This article conducts an exploratory multidimensional (MD) analysis of four interactive online registers, namely newspaper comments, tweets, web forums and text messages, originating from four South Asian countries (Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) and two Inner Circle (Kachru 1985) English-speaking countries (UK and USA). A principal component analysis (PCA) has been performed on the interactive registers using linguistic features tagged by a modified version of the MFTE tagger (Le Foll 2021a). The dimensions resulting from the PCA show that nominal, literate and informational features are generally more common in the South Asian data – which represent varieties belonging to the Outer Circle (Kachru 1985). Additionally, different features are used for expressing persuasion or opinion compared to the two reference varieties.

This article investigates continuities and changes in abbreviation practices from late Middle English to twenty-first-century digital platforms. Adopting a diachronic perspective and lexicological framework, it quantitatively analyses frequency patterns across fifteenth-century memoranda, letters and administrative receipts, seventeenth-century letters and depositions, late nineteenth-century letters, early twentieth-century letters and a subcorpus of WhatsApp instant messages dating from 2018–19. It then presents analyses of the frequencies of various abbreviation forms, such as clippings, and abbreviated lexemes, such as their use for names, over time. The article then provides a qualitative analysis of these lexeme categories over the centuries, with a focus on specific examples. Major changes to overall abbreviation density across time are identified. The forms of abbreviation also go through major change, but the types of lexemes that are abbreviated stay more consistent over time. For example, abbreviations being used for closed-class function words such as the and that are dominant from the earliest data we have looked at to the present day. Overall, the study demonstrates how situating new media abbreviation practices within a historical continuum can enhance our understanding of them.

Online, social media communication is often ambiguous, and it can encourage speed and inattentiveness. We investigated whether Actively Open Minded Thinking (AOT), a dispositional willingness to seek out new or potentially threatening information, may help users avoid these pitfalls. In Study 1, we determined that correctly assessing social media authors’ traits was positively predicted by raters’ AOT. In Study 2, we used data-driven methods to devise a three-dimensional picture of online behaviors of people high or low in AOT, finding that AOT is associated with thoughtful, nuanced, idiosyncratic actions and with resisting the typically fast pace of online interactions. AOT may be an important factor in accurate, socially responsible online behavior.

Studying group decision-making is challenging for multiple reasons. An important logistic difficulty is studying a sufficiently large number of groups, each with multiple participants. Assembling groups online could make this process easier and also provide access to group members more representative of real-world work groups than the sample of college students that typically comprise lab Face-to-Face (FtF) groups. The main goal of this paper is to compare the decisions of online groups to those of FtF groups. We did so in a study that manipulated gain/loss framing of a risky decision between groups and examined the decisions of both individual group members and groups. All of these dependent measures are compared for an online and an FtF sample. Our results suggest that web-conferencing can be a substitute for FtF interaction in group decision-making research, as we found no moderation effects of communication medium on individual or group decision outcome variables. The effects of medium that were found suggest that the use of online groups may be the preferred method for group research. To wit, discussions among the online groups were shorter, but generated a greater number of thought units, i.e., they made more efficient use of time.

This study investigates the communication strategy (CS) use of English as a foreign language (EFL) learners in videoconferencing (VC), virtual world (VW), and face-to-face environments. The study was conducted with 30 senior Turkish undergraduate EFL students. The data were collected via video and audio recordings of three opinion-exchange tasks, a background and post-task questionnaire, and an interview that includes a retrospective think-aloud protocol. The participants worked in groups of five to complete the opinion-exchange tasks in each of the three environments. The findings indicated that the participants made use of a wide range of CSs, and although some of the CSs differed, mostly the same types were employed in all the environments. However, the results revealed that the frequency of CSs showed variance among environments, with the highest number in the VC environment and the lowest in the VW. It was possible to establish a connection between the differences in the frequency and the types of strategy use with the distinctive features of the environments, the proficiency level of the participants, and the type of the tasks that was utilized. Additively, 10 new strategy types were discovered.

This paper reports on ongoing research aimed at characterizing a signature pedagogy (Shulman, 2005) of technology-enhanced task-based language teaching (TETBLT). To achieve this goal, we initially identified 15 pedagogical principles and practices distinctive of TETBLT. This initial set of principles and practices were motivated by second language acquisition theories (Doughty & Long, 2003), methodological approaches in foreign language teaching (Kramsch, 2014), and state-of-the-art publications on computer-assisted language learning (Chapelle & Sauro, 2017). During the first phase of the study, we consulted an initial group of 34 experts in the field, using the Delphi technique to achieve gradual consensus about the set of principles. After analyzing the first set of responses (N = 23) to the principles, which attained a degree of agreement averaging 71% and ranging from 48% to 96%, we refined the principles incorporating the feedback received and sent out a second questionnaire, which allowed us to reach a consensus about a set of eight robust pedagogical principles for TETBLT.

This study analyzes language choice, bi- and multilingualism, and gender in a corpus of over 22 million Twitter messages by almost 36,000 authors from the Nordic countries and territories. Author location, gender, and tweet language are identified using a novel method. Three principal findings are discussed: First, gendered preference for particular languages in the Nordics can be explained in part by patterns of gendered migration. Second, a distinct geographical pattern of female/male preference for the national languages of the region and for English is evident for users who are likely native users of a Nordic language: Females are more likely to use English, while males are more likely to use a Nordic language. Third, while high rates of bi- and multilingualism are found across the whole sample, males are more likely to use more than one language in all the Nordic countries/territories. The latter two findings are interpreted in light of sociolinguistic considerations as evidence for incipient language shift towards English for Nordic users on the Twitter platform.

This case study explores how a Chinese-American novice teacher acted as mediator in a telecollaboration with student teacher (ST) peers in the USA who designed tasks for his English as a foreign language (EFL) learners in China. The novice teacher was instrumental in mediating the student teachers’ task design process by providing feedback regarding technological and institutional constraints, and the nuances of his target student population. He appropriated and adapted the tasks to make them relevant for his EFL learners. Against the backdrop of the three dimensions of professional capital – human, social, and decisional – the research questions explored how the novice teacher used the different types of knowledge of context (pedagogical, institutional, technical) in relation to task design, and his perception of his role as mediator. Within a sociocultural framework for telecollaboration studies, this exploratory case study shares characteristics of ethnography, action research, and narrative inquiry. Data triangulation included text-based computer-mediated communication (CMC) data (Google Groups, emails), a narrative written by the novice teacher, and a semi-structured, reflective Skype interview with him. The findings indicate that he demonstrated high commitment, thorough preparation, continuous reflection, and development while navigating between his different roles of mediator, assessor, implementer, and field observer.

Learning how to comprehend while listening to a second language is often considered by learners to be a difficult process that can lead to anxiety when trying to communicate (Graham, 2006; Graham & Macaro, 2008). Computer-mediated communication (CMC) can be used to assist in increasing access to native speakers and opportunities to listen. This study investigates the effectiveness of the use of Second Life and Skype as part of facilitation techniques and the affordances of these online tools for developing listening comprehension. Participants in the study were learning either English or Croatian and were located in Sydney and Brisbane in Australia, Split in Croatia, and Mostar in Bosnia and Hercegovina. A mixed-methods approach was utilised incorporating pre-tests and post-tests (quantitative data) to gain information on the effectiveness of the techniques for developing listening comprehension and in-depth interviews (qualitative data) to gain the participants’ views on the perceived effectiveness of the techniques and the affordances of Second Life or Skype. The results of the study indicate that both techniques resulted in positive gains in the development of listening comprehension. Based on the analysis of the interview data, a more in-depth perspective on the affordances of each online tool was developed, which informed the creation of a new facilitation technique utilising both tools. The study demonstrates how online tools can be used to facilitate interaction between learners and illustrates the need for the selection of online tools for language learning to be based on pedagogy. It is recommended that the selection of tools should be carefully considered in alignment with task aims and the affordances of online tools.

This study explored Russian as a foreign language (RFL) learners’ self-reported strategic uses of VoiceThread (VT)—a multimodal asynchronous computer-mediated communication tool—in order to gain insights into learner perceived effectiveness of VT for second language (L2) oral skills development and to determine the factors that contributed to those perceptions. The participants were eight undergraduate students who attended six weekly tutoring sessions that combined face-to-face (F2F) RFL instruction with VT activities. VT allowed them to access text-based, graphic, video, and aural linguistic input; record and store audio/video-recorded output; listen and comment on peers’ recordings; and receive individualized teacher feedback on oral performance. Data from activity logs and researcher field notes were triangulated with participants’ responses to two surveys and a semi-structured oral interview. Findings indicated that participants believed that VT supported their oral proficiency development through the provision of additional time and resources for independent planning, rehearsal, and controlled production of L2 forms. Most participants also agreed that VT’s playback and record features were the most beneficial for developing language skills, enhancing the reflection process, and facilitating self-assessment and creativity in the L2. Yet, despite VT’s multimodal affordances and the availability of communicative tasks via VT, participants did not perceive VT as a social environment that could promote peer-to-peer interaction or replace F2F communication. A thematic data analysis suggested that participants’ preferences for language learning tasks influenced their strategic uses of VT’s features, which ultimately affected their perceptions of VT’s value for promoting meaningful language learning interactions. Pedagogical considerations are discussed.

This article presents an analysis of a Montreal French corpus of text messages and considers the link between text messaging, and both spoken and written language. This corpus is part of a larger corpus of text messages sent by mobile phone (Texto4-Science). Our study focuses on two morphosyntactic variables for which an important sociostylistic variation has been reported in Montreal French: the alternation between the strong pronouns nous/nous autres ‘we/us’ (as non clitics), and between the subject clitics on/nous ‘we’. Their comparison in the text messages corpus and in spoken corpora shows that while text messages tend to approximate spoken language, they are not a perfect reflection of it. Generally, the hybridity of text messages can be conceived in the following manner: text messages obey a double standard (spoken and orthographic) and allow for occasional transgressions (formal markers associated with the written language and nonstandard spelling reflecting the spoken language).

The ever growing interest in the development of foreign or second (L2) oral proficiency in a computer-mediated communication (CMC) classroom has resulted in a large body of studies looking at both the direct and indirect effects of CMC interventions on the acquisition of oral competences. The present study employed a quantitative meta-analytic approach to investigate such effects by synthesizing (quasi)experimental studies that provide empirical quantitative data for effect size calculation. A literature search located 25 relevant studies for the final analysis. Each study was independently coded for learner, design and publication characteristics. The averaged effect size was estimated from the included studies. The results of the meta-analysis reveal that communication mediated by computer/technologies produced a moderate positive effect on L2 learners’ oral proficiency compared to face-to-face (F2F) communication or no interaction. Furthermore, CMC has roughly similar effect on pronunciation, lexical and syntactic level of oral production; however, it might have a negative impact on fluency and accuracy. This meta-analysis also found that the effect of CMC on oral proficiency depends on several methodological factors such as task type, outcome measurement, treatment length, and assessment task. Major findings of the current meta-analysis include: (1) studies relying on elicited data are superior to those utilizing naturalistic data; (2) reading aloud seems to be the task that could elicit the best oral performance from students; (3) surprisingly, CMC appeared to be harmful for accuracy and fluency; (4) studies that employed decision-making generated the largest effect size, followed by studies that used more than one task type; (5) among the four tasks, jigsaw actually generated a negative effect on oral performance; and (6) as the most popular task employed by primary researchers, opinion-exchange studies produced the smallest effect size. These findings need to be interpreted as exploratory rather than confirmatory since each of them became less trustworthy after taking into consideration numerous other factors such as CMC task and the particular CMC tool used, etc. Future research suggestions are provided and the limitations of this meta-analysis are addressed.