Topic management in L2 task-based written interactions

How online interactants advance their talk in written interactions has been extensively investigated in different areas, including language learning. Applying a conversation analysis technique, this study examined how second language (L2) learners managed topics in L2 task-based text-chat interactions and the effects of L2 proficiency on their interactional practices. Participants were 53 dyads, comprising 106 Japanese learners of English across three proficiency levels. The findings demonstrated that only high-proficiency learners jointly constructed differences in topicality between on- and off-task interactions, by implementing resources available in the textual communication medium. Mid- and low-proficiency learners tended to recycle similar formats to create new sequences. In addition, low-proficiency learners never showed orientation to topic transition in an observable way; mid-proficiency learners did show an indication of such an orientation to topic transition, although they failed to achieve it interactionally. The findings were partially verified by quantifying the question format How about you?, which was predominantly used by low- and mid-proficiency learners. Based on the findings, this study proposes a hypothetical developmental pathway and pedagogical implications for teaching and assessment of interactional competencies in L2 written interactions

Managing several simultaneous lines of talk in Finnish multi-party mobile messaging

As smartphones have become an integral part of the everyday life of many, we have seen a proliferation of private messaging groups in mobile apps such as WhatsApp. One characteristic of group messaging is the constant presence of multiple simultaneous lines of talk - even more so than in the dyadic mode. In this article, we explore the linguistic and technologically afforded practices of managing simultaneous lines of talk - topics, sequences, larger activities in mobile group messaging. Specifically, we analyze (i) how new lines of talk are initiated next to already existing ones, (ii) how two prior messages are responded to consecutively, and (iii) how non-adjacent messages are responded to. Our data consist of Finnish instant group messaging, and the analysis was conducted using the Conversation Analytic method. Our study complements previous studies on the management of multiple lines of talk in mobile messaging, and more generally, multiactivity in social interaction. In particular, it presents new insights into how practices such as 'and'-prefacing, action-labelling and platform-provided reply-marking are utilized for organizing parallel activities. (c) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Peer reviewe

Making Space for Stories: Ambiguity in the Design of Personal Communication Systems

Pervasive personal communication technologies offer the potential for important social benefits for individual users, but also the potential for significant social difficulties and costs. In research on face-to-face social interaction, ambiguity is often identified as an important resource for resolving social difficulties. In this paper, we discuss two design cases of personal communication systems, one based on fieldwork of a commercial system and another based on an unrealized design concept. The cases illustrate how user behavior concerning a particular social difficulty, unexplained unresponsiveness, can be influenced by technological issues that result in interactional ambiguity. The cases also highlight the need to balance the utility of ambiguity against the utility of usability and communicative clarity.Comment: 10 page

Chatting online: comparing spoken and online written interaction between friends

This thesis addresses the question of whether or not online interactional practices are systematically different from interaction in other contexts, particularly spoken interaction. I will establish how the organization of online interaction demonstrates participants orientations to the technological affordances of the online medium. The dataset for the study comprises one-to-one interaction between friends, conducted using the chat application of the social networking site, Facebook. Chat logs and screen capture data were used to analyze how participants engaged in, and managed, their unfolding interaction. The data were analyzed using conversation analysis (CA). CA was developed originally for the analysis of spoken talk, but in this dissertation it provides an empirical basis for comparing Facebook chat and spoken interaction. The thesis demonstrates how CA can be used for analyzing online interaction. The first analytic chapter provides an overview of how participants organize the generic orders of interaction. The findings suggest that participants draw on their knowledge of both spoken and written interaction when managing the particular interactional constraints and affordances of Facebook chat. The second analytic chapter focuses on chat openings, comparing them to openings in spoken interaction. The findings reveal some similarities, but also systematic differences which orient to the design of the chat software. The third analytic chapter examines topic management, including topic-initiation, topic change and the management of simultaneous topics. The findings suggest that the CA categorization of topic-initiating turns could potentially be extended by also analyzing action-orientation and also the epistemic stance displayed. The analysis also reveals remarkable similarities between topic change in spoken interaction and in Facebook chat. Finally in this chapter I show how organizational components of spoken interaction, such as adjacency pairs and tying techniques, are used to manage simultaneous topics. The final analytic chapter focuses on self-repair in Facebook chat. The analysis reveals that self-repairs completed during message construction orient to the same interactional contingencies as self-repairs in spoken interaction. However, the affordances of Facebook chat enable these repairs to be hidden from the recipient. Visible repairs tend to be corrections, with the affordances impacting the sequential placement of such repairs. Finally, I show how participants self-repair in response to the actions of their co-participant. Overall, the findings reveal a number of similarities between the organization of Facebook chat and spoken interaction. The analysis also reveals that participants attend to the technological affordances of Facebook in a variety of ways. Finally, this thesis demonstrates that, while there are differences between the interactional practices of spoken and online written interaction, CA can be used to analyze, and subsequently explain, such differences

Text-based Computer-mediated Discourse Analysis: What Causes an Online Group to Become a Virtual Community?

The present study seeks to explore how computer-mediated discourse analysis can be useful for the study of online interaction, in particular, text-based multiparty interaction. The data are from the text-based chat group of high school English language teachers in China, which consists of more than one thousand members. Because of the fluid membership, reduced social accountability, and lack of shared geographical space, it seems that not every online group automatically becomes a “community”. Addressing this concern, and informed by the computer-mediated discourse analysis (CMDA) proposed by Herring, the researcher seeks to investigate the properties of virtual communities and to assess the extent to which they are realized by specific online groups

Instant messaging in work-based virtual teams: the analysis of non-verbal communication used for the contextualisation of transactional and relational communicative goals

In this thesis, I use a multi-perspectival analytical approach to investigate the paralanguage of naturally occurring work-based Instant Message conversations. My research into the field of computer-mediated discourse analysis (CMDA) has shown that written non-verbal cues have been considered as important means of contextualising text-based computer-mediated communication (CMC), yet their scholarly treatment has been scant. Previous findings about the importance paralanguage in CMD have been further strengthened by the findings of the field of business communication: in the virtual work environment the lack of audio-visual information has been found to contribute to miscommunication and consequently hinder cooperation. The linguistic devices and discursive strategies that are used in order to compensate for the limitations imposed by the text-based communicative channel have therefore been identified as in need of further exploration. In this thesis, I have outlined a CMC cue system based on the previous findings of CMDA to investigate the range of cues used as non-verbal signals in workplace text- based CMC. I have also used a multi-perspectival approach based on the theoretical frameworks of interactional sociolinguistics, communities of practice, relational work and politeness and conversation analysis (CA) in order to investigate the range of interactional roles of paralanguage during computer-mediated business conversations. The interpretive CA-informed analysis I have conducted has provided evidence of the important role of non-verbal signals during the contextualisation of complex transactional and relational communicative goals in the workplace. The analysis in this thesis has provided two significant results: firstly, by incorporating the findings of research into paralanguage of spoken as well as other written genres it resulted in a comprehensive description of the orthographic and typographic non-verbal cues used in text-based CMC and, secondly, by drawing on the multi-perspectival framework, it allowed for a description of the complex interactional functions of these cues during the contextualisation of content and relational intent and the creation of interactional coherence in IM

HRT in DMC?:The orthographic representation of high rising terminals in WhatsApp

Contemporary research has shown that a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods is productive in exploring patterns of Digitally Mediated Communication (DMC). In this paper, I demonstrate the analytical potential of this approach by studying the typographic representation of a prosodic feature of spoken language – High Rising Terminals (HRTs, e.g., that beer pong place I went for my birthday?) – in a large corpus of WhatsApp messages (96,471 messages; 594,183 words) sent by 15 young British adults. Combining methods and approaches from variationist and interactional sociolinguistics, I show that the orthographic representation of HRTs patterns in pragmatically similar ways to the feature in speech in that it most frequently functions as a way of verifying the interlocutors’ comprehension of discourse-new information. The precise rate and pragmatic function of this feature, however, appears to be constrained by the textual modality of the platform. Concluding, I join others in arguing for the analytical potential of employing a multidimensional approach to studying variable patterns of DMC

A pragmatics of intimacy

This study examines the ways in which multiple modern communication technologies facilitate, across time and space, the maintenance of a close interpersonal relationship between two best friends. The analysis, which focuses mainly on the openings and closings of the different types of communications, reveals a tendency for the friends to shorten openings and extend closings. However, this is possible only if the friends are fully aware of, and care about, the practical, social and emotional details of each other’s lives during periods of absence. The concomitant linguistic behaviours in their interpersonal interactions could be described as a kind of pragmatics of intimacy which cannot be achieved without the explicit and practical demonstration of that mutual care and concern

Entertaining situated messaging at home

Leisure and entertainment-based computing has been traditionally associated with interactive entertainment media and game playing, yet the forms of engagement offered by these technologies only support a small part of how we act when we are at leisure. In this paper, we move away from the paradigm of leisure technology as computer-based entertainment consumption, and towards a broader view of leisure computing. This perspective is more in line with our everyday experience of leisure as an embodied, everyday accomplishment in which people artfully employ the everyday resources in the world around them in carrying out their daily lives outside of work. We develop this extended notion of leisure using data from a field study of domestic communication focusing on asynchronous and situated messaging to explore some of these issues, and develop these findings towards design implications for leisure technologies. Central to our discussion on the normal, everyday and occasioned conduct of leisure lie the notions of playfulness and creativity, the interweaving of the worlds of work and leisure, and in the creation of embodied displays of affect, all of which may be seen manifested in the use of messaging artefacts. This view of technology in support of leisure-in-the-broad is strongly divergent from traditional entertainment computing models in its coupling of the mechanics of the organisation of everyday life to the ways that we make entertainment for ourselves. This recognition allows us to draw specific implications for domestic situated messaging technologies, but also more generally for technology design by tying activities that we tend to regard as purely functional to other multifaceted and leisure-related purposes