The Role of Linguistic Affordances in Telecollaborative Chat

Abstract

This study examines synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) discourse in a bilin-gual chat setting consisting of Spanish-speaking learners of English and English-speaking learners of Spanish. Participants were members of a telecollaboration involving 80 students at North Carolina State University and the University of Puerto Rico. Data were derived from two chat groups, one of four students and the other of five students, engaged in nine 1-hour chat sessions (a half hour in English and a half hour in Spanish). The ecological affordance construct (van Lier, 1996, 2000) frames three research questions: (a) What types of linguistic affordances emerge in the bilingual chat sessions? (b) How do learners respond to linguistic affordances provided by native speakers? and (c) What are learners’ perceptions regarding linguistic affordances in their chat discourse? Findings reveal that participants provide a range of affordances to each other, although affordances ap-pear to have a limited role in the overall telecollaborative context.