Ivan Banov Dongping Zheng University of Hawaii at Mnoa How do - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Ivan Banov Dongping Zheng University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa

How do educational enskillment, event, and ecology converge to sustain human and community becoming?

What is Reddit? –

What is Reddit? – ™ Reddit is a “social bookmarking website” 1. Find content on the internet 2. Post and share it on reddit 3. Others can see it Upvote • Downvote • Comment •

What is Reddit? – ™ Reddit is a “social bookmarking website” 1. Find content on the internet 2. Post and share it on reddit 3. Others can see it Upvote • Downvote • Comment • ™ Is currently the 5th most visited website in the US and the 8th most visited website in the world (Alexa, 2018) – Over 330 M registered users from 217 countries – 14 B page views per month

What is Reddit? – ™ Reddit is composed of many different topics – Subreddits – 853,824 alive subreddits as of this morning – ≈138,000 active subreddits – News, Funny, Videos, Aww, TIL, WritingPrompt – Invisible Bicycles, Jellybean Toes, Children’s Pictures of Dinosaurs, Home Servers, Crocheting, TOEFL, ESL, GetStudying, ChineseLanguage

Examples of Reddit –

Examples of Reddit –

Examples of Reddit –

Examples of Reddit –

Examples of Reddit –

Examples of Reddit –

Background – ™ As I used Reddit, my attitudes and language began to change. ™ What influences the way we write in online settings? ™ Does this influence work the same in language learners? ™ Can social media have a positive impact on language learning? If so, how?

Theoretical Background – ™ Distributed Language Theory – Language goes beyond individual brains to co-construction via dialogue, manipulating objects, gesture, body movement (Järvilehto, 2009). – Language is a heterogeneous phenomenon, spread across diverse spatiotemporal and sociocultural scales, and requires complex interactions between phenomena in these scales (Thibault, 2011).

Theoretical Background – ™ Ecological Linguistics – Language is a meaning-making activity that takes place in a complex network of complex systems that are interwoven amongst themselves as well as with all aspects of physical, social, and symbolic worlds (van Lier, 2004, p. 60, italics added). – Language is constrained by ecosystemic values (Hodges, 2007, 2009) and both virtual and historical structures (Steffensen, 2011). – It is co-authored through dialogue with others—animate agents, inanimate objects, and abstract concepts (Linell, 2009).

Theoretical Background – ™ Affinity Spaces (Gee, 2005) – Communities built around content or common interest – Emergent external grammar – Emergent internal grammar – Portals

Theoretical Background – ™ Affinity Spaces (Gee, 2005) – Communities built around content or common interest – Emergent external grammar – Emergent internal grammar – Portals

Theoretical Background – ™ Affinity Spaces (Gee, 2005) – Communities built around content or common interest – Emergent external grammar – Emergent internal grammar – Portals ™ External grammar impacts internal grammar and vice versa. Neither one of the two systems is independent of the other.

Research Questions – 1. What changes in internal grammar do language learners show after participating on Reddit for an extended period of time? 2. What changes in external grammar do language learners show after participating on Reddit for an extended period of time? 3. How does the interplay between Reddit’s internal and external grammars connect to human and community becoming?

Study Design –

Participants – ™ Eight English Language Learners – Learners of English – Lived abroad – Actively posted on Reddit for at least six months

Participants – Country of Age Months as Registered Participant Gender L1 Residence Range Reddit User AwesomeFly Female German Germany 35–40 57 JimZoo Male Arabic Egypt 18–25 41 LeopardMan Male Polish Germany 20–25 9 RealAero N/A Spanish Spain 25–30 10 Southern Male Georgian Georgia 20–25 13 SwissKicks Male Mandarin China 20–25 22 TibrinCarlac Male Russian Russia N/A 32 ZhiWeiGao N/A Mandarin China N/A 14

Data – ™ External Grammar – Semi-structured interviews conducted through the Reddit interface – Public data on each profile gathered from the Reddit API

Data – ™ External Grammar – Semi-structured interviews conducted through the Reddit interface – Public data on each profile gathered from the Reddit API ™ Internal Grammar – All comments and posts made on Reddit ( N = 3,197) – Public data on each profile gathered from the Reddit API

Results –

Posting Behavior (Previous Study) –

Coordinating External Grammar – SwissKicks Interview: If I learned anything, I'd say it's more of a western cultural thing I grew more familiar with through [being an active member on Reddit]. However it's still undeniable that my English is far from perfect and I have learned something from this habit, and that is the way native English speakers comment on different things such as comedy posts and general suggestions or complaints. I have studied the word choices native speakers would use when making comments or composing threads to improve my ability to speak English the way a native speaker would rather than as a non-native learner.

Coordinating External Grammar – SwissKicks Interview: With the number of [upvotes and downvotes] visually displayed it was hard for me to not want to choose my words carefully in order to not make an unimpressive or even embarrassing comment. This led me to refrain from posting very often at the beginning due to how unfamiliar I was with western online communities, and I tried to study what kind of content is most welcome by reading a lot of reddit. So… I had been reading posts made by others for quite some time before feeling comfortable enough to make my own.

Coordinating External Grammar – TibrinCarlac, February 12, 2017: Maybe we can help. [link to a person’s GoFundMe website] Sorry if I broke the rules of the sub. I don't even know her but I feel bad for her. I saw this request for help in the Stephen C. Smith's twitter. I'm also not so good with English and worried a little now, so please don't judge hard.

Coordinating External Grammar – JimZoo, May 11, 2017: Start small maybe? Don't ask yourself for too much cause you'll eventually get disappointed, for example do 4 pomos reward yourself with a movie or something and after a week or so you'll develop the discipline , maybe study with a friend or join the study hall so that you waste less time on the Internet too..sorry if this is too generic :D

External Grammar Influence – RealAero, March 27, 2017: Im a bit disappointed with monero. First I was like, wow, its the definitive cryptocoin, etc... However after some day of thinking, I think i was wrong investing 1000USD. We are in an altocin bubble (including monero), relative to that bitcoin "fork", i think nothing strange will happen with bitcoin, and after all the panic, everybody will return to bitcoin, leaving monero and all the other altcoins totally unworthy.

External Grammar Influence – RealAero, April 28, 2017: So any idea of the motives behind yesterdays pump? Be aware that we havent even reached our max price yet. I think we still have good place to grow. In my opinion yesterday a whale with inside information bought to be prepared for the future that is coming. My guess? 30USD 20-30 May

External Grammar Influence – RealAero, June 26, 2017: Mcap falling to 60-80B levels IMO. That means 50% drops ore more. After that a huge bull will come, 10 times bigger than the last one. XMR will pump a lot, it has a lot of whales behind, the price is being manipulated (botnets) and doesnt let it pump properly. Just look longterm.... dont worry guys

External Grammar Influence – SwissKicks, June 26, 2017: A more specific example (maybe) would be the thread I started 3 months ago in which I analyzed a glaring issue with the game design in an online game I play, and received lots of praises from the community. Though not the first time I've created something that went viral in online communities, it was the first time I did so fully in English, and I think that's all thanks to the time I spent on Reddit which has improved my writing skills in terms of the ability to make analysis and summaries, as well as the ability to utilize the western style of humor to blend in with western communities better, in real life even.

Internal Grammar – AwesomeFly Interview: Mostly I learnt very informal English, i. e. slang and swearwords, and "meme- English" (Ermagerd, Doge-speak, silly puns etc.) My favourite is most likely "cropdusting". … Funny enough, some of my "higher register" DID come from Reddit. I learnt that one "keeps their composure", not "contenance". I also learnt a few technical terms on DIY and Artisanvideos: Caulking. Deburr. Chuck and lathe. Also many "SJW" terms: Mansplaining, ableism etc.