This article presents a study of the discourse characteristics of interaction within a virtual community. The data are from the text-based chat forum of an online community of learners and teachers of English. The forum is the meeting place for community members, and is an international site of language use with participants from a range of linguistic backgrounds. Within this context, some pertinent themes are investigated which relate to a relatively recent form of discourse, synchronous text-based computer-mediated communication (SCMC). The discussion centres on the interplay between the technological attributes of the medium and the linguistic, discourse and sociocultural conditions within which the participants interact. How do these elements combine to shape the discourse? This question is addressed with reference to the cohesive feature of conversational floor. Because there is a lack of coordination of turn transfer in SCMC interaction, conversational floor emerges as an organizing principle in preference to models of conversation based on turn taking.
Education and visiting researcher in the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies at the University of Leeds. Her research focuses on multilingual and multimodal practices in community arts and her doctoral research traces the trajectory of a text as it is developed into a street arts production. She has interests in coproduction and collaboration with artists and creative practitioners in the field of language and communication research. She has project managed and researched multiple arts-based co-produced projects including with refugees in West Yorkshire.
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