Abstract
The aim of this study is to gain insights into students’ language use on social media as part of the specific linguistic activities of second language (L2) learning, including development of sociopragmatic competence. Two Facebook groups were introduced in different English-as-L2 classes that were part of an international collaborative project comprising secondary schools in Colombia, Finland, Sweden and Taiwan. The study is theoretically grounded in sociocultural perspectives on learning, and the methods involve logging the students’ linguistic interactions in the social media groups. The analysis of the empirical material explored how the students framed the activities by different types of keying in their choice of linguistic repertoires. The findings show that the social media context offered a casual space for communication in which the students, by attentively attuning to the local coordinated framing, used diverse linguistic repertoires to play with the language. In instances of upkeyed framings, the language play was not only used with pragmatic intentions, but also as a means for various socializing purposes. In conclusion, it is suggested that language play on social media can be seen as a valuable activity in developing sociopragmatic competence to prepare students for L2 use outside of school.
Highlights
The aim of this study is to gain insights into students’ language use on social media as part of the specific linguistic activities of second language (L2) learning, including development of sociopragmatic competence
A framing according to solving a school task takes precedence, which is seen in the genre of self-presentation and the linguistic repertoire that adheres to traditional conventions of writing, such as complete, grammatical sentences, the use of parentheses and starting sentences with capital letters and ending with punctuation
The postings from the initial phase indicate that using social media in an English L2 class does not by itself imply that the students frame the activity in line with the conventions of social media interactions of socially situated vernacular writing
Summary
The aim of this study is to gain insights into students’ language use on social media as part of the specific linguistic activities of second language (L2) learning, including development of sociopragmatic competence. In the light of this, the aim of this study is to gain insights into the multifaceted nature of communication on the social web by taking a more sensible and open exploratory approach on students’ language use on social media as part of the specific linguistic activities of second language learning, including development of sociopragmatic competence. 7) that are understood to be shaped by the networked writing, which can vary from formal interactions to socially situated vernacular, sometimes limited to single words This means that in relation to institutional language learning, the diverse and unplanned linguistic repertoires used online represent new modes of language use. A change of scale in the volume and publicness of vernacular writing; a diversification of old and new vernacular patterns; an extension of written language repertoires, and a concomitant pluralisation of written language norms. (p. 9)
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