This article presents a study on novel language forms and uses across evolving digital environments, and questions whether emerging digital communication conventions should have a place in language education. The study was motivated by the deepening gap between the content of and approaches to language instruction evident in popular…

This study examines online interaction through the lens of language-related episodes (LREs), sites where learning is likely to occur given that the speaker is pushed to consciously reflect on and negotiate their language knowledge and use (Swain & Lapkin, 1998). The aim of this research is to inform pedagogical practices by investigating the…

This study experimentally investigated the effectiveness of feedback on learner refusals in a computer-simulated academic advising session. Ninety participants were assigned to one of three conditions: implicit feedback, explicit feedback, and comparison group. Oral and written discourse completion tasks (DCTs) were administered in a pretest…

This study investigates the interaction of native speaker--non-native speaker (NS-NNS) dyads engaged in conversational interaction as part of a video-based synchronous computer mediated communication (VidSCMC) eTandem language program. Previous work has indicated certain advantages of NNS-NS conversational interaction for language learning (e.g.,…

Informal language learning in online communities represents a growing area of interest. In part, this interest is due to the potential for meaningful second language (L2) communication, rather than the "learning about language" argued to be prevalent in L2 classrooms (Thorne, Black, & Sykes, 2009, p. 804). This study reports on a…

Although L2 reading is traditionally framed as an individual enterprise, digital annotation tools (DATs) have recently been developed allowing groups of readers to collaborate and provide mutual scaffolding through collective annotation of texts (Blyth, 2014; Thoms, Sung, & Poole, 2017). These tools reframe L2 reading as an interactive process…

The affordances associated with networked multilingualism (Androutsopoulos, 2015) have led social media scholars to replace traditional notions of code-switching with broader concepts such as translingual practices. In an attempt to further our understanding of online multilingual linguistic practices in the context of educational…

It has been repeatedly asserted in recent years that telecollaboration is such a powerful and effective tool for both second language acquisition (SLA) and fostering intercultural communication competence (ICC) that it should be regularly included in foreign language instruction (Çiftçi & Savas, 2018; Lewis & O'Dowd, 2016a; O'Dowd, 2016a;…

Through the analytical lens of activity theory (Leontiev, 1978, Lantolf & Thorne, 2006), the present study investigates the uptake of affordances for language learning by young (ages 7-11) Danish children (N = 15) in their engagement with English language media in the digital wild. Drawing on ethnographic interviews (Spradley, 1979), during…

The current paper reports an empirical study of asynchronous online group review of argumentative essays among nine English as foreign language (EFL) Arab university learners joining English in their first, second, and third years at the institution. In investigating online interactions, commenting patterns, and how the students facilitate text…

It is often observed that the globalization of social media has opened up new opportunities for informal intercultural communication and foreign language learning. This study aims to go beyond this general observation through a case study that explores how discourse analysis tools might be used to uncover evidence of language and intercultural…

The following is a qualitative case study presenting three vignettes exploring the use of language play while microblogging during an academically sanctioned task. Ten students and one teacher used "Twitter" in an intensive, English as a second language advanced grammar course to practice writing sentences with complex grammatical…

This paper examines the use of CMC in both Japanese and English dominated "domains" by Australian learners of Japanese. The natural, social online communication of 12 Australian university students with 18 of their Japanese contacts was collected for a period of up to four years, resulting in a corpus of approximately 2,000 instances of…

The Internet has become an important communication medium and it is having a significant impact on language use. The present study takes a "snapshot" of how the Polish language is currently used with modern communications technologies by Polish-Australians living in Melbourne. Through a questionnaire, it surveys which communications…

This paper focuses on the electronic literacy practices of two Korean-American heritage language learners who manage Korean weblogs. Online users deliberately alter standard forms of written language and play with symbols, characters, and words to economize typing effort, mimic oral language, or convey qualities of their linguistic identity such…