The Usenet is a global computer conferencing system on which users can affix textual messages under 4500 different categories. It currently has approximately 4,165,000 readers, and these .readers have appropriated language by adapting it to the Usenet's culture and medium. This thesis conceptualizes the Usenet community's appropriation of language, provides insights into how media and media restrictions cause their users to appropriate language, and discusses how future media may further cause users to appropriate language. With the Usenet we have a chance to study a relatively new community bound by relatively new technology, and perhaps we can learn more about the appropriation process by studying the two.

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Education / Master / Master of Science in Information Technology in Education

Several prominent rhetoric and composition scholars have called for researchers to forefront the activity of an interaction (see Shipka, 2005; Yancey, 2009; Spinuzzi, 2011). This focus is particularly needed in the study of online writing instruction; with its emphasis on the unit of analysis being the action itself, activity theory proves useful to analyze the human-computer and human-human interaction that occurs in the online environment. Drawing from Haas’ (1996) assertion that technology is a site to examine “the relationship between culture and cognition,” this dissertation presents findings from an ethnographic case study that investigates CMS tool use in an online FYC writing course. Using activity theory as a theoretical and methodological frame, findings show how students made CMS tool-use decisions based not only in function, but also on culturally shared beliefs held about interaction in the online instructional environment itself. Using both qualitative and quantitative data, this dissertation discusses two findings: students overwhelmingly use instructor direction when making navigation decisions and when complying with implicit rules. From the findings, this dissertation analyzes how the perceived assumptions that students and instructors in the online writing course make about the intended and unintended motivations of tool use reflect their actual practices. The dissonance that exists within the spaces created between intention and outcome are highlighted by this methodological and theoretical frame. Additionally, analyzing online writing course tool use can have larger programmatic applications in that by understanding what happens in an online writing course and what motivates its users, instructors can better deliver a course and administrators can better assess both a course/instructor and a course management system. / Access to thesis permanently restricted to Ball State community only. / Department of English

Research paper (M.I.M.)--Victoria University of Wellington, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references.

No description available.

published_or_final_version / Linguistics / Master / Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Linguistics / Master / Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics

Thesis (M.B.A.)--University of North Carolina Wilmington, 2008. / Title from PDF title page (viewed May 28, 2009) Includes bibliographical references (p. 55-59)

Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 33-43).

Orientador: Inês Signorini / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-27T17:50:00Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Biondo_FabianaPocas_D.pdf: 3129361 bytes, checksum: 2f10f8e058551dcb0bc2a228fa8cb17a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015 / Resumo: A partir do campo aplicado dos estudos da língua(gem), esta tese de doutorado tem como objetivo analisar o processo colaborativo de construção de conhecimentos entre professora/aluno(s) e entre aluno(s)/aluno(s) nos fóruns online de um curso semipresencial de Morfologia da Língua Portuguesa, na Licenciatura em Letras de uma universidade pública situada na região centro-oeste. O corpus foi gerado por meio de uma "pesquisa-ação" (BURNS, 2010) e constitui-se especialmente por 538 postagens feitas pela professora e pelos alunos em quatro fóruns desse curso, nos anos de 2011 e de 2012. Por meio de uma perspectiva sociocultural de investigação baseada na "lógica da prática" (SANDBERG e TSOUKAS, 2011), a proposição desse objetivo visa à apreensão do fórum de discussões online, neste trabalho, para além de sua funcionalidade como ferramenta de ensino-aprendizagem, bem como para além das características textuais/estilísticas de escrita nele manifestas, defendendo-o como uma prática colaborativa de construção de conhecimentos; no caso, conhecimentos sobre Morfologia da língua. Para isso, e no âmbito de uma abordagem inter/transdisciplinar, são articuladas contribuições teóricas sobre aprendizagem colaborativa (online) (VIGOTSKI, 2007[1984]; 2008[1987]; BRUNER et al.,1976; INGRAM e HATHORN, 2004; HARASIM, 2005; 2012, entre outros), sobre fórum de discussões online (OLIVEIRA, 2007; LALUEZA et al., 2010; MANTOVANI et al., 2010; CASSANY, 2012, entre outros) e sobre o campo teórico-epistemológico da prática (WENGER, 2001; RECKWITZ, 2002; NICOLINI, 2009; SANDBERG e TSOUKAS, 2011, entre outros). As análises evidenciam, sobretudo, dois modos diferentes de produzir escrita e gerar conhecimentos nos fóruns online: 1) a partir de práticas de escrita e ensino-aprendizagem individualizadas e tradicionalmente escolarizadas/acadêmicas; 2) a partir de práticas de interação e escrita em ambientes colaborativos da Internet. No cruzamento entre as práticas tradicionais à escola/academia e as práticas de interação na Internet ligadas à ideia de inovação, evidencia-se uma perspectiva fronteiriça entre novos/velhos letramentos (SIGNORINI, 2007; SIGNORINI, 2012) na situação de comunicação e de geração/negociação de significados focalizada, aventando a possibilidade de movimento, de mudança de práticas e de papéis sociointeracionais, de fortalecimento da construção colaborativa de conhecimentos em ambientes de formação de professores como a Licenciatura em Letras aqui focalizada / Abstract: In the field of applied language studies, this doctoral thesis aims to analyze the collaborative process of knowledge construction between teacher/student(s) and between student(s)/student(s) in online forums of a blended learning course called Morphology of the Portuguese Language in an undergraduate course of Languages in a public government-run university in the central-western region of Brazil. The corpus was generated through an "action research" (BURNS, 2010) and is constituted, especially, by 538 posts made by the teacher and students in four forums of this course, between the years 2011 and 2012. Based on a sociocultural perspective of research investigation on the "logic of practice" (SANDBERG and TSOUKAS, 2011), the proposition of that goal focuses on the apprehension of the online discussion forum, going beyond its functionality as a teaching and learning tool as well as beyond the textual/stylistic characteristics of writing it manifests, defending this forum as a collaborative practice of knowledge construction; in this case, knowledge of the Portuguese language morphology. For this purpose, and as part of an inter/transdisciplinary approach, the following theoretical contributions are articulated on collaborative learning (online) (VIGOTSKI, 2007[1984]; 2008[1987]; BRUNER et al.,1976; INGRAM e HATHORN, 2004; HARASIM, 2005; 2012, among others) on online discussion forum (OLIVEIRA, 2007; LALUEZA et al, 2010; MANTOVANI et al, 2010; CASSANY, 2012 etc.) and on the theoretical and epistemological field of practice (WENGER, 2001; RECKWITZ, 2002; NICOLINI, 2009; SANDBERG and TSOUKAS, 2011, among others). Analyses reveal, above all, two different ways of producing writing and generating knowledge on online forums: 1) through teaching and learning individualized and traditionally schooled/academic writing practices; 2) through interaction and writing practices in collaborative online environments. A bordering perspective between the old/new literacies may be observed in the intersection between traditional schooled/academic practices and Internet practices related to the idea of innovation (SIGNORINI, 2007; SIGNORINI, 2012) in situations of communication and generation/negotiation focused on meanings, revealing the possibility of movement, changing practices and socio-interactional roles, and strengthening the collaborative construction of knowledge in teachers¿ training environments such as the Languages Undergraduate Course focused upon in this analysis / Doutorado / Lingua Materna / Doutora em Linguística