: 60). In doing so, Nanako clearly presents herself as a member of this anime fanfic social space—where membership comes with certain responsibilities to others, including an appreciation of time and effort put into reviews, paying attention to plotline development, and minimizing grammatical and spelling errors, to name just three. She knows wasting readers’ time with a sloppily written text just won’t do. Interestingly, though, her note is deliberately and playfully ungrammatical. It would be easy to over-analyse what social languages are being used here and to what effect, but at the very least, one can argue that she’s playing with Black English or rap-speak phonetic forms (e.g., ‘all da criticizes from da reviewers’, see also, Lam 2009), as well as slang forms and colloquial, spoken English (e.g., “ermmm”, “kinda”, “gonna”). This may well be signaling her facility or growing confidence with English popular youth culture forms of speaking to peers. Indeed, as time progresses, Nanako begins weaving multiple languages into her author notes and stories. For example, her complete author note reference above included the words: “gomen nasai gomen nasai [I’m sorry, I’m sorry]” to emphasize her affiliation with Japanese anime as well as to display her own Japanese language knowledge. Nanako was learning Japanese at school at the time, and included stretches of character dialogue in Japanese—and later, in Chinese—within her narratives as well, much to the delight of her readers (Black 2008: 60, 88). Reviewer feedback is an important part of fan fiction writing, with authors commenting regularly on how much it matters to them to receive reviews from strangers (Black 2008; Lankshear & Knobel 2011). That being said, Nanako also made it very clear in her revisions that she was the author of her stories and had the final say in what was and wasn’t changed with respect to storyline and character development. As Black explains, Nanako repeatedly demonstrated “commitment to constructing a writing space that is responsive to readers’ expectations” while still retaining control over the final storyline (2008: 60). Nanako used her author notes to regularly thank specific reviewers for their feedback; for example, Line 4 Thank you all who reviewed this story, Line 5 and this chapter is dedicated to Sakura Blossomz01, wild-gurl, Sweet^-^Rose, DZ pals, Fire Light and Lily-Chan. Line 6 Thank you for adding me to your favorite author list! ^//.//^ Line 7 THANKS FOR THE GREAT SUPPORT YOU ARE GIVING ME! ^________^ Line 8 *Hugs her reviewers* “ (Black 2008: 102) Lines 5 to 6 also thank members of Fanfiction.net who added Nanako to their “favourites” list. Being “favourited” is a key index within the space that signals success as a writer. This practice of thanking others—emulated by others within the space (see Grace and Cherry-chan in Black 2008)—played a number of roles. It signaled gratitude for the time and effort taken to provide feedback, thanked others for being “favourited” while at the same time drawing attention to the fact they had added her to their “favourites”, potentially directed reader traffic to other authors’ own work, shored up a very real sense of a supportive online community, and affiliated Nanako with particular fanfiction writers. Nanako herself was an active reviewer of other people’s fanfictions, and contributed to the space in this way as well. Although Nanako continued to describe herself as an English language learner in her author notes at the beginning of her stories, Black’s study indicates a marked improvement in Nanako’s written English over time. For Black, Nanako’s author notes and reviewers’ comments are especially useful in documenting Nanako’s growing proficiency with English and narrative writing, and her developing sense of self as an accomplished writer. Early on, Nanako’s author notes amount to apologies for English spelling and grammatical errors. Later, these notes to readers begin to ask for specific feedback with respect to English grammar and plot development, and—as indicated already—Nanako includes reviewer feedback in subsequent chapter revisions. Indeed, Black (2005) argues that while Nanako’s English-language development was supported in school, reviewer feedback on grammar, spelling, and such in her fanfiction also contributed directly to enhancing Nanako’s English writing proficiency. In short, “she was able to use her developing language skills to participate in a social environment that was meaningful for her and her fellow anime fans as they affiliated around different elements of adolescent pop culture.” (Black 2005: 181). English-speaking learners of French participating within a French language public discussion space Eleanor and Fleurie, located in the UK, and Laura and David, located in the US, are all English-speaking students of French. As part of their language-learning studies, they were directed to use a public discussion forum to practice their French (Hanna and de Nooy 2003). The selected forum was taken from the then-available set of public forums attached to the online website for the popular and influential French national newspaper, Le Monde. Specifically, these students were directed to the “Autres sujets (other topics)” discussion forum within this particular space where current events, political scandals, sport or topics not addressed in other, more targeted fora were discussed, and which was overseen by a moderator who “regularly intervened in discussion” (Hanna and de Nooy, 2003: 74). According to the forum’s policy, posts to the discussion board could be in French or English, although the moderator made it clear that everyone was expected to at least be able to read French (ibid.). Hanna and de Nooy (2003: 75) argue that the opening lines of the four students’ very first posts signaled their identities as French students: David: Pardonnez-moi de ecrire en anglais. J’apprends toujours le français. (30 Aug 1999 01:30) [Excuse me for writing in English. I’m still learning French.] Laura: Bonjour a tous, C’est evident que je ne suis pas francais. Je ne suis qu’etudiante de francais a l’Alliance Francaise. (19 Jul 1999 15:39) [Hello everyone. It’s obvious that I’m not French. I’m only a student of French at the Alliance Française.] Eleanor: Sault, je suis anglaise et j’aime la France. Pourriez-vous m’ecrire pour m’aider a ameliorer me francias SVP. Merci! (20 Feb 2000 22:55) [Hello, I’m English and I love France. Could you write to me to help me improve my French please. Thanks!] Fleurie: Je suis Anglaise et je voudrais parler avec quelq’un pour amerliorer mon Français. (09 Apr 2000 21:35) [I’m English and I would like to speak with someone to improve my French.] However, their manner of posting signaled their different understandings of the “culture” or “grammar” of this discussion forum itself. Both Laura and David posted within an existing discussion thread and their subject lines directly referenced the topic to which they were responding. And both went on in their first posts to contribute a comment relevant to the discussion thread; David responded to “French criticism of the United States”, and Laura to “anti-immigrant sentiment” (Hanna and de Nooy 2003: 76). Eleanor and Fleurie, however, both started new discussion threads and focused only on themselves. Indeed, the lines above constitute the entirety of their first respective posts to the board, with both asking for help with “improving” their French. As other contributors begin responding to Eleanor and Fleurie, it quickly became clear that neither paid sufficient attention to the social language of the board or what it meant to participate effectively in this particular discussion area. For instance, the first to respond to Eleanor is Grossfatigue, who writes in English: “Why don’t you write first?” (ibid.). As Hanna and de Nooy explain, Grossfatigue’s reply asserts the failure of Eleanor’s contribution on both generic and linguistic counts: The invitation to “write first” implies that her request not only didn’t count as a contribution, but didn’t count as writing at all. And replying in English implies, perhaps unfairly, that her French is inadequate to the task (2003: 76). Eleanor receives only one other reply that also exhorts her to write about something interesting as a way of contributing effectively to the space. Fleurie’s attempt does attract a reply from someone willing to help her practice, but it’s not known what came of this offer. She also received some rather unflattering feedback on a typo in her initial post, and two others—as with Eleanor—urged her to really get involved in the debates on the boards at that time, or suggested current events to write about within the Autres sujets space itself (ibid.). As one respondent wrote to Fleurie, “ ‘si ces idées ne vous ont pas fâché [sic], je vous dis à bientôtsur ce Forum’ [if these suggestions haven’t annoyed you, I’ll see you soon on the forum]” (ibid.), clearly signaling that successful contributors to this space need to be able to take suggestions a bit of teasing and criticism and are welcome (ibid.). Interestingly, neither Eleanor nor Fleurie posted a second time to this space. In contrast, both Laura and David began with explicit contributions to specific debates within the Autres sujets space. David’s first post to the discussion ends up to be written mostly in English; nonetheless, the group gives him a welcoming reception because of his contribution of an American point of view on racism in the U.S. His very first contribution attracts a number of responses and thus, “[w]ith his nine words in French, he still manages to contribute more effectively and elicit more substantial responses than Eleanor with her eighteen. Eleanor’s extras (“Salut,” “j’aime la France,” “SVP Merci”)—however polite and connotative of goodwill—are of virtually no help in achieving her aims. Neither politeness nor linguistic accuracy is the measure of intercultural competence here” (Hanna and de Nooy 2003: 78). Laura is much more proficient than David as a French writer, and yet she chooses to identify herself as a student of French. Hanna and de Nooy argue that this opening “move” serves to position Laura as having an outsider’s—and thus, potentially valuable or interesting—perspective on France and its internal troubles regarding immigration (ibid.). In subsequent posts, both ask in their own way if they’re welcome to keep posting within the debates, and the discussion forum moderator welcomes both explicitly. For example, Bonjour Laura ! Oui, vous êtes tout à fait la bienvenue - y compris et en particulier pour votre réponse à “Steve”. Le forum est ouvert à tous, il admet même des gens qui parlent le français beaucoup moins bien que vous :-) (21 July 1999 17:02) [Hello Laura! Yes, you are absolutely welcome, in particular for your answer to “Steve”. The forum is open to all, it even admits people who speak French much less well than you :-)] (Hanna and de Nooy 2003: 79). Other respondents explain further about how things work in the forum and, in doing so, explain elements of French culture to both David and Laura that are invaluable to anyone learning French, and which neither and Laura and David asked for explicitly, but picked up along the way as a ‘by-product’ of participating actively in the discussions. In addition, both did practice their written French as they contributed to ongoing debates. Although Hanna and de Nooy’s data are old now—collected at a time when online discussion forums were still quite new for a vast number of people—their findings that linguistic proficiency on its own is not sufficient for participating effectively and completely in a social space online still holds (cf., Lam 2004, 2009; Yi 2010). What we do learn from Hanna and de Nooy’s study, and others like it, is that understanding how language is to be used within a given social context to signal identity, speaking position, and affiliation, often and repeatedly trumps reified linguistic correctness. From “push” to “pull”: Social language within contexts of using platforms to access and attract in pursuit of personal goals There are many ways in which the kinds of cases we have sketched here might be discussed and understood, and their possible significance and implications identified. We want to consider a theme we find interesting and think may be potentially important for this audience. John Hagel, John Seely Brown and Lang Davison (2010) argue that a range of contemporary conditions—including the massive and far-reaching affordances of the internet and online social networking facilities, and the increasing global concern for resource sustainability—are associated with the emergence of a new “common sense way of thinking” about how to achieve human goals and purposes (economic, social, cultural and personal). They believe that the established way of thinking—a paradigm they call “push”—is being challenged by an emerging paradigm, which they call “pull”. This is part of a wider trend that Barry Wellman and colleagues (Garton, Haythornewaite and Wellman1997; Wellman et al. 2003; Wellman et al. 2006; Wellman 1997, 2001) detect in contemporary societies moving from being group-based toward becoming organised on the basis of “networked individualism”. The “push” paradigm is based on the model of pushing the resources needed for getting things done to the places where they are needed, so that they are available when needed. For example, educating people to prepare them for life has been organised by creating programs that make resources available for people to use (often by compulsion) in their local communities. Similarly, to achieve economic purposes material resources often are pushed into company infrastructures to resource jobs locally for employees. In a global world where physical resources are scarce and electronic databases and networks are already sophisticated and widely-established, this paradigm is vulnerable. Hagel and colleagues (2010, but see also Hagel and Brown 2005; Brown and Adler 2008) argue that in areas like education, business, technology, and media we are currently seeing the emergence of a new paradigm they call “pull”, which is based on platforms rather than programs. The model here is of accessing resources at the points where and when (in space and time) they are needed; by whomever needs them; and from whomever they can be accessed— rather than pushing resources in advance to points of anticipated need. “Pull” is about “just in time and just in place” rather than “just in case” (Cross 2006). Platforms are facilities from which and through which we can access resources to help us do what we want to do, and from which and through which we can display ourselves and our achievements so that other people can come to us—much like a train platform from which we leave to where we want to go, as well as wait to meet others; as well as other kinds of platforms that support us in our activities and from which people can stage performances. Online sites and services are an important dimension of such platforms. Search engines, fan practice sites, and services like Youtube.com and Instructables.com are typical examples of the online components of the platforms integral to the “pull” paradigm. Hagel, Brown and Davison (2010: 9) identify three levels of “pull” as a paradigm for achieving human goals and purposes, which they call “access”, “attract” and “achieve”. At the base, “pull helps us find and access people and resources when we need them” in a manner analogous to “searching” (ibid.: xiv). At the next level (i.e., “attract”), pull involves the ability to attract people and resources that are relevant to and important for achieving our goals and purposes and, especially, people and resources we didn’t previously know existed. The third level of pull is “the ability to pull from within ourselves” the necessary “insight and performance” needed to “more effectively achieve our potential” (ibid.). In order to discuss our cases of social languages in online sites we will focus on the first two levels of “pull”: namely, access and attract. (a) Starting with the French learners, the Le Monde public discussion forum is a typical example of an online component of a learning platform by which learners can “pull” at the level of accessing resources (French language expertise, peers and “community” for Discourse expertise and support, French language environment, French cultural insights), they need for acquiring language proficiency in the discursive sense we are talking about in this paper. As a support for foreign language acquisition, the forum has the merit of modeling and eliciting language in use; within participation in a particular kind of Discourse. Participants would not be learning French qua French, but learning to become a discussant in French. (This is the what). This involves getting one’s language “in sync” with the Discourse if the forum. Just as bad search terms yield poor search results, so “making the wrong language moves”—misconstruing the social language—will yield poor resource access outcomes. And conversely. The French language learners in Hanna and de Nooy’s study show us very clearly that in order to even get started with “pull” it is necessary to be sensitive to social language and Discourse requirements from the outset, and to be open to learning the social language and Discourse rules as part of the “contract” for social learning (Brown and Adler 2008; Lankshear and Knobel 2011) of the kind involved in acquiring situated language proficiency. Two of the learners—Eleanor and Fleurie—either did not have this minimal social language and Discourse awareness in English, or they did not realise they had to draw upon it in order to participate and gain the language acquisition that participation might afford. When alerted to this, in no uncertain terms, they simply withdrew. These two French language learners provide important insights into the argument we are advancing here. In an age that seems to be one of transition to a paradigm shift, social language will be crucially related to learning prospects, in the same way it has been during the age of School—where outsiders to School Discourse and social language “fail”. Furthermore, however, and most importantly, they will be increasingly “locked out” from prospects for personal achievement more widely under conditions of social change in the direction of “networked individualism” (Wellman 2001, et al. 2003; see below). The second pair of French learners, by contrast, do get to “first base”. David and Laura do demonstrate the basic Discourse sensitivity required for getting started and, moreover, David’s social language “synch” in English is accepted as a “passport” for entry to the Discourse community, whose resources they can “leverage” for personal purposes, including working toward a better understanding of French as a formal language that sustains myriad social languages and Discourses, as well as for becoming proficient discussants of social issues in French. (b) The case of Nanako deepens our appreciation of these matters at the levels of social language and Discourse alike. Indeed, she provides an example of someone who exemplifies all three levels of “pull” in action, since she has demonstrated the capacity to pull on her passion for manga-anime fan fiction writing to persevere with honing her written English and to draw upon feedback to achieve her personal goals at a high level. Nanako’s “management” of social language successfully engages and, indeed, “manages” her reviewers. The latter have provided her with increasingly refined feedback over the years, which has helped her build a substantial fan base for her fiction. At the same time, as Black’s study affirms, this activity has contributed significantly to Nanako feeling more “at home in English” on the formal linguistic dimension of English (i.e., Grammar 1 in Gee’s terms). Having brought together particular anime series and Fanfiction.net as an appropriate platform from which to pull resources to pursue her personal goal of writing good quality fan fiction that is well-received by others, Nanako uses sophisticated selections at the level of Grammar 2 to access feedback that will simultaneously encourage her writing and help to improve it, as well as building her audience and increasing her capacity to attract by virtue of being noticed. Such selections include words and emoticons and phrases that give power to others by indicating her vulnerability and soliciting their knowledge and expertise to help her “improve”. This is a well-known pattern at the level of language strategy that works in terms of maximising the chances of getting what one wants as much as possible on one’s own terms. It builds on a grasp of “human psychology”. Nanako’s Grammar 2 language selections position others as being able to offer expertise and build their own profiles as well-informed, supportive reviewers by doing something that is relatively easy and takes nothing away from them. Where that may not be enough on its own, she gets playful with language, thereby appealing to other potential points of connection and solidarity/bonding with her audience. And when all this fails and she receives negative feedback that is quite stringent and demanding, she reverts to humility and willingness to learn, embraces the criticism and, most importantly, acts on it. Social language mediates this: appropriate Grammar 2 selections, in sync with the Discourse of participation in the fan fiction affinity, help her realise her personal goals. She provides very clear information at the level of identity by indicating the particular kind of fan fiction writer she is—at least for present purposes. More than just a fan fiction writer, or a novice fan fiction writer, she is an English language learning fanfiction writer in an overwhelmingly English language domain. She is a committed fanfiction writer, dedicated to becoming the best she can, but in this she is understandably vulnerable and sensitive. Her eagerness to improve her craft is balanced by a vulnerability that invites others to recognise that severe criticism will likely undermine the fan practice by robbing it of a member or, at least, of a writer who might contribute more and better work of a kind that many readers already enjoy. It is very important to note here that Nanako is not effective within the Discourse (simply) because her social language is effective. Rather, the relationship is both ways. Mastery of Discourse knowledge and social language knowledge proceed conjointly; they are mutually reinforcing. And both are required for building the momentum one needs to work on both ends -- the who-doing and the doing what. In the case of becoming linguistically proficient one has to attend to the language component of the Discourse one is in and, ideally, grasp at a meta level that one is in some Discourse or other whenever one is speaking, in whatever language. The outstanding potential of language learning platforms based on affinities and affinity space resources like Fanfiction.net is that one is being socialised into the Discourse in the very moment of pursuing language proficiency. If one is willing to be “socialized” one can get a long way without the meta level knowledge. But, ideally, one will have both. There is strong evidence that Nanako has both, and there is good reason to believe—the two would-be French language learners, Eleanor and Fleurie, from the imperial British middle class notwithstanding—that people who endeavour to learn other languages are well positioned to understand what is involved in being socialised into new Discourses at a meta level. And if they have at least some grounding in Grammar 1 they will be even better positioned. (c) The case of Zomn and Meme is interesting on another level that advances our argument onto much larger terrain. This is because while Zomn and Meme are two game players (whos) doing individual and collaborative game playing (what), there seems to be something else going on that is very important. Their case not so much about game playing as it seems to be about “networking”. People like Meme and Zomn are “always on the lookout” for (attracting) new acquaintances, because chance encounters can open up interesting possibilities for resourcing personal interests and achievements within a globally networked world. And the World of Warcraft is a efficient platform for doing so, given that it typically attracts people who share an enjoyment of role-playing fantasy games and who may have other things or values in common as well (cf., Chen 2012). Thorne’s transcript excerpt of the interchange between Zomn and Meme offers some interesting indications of selections made at the level of Grammar 2 within the process of whos-doing-whats in a potential situation of establishing a social tie that would extend beyond the present encounter. Of particular interest, beyond the language choices that draw upon and reflect shared interests and equal peer status—there is no one-up-manship but, rather, a palpable effort to recognize each other as kindred spirits of equal status, each to be taken seriously by the other and willingness to do so—is the way in which Zomn collaborates with Meme in making the repair following Meme’s unwitting insertion of an insult into the conversation. He softens the effect of the insult by saying it wasn’t quite right, and excuses the faux pas by endorsing Meme’s intention to “kill” his friend—using shared IM conventions to underscore the joking nature of this exchange. More than this, Zomn empowers Meme to keep his friend’s future suggestions “in line” by suggesting that he now has “an interpriter” and actively invites his own vulnerability in linguistic matters by asking if he got the word right. This creates the opportunity—in an impressive invocation of solidarity/bonding—for Meme to “make amends” for the earlier inadvertent insult, by giving something back. If we look at the interchange from Meme’s standpoint, it is difficult to imagine why Meme could possibly not want to pursue a more permanent connection. In exchange, Meme offers some personal information – “I’m off at college”—to give Zomn an indication of who he is beyond the immediate setting (e.g., a university student living away from home), and tacitly inviting Zomn to feel at ease reciprocating. Far beyond establishing a collaborative commitment to killing and skinning baby dragons for experience points or wealth within online gaming Discourse, the pair created the basis for future interactions. This is a classic example of an understated effort to “connect” that is all the more powerful for the understatement. We want to try to extrapolate from this case to a key point that Hagel, Brown and Davison (2010) make about using platforms to work at the second level of “pull”: attract. They say that using platforms to attract is greatly enhanced by the kind of “serendipity” enabled via weak ties in social networks. To conclude our discussion we want to elaborate on this theme Social theorists conceptualise networks as being composed of individuals (nodes) connected to each other in relationships (ties) that vary in terms of interdependence. Where interdependence is strong and interaction is regular and intense, ties are said to be strong. Weak ties exist where interdependence is weaker and contact is less regular. A person’s strong ties are more likely to be acquainted with one another than with his or her weak ties and their acquaintances. Clusters of acquaintances around strong ties constitute “network segments”. The importance of weak ties is that they can provide bridges between “stranger” network segments that an individual would not otherwise have access to. In such cases, weak links increase an individual’s possibilities of accessing information at the edges of their social networks. Granovetter (1973, 1983) argues that individuals who have many weak ties have better chances of accessing information at the edges of their networks than do individuals who have fewer weak ties. This is because the strong ties in an individual’s network typically offer information already known to the individual, whereas weak ties are much more likely to alert the individual to fresh or new information, or even new angles on known information. The empirical evidence to date is not conclusive, but it is used to support the increasingly widely-held belief that using virtual platforms to network widely and actively increases our chances of accessing novel information, being stimulated to innovate, and of being accessed by others (Hagel, Brown and Davison 2010). A crucial point here is that it is less important whether this belief is true than that people act upon it and regulate and shape their social language interactions accordingly. The sheer scale of online social networking behaviour is part of what Barry Wellman describes as a contemporary trend in which societies are becoming less organised around (traditional) groups—face to face; strong ties—and more organised around individuals as “the primary unit of connectivity”: networked individualism. According to Wellman and colleagues (2006: 165), individual networks are actively established by the person at their centre by means of “personal skill, individual motivation, and maintaining the right connections”. Where social life is built upon networked individualism rather than a local, tight-knit community, “loss of group control and reassurances is traded for autonomy and agility” (ibid.). Consequently, people now need to network actively and effectively “if they are to thrive, or even survive comfortably” (ibid.). Managing the language component of Discourses (i.e., social language) successfully in order to make connections from chance encounters with strangers online is a dimension of what Wellman calls “personal skills” and ability to “maintain the right connections”, and presents interesting challenges across different languages. The social language and Discourse awareness of Zomn and Meme, both in terms of collaborative game playing Discourse and social contact-making/networking Discourse (and, possibly, in terms also of Globally Connected Networked Individual Discourse), provides—in our view—an illuminating instance of Wellman’s claim. Conclusion None of the cases we have examined here involve long-term examples of individuals acquiring another language from the earliest stages to some arguable level of proficiency via participation in online sites generally, and affinity spaces in particular, and online searches we have conducted have not revealed any. As Kern (2006) notes, the literature has been dominated by studies grounded in a Computer-Assisted Language Learning perspective, where many studies investigate aspects of technology use within formal institution-based language programs (see also Thorne, Black and Sykes 2009). These tend to be piecemeal in nature, and at best tend to address “communicative competence” at levels below the kind of social language proficiency we are interested in here. Yet, at a time when it seems certain that all kinds of learning will increasingly be mediated by peer-to-peer interactivity online, and when acquaintanceship and collaborative activity will increasingly occur across different languages, we think it would be worthwhile encouraging research that can document in cogent ways the experiences of people who engage more or less intensely over significance periods of time in social practices mediated by languages other than their own, with a view to obtaining some scientifically plausible understanding of the extent to which and ways in which their “discursive immersion” plays out at the level of social language. Researchers like Rebecca Black (2005, 2008), Youngjoo Yi (2010), and Eva Lam (2000, 2004, 2009) provide excellent models for how such work might be undertaken, and Kevin Leander (Leander and Mills 2007) documents a paradigm case of the kind of research subject and context that could provide the basis for such studies. Such studies could contribute much toward informing the work of agents and institutions concerned with promoting foreign language acquisition. Indeed, as mentioned earlier, Thorne (2008: 320-321) notes how the extended exchange between Zomn and Meme matches so much of what language teachers hope for in their classrooms: naturally occurring language exchanges, peer instruction, use of external resources, expert feedback, attention to context and vocabulary changes, and so on. Beyond this, however, such studies could usefully inform the field of social learning (Brown and Adler 2008) at the level of theoretical development as well as potential pedagogical application. Furthermore, if the claim by Hagel and colleagues (Hagel and Brown 2005; Hagel, Brown and Davison 2010) that we are currently living through a paradigm shift from “push” to “pull” with respect to mobilizing resources for achievement across a wide front of human endeavour, such studies would contribute invaluable documentation of a significant moment of change within history: change that is occurring on a global scale. Our main aim in this paper has been to suggest that this is an area of research and theory development we think is worth supporting. Bibliography Álvarez, I. (2007). Foreign language education at the crossroads: Whose model of competence. Language, Culture and Curriculum. 20(2): 122-139. 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. Black, R. W. (2007). Digital Design: English Language Learners and Reader Reviews in Online Fiction. In M. Knobel and C. Lankshear (Eds), A New Literacies Sampler. New York: Peter Lang. Black, R. (2008). Adolescents and Online Fiction. New York: Peter Lang. Black, R. (2009). Adolescents, fan communities, and twenty-fi rst century skills. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 52(8): 688–97.
Learning 2.0. Educause Review, January/February: 17–32. Brown, J. S. and Duguid, P. (2002). The Social Life of Information, 2nd edn. Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing. Brown, J. S., Collins, A. and Duguid, P. (1989). Situated cognition and the nature of learning. Educational Researcher, 18(1): 32–42. Cross, J. (2006). Informal Learning: Rediscovering the Natural Pathways that Inspire Innovation and Performance. San Francisco: Pfeiffer. Garton, L., Haythornewaite, C. and Wellman, B. (1997). Studying online social networks. Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, 3(1). http://jcmc. indiana.edu/vol3/issue1/garton.html (accessed 16 Nov. 2010).
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