ABSTRACT
This process-oriented study focuses on contradictions that emerged
in a WebCT bulletin board collaboration among English learners from
Japan, Mexico and Russia, and explains them from the perspective of
activity theory (Leont'ev, 1978, 1981; Engestrom, 1987, 1999). The
study identified a) two intra-cultural contradictions--to post or not to
post, to sound formal or informal; b) three inter-cultural
contradictions--unequal contribution, genre clash/plagiarism, clash of
topic choice; and c) three technology-related contradictions--message
overload as hindering community formation, bulletin board as too
"slow" when compared to chat, and names and gender confusion.
These contradictions were catalyzed by the clash of curricula versus
interactive learning paradigms (Lemke, 1998): the outcomes of different
cultures-of-use of computer technologies (Thorne, 2003),
instructors' mediation, and resources available to learners within
their broader sociocultural contexts. The study concludes with a
discussion of whether the learning paradigms can be bridged and
cultures-of-use of computer technologies aligned.
INTRODUCTION
Earlier studies on international telecollaboration (1) were
primarily descriptive, focusing on the design and implementation
aspects, or framed within a product-oriented paradigm (Chapelle, 2001;
Warschauer & Kern, 2000). Over the last decade, however, there has
been a shift toward process-oriented research and a focus on the
contexts of computer use and evolving interaction. The most recent
studies on telecollaboration (Belz, 2001, 2002, 2003; Belz &
Muller-Hartmann, 2003; Belz & Thorne, 2006; Chase, Macfadyen, Reeder
& Roche, 2002; Kramsch & Thorne, 2002; O'Dowd, 2003, 2005;
Schneider & von der Emde, 2006; Thorne, 2003, 2006; Ware, 2005)
explore the kinds of cultural contact afforded by a technological
medium. Special attention in recent studies is paid to tensions and
misunderstandings that might hinder intercultural learning (Belz, 2001,
2002, 2003; Kramsch & Thorne, 2002; O'Dowd, 2003, 2005; Thorne,
2003; Ware, 2005). These studies relate online tensions to the
socio-cultural dimension of telecollaboration and the ways students make
sense how their partners make communicative choices.
Building on previous research on online intercultural
misunderstandings, I explore contradictions, a term used by activity
theorists in reference to problems, ruptures, breakdowns and clashes
(Kuutti, 1996), that emerged in the 12-week long interaction on the
WebCT (2) multithreaded bulletin board (3) among English learners from
Japan, Mexico and Russia. More specifically, the study (4) builds on
previous research by Thorne (2003), an activity theorist, and his
concept "cultures-of-use" of an artifact, defined as "the
historically sedimented characteristics that accrue to a CMC tool from
its everyday use" (p. 40).
Whereas previous studies mainly focused on students from the USA
and Western Europe, participants of this study were students from Japan,
Mexico and Russia who have received less attention in the research on
international telecollaboration (Carney, 2005; Murray, 2000).
Participants in this study were significantly culturally distanced from
one another in geopolitical and economic terms. (5) Related to this
feature is Belz's (2002) argument that national differences in
computer access and technological know- how raise new "important
ethical and methodological questions for telecollaborative foreign
language study" (p. 73).
In previous studies the focus was on language exchange task-based
assignments, such as discussion of texts among students from the USA
learning European languages and their European counterparts learning
English (Belz, 2003; Belz & Thorne, 2006; Kramsch & Thorne,
2002; O'Dowd, 2005; Ware, 2005). In comparison, this study involved
English language learners who engaged in asynchronous interaction in
English on their topics of interest. The choice of such a format for the
project stemmed from my personal experience using WebCT in graduate
classes I took earlier, which appeared to be effective in two ways: 1)
the interaction was contingent, 2) students were granted more agency and
a sense of ownership of the bulletin board (Potts, 2001). I was hoping
that a similar effect would be achieved through the use of WebCT in the
project under investigation.
Furthermore, previous studies were ethnographic and operated with
the two levels of analysis--a complex interplay of macro-level (social
contexts) and micro-level (agency) phenomena (Belz, 2002, 2003). I use
the activity theory framework (Basharina, 2005; Cole & Engestrom,
1994; Engestrom 1987, 1999; Lantolf, 2000; Lantolf & Genung, 2002;
Leont'ev, 1974, 1978, 1981; Mantovani, 1996; Nardi, 1996; Thorpe,
2002; Vygotsky, 1978, 1934/86) with its key notions of mediation,
contradictions, community, culture and cognition, which provides an
additional avenue to explore intercultural tensions.
In what follows I review the previous research on tensions in
telecollaboration. I then describe the telecollaborative project under
investigation and methodology used in this study. In the findings
section I focus on major contradictions that emerged in the process of
telecollaboration (to be consistent with the activity theory vocabulary,
tensions will be referred to as contradictions in the rest of the
paper). I conclude this paper with a discussion of the practical
implications.
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Interrelationship between Contexts and Contradictions
The exploration of intercultural misunderstandings in recent
research often leads scholars to investigate the complex
interrelationship between structure (i.e., context and setting) and
agency (i.e., situated activity and self), given that in online
interaction we deal with at least two contextual layers: off-line,
sitting in front of the computer screens in the context of culture; and
online, through textual representations of selves (Lam, 2000) in the
context of situation (Kramsch, 1993). It has been argued that the
chances of misunderstanding in online environments increase due to the
nature of an online medium which relies on typing and Internet speed, as
well as a lack of paralinguistic and non-verbal cues (Ferrara, Bruner
& Whittemore, 1991; Mantovani, 1996; Murray, 1991; Yates &
Orlikowski, 1993). In addition, it was recently found that the sources
of misunderstanding in online telecollaboration are rooted in the
broader socio-cultural contexts, which inform the linguistic choices of
students online. The newly identified variables behind online
contradictions include differences in students' frames of reference
with regards to local discursive norms of language use (Kramsch &
Thorne, 2002), language valuation (Belz, 2002; Ware, 2005), the ways
students co-construe the context of online communication (Ware, 2005)
and their communication partners (Meagher & Castanos, 1996;
O'Dowd, 2003, 2005).
Kramsch and Thorne (2002), for example, interrogate the presumption
that computer-mediated communication naturally helps learners to
understand their partners' local conditions of language use and to
build a global common ground for intercultural understanding. In their
study of French-American telecollaboration, quite often students run
across intercultural misunderstanding based on the limited knowledge of
the "different social and cultural conventions under which each
party is operating" (p. 90) and "very little awareness that
such an understanding is even necessary" (p. 98). Most of the
French interlocutors, for example, used factual, impersonal,
dispassionate genres of writing. They extensively used argument building
logical connectors such as "for example," "however,"
"moreover," as well as made nuanced corrections to what they
felt were American misjudgments about the situation in France. By
contrast, the American students, who initiated this exchange in order to
understand "how they live their everyday lives" viewed this
instance of Internet-mediated communication as a ritual of mutual trust
building and used an informal, highly personal genre. The authors
explain the misunderstanding as "a clash of cultural frames caused
by the different resonances of the two languages for each group of
speakers and their different understanding of appropriate genres"
(p. 94-95). In Kramsch and Thorne's interpretation, "each
group mapped the communicative genres they were familiar with onto their
foreign language communicative practices in cyberspace."
Consequently, the educational implication drawn from their study is to
prepare students to deal with global communicative practices that
require mastering "far more than local communicative
competence" (p. 99).
A number of recent studies found that the contradictions may also
take place because of the misalignment of academic calendars,
institutionalized classroom scripts, methods of learning accreditation,
academic socialization and technological access (Belz, 2002; Belz &
Muller-Hartmann, 2003; O'Dowd, 2005; Thorne, 2003). These studies
emphasize the importance of physical contexts consisting of mediating
tools and other people in shaping an online interaction.
Thorne (2003), for example, in his study demonstrates how the
learners' relationship with physical contexts and computers may
facilitate contradictions. He approached the same set of data used in
the earlier study by Kramsch and Thorne (2002) from the perspective of
the crucial role of the physical context of local cultures. Thorne
(2003) argues that online and other activities emerge on the
"intersection of histories of use with the contingencies of
emergent practice" and represent the "culture-of-use" of
an artifact (p. 40). He found that the activity of online interaction
was different for the French than it was for the Americans, in part
because the Internet communication was used differently in each case;
e.g., French students were communicating through a surrogate (the
teacher who was sending their messages). Thorne concludes that radically
different cultures-of-use of Internet communication was one of the major
reasons for the tension between the French and American students.
Activity Theory and Contradictions
Thorne's concept of "cultures-of-use" of an artifact
(2003) draws from the extensive explorations of activity theorists of a
tool-mediated, goal-oriented, culturally and historically situated
collaborative activity as applied to any human activity including
human-computer interaction. Activity theory is based on the premise that
cognitive development has a cultural and social origin (Lantolf &
Thorne, 2006; Vygotsky, 1978). Nardi (1996) argues that
"consciousness is located in everyday practice: you are what you
do. And what you do is firmly and inextricably embedded in the
socio-cultural matrix of which every person is an organic part" (p.
7). Activity theory allows us to break down the interrelationship
between the structure and agency into smaller categorical elements,
representing what Nardi calls "socio-cultural matrix," and, by
zooming in, trace the developmental path of that relationship. In the
beginning stages of development, the purposeful acts of the individual
are accomplished through the joint activity of a learner,
physical/symbolic tool(s), and another person(s) performing together as
a working social system to achieve some outcome under cultural
constraints such as rules (Figure 1). Only after that are the
interpsychological categories used between people in discursive
practices appropriated as tools for thinking within individuals as
intra-psychological categories.
[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]
Mediation is the mechanism through which external socio-cultural
activities are transformed into internal mental functioning. The source
of mediation can be either a material tool (for example, a string around
one's finger as a reminder); a system of symbols (language), or the
behavior of another human being in social interaction. Mediators, in the
form of objects, symbols, and persons transform natural, spontaneous
impulses into higher mental processes, including strategic orientations
to problem solving. In the case of language learning, this mediation can
take the form of a textbook, visual material, classroom discourse,
opportunities for second language interaction, instruction, or other
kinds of teacher assistance.
People participate in multiple activity systems within their local
and global contexts, including online. In real life we engage in
"an intertwined and connected web of activities that can be
distinguished according to their objects" (Kuutti, 1996, p. 30).
International telecollaboration is also an activity system which is
embedded within broader institutional, historical and geopolitical
contexts. A person engaged in one activity system is simultaneously
influenced by other activity systems in which she/he participates. These
influences are both horizontal, happening across communities, and also
vertical as social actions are also embedded within history, culture and
inequitable power relations that both influence the meaning production
and shape human activities in important ways.
Contradictions within an Activity System
Within an activity system, all elements constantly interact with
one another and are virtually always in the process of working through
changes. Changes in the design of a tool may influence a subject's
orientation toward an object, which, in turn, may influence the cultural
practices of the community. In addition, it is possible that the object
and motive themselves will undergo changes during the process of
activity (Kuutti, 1996). It is not surprising that Engestrom (1987)
called an activity system "a virtual
disturbance-and-innovation-producing machine" (p.11) and emphasized
the importance of contradictions, driving these changes.
Activity theorists see contradictions as sources of development.
Engestrom (1987) characterizes a contradiction as "a social,
societally essential dilemma which cannot be resolved through separate
individual actions alone--but in which joint cooperative actions can
push a historically new form of activity into emergence" (p. 16).
The resolution of contradictions, according to Engestrom, takes place in
the process of "living movement leading away from the old" (p.
16), when transforming an object/goal into a new outcome takes place. An
example of contradiction is evident in a situation, when a person is
torn by two or more opposite goals, and when the additional immediate
circumstances may influence his/her final decision-making. This is very
similar to construction of new knowledge in a community of learners as a
result of negotiation of different, and often times, opposite meanings
(Wenger, 1998).
Contradictions among Activity Systems
Whereas above I focused on contradictions among elements of a
single activity system, in this section I will discuss contradictions
among two or more interacting activity systems, given that contradiction
indicates a misfit not only between different developmental phases of a
single activity, but between different activities (Kuutti, 1996).
Thorne (2003) and Wertsch, Minick, and Arns (1984) showed how the
same task is implemented differently by means of available tools across
different socio-cultural contexts. Thorne (2003) found that when people
from several cultures engage in the same task, the use of tools in their
different sociocultural, socio-historic contexts may illustrate "a
heterogenous set of communicative practices with different rules,
community norms, and division of labor" and may differ
interculturally "in the same way as communicative genres and
personal styles do" (p. 40). Internet communication tools are often
"different cultural artifacts for different communities,
precipitating consequential effects on the processes of communication,
relationship building, and language development" (Thorne, 2003, p.
41). That is why, various contradictions in international
telecollaboration, such as, for example, genre clash (Kramsch &
Thorne, 2002), can take place not only due to the differences in
students' frames of reference with regards to their cultural norms
of language use, but due to the mismatch of activities (cultures-of-use)
in two different co