Publication details
EFL learners‘ interaction on a discussion forum: A conversation analysis perspective
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| Year of publication | 2015 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | The aim of this paper is to introduce selected results of an analysis of pre-intermediate English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ interaction on asynchronous discussion forums. The findings are based on a learner corpus (299 postings within 8 discussion threads) compiled from two discussion tasks which were a part of a blended learning EFL course (for other analyses based on the corpus, see, for example, Tůma, 2013; Tůma & Lengál, 2013) . Conversation analysis (CA) was conducted on the corpus. The inductive and emic nature of CA made it possible to uncover some specific mechanisms underlying the learners’ interaction on the forum (for the use of CA in the context of online communication, see, for example, Giles et al., in press). The results presented in this paper are related to the use of ellipsis marks (i.e. multiple dots), emoticons and some other aspects of both verbal and non-verbal communication. The findings are related to other research findings and it is concluded that interaction on a discussion forum presents a specific platform, differing from both speech and writing, and that the learners used specific devices (such as ellipsis marks and emoticons) to interact with others and to reach intersubjectivity. Some of the uses do not seem to have been identified in English native speakers’ online interaction, which raises questions about the suitability of monologist approaches (such as error analysis) to researching pre-intermediate learner language produced in online settings. |
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