This thesis focuses upon a series of empirical studies which examine communication and learning in online glocal communities within higher education in Sweden. A recurring theme in the theoretical framework deals with issues of languaging in virtual multimodal environments as well as the making of identity and negotiation of meaning in these settings; analyzing the activity, what people do, in contraposition to the study of how people talk about their activity. The studies arise from netnographic work during two online Italian for Beginners courses offered by a Swedish university. Microanalyses of the interactions occurring through multimodal video-conferencing software are amplified by the study of the courses’ organisation of space and time and have allowed for the identification of communicative strategies and interactional patterns in virtual learning sites when participants communicate in a language variety with which they have a limited experience. The findings from the four studies included in the thesis indicate that students who are part of institutional virtual higher educational settings make use of several resources in order to perform their identity positions inside the group as a way to enrich and nurture the process of communication and learning in this online glocal community. The sociocultural dialogical analyses also shed light on the ways in which participants gathering in discursive technological spaces benefit from the opportunity to go to class without commuting to the physical building of the institution providing the course. This identity position is, thus, both experienced by participants in interaction, and also afforded by the ‘spaceless’ nature of the online environment.

The present study is conducted within the borders of multilingual Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) . It aims at investigating the orthographic representation of Najdi Arabic in Internet Relay Chat (IRC). Along with this basic purpose, the study examines the communicative functions of multilingual practices in representing Najdi Arabic online. These practices include code-switching between languages (English-Arabic) and script-switching between scripts (Arabic-Roman). In addition, it is within the intentions of this study to analyze the specific characterstics of Najdi Arabic online which make it a hybrid between written and spoken languages. The investigation starts with the hypothesis that Najdi Arabic online is a language form that shows interrelations of languages, scripts and features of CMC. In order to realize these intentions, an online questionnaire was administerated among internet users and a large corpus of IRC data was collected. Within Herring’s (2004) computer-mediated discourse analysis approach, qualitative and quantitative approaches to data analysis were conducted. Responses to the online questionnaire were coded and analyzed in order to establish social profiles of who use Najdi Arabic online. IRC data was subjected to textual and interactional analysis to investigate the orthographic and linguistic features of this language form as well as the mechanism underlying code-switching and script-switching. The analysis of data yielded a number of important findings. First, youth language creatively uses non-standard spellings in constructing anti-standard orthography that constitutes a cyberspace code of communication. Regarding the orthographic representation of Najdi Arabic, the analysis reveals interrelations among languages (Arabic/English) and ASCII-characters. The process of Romanizing Najdi Arabic involves a combination of both transliteration of the Arabic orthography and transcription of spoken Najdi Arabic. Second, this writing system functions as a code of communication that carries social and cultural meanings and it is argued that switching between scripts is not entirely arbitrary. Applying the methodological tools of Auer’s (1995) Conversational Analysis to script-switching online, it is found that alternating between scripts online achieves different communicative functions that define and enhance the IRC discourse. Third, code-switching has been found to serve communicative functions similar to those of face-to face conversation and stimulated by the synchronicity of online discourse. Finally, investigating the specific features of Najdi Arabic online reveals another level of language alternation between common English CMC features identified in the literature and innovative CMC features based on the Arabic orthography.

This study is an examination of issues affecting the use of a shared graphic space (SGS). A working definition for an SGS is a virtual, computer-mediated blackboard that allows the simultaneous presentation and editing of visual information by two or more participants. The issues affecting the use of an SGS involve how people communicate with it. The addition of any technology into an already complicated situation like distance learning should be examined from multiple angles. In order to examine an SGS as a channel for communications, this study framed the SGS in terms of the nature of the feedback and noise that are present when we examine interactions in this space. This study examined 16 dyads interacting with whiteboard software to communicate solutions to 6 tangram puzzles. In all problem sets, participants used the text inherent in the whiteboard software as well as graphics to communicate potential solutions with each other in dyads. The participants also had access to audio for communications during either the first 4 or final 2 problem sets. Analysis of the results of this study show that the use of graphics for communication is dependent on accompanying communication channels. The addition of an audio channel for communications inhibited the use of text for communications. Graphics were used concurrently with audio as a dynamic enhancement to verbal communications. Graphics were not used concurrently with text. Graphics either occurred before or after text and were used as static illustrations or were used independent of text. The feedback mechanisms for the SGS were largely through the text or audio modes of communication. The graphic capabilities inherent to the SGS were an affordance to present and manipulate visual information. The SGS encourages new ways to interact and unique patterns of interactions between users. The manner in which graphics were used by each dyad was determined by the dyad and did not conform across the dyads. The unstructured nature of the SGS was a contributing factor in causing differentiation of the inter-dyad communication from intra-dyad communication. This lack of structure in the SGS was a source of noise in, as well as a source of freedom for, interactions in the SGS. The development of an etiquette for interacting in this unstructured space was developed dynamically and pragmatically and should be a source of future study. Shared space, that can be used for simultaneous, real time communications with graphics, changes the manner in which teachers and students can collaborate and construct new learning environments. / Ph. D.

The goal of this research was to investigate communication media and feedback learning cues for tutoring. A macroergonomic perspective was used to identify three sociotechnical variables associated with tutoring assistance: problem analyzability, communication media, and learning feedback cues. A four-phase problem solving approach was used in all trials. The communication media consisted of collocated communication, email, a chatroom, and video teleconferencing. The learning feedback cue was a non-verbal mechanism for subjects to provide the tutor with immediate information about their understanding throughout the problem. Subjects participated in a total of eight trials over a four-week time period. The analysis accuracy, process time, and user satisfaction indicated that the four-phase problem solving approach was not important in the interpretation of the results. In each problem-solving phase and for the overall tutoring process, technical performance (e.g., accuracy and speed of problem solving) and user satisfaction were measured to determine the most effective communication technology (or technologies) for tutoring students. The results of this study indicated that the accuracy was similar for all experimental conditions. However, the speed of problem solving was generally faster for audio-visual communication than text-based communication. In all phases, subjects were significantly more satisfied in conditions without feedback cues. And in general, satisfaction was higher in collocated communication and the chatroom compared to email; satisfaction was generally higher in collocated communication compared to video teleconferencing. There was no evidence that computer-mediated communication improved the tutoring process. However, important design implications existed for tutoring systems with limited resources. Through computer-mediated communication, a single tutor could assist many students at one time. The chatroom appeared to be a condition that would be an effective communication medium for spatially dispersed tutoring. Although the tutoring process required significantly more time to complete using the chatroom compared to collocated communication, accuracy and satisfaction measures were similar between collocated communication and the chatroom. / Master of Science

This study is a research of the frequency of acronyms in an online forum and the meaning of the most frequent ones in their context. In the study, definitions are given for language forms used online so that one is able to compare a set of similarities and differences between these online varieties and the Standard English. The method consists of identifying and searching for a set of CMD-typical acronyms. These acronyms are taken from prior studies as well as from Crystal’s (2006:91f) list of known CMD-acronyms. The material is retrieved from an online forum of asynchronous communication, and the results show the frequency of the acronyms as well as discuss their meanings in context. The results indicate that acronyms are highly infrequent in asynchronous environments, and their use decreases from 2010 to 2013. The conclusion of this study is that the infrequency of acronyms in asynchronous environments may be due to the nature of asynchronous online communication, in which users have time to write their replies. When comparing this study’s corpora with studies on frequencies in synchronous environments, the acronym frequency in this study was lower than the frequency shown in the synchronous studies.

In third world countries like Pakistan, companies are growing their trading business with remarkable pace. Increase in business volume has raised the challenges to keep growth sustainable. Communication is one of the biggest challenges for most of small size trading and marketing companies in the region. Face-to-face communication is only type of communication available in companies for inter departmental and intra departmental communication. Although face-to-face is one of the best type of communication but it is not possible to have face-to-face communication all the time with all employees especially when volume of company is growing with remarkable pace. In result company faces challenges like information delay, information lost or communication handicap. These challenges affect efficiency and effectiveness of company. We performed qualitative survey with directors and employees of Abuzar Marketing and Trading Company to develop deep understanding with communication problem to eliminate it. Analyzing empirical data and literature, it is found that Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) provides synchronous and asynchronous types of communication, which could help the company to overcome communication challenges with several other potential benefits e.g. knowledge sharing, employees training, democracy in batter manners.  Since every company in region is facing similar problem, general recommendation and precautions are made to introduce computer mediated communication (CMC).

Master of Science / Department of Journalism and Mass Communications / William J. Adams / Using focus group this study found that forms of computer-mediated communication combined play a positive role in the acculturation process of the international students from China, India, and the Republic of Korea. Participants from different cultures reached general agreements that computer, the Internet, and other computer-facilitated devices and services have become functional displacements to older media in their daily life in the United States. While mass communication promotes behavior, psychological, and sociocultural adaptations of the international students, interpersonal communication is still of central importance in acculturation process and outcomes. Findings suggested that computer-mediated communication could become a major key to the formation and perfection of a pluralist American society, because (1) the computerized mediums serve as both the host and native media, and (2) forms of computer-mediated communication facilitate the cooperation between subgroups and individuals in different social arenas in American life.

Contemporary higher education makes use of computers and the Internet more than ever before and the extent to which education is delivered via these media is only likely to increase in the future. While computer-mediated communication and education have been studied extensively, relatively little research has examined the potential impact of cultural background (e.g. social class) on students' experiences of different learning media. To address this gap, the current research uses a multi-sample (6 samples; n = 473), quasi-experimental approach to interrogate the relationship between student social class background and learning environment on various educational and individual outcomes. Examining a trichotomous (lower, middle, upper) conceptualization of social class across three distinct learning environments (face-to-face, computer-mediated, and fully-online) I find evidence of effects of student social class, learning environment and their interaction. In general, middle class students vary the least across conditions; lower class students tend to score lower on outcomes overall but with some notable exceptions for shared experience in face-to-face settings and comfort in online settings; and upper class students tend to experience a laboratory-based computer-mediated learning environment most positively. Implications for studying computer-mediated learning and social class are discussed, along with implications for real-world online education.

Social media has quickly become an integral part of day-to-day interaction for many university students. By infusing usage of the popular social networking site Instagram into the curriculum of three French 1002 classes, this exploratory study aimed to investigate the role of image as a tool to support learning writing in the L2 in a lower division French class. Data showed that student perception on the effect of images on their comprehension of their classmate’s writing as well as their classmate’s understanding of their own writing were positive.

This mixed design multiple case study of learners' interactions explores the effects of teacher participation during third semester German in-class chatting activities. Three third-semester German courses taught by two different teachers were investigated over the course of one semester, during which the class members were asked to chat for 20 minutes per week using activities design by the researcher and adapted from the textbook.Multiple data sets were collected: teachers' participation styles and feedback moves; students' language learning achievement levels; students' attitudes towards corrective feedback and technology; their experience with feedback and technology; and evidence in chat transcripts of errors, uptake, and error uptake. Students were administered a pre- and post-instruction achievement test on the structures taught during third semester German. In addition, they were surveyed at the beginning and the end of the semester on their attitudes and experiences with feedback and technology in the foreign language classroom. Furthermore, chat transcripts were analyzed to identify errors, corrective feedback, teacher moves, uptake, error uptake, student and teacher word count and words per minute, error rate, and target language use. In order to better understand the context of the transcripts, classroom observations were conducted once a month, and students completed a self-report form after each chat session. Informal conversations with the teachers provided additional insights.It was found that the students overwhelmingly appreciated teacher involvement and feedback, and that they saw chatting as both fun and beneficial for language learning. The corrective feedback rate was generally low, as were rates of uptake and error uptake. The two teachers were found to have different interaction and feedback styles. Furthermore, the three classes operated with differing levels of technical support during the lab sessions, which did not appear to influence the students' experiences except for the amount of teacher output. Six case study subjects, namely the two students from each class who contributed the most to chat sessions, were selected for an in-depth analysis of their chat transcripts.