November 17, 2004
Steven Thorne: "Artifacts and Cultures-of-use in Intercultural Communication"
Thorne, Steven. "Artifacts and Cultures-of-use in Intercultural Communication" in Language Learning & Technology (May 2003), Volume 7, Number 2, 38-67.
Abstract:
This article develops a conceptual framework for understanding how intercultural communication, mediated by cultural artifacts (i.e., Internet communication tools), creates compelling, problematic, and surprising conditions for additional language learning. Three case studies of computer-mediated intercultural engagement draw together correlations between discursive orientation, communicative modality, communicative activity, and emergent interpersonal dynamics. These factors contribute to varying qualities and quantities of participation in the intercultural partnerships. Case one, "Clashing Frames of Expectation -Differing Cultures-of-Use," suggests that the cultures-of-use of Internet communication tools, their perceived existence and on-going construction as distinctive cultural artifacts, differs interculturally just as communicative genre, pragmatics, and institutional context would be expected to differ interculturally. Case two, "Intercultural Communication as Hyperpersonal Engagement," illustrates pragmatic and linguistic development as an outcome of intercultural relationship building. The final case study, "The Wrong Tool for the Right Job?," describes a recent generational shift in communication tool preference wherein an ostensibly ubiquitous tool, e-mail, is shown to be unsuitable for mediating age peer relationships. Taken together, these case studies demonstrate that Internet communication tools are not neutral media. Rather, individual and collective experience is shown to influence the ways students engage in Internet-mediated communication with consequential outcomes for both the processes and products of language development. (38)
Key points:
Using three different case studies, Thorne exposes "the cultural embededness of Internet communication tools and the consequences of this embedding for communicative activity" (38). The article has a narrative structure that tells you about the different cases while simultaneously exposing Thorne's arguments, particularly in noting how communication technologies are deeply affected by the cultures-of-use, thereby arguing that these tools are cultural tools, just as all other human artifacts (38).
There is a section that addresses various aspects of CMC research, including a great quote by Joseph Walther in reference to various studies - "if it's not good for tasks and it's not good for socializing, then just what is CMC good for and why would anyone use it?" (41).
The case studies focus on cross-cultural communication between American students and French students/teachers using various mediation tools.
In the first case study, there is a disconnect between the American student and the French correspondent concerning the style and tone of responses. Thorne notes that these messages are "characterized by different discourse styles that play themselves out on national, institutional and personal levels" (44). There are cultural expectations around how people should communicate in the medium of email. "It seems that the Americans, in their search for understanding the lives of the French, expected trust and solidarity to develop through direct contact with French peers on the basis of shared personal experience. The illusion of proximity afforded by their everyday uses of the Internet informed their expectations of what those exchanges would be like" (46). It is interesting to consider how the geographic cultures affect what is appropriate styles of digital communication.
The second case highlights how significant IM is for American students. The students were required to email with their "keypals" but students who moved to IM to communicate found their conversations and confidence flourish while those who stuck with email found that the conversations were dead. IM allowed for interpersonal relationship building and conversational management.
In the third case studey, Thorne explicitly addresses how American students don't use email and only speak with their friends via IM. "Email is a tool for communication between power levels and generations" (56). Email is assumed to take effort while IM is natural communication.
In his discussion, Thorne notes "the process of becoming a competent member of one digitally mediated speech community may have demonstrable effects on presentation of self and the aesthetics of communicative performativity" (58).
....
The most relevant thing about this article for me is that it is grounded proof of the generation divide between IM and email (although Thorne's discussion about linguistics communities is fascinating).
Category: linguistics
Posted by zephoria at November 17, 2004 10:39 PM
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