ALL SIG Workshop 2011

Applying Sociolinguistic Interactional Analysis to CMC for Rich Insight on Learners' Interaction What in the world is sociolinguistic analysis and why in the /~@!$$ is there a workshop like this in a CorpusCALL SIG? Sociolinguistics examines the interplay of language and society, with language as the starting point. Vast field of inquiry: Combines insights from different disciplines, e.g. linguistics, sociology, psychology, anthropology, etc. Combines anthropology, ethnography, linguistics, pragmatics and conversation analysis. Aims to see how participants [interactants] create and interpret meaning in social interaction. Looking for embodied linguistic and social (and cultural) practices. Moves away from SLA cognitivists. Corpus? Collection of data excerpts (video-recordings, extracts, transcripts) Look at excerpts (micro-analysis) *Means of data selection is important Fits teaching paradigm of socio-constructivism and situated learning. Looking for 'patterns' over time (e.g. in student-teacher interaction; peer interaction, etc.) Possible Applications: - Identity constructs (Norton & Tooney - imagined communities of practice) -Classroom interaction (Seedhouse - teacher-student interaction -"Longitudinal Learning Behaviour Tracking" (LBT) (Markee) -Etc. Analytical Foci What does the 'interactionalist' researcher look for? An examination of talk-in-interaction precisely developed to explicate how people bring off social actions through their talk (Hutchby & Wooffitt 1998; ten Have 2007; Psathas 1995). "Doing being-a _____" Structure of events Segmentation of events Temporality Turn-taking Participation frame Breach & repair Spatial Organisation Artifacts & Documents Turn-taking: Not just in talk, but with artefacts Interaction reveals that adult-novice relinquishes control of avatar to child-novice (usually asymmetrical power relationship). In some dyads could be seen as collaborative knowledge-building (doing “being-an-avatar”). Participation frame: Common task orientation is not always shared. The strategy used by child-novice to gain entry (formal request then insistent ‘pestering’) then leads to different dyadic behaviour (with SL as mediating artefact). Shift of power? Still collaborative knowledge-building? Multiple participation structures: adult-child dyad rules no longer applicable (authority questioned) More adept novice more willing to participate with other avatars. Breaches of ‘unspoken rules’ Adult-novice upset by the idea of ‘running into’ other people Child-novice sees it as play Spatial Organisation & use of artefacts: In VW – rules of physical co-presence are no longer so clear. Expectations about interaction with others and use of artefacts are different for the two interactants. Interactants with different constructions of meaning concerning ‘reality’ in SL. This construct affects the expectations/orientations and construction of rules in SL. If looking at collaborative learning in dyadic situation would need to know if this affects the way learners structure their interaction with others and how they accomplish the tasks. How to do IA? Compilation and data management (+ ethnography) Logs (cataloging and annotating of different data) Data sessions – collaborative group work. More indepth work by individual researcher. Triangulation How to code: Problematic b/c IA implies an emic (data-driven) approach Grounded theory Category membership analysis “Network of activity” (Barab, Hay & Yamagata-Lynch, 2001) Action-relevant episodes (AREs) Etc. Disadvantages: Sometimes hard to get published (editors & reviewers expect quantifiable, 'general-fiable' results) Issues of interpreter reliability Schönen Dank! Thank you! melindaann.dooly@uab.cat Case 1 7 respondents: 6 felt chat was useful for learning about new tools (empirical experience) 1 felt chat helped understand article better 5 indicated that did not learn any theory through chat 7 would repeat experience ???????? Case 2