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Learning-by-talking in a video-mediated environment (completed)

A conversation analytic study of second language interactions at a digital language café

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Jenny Gudmundsen (photo: Nadia Frantsen/UiO)

About the project

This dissertation presents a case study of how participants utilize digital resources when dealing with language-related issues at a digital language café. A language café is a venue where individuals can practice their “new” language by talking with individuals who are more experienced in the given language. The study applies the method (longitudinal) conversation analysis (CA) with a multimodal approach, to investigate screen recordings of naturally occurring interactions from a digital language café. The participants in the study are one individual second language user (L2) and several different first language users (L1) of Norwegian. The language café moved online because of social restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

The dissertation consists of three articles. Applying longitudinal CA, the first article investigates how participants’ interactional methods for recruiting assistance by mobilizing the chat function during repair sequences change over time. The second article investigates how the participants’ use of the chat function in language-oriented repair sequences contributes to various learning practices after the message is sent. The third article zooms in on video-mediated smartphone showings in a collaborative learning activity. In these showings, a participant brings their smartphone to the webcam, and visual features of the display or sound from the device are developed into a joint focus of attention. The findings demonstrate that participants orient to and treat digital resources such as the chat function and smartphones as sequentially relevant in language-oriented repair sequences to produce social actions and build and maintain mutual understanding. Typically, the L1 user utilizes digital resources as part of their (potential) repair solutions after the L2 user has treated some linguistic items as unknown. In turn, the L2 user treats his co-participants’ use of digital resources as (potential) solutions. Furthermore, the findings illustrate how the participants expand these sequences into learning activities by drawing on digital resources, in close combination with verbal and bodily-visual resources. The study provides new empirical insights into how informal L2 interaction unfolds in video-mediated settings. It sheds light on how social practices emerge and develop as part of the participants’ context-specific interactional competence in a video-mediated setting. 

Duration 

March 2020 - January 2024. 

 

Tags: Multilingual language practices
Published Aug. 7, 2020 4:18 PM - Last modified Feb. 1, 2024 10:51 AM