Community as mediated contribution to activity

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Community as mediated contribution to activity
UW-Madison Language Institute February 7, 2007

• Steven L. Thorne
• Linguistics Applied Language Studies
• The Pennsylvania State University

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.talking points

• Part 1 Community related alternative
  concepts
• Part 2 Broader contexts and digital mediation
• Part 3 Catalyzing and stifling interaction with
  technology
• Part 4 Designing for relevance and
  interpenetration
• Part 5 MMOGs
• Part 6 Bridging activities and pedagogical
  mediation

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.why community (or alternatives) matter

• Even when I enter into a room to pay a simple
  morning call I have unconsciously the habit of
  regarding the scene as if I were a spectre not
  solid enough to influence my environment. (Poet
  and novelist Thomas Hardy, in Tomalins biography
  of him, 2007).
• Alienation the product of his sic activity
  is not the object of his activity (Marx,
  1849/1972, p. 205).
• Agency the socioculturally mediated capacity to
  act (Ahearn, 2001) -- the capacity to contribute
  to and/or remake social relations that matter,
  e.g., community

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.national standards and the 5 Cs

• Communication in languages other than English
• Cultures knowledge and understanding of other
  cultures
• Comparisons insight into language and culture
• Connections with other disciplines and
  knowledges
• Communities participate in multilingual
  communities at home and around the world
• 5.1 Students use the language both within and
  beyond the school setting
• 5.2 Students show evidence of becoming life-long
  learners by using the language for personal
  enjoyment and enrichment

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Part 1 .definitions of community

• L. communitatem (nom. communitas) community,
  fellowship, from communis common, public,
  general, shared by all or many (Harper, 2001)
• Ferdinand Tönnies (1887) gemeinschaft --
  cohesive entities within broader society forged
  by a unity of will
• Ex family, kinship, shared place beliefs,
  mutual need

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1.2 .community a provocative idea -- but what is
it?

• Core elements across traditional definitions
  include
• Membership
• Shared location
• Shared cultural practices and values
• Interpersonally meaningful relationships
• Commitment and reciprocity
• Collective goods and resources
• Sense of identity
• Long duration

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1.3 .community a provocative idea -- but what is
it?

• Heterogeneous elements include
• Similarity v. strength in diversity (eco M4)
• Belongingness v. contribution to collective
  activity
• Shared place v. distribution in space
• Broad life contexts v. narrow shared interests
• Nation state affiliation v. intimate
  relationships
• Categorical attributes v. cultural
  ontogenesis/socialization

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1.4 .community questions

• Can community be vicarious?
• Can one person be a community?
• Can two or three people form a community?
• Can community thrive under conditions of
  contention?
• If one person thinks they are part of a community
  but others dont, what does this mean?
• Is a nation state a community? What about a
  university? Or a neighborhood? Or a group of
  friends? Or a family?
• Do you have to like people to form a community?
• We know community when we see it! (Wittgenstein?)

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Community collocates
1.5
Alternative concepts/terms

• Discourse communities
• Imagined communities
• Learning communities
• Speech communities
• Virtual communities
• Sense of community
• Community building
• Community development
• Community organizing
• Community of interest
• Communities of practice

• Commons
• Communalism
• Social capital
• Social networks
• Affinity spaces
• Participatory genres
• Shuttling
• Activity systems

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1.6 .community and education

• What kinds of work does the concept of community
  (and community collocates) do within education?
• What are alternative constructs and approaches?

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1.7 .communities of practice

• Community a way of talking about the social
  configurations in which our enterprises are
  defined as worth pursuing and our participation
  is recognized as competence (Wenger, 1998 5)
• Shared goals, criteria, practices
• Challenges to CoP and LPP
• Post-Lave CoP subject to corporate global
  capital focus
• CoP as solution, a product
• Periphery -- core direction of movement -- AA
  narratives
• Apprenticeship involves processes of
  normalization
• Goal is to become full participant in defined CoP
  -- NS?

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1.8 .affinity spaces and participatory genres

• Affinity spaces (Gee, 2005)
• Common endeavor primary, no emphasis on
  categorical identity
• Everyone shares a common space
• Supports different forms of participation and
  competence
• Leadership porous and leaders are resources
• Participatory genres (Erickson, 1999)
• Participatory genre replaces virtual community
• Language centric, focus on communicative purpose
• Regularity of form, content and style
• In both, collective doing is primary,
  belonging/membership may not apply

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1.9 .shuttling

• Shuttling between repertoires, genres, and
  communities (Canagarajah, 2006)
• Maintains the term community
• No need for membership or belonging
• Focus on strategic choice of semiotic and
  narrative resources to achieve purpose
• Emphasizes individual as actant intentionally
  moving between and within defined social units
  (communities, genres practices, etc)

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.activity theory
Lev Vygotsky, A N. Leontev
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.modern activity theory
Engeström, 1987
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1.10 activity theory

• Activity theory (e.g., Engeström, 1993)
• Community -- the participants who share the same
  object that shapes and lends direction to the
  individual and shared activity under way (e.g.,
  Engeström, 1993)
• Entire system as unit of analysis (with
  community only one aspect)
• Third generation activity theory minimally
  involves the interaction of two, and possibly
  many more, culturally organized systems of
  activity (in L2, Thorne, 2004, 2005, forthcoming
  Lantolf Thorne, 2006 Wells, 2002)

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Part 2 .community engagement vitality

• Robert Putnam, bowling alone (2000)
• Social capital connectedness and social
  networks
• Last 25 years
• Attendance at club meetings down 58
• Family dinners down 33
• Friends visiting down 45

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2.1 .digital mediation

• Penn State net behaviors survey 1,852 undergrads
  surveyed
• 93 use Facebook, 62.8 visit daily
• 57.1 have Myspace accounts, 45 visit daily
• 100b times a day people click on a web page
• Youtube.com serves over 100m videos daily
• 57m blogs exist, 100k new blogs created daily,
  1.3m posts per day
• MMOGs - World of Warcraft -- 8m players
  globally
• 2 million players in North America
• 1.5 million players in Europe
• 3.5 million players in China

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2.2 .language education in late modernity

• In a statistical sense, we may one day
  communicate with each other far more via computer
  mediation than in direct interaction. The effects
  on what counts as normal language acquisition
  could be similarly profound. (Crystal, 2001
  241)
• CMC tools are not proxy environments but are
  legitimate in their own right -- or even the
  driving force for additional language learning
• Evolving on-line social formations and resources
• Implications of new literacies and communicative
  practices (Black, 2005 Gee, 2004, 2005 Lam,
  2004 Lankshear Knobel, 2003 Leander, 2005
  Steinkuehler, 2006 Thorne, 2003, 2006 Thorne
  Payne, 2005)
• First generation digitally literate population
  (unlike us, who are immigrants to digital ICTs)

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Isabella Diver Becerra Thorne _at_ 1.3 years
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. communities, pedagogies, and research

• Technologies community affinity spaces
  activity systems
• Part 3 Cultures-of-use -- Technology catalyzing
  stifling community
• Wrong tool for the right job
• Mediated intercultural infatuation
• How might emerging language and literacy
  practices within Internet-mediated environments
  interpenetrate with traditional instructional
  contexts, goals, and literacies?
• Part 4 Instant messaging blogging
• Part 5 MMOGs
• Part 6 Bridging activities and pedagogical
  mediation
• Machinima

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3.1 .trouble with mediation (cultures-of-use)

• Kate I love François. Hes so terrific. I
  would talk to him, like, doing this NetMeeting,
  like, on IM. I would talk to him. I just dont
  like writing emails.
• Stef I would talk to him, like, if he was on AOL
  IM? Id talk to him all the time. Hes a
  sweetie.
• Kate Hes so cute, I love him! François is the
  best person ever!
• Researcher Can you all follow up with email or?
• Stef Yeah, but I hate writing emails.
• Researcher Really?
• Grace Its just that, this is just better
  because, its not like, heres what I have to say
  and then all these responses to it?
• Researcher So are the email exchanges just not
  as dynamic as this, or
• Stef No they arent
• Grace But I think its also because we have,
  like we communicate with a lot of people now
  through AOL instant messenger. Thats, so like
  thats how I talk to all my friends at different
  colleges
• Stef and here
• Grace We dont send emails back and forth to
  each other to like catch up. Like we just talk
  using IM. Its very like
• Stef Yeah, its just, like, what were used to.
  
• Researcher So you dont use email that much
  normally?
• Stef I almost never do. I just use it for
  teachers and stuff
• Grace teachers, yeah. Or my Mom laughs.
  (from Thorne, 2003)

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3.2 .mediational (in)appropriacy
Email (vs. IM or another synchronous CMC tool)
Pursuing flirtation relationship building

• Abridged interaction

AT graphic based on Engeström 1987, 1993
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3.3 .(serendipitous) mediational prolepsis

• 1. Kirsten I was really upset when I didn't hear
  from him French key-pal at first. Last week I
  was like, when I made this appointment for the
  interview, I was like "I'm going in there and be
  like "grrr grrr grrr vocalizations signifying
  anger and frustration
• 2. Kirsten Out of the blue he Oliver IM-ed me.
  
• 3. Interviewer Did he know your screen name?
• 4. Kirsten He found it on my Web page. He has
  been onto my Web page almost every single day!
  content Japanese animé We went on for
  probably close to six hours that day alone.
• 5. Interviewer So 6 hours?
• 6. Kirsten Just that day, and we talk every day.
• 7. Interviewer Really?
• 8. Kirsten Yeah, every day.
• 9. Interviewer For that long every day?
• 10. Kirsten I don't know, usually in 15- or
  20-minute spurts, but usually twice or three
  times a day. So now it's about an hour a day.
  (Thorne, 2003)

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3.4 .artifacts cultures-of-use

• Email for vertical communication across power and
  generation lines
• IM for horizontal interpersonal age-peer
  relationships
• Nothing neutral or transparent about internet
  communication tools
• Cultures-of-use of artifacts qualities that
  accrue through quotidian use -- the intersection
  of histories of use with the contingencies of
  emergent practice (Thorne, 2003)
• Clarification and reiteration! Plasticity of
  cultures-of-use -- empirical and materialist
  approach
• New challenges to the top-down organization of
  second language mediated communication

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Part 4 . designing for relevance
interpenetration

• Steve Thorne, Dana Weber, Arlo Bensinger
• Pedagogical intervention Integrating blog and IM
  use into high school Spanish AP courses
• Engineering conditions pushing output and
  authenticity
• Leveraging the appeal and positive associations
  students have with internet communication tools
  to create opportunities for meaningful,
  significant communication
• Research focus relation between in and out of
  school technology use -- interactivity system
  analysis
• All use online translators for production and
  comprehension

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4.1 .instant messaging and blogs

• Instant messaging outside of class
• Spanish IM each week
• One or more English IM session always open
• Questions about vocabulary/usage frequently asked
  of others
• Blogs used for weekly topic driven essays
• Students responsible for reading one anothers
  entries
• Students write biographies of one another based
  on blogs entries
• Blog entries revisited in class - Q A, who
  said?
• IM and blog posts used in class for error
  correction
• 35.08

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4.2 .student perspectives

• Ive noticed that people sort of find their own
  style of like writing blogs or IM and you sort of
  adopt that as you go whether it be in English or
  Spanish
• you have Spanish IMs, so being clever and using
  words well and you know how it is you have to
  make up a personality using words, so you have to
  do that in Spanish.
• Late modern communicative aesthetic globalized
  genre premature, but memes of communicative style
  appear to be portable across languages

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4.3 .cooperative interactivity and
interpenetration

• Everyday culture-of-use of IM
• Educational uses of IM
• Blogs in and out of class

• Use of IM for social purposes with peers
• Use of IM for education with classmates
• Blogs catalyze interactivity system fusion

• Non-institutional identities
• Student subject positions

AT graphic based on Engeström 1987, 1993
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4.4 .multi-directional flow

• Retheorizations not only shuttling in, but
  also out
• Centripetal orientation of earlier work/thinking
  emphasis on exogenous activity systems/acculturati
  on practices influencing education (Thorne, 1999,
  2000, 2003)
• Centrifugal dynamics in evidence -- frequently
  using Spanish over IM when not required and
  occasionally with non-Spanish speakers (i.e.,
  Rampton, 2000 Canagarajah, 2006)

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Part 5 .MMOGs

• World of Warcraft -- massively multiuser online
  game
• The Setting This dialogue started in a valley
  off the the side of a zone I was in. I was
  hunting baby dragons for exp when another higher
  level character came along and started hunting
  them too. I sent a message asking why they were
  hunting them since they wouldnt get much xp off
  them anymore, and they said they just wanted the
  leather. I then worked out a deal with them that
  they would just skin the stuff I killed so I
  could get the exp and they would get the leather,
  and then they messaged me with this

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5.1 .WoW and communication

• Zomn ti russkij slychajno ?
• Meme ?
• Zomn )) sry
• Meme what language was that?
• Zomn russian )
• Meme was going to guess that
• Meme you speak english well?
• Zomn )) where r u from ?
• Meme USA, Pennslyvania
• Zomn im from Ukraine ...
• .
• Mem IMs hometown friend from Ukraine
• Meme kak dela?
• Zomn ))) normalno )))
• Meme if I may ask, what did I say haha, I'm not
  quite sure
• Zomn how r u ) ///
• Meme what does normalno mean? good?
• Zomn i sad goooooood )))
• Meme alright )

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5.2 .WoW

• Meme Ya lublui fceu v moy popoo
• Meme you get any exp off of these if you kill
  them? if so lets party
• Zomn lets .... for 3k
• Meme sounds good, so what did what i said before
  mean?
• Meme i was just asking my friend from ukraine
  what to say
• Meme and don't know what it means
• Zomn it wasnt right ... but kinnda 'kiss my ass'
• Meme haha are you serious? i'm going to kill
  him, sorry about that
• Zomn ahhh np )))) no problem
• Zomn u can kill him now ))))
• Meme yeah, I will once I get home, he's in my
  hometown
• Meme and I'm off at college
• Zomn tell him that u got an interpriter now )
• Meme will do haha
• Zomn is 'interpriter' right ? ((
• Meme it's actually interpreter, but that was
  close

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5.3 .WoW

• Zomn ) .. dont u mind if i add u to friend list
  ?
• Zomn yeah )
• Meme go ahead, i'll add you too and we can group
  again sometime
• Zomn sure ))
• Zomn nice too meet u //
• Meme you too, I forget how to spell goodbye in
  russian, dasvidania?
• Meme Is that sort of close?
• Zomn it is right ... or ... just 'poka'
• Meme alright, thanks
• Meme see ya

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5.4 .whats here and where do we go?

• Naturally occurring mixed language conversation
• Multiple communication tools in use (IM and WoW
  chat)
• Reciprocal alterations of expert status
• Both provided explicit corrections
• Both made requests for assistance
• Collaboratively assembled repair sequences
• Potentially enduring bond established (friend
  list)
• MMOGs the REASON for FL study!
• More research needed on conditions of possibility
  for L2 learning in affinity spaces like WoW
• collections of phenomenological similarity that
  serve as resources for the construction of
  intersubjective meaning in social life (Brouer
  Wagner, 2004 31)

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Part 6 .bridging activities and pedagogical
mediation

• Schooling literacies exogenous activity
  systems
• Contrastive analysis built on language use
  genre awareness
• Blog entries conventional essays (pronoun
  and lexical choice, affective stance, logical
  connectors, style)
• IM logfiles transcriptions of
  conversations (is IM really like talking?
  What features are unique)
• MMOG logfiles collaborative activity
  problem solving

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6.1 .bridging

• In-class attention to genre (specific linguistic
  choices associated with social-communicative
  actions)
• Focus on appropriacy, effectiveness, and
  implications of language choice
• Discussion of adaptations, appropriations,
  flouting, ironical usages that transform or
  disrupt expected communication
• Have students bring in and analyze them-relevant
  communicative activities, genres, and modalities

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.concluding thoughts

• Will I continue to use the term and loose
  confederation of concepts indexed by the term
  community?
• You bet!
• Community in the deeper sense of the term evokes
  inclusion, positive sentiments, solidarity,
  assistance, support
• It is also amorphous and imprecise as a research
  construct suggest affinity spaces, participatory
  genres, shuttling, and activity systems
• Move from participation in community to
  contribution to activity -- increased focus on
  agency, plasticity, RELEVANCE

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(No Transcript)