Emerging Identities in Virtual Exchange
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Emerging identities in virtual exchange Written by Francesca Helm Published by Research-publishing.net, a not-for-profit association Voillans, France, [email protected] © 2018 by Francesca Helm Emerging identities in virtual exchange Written by Francesca Helm Rights: this book is published under the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives International (CC BY-NC- ND) licence. Under the CC BY-NC-ND licence, the book is freely available online (https://doi.org/10.14705/ rpnet.2018.25.9782490057191) for anybody to read, download, copy, and redistribute provided that the authors and publisher are properly cited. Commercial use and derivative works are, however, not permitted. Disclaimer: Research-publishing.net does not take any responsibility for the content of the pages written by the authors of this book. The authors have recognised that the work described was not published before, or that it was not under consideration for publication elsewhere. 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Typeset by Research-publishing.net Cover design by © Raphaël Savina ([email protected]) ISBN13: 978-2-490057-19-1 (Ebook, PDF, colour) ISBN13: 978-2-490057-20-7 (Ebook, EPUB, colour) ISBN13: 978-2-490057-18-4 (Paperback - Print on demand, black and white) Print on demand technology is a high-quality, innovative and ecological printing method; with which the book is never ‘out of stock’ or ‘out of print’. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data. A cataloguing record for this book is available from the British Library. Legal deposit, UK: British Library. Legal deposit, France: Bibliothèque Nationale de France - Dépôt légal: juillet 2018. Table of contents Acknowledgements vi Transcription conventions viii Foreword ix Chapter 1. Introduction 1 1.1. Why virtual exchange? 4 1.2. A brief history of virtual exchange 6 1.3. Foreign language learning, research and virtual exchange 8 1.4. Why explore identity in virtual exchange? 12 Section 1. A framework for analysing identity and interaction in online contexts Chapter 2. Identity, learning, and interaction 19 2.1. Structuralist and poststructuralist views of language and identity 20 2.2. Identity, subjectivities, and positioning 22 2.3. Locating identities in language 23 2.4. Identity, investment, and language learning 25 2.5. Imagined identities 26 2.6. Online identities 27 iii Table of contents Chapter 3. A framework for the study of identity in online interactions through virtual exchange 29 3.1. The situatedness principle 29 3.2. The mediation principle 31 3.3. The positionality principle 34 3.4. The indexicality principle 37 3.5. The relationality principle 39 Chapter 4. An ethnographic interaction‑based study 45 4.1. The online context of this study 47 4.2. Researcher positioning within the context 52 4.3. Data for this study: the dialogue group 55 Section 2. Applying the framework Chapter 5. Exploring the situated context 61 5.1. Soliya as an epistechnical system 62 5.2. Problems and solutions 65 5.3. Transportable and imagined identities 67 5.4. Tensions and contradictions in the Soliya Connect Program 70 Chapter 6. Mediated identities 75 6.1. The mediation principle 76 6.2. Mediation and multimodality 80 6.3. The Soliya community area: asynchronous identities 82 6.4. The meeting room: synchronous identities 88 6.5. Group identity 104 Chapter 7. Facilitator identities 109 7.1. Facilitators as ‘hosts’ and ‘experts’ in the online space 110 7.2. Implementers of institutional agendas: indexing and authorisation of situated identities 112 iv Francesca Helm 7.3. Facilitator/orchestrator of interaction 117 7.4. How did the facilitator identity evolve? 121 7.5. Reflective practitioner 127 7.6. Tensions in the facilitator identities 130 7.7. Imagined identities 131 Chapter 8. Participant identities 135 8.1. English learners or users? “I think my English capability is enough” 136 8.2. Othering: “for those er in our group in the Middle East” 143 8.3. “We have Hilary Clinton coming tomorow to Tunisia” 146 8.4. “Because I’m Palestinian” 151 8.5. “Er I’m bringing up really (..) harsh things erm nine eleven” 155 8.6. Prospective and imagined identities 160 8.7. Discussion 162 Chapter 9. Final considerations 165 References 171 v Acknowledgements There are many people to whom I am indebted for making this book possible. First of all to Melinda Dooly, my PhD supervisor, mentor, and friend, for your guidance in leading me through this journey, and for your patience. Moltes gràcies to the GREIP1 research group at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona for the lively, plurilingual workshops, data sessions, dialogic spaces, and tribunal de la seguiment de tesis. Thanks also to Nicolas Guichon, Shannon Sauro, and Laia Canals for the stimulating discussion and feedback received at the defensa de la tesi. A special thanks to Steve Thorne and Katja Riikonen for taking the time to review chapters of the draft version of this book and make valuable suggestions to improve them. I would also like to thank the Soliya community with whom I have engaged virtually since 2008 in various guises, in particular to Waidehi Gokhale and Salma Elbeblawi for encouraging and facilitating this research, for the many discussions we have had about virtual exchange, and for granting me permission to use the data. Thanks also to my co-facilitators, coaches, trainers, coordinators, and participants whose interactions and invaluable feedback have challenged my assumptions and led me on many a reflexive and exploratory journey. Thanks to colleagues and friends from the University of Padova and from UNICollaboration from whom I have learnt so much through our projects and discussions, at conferences and online. There are too many to name everyone, but special thanks go to Sarah Guth for the many years of intense collaboration. I would like to thank Sylvie Thouësny for reminding me that going open access was the ethical choice for publishing, and for all the support that she and her 1. http://grupsderecerca.uab.cat/greip/en vi Francesca Helm team have given me through the editorial process in getting this final version to press. The publication of this book and making it open access was made possible by the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry & Competitivity: Proyectos I+D del Programa Estatal de Fomento de la Investigación Científica y Técnica de Excelencia. Konect project (Knowledge for Network-based Education, Cognition & Teaching2). Grant number: EDU2013-43932-P. The author and publisher also wish to thank: Soliya for the permission to reproduce the images in this book for which they hold copyright; Springer Nature as parts of Chapter 1 have been adapted by permission from Springer Nature: Springer, Critical approaches to online intercultural language education by Helm, F. in Language, education and technology. Encyclopedia of language and education edited by S. L. Thorne and S. May, Copyright © 2017, Springer International Publishing AG (Helm, 2017); the publishers of the journal Language Learning & Technology as parts of the book were previously published in the article Challenges in transcribing multimodal data: a case study written by F. Helm and M. Dooly, Copyright © 2017, Francesca Helm & Melinda Dooly (Helm & Dooly, 2017). All opinions, mistakes, and errors in this book are, of course, my own. 2. http://grupsderecerca.uab.cat/greip/en/content/knowledge-network-based-education-cognition-teaching-konect vii Transcription conventions The multimodal transcript is in tabular format in an attempt to show the synchronicity of the spoken and written modes. The transcript conventions have been adapted from those developed by Jefferson (1984). (2s) Number in brackets indicates a time gap in seconds. (.) (..) Pauses shorter than a second. (( )) A description enclosed in a double bracket indicates a non-speech sound. - A dash indicates the sharp cut-off of the prior sound or word. lo:ng Colons indicate that the speaker has stretched the preceding sound or letter. (word) The transcriber’s guess at an unclear part of the recording. ( ) Unclear speech or noise to which no approximation is made. A full stop indicates a stopping fall in tone. It does not necessarily indicate the end of a sentence. ? A question mark indicates a rising inflection. It does not necessarily indicate a question. Under Underlined fragments indicate speaker emphasis. CAPITALS Words in capitals mark a section of speech noticeably louder. ° ° Degree signs are used to indicate that the talk they encompass is spoken noticeably quieter. < slow > ‘Less than’ and ‘More than’ signs indicate that the talk they encompass >fast< was produced noticeably slower or faster. [ ] Square brackets indicate comments about visual mode. ‘hh, hh Speaker’s in-breath and out-breath respectively. Hehh, hahh Laughter syllables with some attempt to capture ‘colour’. Wo(h)rd Indicates laughter within words. viii Foreword There has been considerable talk about the future of research and practice in education. Occasionally the discourse tends to the euphoric, sometimes it strays more to the dystopic. Public debates often explore how educators can and should meet society’s demands in the globalised, interconnected geopolitical situations of today.