Exploring language contact and use among globally mobile populations: a qualitative study of English-speaking short-stay academic sojourners in the Republic of Korea

This study explores the language contact and use of English speaking sojourners in the Republic of Korea who had no prior knowledge of Korean language or culture prior to arriving in the country. The study focuses on the use of mobile technology assisted l anguage use. Study participants responded to an online survey about their experiences using the Korean language when interacting with Korean speakers, their free time activities, and the types of digital and mobile technologies they used. The survey respon ses informed questions for later discussion groups, in which participants discussed challenges and solutions when encountering new linguistic and social scenarios with Korean speakers. Semi structured interviews were employed to examine the linguistic, soc ial and technological dimensions of the study participants’ brief sojourn in Korea in more depth. The interviews revealed a link between language contact, language use and a mobile instant messaging application. In the second phase of the study, online surveys focused on the language and technology link discovered in the first phase. Throughout Phase Two , the researcher observed the study participants in a series of social contexts, such as informal English practice and university events. Phase Two concluded with semi structured interviews that demonstrated language contact and use within mobile instant messaging chat rooms on participants’ handheld smart devices. The two phases revealed three key factors influencing the language contact and use between the study participants and Korean speakers. Firstly, a mutual perspicacity for mobile technologies and digital communication supported their mediated, screen to screen and blended direct and mediated face to screen interactions. Secondly, Korea’s advanced digital environment comprised handheld smart devices, smart device applications and ubiquitous, high speed Wi Fi their Korean speaking hosts to self reliance. Thirdly, language use between the study participants and Korean speakers incorporated a range of sociolinguistic resources including the exchange of symbols, small expressive images, photographs, video and audio recordings along with or in place of typed text. Using these resources also helped the study participants learn and take part in social and cultural practices, such as gifting digitally, within mobile instant messaging chat rooms. The findings of the study are drawn together in a new conceptual model which h as been called sociolinguistic digital acuity , highlighting the optimal conditions for language contact and use during a brief sojourn in a country with an unfamiliar language and culture

Inclusion in digital environments for people with aphasia

PhD ThesisBackground: Individuals with aphasia may wish to engage with the Internet for work, communication, or leisure. Pre-stroke Internet skills will vary, as will other factors such as availability of equipment and support. This thesis aims to investigate how aphasia influences Internet use and skills. Further, it aims to explore and evaluate assessment, intervention, and outcome measurement to support Internet use with aphasia. Method: A supported questionnaire was used to compare Internet and technology use between people with and without aphasia post-stroke (stage one). Forty-two participants were recruited, twenty-five of whom had aphasia. The two groups shared known risk factors for digital exclusion. A series of four experimental single case studies followed using a structured assessment and decision-making process with a focus on exploring interventions for participants with post-stroke aphasia who had particular goals around Internet use (stage two). Results: There was a very broad spectrum of levels of independent and supported Internet use amongst people with and without aphasia. Age was a stronger predictor than aphasia for Internet use/non-use. People with aphasia were less likely to use linguistic tools such as emailing, text messaging, and e-readers. Level of education influenced self-perception of Internet skills. Case-study interventions differed according to individual needs and goals. Clinical decision-making and interventions were guided by a specific focus on cognitive and Internet skills alongside environmental factors relevant to Internet use. Assessment demonstrated that, for three of four participants, change was evident, with gains linked to their Internet related goals. Discussion: This study adds to knowledge by enhancing understanding of how people with aphasia may face specific risks related to digital exclusion. It demonstrates that a holistic understanding of factors influencing Internet use and skills can support the design and evaluation of tailored interventions to enable iv Internet use with aphasia. This provides guidance for clinical practice and for future aphasia research.Stroke Associatio

WaitSuite: Productive Use of Diverse Waiting Moments

The busyness of daily life makes it difficult to find time for informal learning. Yet, learning requires significant time and effort, with repeated exposures to educational content on a recurring basis. Despite the struggle to find time, there are numerous moments in a day that are typically wasted due to waiting, such as while waiting for the elevator to arrive, wifi to connect, or an instant message to arrive. We introduce the concept of wait-learning: automatically detecting wait time and inviting people to learn while waiting. Our approach is to design seamless interactions that augment existing wait time with productive opportunities. Combining wait time with productive work opens up a new class of software systems that overcome the problem of limited time. In this article, we establish a design space for wait-learning and explore this design space by creating WaitSuite, a suite of five different wait-learning apps that each uses a different kind of waiting. For one of these apps, we conducted a feasibility study to evaluate learning and to understand how exercises should be timed during waiting periods. Subsequently, we evaluated multiple kinds of wait-learning in a two-week field study of WaitSuite with 25 people. We present design implications for wait-learning, and a theoretical framework that describes how wait time, ease of accessing the learning task, and competing demands impact the effectiveness of wait-learning in different waiting scenarios. These findings provide insight into how wait-learning can be designed to minimize interruption to ongoing tasks and maximize engagement with learning

Children’s Olfactory Picturebooks: Charting New Trends in Early Childhood Education

Converging global trends (digitization, globalization, datafication) have influenced all aspects of children’s literacies, including children’s picturebooks. The recent turn towards embodied, affective and sensory literacies, stimulated our interest in multisensory picturebooks that engage all children’s senses, including the sense of smell (olfaction). Olfactory children’s picturebooks demand new forms of literary conversations, which capitalise on unique properties of odours and integrate these with stories. Drawing on a systematic search of children’s picturebooks about, and with, smell, in paper-based and digital formats, we identified three principal ways in which olfaction is currently embedded in children’s picturebooks: 1, as an add-on to depiction of objects (including foods, plants) and places, 2, as a device to introduce humour into a story, and 3, as an engagement tool for children’s active participation in the story. We mobilise Sipe’s (2008) concept of seven constituting elements in children’s picturebooks to describe how current olfactory picturebooks apply the elements in their design and make recommendations for future development of children’s olfactory picturebooks. Reflecting on the generative potential of literary theories and olfactory power to stimulate children’s non-linguistic embodied interactions with picturebooks, we propose some extensions to the current olfactory picturebook landscape.publishedVersio

Young chinese immigrant children’s language and literacy practices on social media: a translanguaging perspective

In this paper, we present a research approach that makes visible how young children in Chinese immigrant families muster their multilingual, multimodal and multisemiotic repertoires as they interact with distant family and friends on social media. The approach brings multimodal social semiotics into conversation with translanguaging to problematize the notion of languages as bounded systems, and to illustrate how emergent multilingual learners deploy their knowledge of the features of different language scripts and modalities to maximise their communicative capacity. We focus on the emergent translanguaging practices of Chinese immigrant children when using WeChat—a popular Chinese social media that is widely used by young families in their everyday language and literacy practices. Reporting on a study of nine immigrant families in southeast London, we home in on one boy aged eight years and his younger brother aged six years, with mixed Chinese (mother) and Portuguese (father) immigrant heritage. Through fine-grained multimodal analysis of online exchanges between the older brother and contacts in their mother’s WeChat network, we illustrate the multimodal, translinguistic and polyadic nature of his language use in practice and reflect briefly on the disjuncture between his home uses of multiple languages and his schooling. We also consider how the younger brother is socialised into translanguaging practices by observing and occasionally participating in his older sibling’s online chat. The findings address a gap in research knowledge by illustrating how social media can enrich opportunities for young children’s emergent translanguaging practices and heritage language learning

Risk-taking behavior in monolingual vs. bilingual children: an experiment

The effect of language on economic behavior is an area of research recently brought to public attention. Previous studies have touched upon the effect of language on risk attitudes, though this behavior in children has been studied to a lesser extent. Observing differences in language skills in children may indicate differences in developmental gains, and therefore an understanding of economic concepts. In a controlled experiment, conducted amongst a sample of 20 monolingual and 20 bilingual children aged 8-12-years old in Stockholm, risk-taking propensity was observed. The results indicate that bilingual children presented more risk averse behavior, and monolingual speakers of languages with weak future time references were similarly so. In accordance with previous research, girls were generally more risk averse than boys, and older children more so than younger. Supplementary background information was gathered, though not for the complete sample, which rendered some inconclusive results, but also indications of parental background having effects on risk attitude. As this generation’s children are becoming more influential in families’ consumption patterns and beginning to make their own financial decisions, an awareness of the relationship between language and economic behavior could lead to implications in education and policy making and an understanding of how economic behavior develops over time.Språkets påverkan på ekonomisk beteende är ett område som endast nyligen har uppmärksammats. Tidigare studier har snuddat på språkets effekt på riskbeteende, men inte undersökt detta beteende hos barn. Skillnader i språkkunskaper bland barn kan tyda på skillnader i kognitiv utveckling och därmed en förståelse av ekonomiska koncept. I ett kontrollerat experiment undersöks 20 enspråkiga och 20 flerspråkiga barn mellan åldrarna 8-12 i Stockholm och deras riskbenägenhet. Resultaten pekar mot att flerspråkiga barn visar mer försiktigt beteende (mindre riskfyllt eller risk averse), och barn som talar språk med starka framtidsreferenser likaså. Likt tidigare forskning visade det sig också att flickor var mindre benägna att ta risker än pojkar och äldre barn mindre benägna än yngre. Ytterligare bakgrundsinformation samlades in, men på grund av låg respons kan inga signifikanta slutsatser dras, men en antydan finns att föräldrarnas bakgrund påverkar barnens riskbeteende. Eftersom denna generations barn blir alltmer inflytelserika i deras familjers konsumptionsmönster, och således börjar bli mer medvetna om deras egna finansiella beslut, kan en medvetenhet om förhållandet mellan språk och ekonomiskt beteende leda till implikationer inom utbildning och andra beslutsfattande instanser, och även ge en förståelse i hur ekonomiskt beteende förändras över tid

Relational Processes in Support-Related Communication Among Young Adults with Cancer

Despite decades of studies reporting positive associations of social support with cancer-related quality of life, little attention has been paid to understanding how relational qualities (e.g., self-disclosure, perceived support member disclosure, perceived support member responsiveness) of cancer-related support exchanges might influence psychological adjustment and intimacy among young adults with cancer. Further, little attention has been paid to understanding how young adults with cancer communicate with their social support networks among different modes of communication [(face-to-face vs. technology-related (e.g., text message, social media)] remains poorly understood. Questionnaire data from 45 young adults with cancer combines these two separate but related literatures of support-related communication and technology-based communication to explore young adult cancer-related communication. The goal of this dissertation is to examine how aspects of relational disclosure and responsiveness about a cancer-related concern recently discussed with a member of one’s social support network may moderate the relationship between face-to-face vs. technology-related (e.g., text message, social media) communication to influence psychological adjustment and intimacy. No significant differences were found on psychological adjustment and intimacy across different modes of communication. Mode of communication moderated the relationship between self-disclosure and functional well-being and intimacy. Young adults communicating about a recent cancer-related concern face-to-face and reporting a low amount of self-disclosure exhibited relatively greater functional well-being whereas young adults communicating via technology-related communication and reporting a high amount of self-disclosure reported greater intimacy. A small pilot study utilizing a biopsychosocial approach to analyzing dyadic face-to-face and text message content expressed by young adults with cancer and their support network is also presented as a means to highlight how these processes can be experimentally studied. Study findings have psychological, behavioral, and clinical implications for future studies related to young adult cancer survivorship and suggest that communication via technology-related methods might not be detrimental to well-being. This dissertation provides new insight and a deeper understanding into the interaction of relational processes and differing communication modalities on adjustment among young adults with cancer

Cue the Paralinguistics: A Qualitative Case Study of Teacher Social Presence

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to understand teachers’ rationale and practices as they establish a social presence in a 100% online learning environment in a high school setting, with a specific emphasis on paralinguistic cues and symbols, such as emoji, emoticons, and Bitmoji. This case study focused on the meaning and understanding of teacher social presence in the virtual setting, utilizing a variety of data collection methods. In-depth interviews were conducted, followed by digital document collection and a focus group interview; transcripts of both interviews and the focus group were analyzed in order to establish the specific practices teachers use to establish a social presence as well as their rationales. Specific emphasis was placed on paralinguistic cues and their role in the establishment of social presence. Findings supported previous research on social presence strategies with few exceptions. Online educators rely on strategies that humanize their virtual interactions with special consideration for tone in written communication, particularly considering the age of high school students. Paralinguistic cues were widely used, with Bitmojis used universally by all participants as a visual extension of their physical selves in computer-mediated communication. Suggestions for future research, practice, and teacher education are included

Always and never the same: Women\u27s long-distance friendships during life course transitions

Various challenges can threaten the security of personal relationships, but one of the most difficult problems to manage is geographic distance. As more people live apart from someone about whom they care, the prevalence of long-distance relationships will increase. However, research on how long-distance friendships are characterized and accomplished lags behind. Therefore, the present study was designed to uncover how women define and maintain their long-distance friendships. A total of 34 interviews were conducted with first-year undergraduate students, first-year graduate students, and recently-hired faculty members at a large university. The interview transcripts were analyzed inductively, which resulted in the creation of nine categories. These were eventually reduced to six maintenance behaviors: openness, assurances, positivity, joint activities, personal networks, and mediated communication. Participants also challenged definitions of long-distance friendship based upon geography and replaced them with definitions based upon communication (access to interaction, use of mediated communication, level of closeness, and a commitment to expend the necessary time and energy to make it work). Although long-distance friendships may require more effort and involve more mediated communication, this study demonstrates that long-distance friends rely on similar maintenance behaviors as geographically-close friends. This indicates that long-distance friendships may not be as dramatically different or as perplexing as commonly thought. Overall, the present study reveals that long-distance friendships can be satisfying and maintained successfully, which challenges both cultural assumptions and traditional social science research. Many long-distance friendships are well-equipped to weather both changes and challenges, making them flexible, not fragile

A culturicon design model for communication across culture

Emoticons are important in Computer-Mediated Communication due to its capability to express emotions/actions without face-to-face meeting. However, existing emoticons are still incompatible and lack some human expressions that limit user’s selection, particularly in terms of culture. Based on the comprehensive literature review conducted, the study regarding emoticons in cultural perspective is limited and there are demand for more cultural-based emoticons to be developed. To solve the issue, this study developed a model named Culturicon Design Model (CDM) by incorporating appropriate cultural dimensions and icon design principles, where Culturicon is the combination of ‘culture’ and ‘icon’. The components of CDM were determined based on previous study’s findings. CDM was then verified through expert review by applying a convergent parallel mixed method that measured the model’s components, flow, and readability, involving 11 experts. Then, CDM was validated by applying an explanatory sequential mixed method involving two phases – validation by designers and validation by end users. Validation by designers measured the components of the model in terms of gain satisfaction, interface satisfaction, task support satisfaction, and emoticon samples’ development, involving five designers. The validation by the end user was performed through focus group discussions, involving eight participants. Thematic analysis was used to analyse focus group’s results. The final version of CDM comprises five cultural dimensions (high power distance, high collectivism, low uncertainty avoidance, moderate masculinity/femininity, and long-term relationships), and eight Human Computer Interaction (HCI) icon design principles (familiar, understandable, attractive, coherent, informative, distinct, memorable, and legible). Focus group’s result showed that the emoticon’s samples represent the cultural elements, fulfilled the HCI icon design principles, and useful in their communication across culture. CDM contributed to the body of knowledge in HCI. It can be a guideline for designers to develop Culturicon in the future, hence providing more emoticon selections from local culture to satisfy end user’s needs