Transcultural communication in open internet environments and massively multiplayer online games

Web 2.0, Synthetic Immersive Environments, and Mobile Resources for Language Education

“…First of all, learners have the opportunity to interact with native speakers in a nonthreatening environment where they already share common ground (i.e., the SIE itself). As observed by Thorne (2008c) in an analysis of discourse between a Russian student and an American student, bonds are built fairly quickly and include interaction around the space as well as aspects of the world outside of the SIE. This can lead to a number of practice opportunities by bringing together interlocutors from around the world, especially in large-scale commercial games.…”

“…In a preliminary analysis of these issues, Thorne (2008c) analyzes intercultural communication occurring in MMOGs as related to other internet-mediated communication modalities. A detailed analysis of an interaction between an expert speaker of English living in the US and an expert speaker of Russian living in the Ukraine indicates evidence of a number of positive assets for language learning (e.g., natural, unscripted interaction, emotional bond with the interlocutor, reciprocal alterations in expert status, explicit other-and self-correction, extended repair sequences, and exhibited motivation for language learning).…”

“…The commercial endeavors in this context form a billion dollar empire and engage participants from all over the world. Recently, educational researchers have begun to assess these interactional spaces and gaming models as beneficial for learning (e.g., de Freitas, 2006;Gee, 2003Gee, , 2005Jenkins & Squire, 2004;National Summit on Educational Gaming, 2005;Prensky, 2001;Steinkuelher, 2004Steinkuelher, , 2007, and, more specifically, for achieving communicative and intercultural competence (e.g., Bryant, 2006;García-Carbonell, Montero, Rising, & Watts, 2001;Thorne, 2008c;Thorne & Black, 2007. Mediated experiences in different online social and gaming worlds allow users to experiment and interact with a wide variety of norms of communication and social interaction (e.g., Steinkuehler, 2006).…”

The effect of out-of-school media contact on language attitudes in multilingual adolescents: a complex psychosociolinguistic system

“…We have seen that when commercial off-the-shelf games are used for language learning they can develop confidence and motivation, lower anxiety, increase enthusiasm and willingness to communicate, and provide language practice outside the classroom. Furthermore, language use in these online 'spaces' constitutes a 'social action' and may awaken linguistic and intercultural curiosity between the game players (Thorne, 2008). As 'arenas' of language learning, online games may help develop sociocultural, pragmatic, and communicative competences, as well as provide opportunities for risk-taking, collaborative dialogue, and linguistic negotiation and self-repair (Peterson, 2010b).…”

“…In this vein, a broad range of earlier research has shown the positive impact of traditional media contact (d 'Ydewalle & Van de Poel, 1999;Koolstra & Beentjes, 1999;Medina, 2002;Berns, de Bot & Hasebrink, 2007;Milton, 2008;Sundqvist, 2009;Kuppens, 2010;Lefever, 2010;MacLeod & Larsson, 2011;Muñoz & Lindgren, 2011;Schwarz, 2012;Bunting & Lindström, 2013). Moreover, new media, videogames, and web-based communications and social networking technologies have also been the subject of extensive and wide-ranging research (Gee, 2007;Ranalli, 2008;Thorne, 2008;Harrison & Thomas, 2009;Thorne et al, 2009;Peterson, 2010aPeterson, , 2010bReinders & Wattana, 2010;Lin & Warschauer, 2011;Thorne & Black, 2011;Wang & Vásquez, 2012;Henry, 2013).…”