1. Introduction: New media and changing language practices
1. Introduction: New media and changing language practicesAs new media enter our lives, new practices are established and can be traced in language use. For example, the French now say: 't'es ou là ?' ( 'where are you, right now ?') when answering their mobile phones. This conventional opening is appropriate to the collaborative activity 'telephoning' because it gives priority to the need of participants to establish common ground about their respective locations which is one of the necessary conditions for deictic reference to be interpretable in the conversation.
This illustrates how complex and multidimensional the relation between new technology and language use is. It would be naïve to say that mobile phones are 'the cause' of the change in language conventions. Oversimplifications of this kind are amplified through the 'global village' discourse which Hawisher and Selfe (2000, p.1) describe as a 'utopian and ethnocentric narrative' of the Western world. The present study is an attempt at escaping from the limiting influence of popular discourse. It aims to explore empirically the complex relationship between language use and new technology by analyzing the e-mail exchanges of pupils carrying out cross-linguistic activities in a Web-based bulletin-board. The main value of the data lies in its naturalistic character because it reflects the actual use of the bulletin board by the pupils while giving a realistic picture of the kind of activities effectively taking place between schools. Our aim is threefold:
(1) To approach the bulletin-board environment as a new arena of language use and identify the part effectively played by the technology in providing opportunities for collaboration or creating barriers to it. To do this, we look at the outcomes of collaborative activity in terms of language choice patterns in the discourse data (Section 3.1.) then analyze the way in which a number of dimensions interact with the features of the bulletin board to create barriers or opportunities for pupils' collaborative work ( Section 3.2).
(2) To explore the hypothesis, derived from sociocultural theory, that different groups relate to the environment in different ways so that, even though they may be doing the same tasks they may not be engaged in the same activities.
(3) To contribute to CMC research methodology in relation to educational contexts.
(a) Relevance: Much of Europe has become bi- or tri-lingual (Cenoz and Jessner, 2000 : 254) and the importance of the development of plurilingual and pluricultural competence has been recently stressed by the Council of Europe 's Framework (Council Of Europe, 2001, p.168). With improved Internet access, it is possible to enhance the development of language skills and cultural awareness by the use of new media. In the UK, the use of e-mail and of ICT resources is mentioned explicitly and repeatedly in the Programme of Study for Modern Language of the National Curriculum (DfEE & QCA, 1999), in the DfES strategy document 'Languages for all: Languages for Life' (DfES, 2002) and the IT- skills training of Modern Language Teachers has been supported by the government. Documenting how schools actually use technology to develop international partnerships independently of the official rethoric is directly relevant to the present situation.
(b) Need to question assumptions: Although use of the Internet to put pupils in contact with speakers of the languages they are learning seems an easy- to-manage and practical solution, the outcomes of activities involving direct communication are not well-known. The assumption that contact with 'native speakers' will automatically lead to gains in linguistic knowledge and foster positive attitudes needs to be questioned. Recent research in the European HE sector suggests that it may be optimistic (Coleman 96a, Howard, 2001). Crucially for CMC research and its use in Modern Language education, the idea that the new media are a 'neutral ' arena is being undermined. Studies such as Morgan and Cain (2000, p. 77) and Sugimoto and Levin (2000, p. 133) show the strength of the cultural norms which influence users of the technology and need to be further documented.
(c) Secondary sector under-researched: This is particularly noticeable for other languages than English. Studies have concentrated on the use of the Internet to support second language learning and the development of interculturality at University level (Hogan-Brun and Jung, 1999; Warschauer and Kern, 2000; Chanier, 2000) and in Europe, prominence has been given to 'Tandem Learning' which rests on the principle of reciprocity ( Little and Brammerts, 1996; Appell, 1999). Recent US work which documents the development of address form use in telecollaborative language learning (Belz and Kinginger, in press) also concerns University students as well as Negretti's study of synchronous communicative practices in a chatroom (1999). Two recent studies based on a telecollaboration project between German and American high school students focus on the interaction between task design and content (Muller-Hartmann 2000) or concentrate on the way institutional constraints may shape tele-collaborative language teaching (Belz and Muller-Hartmann 2003) but do not focus on the issue of the opportunities and constraints afforded by the technology. We do not claim this review is comprehensive, but there seems to be room for looking at the collaborative use of language between English and French speaking pupils in a Web-based bulletin board.
