NEGOTIATING LANGUAGE USE IN CALL’S FOURTH PHASE: AN INTRODUCTION TO A FUNCTIONAL APPROACH TO CODE-SWITCHING ELECTRONICALLY

Abstract

This article offers a critical discourse analysis of how language learners negotiate language use in intercultural computer mediated communication (CMC) activities and takes a revitalized and re-situated look at code-switching (CS) for the purpose of enhancing the public self-image of online interactants by positioning interactants as proficient second language (L2) users. Warschauer (2000) first proposed the idea of a “third stage” of computer assisted language learning (CALL) where the Internet and multimedia would provide a new type of authentic discourse and open greater opportunities for increased student agency through social interactions (p. 64). Bax (2003) similarly argued for the conception of a “third phase” of CALL. Bax characterized this phase as the ubiquitous use of technology for language learning and the creation of a state of “normalization” of technology use and integration (p. 13). This article proposes a fourth phase (Ariew, 2014) made distinctive by its sociocultural lens used to examine what kinds of knowledge, relationships, and identities are co-constructed through increased intercultural CMC opportunities afforded by CALL’s ubiquitous use. I adopt an approach informed by systemic functional linguistic (SFL) (Eggins, 2004; Halliday, 1985; Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004; Martin & Rose, 2007a, 2008) that demonstrates how language is a meaning making system in intercultural emails. To accomplish this, I analyzed 154 emails between participants to show how a face-saving and face-giving (Brown & Levinson, 1987; Goffman, 1967) textual flow, or mode, is created through code-switching (CS) at the phatic-referential switch. In the final section, I introduce a CS framework for online face-work (Park, 2008) called a Functional Approach to Code-switching Electronically (FACE).

Keywords

code-switching, computer mediated communication, critical discourse analysis, systemic functional linguistics

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