Visuality and Authentic Language

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Visuality and Authentic Language

• Xiaofei Lu
• APLNG 588
• November 15, 2007

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Agenda

• Final project proposal
• Systemic functional linguistics perspective on
  CALL (Jhy Hyoung)
• Visuality and CALL research
• Authentic Language in Digital Environments

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Visuality and CALL Research

• Introduction
• Visuality and literacy
• Previous research
• Future directions and issues
• Conclusion

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Introduction

• Culture and reading
• Visual richness vs. cultural blindness
• Visual elements vs. words
• Renewed sense of visuality and CALL
• Learning environments
• Texts

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Visuality and literacy

• Increased presence of visual language
• A rich area for literacy development research
• The meaning of literacy
• Embedded in specific social practices/discourses
• Tied to specific cultural and social contexts
• Nonverbal barriers to language and culture
  learning
• Linguistic visuality of learning environments

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Response from literacy educators

• English in the New Zealand Curriculum
• Attending to multiple communication methods
• Multiple symbol systems (Short Kauffman 2000)
• Multiliteracies (New London Group 1996)
• Realizing significance of nonlinguistic methods
• Forms affect message (Eisner 1994)
• Each medium has its possibilities and limitations
  of meaning (Kress van Leeuwen 1996)

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Communicative competence

• Communicative competence framework (Canale
  Swain 1980)
• Sociolinguistic competence
• Strategic competence
• Grammatical competence
• Discourse competence
• Role of visuality in each type of competence

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Negotiation of meaning

• Negotiation of meaning around electronic texts
• Role of visuality
• Visual, nonverbal elements assert meanings
• Opportunities for communication breakdown and
  negotiation meaning

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Previous research

• Analysis of texts
• Question How nonlinguistic and linguistic
  elements operate to create meaning in learner
  texts
• Findings Meanings are partly composed of the
  visual elements accompanying the words
• Giaschi (2000) In ESL/EFL textbooks, certain
  gender messages were relayed in images only
• Astorga (1999) In picture books, some
  information is relayed through images only

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Analysis of teachers beliefs

• Teacher experience with highly visual texts
• Qualitative interviews with teachers about use of
  e-texts in classrooms (Karchmer 2001, etc.)
• Images in e-texts associated with aid for
  students who need assistance
• Image-based web sites and production tools used
  with students in early stages of literacy
• Teachers pay little attention to graphics until
  students struggle with them

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Analysis of teachers beliefs

• ESL Teachers views about visual language in
  e-texts (Petrie 2003)
• Visual elements separated from linguistic text
• Ambivalent comments on use of visual elements
• Reading online viewed as a technical skill
• Student understanding of science text images
  (Colin et al. 2002)
• Poor teacher response to image reading problems
• Ignorance of role of image in classroom
  communication

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Student interactions with images

• Students interaction with images in text creation
  (Bailey et al. 1996, etc.)
• Significant roles of images in student production
• Understanding of image use in e-presentations
• Difficulty in articulating ideas about visuality
• Reading of picture books by elementary ESL
  students (Coulthard 2003, etc.)
• Images help access deeper insights into stories
• Weak students able to interpret through images

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Analysis of symbol systems

• Impact of nonlinguistic information on linguistic
  comprehension and production
• Symbol system of a communication technology has
  an impact on learning (Kozma 1991)
• Students retain more info if given words and
  images with repetitive meanings (Halliday 1975,
  etc.)
• Quantity scores of writing improve with access
  to an image in written prompt (Canning-Wilson
  2000)

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Future directions

• Nonlinguistic elements in successful navigation
  and reading of e-texts
• McKay (1987) discourse marker types
• Anderson (2003) reading strategies in
  e-environments
• Visual communication in LL environments
• Classroom, school, community environments
• Print and e-texts

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Future directions (contd)

• Experiences in visual communication
• Ethnographic research group use of images
• Quantitative research visuals in learning
  process
• Visuality and aspects of LL
• Comprehensibility of input
• Learning styles and multiple intelligences in LL
• Visual-based learning strategies and the LL
  process
• Role of L1 knowledge about use of visuals in
  reading L2 texts

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Future research questions

• How do learners experience use of visuality in
  e-texts and teachers respond to visuality
• Which types of image-text relationships in
  e-texts assist language learners with meaning
• Which type of breakdown in meaning occur for
  learners when reading images in texts
• What does negotiation of meaning look like around
  the use of images?
• What is the impact of cultural background on
  understanding images in e-texts

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Issues

• Beliefs about superiority of the linguistic
• Many possible meanings of image
• Lack of meta-language for talking about
  nonlinguistic symbol systems

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Conclusion

• A renewed sense of visuality
• Awareness of visual communication
• Deeper insight into electronic environments
• Deeper understanding of communication
• Better skills for deciphering meaning
• Visual elements in e-texts as scaffolds

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Authentic language in digital environments

• Introduction
• Overview
• Previous research
• Future directions and issues
• Conclusion

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Introduction

• CMC and innovative conventions
• Everyday social literacies
• Digital postmodern literacies
• Print-based, modern modes of communication
• Language and discourse conventions of new
  literacies

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Overview

• Prestige language norms and language change
• Use of innovative language not new
• Prescriptive grammar based on older works
• Language changes over space and time
• Innovations in digital discourse
• Accelerated natural language change and
  innovation
• Innovations crossing over into paper domains
• Implications for responsible language education
• Implications for language professionals

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Digital Language Innovation

• Conditions facilitating DLIs
• Emerging language conventions unstable
• Functional range of acceptable conventions
• Print-fixed standards vs. authentic variable
  usage in context

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Authenticity in LLT

• Behaviorism and structural grammar
• Language acquisition through stimulus-response
• Structurally-based language drills
• Correct textbook language
• Social constructivism and communication-based
  models
• Comprehensible input
• Information transfer
• Social appropriateness

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Authenticity in LLT

• Native speakers as creators of authentic
  language?
• Language use dominated by native speaker?
• Native speaker clearly discernible?
• Authenticity as a property of the user (Widdowson
  1990)

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Breens (1985) four questions

• What is an authentic text?
• For whom is it authentic?
• For what authentic purpose?
• In which particular social situation?

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Previous Research

• Breen (1985)
• Authenticity relative to pedagogical purposes
• Questions for analyzing types of authenticity
• Widdowson (1998)
• Focus-on-form debate
• Context central to understanding authenticity
• Authentic language in the classroom

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Previous Research (contd)

• Valdman (1992)
• Context central to notion of real language use
• Problematic interfaces informing lang
  authenticity
• Attaining sociopragmatic proficiency
• Establishing static pedagogical norms
• Acquiring natural language variation in FL
  classroom
• Cross-cultural discourse analysis and corpus
  study
• Authentic texts essential for communicative
  ability
• Text not constructed for instructional purposes

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Previous Research (contd)

• Warschauer (1999)
• Sociopragmatic authenticity in an online context
• Student-teacher dialogue journals in CALL context
• Kramsch et al. (2000)
• Validity for aiming authenticity in CMC
• Online agency, identity and self-presentation
• Case 1 American undergraduates documenting
  CD-ROM creation process
• Case 2 Chinese student of English learning
  through web page authorship and online
  communication

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Previous Research (contd)

• Identifying changing and emerging linguistic and
  discourse patterns in digital environments
• Cross-cultural communication and LT
• Email corpus analysis (Gao 2001 Lee 2002)
• Descriptive (socio)linguistic frameworks
• Language and the Internet (Crystal 2001)
• Conversatinal excerpts from various groups of
  online users (Lotherington Xu 2004)

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Future directions

• What is appropriate digital language?
• How to codify Netspeak descriptions for
  pedagogical purposes
• How to update communicative competence to include
  digital literacies
• How do we employ digital literacies in everyday
  life
• What is the relationship between evolving
  technology and language and literacy development
• What is the future of the book?

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Future directions

• Is Netspeak escaping to paper texts?
• How does spelling and grammar checkers affect
  spelling as a pedagogical aim?
• How are languages changing structurally and
  functionally in online contexts?
• What is authentic language in digital
  environments?

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Issues

• Language, culture and identify online
• Stronger agency through authorship
• Stronger sense of identity
• Ethnical concerns
• Who owns conversations in virtual space
• Concealed identities

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Conclusion

• Concomitant development of language and literacy
  with technological innovation
• Opportunities for authorship and language
  authority
• How the language teacher is to guide the learner
  through evolving language variability