i

EXPLORING SECOND LANGUAGE (L2) LEARNERS‟ LANGUAGE LEARNING

EXPERIENCE IN SOCIAL NETWORKING ENVIRONMENTS

by

Young Sang Cho

August 10, 2012

A dissertation submitted to the

Faculty of the Graduate School of

the University at Buffalo, State University of New York

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the

degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

Department of Learning and Instruction (LAI)

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UMI Number: 3541091

ii

Copyright by

Young Sang Cho

2012

iii

DEDICATION

To my grandmother, father, and mother who always believe in me.

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ACKNOWELDGEMENTS

I have a great many people to thank for their help on my dissertation. First, I

would like to express my sincere gratitude to my advisor, Dr. Mary McVee, for her

guidance, continued encouragement, and patience. She was with me since the beginning

of my dissertation. She always provided her helping hand when I faced seemingly endless

challenges during the whole writing process. She patiently read through the first draft of

my dissertation, and reminded me of my strong points when I needed to hear them most,

and motivated me to move forward when the whole writing process was slow. I am where

I am now thanks to this great support from her. I also would like to give my sincere

thanks to the other two members of my committee, Dr. Suzanne Miller, who inspired me

to be a good teacher and taught me how to be a good qualitative researcher from the

beginning of my doctoral study, and Dr. Erin Kearney, who inspired me with her

insightful comments and immense knowledge of second language learning. I would never

have been able to finish my dissertation without the guidance and support from the

members of my committee.

I wish to give special thanks to Dr. Stephen Dunnett, LAI professor and vice

provost for international education, who helped me to feel secure when I first came to

Buffalo, to regain confidence in myself when I felt vulnerable, and most of all, to give me

a precious opportunity to meet and work with wonderful friends in the International

Admissions Office. It was hard to imagine my life in Buffalo without them. I will never

forget their continued support and love for me and my family. It was my pleasure and

honor to be with them at many important moments of my life.

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I also would like to thank my whole family. All of them stood up for me no matter

what happened in my life. I love my grandmother, father, mother, father-in-law, mother-

in-law, sister, brother, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, nephews, and nieces. I am heavily

indebted to them for providing a loving environment that gave me strength to continue

this doctoral study.

Most of all, I am truly thankful to my son and my wife for their endless love and

support for me. My son, Woojin, always gave me strength to move forward. The

numerously asked question, “Are you done now, Daddy?” made me laugh all the time

and motivated me to sit in the UB library. His smile made all of this hard work worth

doing. Next, my wife, Eunim, watched and supported the journey of my doctoral study

from the beginning to the end. She saw how frustrated I was when my study was delayed,

but she always encouraged me with her kind words and smile and I was able to overcome

all difficulties. She filled me up with numerous late-night meals when I was hungry and

with wise advice and insightful ideas when I felt lost academically. I acknowledge that I

cannot thank her enough for what she did for me in any way, but I would like to say,

“여보, 고마워 그리고 사랑해!”

Last, dear Lord, I am deeply grateful to you for helping me finish this doctoral

study and knowing how blessed I am with all these precious people that I have met

during that journey. Thank you!

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

DEDICATION…………………………………………….. ………….iii

ACKNOWELDGEMENTS……………………………….. ………….iv

LIST OF TABLES……………..………………………….. ………….ix

ABSTRACT.………………………………………………. ………….x

CHAPTER

I. INTRODUCTION.………………………………. . ………….1

Overview of the Problem…………………… ………….1

Research Questions…………………………. ………….3

Definitions………………………………….. ………….4

Significance of the Study…………………… ………….8

II. CONCEPTUAL CONTEXT…………………… . ………….11

History of CALL…………………………… . ………….11

Cognitive Perspectives of L2 Learning……… ………….15

Sociocultural Perspectives of L2 Learning….. ………….25

L2 Learning in Web 2.0 Environments……… ………….45

Needs of the Study…………………………... ………….48

III. METHODOLOGY……………………………… ………….50

Research Site ……………………………….. ………….50

Context of Research…...….………………... . ………….51

Research Design …...………………………. ………….53

Participants….....…………………………… ………….54

Data Collections……………………………. ………….56

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Data Analysis..……………………………… ………….58

Trustworthiness…………………………….. ………….61

IV. LANG-8 USERS‟ MAIN ACTIVITY:

BUILDING IMAGES IN PROFILE PAGES …. ………….64

Screen Name……………………………….. ………….64

Profile Pictures……………………………... ………….77

About-Me………..…………………………. ………….89

Conclusions………………………………… ………….111

V. LANG-8 USERS‟ MAIN ACTIVITY:

BUILDING A FRIEND NETWORK…………... ………….114

Initiating a Friend Network………………… ………….114

Maintaining a Friend Network……………... ………….132

General Impressions of Lang-8 Friends……. ………….144

Conclusions…..…………………………...... ………….161

VI. PERCEPTIONS OF LANG-8:

PERCEIVED BENEFITS……………………… ………….165

Technical Aspects………………………….. ………….165

Social Aspects……………………………… ………….178

Cognitive Aspects………………………….. ………….208

Psychological Aspects……………………... ………….225

Conclusions………………………………… ………….233

VII. DISCUSSION & IMPLICATION……………. ………….237

Lang-8 as a Community of Practice………... ………….238

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Educational Implications…………………... ………….256

Conclusions………………………………… ………….265

APPENDIX A…………………………………………….. ………….267

REFERENCES….…………...……………………………… ………….269

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.1 Demographic Information of Research Participants ……56

Table 4.1 Elements of Profile Information ……65

Table 4.2 Types of Profile Pictures ……78

Table 4.3 Themes Frequently Addressed in About-me ……91

Table 4.4 Themes of Three Versions of Kenshin‟s About-me ……97

Table 4.5 Two Versions of Miyoko‟s About-me in L1 and L2 ……100

Table 4.6 Comparison between the First and the Final Draft of

English Version of Kenshin‟s About-me ……103

Table 4.7 Changed parts of the first, second, and third draft of

About-me (Miyoko) ……105

Table 5.1 The Number of Lang-8 Friends according to

Language Categories (as of March 1, 2011) ……157

Table 6.1 Time Gap between the First Entry and the First

Received Feedback ……177

Table 6.2 The Number of NSTL Friends and NNSTL Friends ……180

Table 6.3 Types of Comments Encouraging the Participants ……189

Table 6.4 The Ratios between EW and CM (as of Feb. 2nd

, 2011) ……196

Table 6.5 Means of Word Count for the First (F) 10 and

the Latest (L) 10 Journal Entries ……216

Table 6.6 The Rate of Postings Each Month (from July, 2010 to

March 2011) ……226

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ABSTRACT

The purpose of this ethnographic case study was to understand the nature of

second language (L2) learning activities that today‟s online users conduct with Web 2.0

technologies in an out-of-school context. I was particularly interested to know the

features of L2 learning environments that were fostered in the language exchange social

networking site (SNS) called Lang-8.com by examining its users‟ L2 learning practices.

This study was guided by three research questions: 1) What practices do online L2

learners engage in as they participate at the Lang-8 social networking site?; 2) How do

online L2 learners perceive the use of the Lang-8 social networking site for their L2

learning?; and 3) What L2 learning environments are developed and promoted at the

Lang-8 social networking site, which contribute to online users‟ L2 learning?

Data for this study were collected through participant observation, online

interviews with 12 Lang-8 participants, and online artifacts (such as profile pages, journal

entries, and written feedback). The data were inductively analyzed through categorizing

strategies such as coding and thematic analysis, and naturalistic generalizations were

made from thematic patterns found across the emergent categories.

Findings from data analysis revealed that 1) the Lang-8 participants‟ L2 learning

was situated as an integral part of both (re)constructing their real-life and L2

learner/teacher identities and building social relationships with other Lang-8 members

and 2) the networks with multiple friends served as communities of practices (Lave &

Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 2006; Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder, 2002) that benefited the

participants in the technical, social, cognitive, and psychological areas. Based on the

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findings of this study, some implications for L2 educators were made in regard to

developing constructive language learning environments.

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Chapter One

Introduction

Overview of the Problem

The twenty-first century is characterized by the advance of computer-networked

communication technology. Whether we are young or old, enthusiastic about its use or

not, it is undeniable that online communication has become one of the major ways that

people correspond with one another these days. It is often said that Internet

communication tools, which overcome time and space constraints, accelerate

globalization of the world by providing another opportunity for people to be connected to

the outside world (e.g., Black, 2009; Warschauer, 2000).

The Internet of the 21st century is known as Web 2.0, the second-generation Web,

which O‟Reilly (2005, 2006) differentiates from its earlier version, Web 1.0. When

personal computers and the Internet were becoming popular in the late 20th

century,

people were excited about the unlimited accessibility to a plethora of information on the

Web. The main concern of the Web 1.0 generation was how to consume information

wisely in order to succeed in the flood of knowledge. At that time, the Web was normally

considered as a space where information could be retrieved, and Internet users were

viewed mainly as consumers of knowledge that had already been prepared and published

by so-called experts. Although Web 1.0 services such as personal websites allowed the

public to write and post their own content, their design and construction were typically

restricted to the experts who had access to hardware and software and had skills and

knowledge about them. In addition, publishing activities were mostly unidirectional from

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a specific author to consumers, so that the information on the web stayed stable and

isolated.

On the other hand, the services based on Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs,

wikis, and social networking sites (SNS), which were mostly created and popularized in

the early 21st century, have provided a platform where ordinary Internet users can not

only read but also easily write, publish, and share their ideas with other users (O‟Reilly,

2005; Lankshear & Knobel, 2006; Warschauer & Grimes, 2007; Thorne, Black, & Sykes,

2009). Web 2.0 represents an online space where consumption, creation, and sharing of

information and knowledge can arise simultaneously. In addition, content creation is no

longer limited to a written text. Web 2.0 environments support multimodal processes of

content creation and transmission, such as posting and distributing images, audio tracks,

and videos.

Along with the rise of the large-scale publishing movement among the public and

its interactive and dynamic nature, Web 2.0 also has provided technical support and

environments for connecting people. Wesch (2007) emphasized on his YouTube video

clip that Web 2.0 is not just linking information but also linking people. It promotes

environments to weave a web of people and to build new communities in which people

can participate through active interactions and collaboration. Regarding the

characteristics of Web 2.0, Warschauer and Grimes (2007) observed that “the new Web‟s

architecture allows more interactive forms of publishing (of textual and multimedia

content), participation, and networking” (p. 2).

With regard to the new technical changes that the digital technologies of the 21st

century bring to our daily lives, Shaffer, Squire, Halverson, and Gee (2004) commented

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that social activities with new digital technologies have the potential to change the ways

that people think, act, and learn. Kern (2006) also indicated that the revolution of digital

technology “enables new forms of discourse; new forms of authorship; new forms of

identity construction; new ways to form, choose, and maintain learning communities and

affinity groups that cross national boundaries” (p. 183).

With this growing recognition of technical and social affordances of Web 2.0 in

learning, some research has been conducted to explore the emerging second language

(L2) literacy and learning practices mediated by Web 2.0 technologies outside of

traditional school contexts (e.g., Black, 2005, 2006, 2007; Lam 2000; Lam & Rosario-

Ramos, 2009). However, due to its recent advent, research on learning in Web 2.0

environments in general and L2 literacy and learning in particular is still in its infancy

(Thorne, 2008). In order to better respond to the needs of our 21st-century learners

(regardless of their ages, it seems imperative to understand the nature of language

learning practices that they voluntarily engage in with the Web 2.0 technologies, and to

comprehend how such practices are contributing to their L2 learning.

Research Questions

With an attempt to understand this ongoing social phenomenon of Web 2.0 and its

influence in L2 learning, I chose to investigate one of the Web 2.0 services, a social

networking site (SNS), and conducted an ethnographic case study with a specific SNS

named Lang-8.com. In this dissertation, my goals are to illuminate online users‟ L2

learning practices with Lang-8, a language learning website embedded with SNS features,

and how they understand their L2 learning experiences with it, and elaborate upon the

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nature of L2 learning facilitated by online social networking media. For this investigation,

I developed the following research questions:

1. What practices do online L2 learners engage in as they participate in the

Lang-8 SNS?

2. How do online L2 learners perceive the use of the Lang-8 SNS in their L2

learning?

3. What L2 learning environments have been developed and promoted at the

Lang-8 SNS and how do they contribute to Lang-8 users‟ L2 learning?

Definitions

Web 2.0. O‟Reilly (2006) defined Web 2.0 as follows:

Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move

to the internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on

that new platform. Chief among those rules is this: Build applications that harness

network effects to get better the more people use them (para. 1).

His standpoint implicates that the advent of Web 2.0 does not necessarily mean the

evolutionary advance of Web technologies since Web 1.0; rather, it is a change of

people‟s vision and mindset of how the Web can be used. Frequently exemplified Web

2.0 services are Flickr, del.icio.us, blogs, Wikipedia, Facebook, YouTube, and the like,

which are known to have such characteristics as promoting participation, collaboration,

user-generated data, user-generated taxonomy, and human networks (O‟Reilly, 2005;

Warschauer & Grimes, 2007).

Social networking sites (SNSs). Social networking sites (SNSs) are online

communities built by online users who want to share their interests, ideas, information,

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and friendships with other users. In general, SNS users build up a social network after

creating their own individual Web page or a theme-based community site. On an

individual level, users create their own profile and create connections to others by

sending an invitation note. On a group level, users create a virtual space, invite other

users to resister as a group member, and share their common interests together in a

synchronous or an asynchronous way.

According to Boyd and Ellison (2008), social network sites are defined as:

Web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public

profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom

they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and

those made by others within the system (p. 211).

Boyd and Ellison use the term “network” rather than “networking” in their definition,

explaining that the main role of current SNSs is not initiating a new relationship with

strangers but maintaining existing off-line relationships online. However, considering

that there are SNSs that regard weaving networks between strangers as a principal reason

for their existence (which include my online research site, Lang-8.com), I prefer using

“networking” to “network” for my study.

As the term “social networking” speaks for itself, SNSs are primarily considered

to be used mainly for finding and staying connected with people, which is what Mislove

et al. (2007) called “pure” SNSs. As other social media do, however, most of today‟s

SNSs (e.g., Facebook, MySpace Hi-5, and Cyworld) have technical features that enable

users not only to locate and connect to their friends but also to communicate with them

by publishing and organizing online content via varied communication modes such as

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text messages, photographs, audio tracks, and/or videos. Due to these multiple and hybrid

communication modes embedded within SNSs, today‟s users are able to easily create

multimedia content according to their own purposes in most SNSs. Depending on the

types of key content modes, people also often choose specific SNSs; for example, Flickr

and Zoomr for picture sharing, YouTube and Vimeo for video sharing, LiveJournal for

diary sharing, and MySpace and Last.fm for music sharing.

SNSs are also often categorized by their purpose and the size of their targeted

audience, but they usually fall into two main categories: general and niche social

networking (Boyd and Ellison, 2007; Zhang & Wang, 2010). The general SNSs (such as

Facebook, MySpace, and Hi-5) are relationship-oriented. The users focus more on

finding pre-existing and/or new friends and maintaining social connections. Because of

its general purpose, this type of SNS tends to accommodate people of all interests. Niche

SNSs (such as LinkedIn, Xing, Flixster, Dogster, GoodReads, and LiveMocha), on the

other hand, have their focus on specific interests and topics (such as business, education,

movies, music, pets, sports, dating, and the like). Because each niche SNS is organized

around online users driven by similar interests, the targeted audiences are also narrower

and more specific.

Besides the main content mode, the purpose, and the size of target audience, SNSs

also can be divided according to who is the center of a network. According to Kageyama

(2007), there exist two types of SNSs so far. One type is more “me-oriented” such as

MySpace and Facebook, and the other is less me-oriented such as Mixi, a social

networking site in Japan. In the former SNSs, social networks are more likely centered

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around each individual user; whereas, in the latter, the focus is put on group activities

rather than that of an individual.

No matter how many types of SNSs are out there, it is often said that most SNSs

have two core features: publishing profiles and making articulated social links visible

(Boyd & Ellison, 2007; Harrison & Thomas, 2009; Mislove et al., 2007). After creating

an SNS account by filling in brief personal information (such as first and last names,

email address, password, gender, birthday, etc.) users can publish their own profile by

uploading a profile picture and adding some more information like interests, education,

location, and the like. Profiles function to represent users in the SNS space; therefore, a

profile serves as the first contact point where SNS members meet. According to Dwyer,

Hiltz, and Passerini (2007), the visibility of profile information and the level of privacy

are usually decided and controlled by users, which depend on their purposes of using

SNSs and their level of trust on SNSs and their members.

After making and publishing a profile, users can start to create a list of friends.

Harrison and Thomas (2009) explain that there are two ways to make friends in SNSs in

general: by sending a friend request to another member and by creating or joining a

theme-based community. In general, forming a link between users is two-directional.

Once a user sends a request, he/she needs to wait until the counterpart accepts or declines

it. In the same way, when a user receives a friend request from another member, he/she

can choose whether to accept it or not. Without the mutual agreement to accept the other

as a friend, a relationship is less likely to be formed. However, depending on how the

SNS account is set up, users can be part of another‟s network without his or her own

approval, like Twitter and most Weblogs.

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There exist different layers of social connections even within the same SNSs; for

example, networks with pre-existing close friends in the real-world, real-world

acquaintances, online acquaintances, and so on (Boyd, 2006; Mislove et al., 2007). Users

can not only articulate their links to others but also control how much the list of friends

can be visible in SNSs. Some users make it visible to the public, some users to his or her

SNS friends, and some users keep it only to themselves (even though the last case is very

rare). No matter how open or closed the list is to the public, social networks are organized

around people rather than around content (Boyd & Ellison, 2007; Mislove, et al., 2007).

Users also often use another user‟s lists of friends as a starting point to search for another

possible friend. SNSs like Facebook have a technical feature to show connections with

other users on the basis of their mutual friends; that is, the system informs users of

friends who share the same friends within the system.

Significance of the Study

I believe that this research can be significant for both L2 education practitioners

and L2 learning theorists. First of all, this study can contribute to answering the following

question: What can teachers do with L2 learners of the Web 2.0 era in classroom

settings? According to Lankshear and Knobel (2006), the Web 1.0 generation tends to see

the world “much the same as before” except that “only now it is more technologized, or

technologized in more sophisticated ways,” but people living in Web 2.0 tend to see the

world “very different from before” “as a result of the emergence and uptake of digital

electronic inter-networked technologies” (p. 38). Gee (2004) also posits that “young

people today are often exposed outside of school to processes of learning that are deeper

and richer than the forms of learning to which they are exposed in schools” (p. 107).

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When teachers who mostly belong to the Web 1.0 or the earlier generations of technology

face those Web 2.0 learners who are believed to be developing a new mindset and

experiencing new learning processes in a global context on an everyday basis, it is not

unlikely that conflicts may arise between those teachers and students.

Even though most of my research participants are from generations before Web

2.0, their current L2 learning practices took place mainly around Lang-8.com. The Lang-

8 community was a center of their L2 learning, and they were active enough to be

insiders of Web 2.0. Therefore, this study, exploring the nature of L2 learning practices in

Web 2.0 environments, can contribute to the literature on the role of Web 2.0 technology

in L2 learning in general and to teachers‟ understanding of the learning environments that

today‟s L2 learners are exposed to. In the end, this type of research will help language

teaching become more related to today‟s L2 learners and to form school environments

where learners become more engaged in and devoted to their learning.

I also believe that L2 learning principles embedded in Web 2.0 environments can

enrich our perspectives on learning in general and L2 learning/acquisition in particular.

According to Gee (2004), traditional school education has been based on the

presupposition that learning is mainly a matter of cognition and learners have

“disembodied minds learning outside any context of decisions and actions” (p. 39).

Therefore, L2 learning in traditional school settings has been focused on developing

linguistic systems with language practice exercises, devoid of concrete and real-life

activities and outside contexts of its application. Thorne, Black, and Sykes (2009) depict

such traditional L2 classrooms as “bounded contexts providing limited opportunities for

committed, consequential, and longer-term communicative engagement” (p. 808).

10

However, many researchers have observed different types of L2 learning practices

with digital technology in non-institutionalized settings (e.g., Black, 2005, 2006, 2007;

Davies, 2006; Gee, 2004). Those researchers were interested in deep and active learning

voluntarily taking place among online users, analyzed the nature of learning in online

spaces, and found and highlighted its social origins and developments. For example, Gee

(2004) observed another type of learning, called “cultural processes,” in well-made video

games (p. 12). Gee argues that well-made video games situate language and its learning

in a concrete context and encourage game players to create socially situated identities and

commit to their learning in virtual spaces. In addition, online affinity spaces formed by

game players also create unique learning opportunities that have not been explored in

traditional school environments. All in all, research on the new online environments

where this voluntary, active, and technology-rich L2 learning takes place can expand our

theoretical view of L2 learning.

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Chapter Two

Conceptual Context

History of CALL

In the field of language education, the integration of information and

communication technology (ICT) into language learning has been discussed under the

acronym “CALL” (Computer Assisted Language Learning). Warschauer and Healey

(1998) portrayed the history of CALL in three main stages—Behavioristic CALL,

Communicative CALL, and Integrative CALL—and explained that each of these

corresponds to a certain level of computer technology and a certain pedagogical approach

to language. Warschauer (2000) revised the above three main states into Structural CALL,

Communicative CALL, and Integrative CALL later, and I will introduce this revised

terminology in brief.

According to Warschauer (2000), the stage of Structural CALL (1970s-1980s)

corresponded to behavioristic/structural approaches to language learning such as the

grammar translation method and the audiolingual method. At this stage, a computer was

considered as nothing more than a mechanical tutor that is never tired of presenting the

same material. The Internet was not commercially available to the public yet, so the

computer was used to carry out simply repeated language drills and practice exercises or

to give pre-programmed, immediate positive or negative feedback. Because the

structuralist approaches considered habit formation followed by repeated practices with

corrective linguistic feedback critical in language learning, Structural CALL programs

mostly consisted of “grammar and vocabulary tutorials, drill and practice programs, and

language testing instrument” (Kern & Warsachauer, 2000, p. 8).

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In contrast, the second stage, Communicative CALL (1980s-1990s), was based on

communicative and cognitive approaches to language learning, which hold that learners

develop language as an internal mental system through interaction (Warschauer, 2000).

Communicative CALL was supported by the advent of personal computers. At this stage,

CALL programs mostly consisted of communicative exercises like “analytic and

inferential tasks” that meant to increase interactions between language learners and to

provide many communication opportunities for language learners to receive enough

linguistic input (Kern & Warschauer, 2000, p. 13). In the 1980s, computer-mediated

communication (CMC) was not a major feature of CALL yet. Primary CALL models for

communicative exercises considered the computer as tutor (although not in a drill-

practice format), as stimulus that encourages students‟ discussion, writing, or critical

thinking (Taylor & Perez, 1989) or as a tool that empowers learners to use or understand

language, such as word processors, spelling and grammar checkers, and desk-top

publishing programs (Brierley & Kemble, 1991; Taylor, 1980). Even though CMC was

getting recognized as a major person-to-person communication tool in the early 1990s,

the computer still remained as a substitute for a real conversational environment (Thorne,

Black, & Sykes, 2009).

The third stage (21st century), Integrative CALL, based on a sociocultural view of

language learning, has emerged by the widespread use of multimedia and the Internet

which includes Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 technologies (Warschauer, 2000; Kern &

Warschauer, 2000). Warschauer posits that sociocultural approaches to learning language

involve “apprenticing into new discourse communities” and “entering new communities

and familiarizing [oneself] with new genres and discourses” (p. 65). Therefore, the

13

principal objective of CALL at this state is not only to help learners to improve accuracy

and fluency in a target language, but also to enable them to act as an agent in the world,

and the primary role of computers will be “to provide alternative contexts for social

interaction [and] to facilitate access to existing discourse communities and the creation of

new ones (Kern & Warschauer, 2000, p. 13). Warschauer envisions that CALL programs

will become content-based, task-based, or project-based, reflecting real-life tasks and

problems that learners are faced with in their everyday lives.

According to Bax (2003), however, Warschauer‟s three phases of CALL seemed

to simplify its real history by considering only two factors in his analysis: the underlying

language learning theories and the technologies that were available at that time. As a

result, Bax argues that Warschauer‟s analysis is inconsistent with the real historical

development of CALL, and that the label used for each phase of CALL is confusing.

Despite Bax‟s criticism, Warschauer‟s (2000) account deserves language educators‟

attention in that it is the first systematic analysis of the history of CALL in L2 education,

connecting the pedagogical approach of language with the development of digital

technology. In addition, Warschauer‟s analysis shows his view of what mainly has driven

the changes in CALL programs between language learning approach and technology. The

structural and communicative stages of CALL seem to show that the former was the

driving factor; that is, depending on language learning approaches, people used

technologies in behavioristic or communicative ways. However, when we get to the third

stage of CALL, new digital technologies “do not only serve the new teaching/learning

paradigms, [but] also help shape the new paradigms” (Kern & Warschauer, 2000, p. 12).

This does not imply that the trajectory of CALL will be simply determined by technology

14

itself. Rather, it emphasizes how historically significant the impact of current digital

technology is on today‟s language education, compared to its previous stages.

Another interesting aspect of Warschauer‟s (2000) history of CALL is that the

teaching and learning paradigms of 21st-century CALL have been captured in

sociocultural theories. Before CMC in general and Web 2.0 in particular appeared, the

access to the opportunities to learn a language was relatively restricted to physical-

institutional settings where formal language learning practices occurred most of time.

Learners mostly learned the language on the just-in-case-of-its-use basis, and language

learning was meaningless to learners in out-of-classroom situations until the right time

came to use the learned language. Even when CMC tools were introduced in the field of

L2 education in the early 1990s, their primary role was limited to creating

communication environments that exist only for communication‟s sake. However, as

Web 2.0 set in, it started to take language learners out of the classroom, and to provide

more places and opportunities to participate in the world in their learning language. Web

2.0 made it much easier for language learners to link themselves to others in the outer

world, and as a result, concepts such as “community,” “affiliation,” “participation,” and

“connection” have been considered important aspects of L2 learning activities (e.g.,

Black, 2006; Lam, 2000; Lankshear & Knobel, 2006).

On the basis of Warschauer‟s (2000) insight into the current and future trajectory

of CALL, I will discuss cognitively oriented second language acquisition theories and

sociocultural theories (SCTs) together and compare their epistemological and ontological

stances in an effort to explain why research on L2 learning activities in Web 2.0

environments has been often discussed in the SCT contexts and how closely SCTs and

15

Web 2.0 are related. After that, I will review the existing research to find out what we

have empirically learned about the roles of current Web 2.0 applications and services for

L2 learning.

Cognitive Perspectives of L2 Learning

Cognitively-oriented second language acquisition. While the origin of second

language learning theories traces back to the behavioristic tradition in the 1940s,

contemporary second language education has been dominantly led by psycholinguistic

and cognitive approaches of second language acquisition (SLA) which adhere to the

information processing paradigm (e.g., Gass, 1997; Krashen, 1985; VanPatten, 1996).

Johnson‟s (2004) analysis finds that all cognitive SLA models contain three basic

elements—input, a cognitive mechanism, and output—and they share a common belief

that input is a critical factor for language acquisition and is transformed into grammar

knowledge with the assistance of each learner‟s internal language processor.

For example, Krashen (1985) claims in his input hypothesis that humans acquire

second language in only one way—“by understanding messages, or by receiving

comprehensible input” (p. 2). By the term “comprehensible input” he means the input of

which structures and forms are at the i + 1 level; here, i represents a learner‟s current

level of competence in the target language and 1 the next level of competence along the

natural order of development. That is, once a learner is exposed to enough input which is

just beyond his or her current level of grammatical knowledge (i + 1), the learner can not

only comprehend the input but also acquire its structure because the comprehensible

input will subconsciously activate the learner‟s language acquisition device (LAD).

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Therefore, as long as input is comprehensible and enough of it is given, Krashen claims

that the learner can acquire the target language with the help of his or her LAD.

VanPatten‟s (1996) SLA model is composed of four stages—input, intake,

developing system, and output—and three sets of processes—input processing,

accommodation and restructuring, and access— which respectively explain how a learner

moves from one stage to another. In this model, he elaborates on how the learner gets

linguistic data from the input (Input Processing), what a developing system consists of

(Developing System), how the developing system changes (Accommodation and

Restructuring), and how a learner makes output (Access). VanPatten basically adopts the

classic elements of an information processing model like Krashen‟s (1985), but his model

is different from Krashen‟s in that he believes humans‟ language input is also processed

in a conscious way. That is, while Krashen believes that humans can acquire a target

language in a subconscious way, VanPatten assumes language acquisition takes place by

a learner‟s attending to and detecting linguistic data in the input.

Gass (1997) also accounts for how input is converted into output by introducing

five major stages: apperceived input, comprehended input, intake, integration, and output.

Gass believes that language acquisition starts from a learner‟s attention to the input.

Learners cannot utilize everything that they hear or read while they form their second

language grammars because humans‟ capacity of processing data is very limited;

therefore, language acquisition starts from the stage that learners notice or recognize “a

gap between what they already know and what there is to know” (p. 4). In noticing this

process, the input becomes much more manageable for learners.

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Another interesting feature of Gass‟s (1997) SLA model is its second stage,

comprehended input. Gass differentiates between comprehensible input (Krashen, 1985)

and her comprehended input in two ways. First, with comprehended input, she

emphasizes that the agent who controls the comprehensibility of language input is a

hearer, not a speaker. In Krashen‟s model, comprehensibility is controlled by the person

who provides input, but Gass states that it is the learner who is doing the work of

understanding. Secondly, Gass assumes that there are different levels of comprehension,

whereas Krashen sees comprehension in a dichotomous way: Something is understood or

not. In Gass‟s view, “comprehension represents a continuum of possibilities ranging from

semantics to detailed structural analyses” (p. 5).

In terms of the role of output, these three models show different perspectives as

well. First of all, Krashen (1985) posits that the only way a learner can acquire a target

language is through being exposed to enough comprehensible input; therefore, output

does not play a crucial role in the SLA process. In his view, speaking is just a result of

acquisition or a product of the acquired knowledge. VanPatten (2003) also makes it clear

that output cannot be a cause of language acquisition. However, he adopts a view that

output plays “a facilitative role in acquisition” (p. 69). By the term “facilitative role” he

means that the output may force learners to process input better by becoming aware that

they need a form or a structure while they are speaking. Gass (1997) agrees that output is

“not truly a stage in the acquisition process” in one sense, but in another sense it plays

“an active role in acquisition” (p. 7). In her model, Gass adopts Swain‟s (1985)

perspective on the role of output: the noticing/triggering and the hypothesis-testing

function. In Gass‟s view, output makes it possible for learners to pay more attention to

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syntactic analysis of language than to semantic processing, and to test their hypothesis on

second language grammars and modify it on the basis of the given feedback. As a result,

the acquisition process does not end in the output component, but output restarts input

processing by interacting with the intake component or by enabling the learners to

understand the perceived input much better.

Factors affecting second language learning have also been actively examined in

the language acquisition models discussed so far. For example, Krashen (1985) proposes

an affective filter hypothesis, according to which affective factors such as motivation,

attitude, self-confidence, and anxiety influence a learner‟s degree of acquisition. In

addition, how much time learners have, how much they focus on forms, and how well

they know the rules affect their monitoring process.

Gass (1997) also delineates mediating factors in her model in detail. For example,

when input is apperceived by the learner, such factors as time, frequency, affect (e.g.,

social distance, status, motivation, and attitude), prior knowledge, salience of forms, and

attention affect the degree of the learner‟s perception of input. Regarding the transition

from the apperceived to comprehended input stage, Gass indicates that negotiation of

meaning, foreigner talk, and redundancy improve the learner‟s comprehension. When

comprehended input is converted into intake, the learner‟s level of analysis of input and

the learner‟s knowledge of their native language, second language, world language, and

universal language also mediate the process. Between intake and integration stage, the

learner‟s ability to form and test language hypotheses, and between integration and

output stage, the learner‟s personality, language production mode, and situation play

important mediating roles.

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Teaching approaches based on SLA models. Affected by the cognitive

language acquisition models that describe what happens in language learners‟ heads

when they acquire a target language and the mediating factors that explain why each

individual learner shows a different language learning progress even with the same input

and output conditions, teaching approaches to second language have been evolved from

grammar translation and audiolingual methods to communicative language teaching

(CLT). Lightbown and Spada (1999) state that CLT has its primary focus on “using

language for meaningful interaction and for accomplishing tasks rather than on learning

rules” (p. 40).

CLT has been supported by the psycholinguistic and cognitive SLA models

because of its emphasis on the role of conversational interaction. It has been commonly

believed that conversational interaction brings about negotiation for meaning and input

adjustments between speakers, which makes input much more comprehensible for

language learners by facilitating their comprehension process (Long, 1983; Gass, 1997;

VanPatten, 2003). Gass also adds that negotiation and modification “serves to increase

the possibility of a greater amount of input becoming available for further use” (p. 22). In

addition, Long (1996) states that “negative feedback obtained during negotiation work or

elsewhere may be facilitative of L2 development, at least for vocabulary, morphology,

and language-specific syntax, and essential for learning certain specifiable L1-L2

contrasts” (p. 414).

On the basis of cognitive SLA models, effort also has been made to apply the

second language acquisition theory to pedagogy. For example, VanPatten (2003)

discusses implications of his model for second language teaching. He notes that second

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language teaching does not have to be acquisition-oriented, but if it is, the following

suggestions may guide the class in an appropriate way: “The more input, the better (the

more meaning-based the class, the better); the more interaction, the better; all learner

production should be meaning-based or communicative; focus on form (or grammar

instruction) should be meaning-based and tied to input or communication; and we should

watch out for what we expect of learners” (p. 113). His suggestions basically tell us that

meaning-based input is crucial in second language education, and quality input can be

provided through conversational interactions, but teachers should not expect learners to

produce what they cannot produce. VanPatten‟s suggestions are not the only way of

applying SLA theories to pedagogy, but they seem to be a typical guideline in the

acquisition-oriented class.

Epistemological and ontological premises of SLA. Second language (L2)

researchers who adopt cognitive and psycholinguistic approaches view SLA as the study

of how second language is acquired in an individual‟s mind or brain, and consider that

the legitimate and primary scope of SLA research has to be the internal mental process of

linguistic knowledge (e.g., Gass, 1997, 1998; Gass & Selinker, 1994; Gregg, 1993;

Kasper, 1997; Krashen, 1985; Long, 1997; Poulisse, 1997; VanPatten, 1996, 2003). Due

to the strong emphasis on internal mechanisms of L2 acquisition, cognitive SLA

researchers consider social, cultural, and historical dimensions of language and

situational contexts influencing the acquisition processes as trivial, minor, or secondary

unless they directly contribute to the explanation of how linguistic knowledge is

processed within an individual. Thus, when Firth and Wagner (1997) claimed a

reconceptualization of SLA by adding “contextual and interactional dimensions of

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language use” and “an increased „emic‟ (i.e., participant relevant) sensitivity” in SLA

research (p. 286), Gass (1998), Kasper (1997), Long (1997), and Poulisse (1997) argued

that Firth and Wagner‟s suggestions were based on their misinterpretations of what SLA

had to be about. For example, Long (1997) explicated that “any theory of language

acquisition […] has to address the question of how learners‟ interlanguage knowledge

processes from stage A to stage B, and what events promote or hinder such progress […]

because in the final analysis, learning or acquiring anything is about establishing new

knowledge available for effective and efficient use” (p. 310).

In cognitively-oriented SLA, language is viewed as an abstract system of

linguistic forms and structures. Language is perceived as linguistic data such as input,

intake, or output which can be manipulated, adjusted, restructured, and accommodated.

Although the acquisition models support communicative language teaching (CLT), which

sees a language as a tool for communication, Johnson (2004) points out that human

communication in the acquisition model is reduced to “the notion of input that needs to

be processed according to well-established computational rules” and the meaning

exchanged through communication is also reduced to “a sentence-level type of

information” (p. 71). From the acquisition perspective, language is an objectified

commodity to be acquired.

How a learner is conceived of in the acquisition models is introduced in the

acquisition and participation metaphor by Sfard (1998). He states that the acquisition

metaphor (AM) construes a learner as a recipient and a (re)constructor. The AM compels

us to think of the human mind as “a container to be filled with certain materials,” which

is independent of his or her sociocultural contexts (p. 5). Therefore, the learner can own

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those materials after the learning process is finished. In the same vein, the SLA models

also consider a second language learner as “a machine (a computer)” or “a limited

capacity processor” (Johnson, 2004, p. 71). Even though the acquisition model attends to

the learner‟s active role of constructing and reconstructing the received linguistic data,

the active role is very bound to his or her own internal capacity.

From the perspective of viewing language as a set of rules and facts and a learner

as someone who has a limited processing capacity, language learning is considered as an

individual‟s cognitive process of acquiring linguistic forms and structures. As Sfard

(1998) points out that the acquisition metaphor (AM) considers learning as “gaining

possession over some commodity” (p. 5), the SLA models also assume that L2 learning

means gaining a new set of linguistic knowledge in a subconscious or conscious manner.

Johnson (2004) wrote that the acquisition models describe the process of

analyzing the incoming information as “mechanistic, predictable, stable, and universal”

(p. 84). With the AM, language is considered as an abstract system of linguistic codes

devoid of a context, so that its learning also takes on a homogeneous characteristic. As

Sfard (1998) comments that the AM gives us an “as if message,” (p. 12), the cognitive

SLA models describe the process of second language learning as if the learner had a mind

that is independent of the context and the world where he or she is living.

Concerns with cognitively-oriented SLA. The cognitive approaches of SLA

prevailing in the second language educational field for about 40 years have contributed to

second language learning studies in many ways. For example, cognitive SLA has

explicated the complicated nature of language acquisition process happening within an

individual. Secondly, the emphasis on the comprehension of meaning followed by

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sufficient language input has guided L2 educators to pay more attention to improving

communicative competencies of L2 learners through real interactive communications

rather than to audiolingual approaches emphasizing decontextualized habit-forming and

memorizing methods such as meaningless pattern drills and repetitions or to grammar

translation methods mainly focusing on learning about grammar knowledge and rules. By

highlighting an individual learner‟s innate ability to process and develop linguistic

knowledge, cognitive SLA has also contributed to making L2 teaching less mechanistic

and focusing more on creating input-rich environments where interactive communication

can take place. Even with these tangible achievements, however, some concerns remain

to think over regarding its epistemological and ontological stance on language learning.

First, L2 learning has been considered mainly as a cognitive issue, so that the

main focus has been to provide the fittest environment for language learners to optimize

language input and output. Under cognitively oriented perspectives, the learner‟s mind is

like a container or a computer, so that the main interest has been how to help the mind to

process and fill with linguistic knowledge effectively. However, the question is whether

our learners learn a second language as if they have a mind independent of where they

were, are, and will be. If a learner‟s mind is simply separated from the world, the

question remains as to why the learner would be interested in filling the mind with

linguistic knowledge.

Secondly, Firth and Wagner (1997) criticizes that cognitively-oriented SLA puts

L2 users simply in the category of “learners” or “non-native speakers of the target

language” rather than treating them as a whole person, which overlooks multiple social

identities that L2 users hold and bring in using and learning an L2. Once again, this

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simplified status of L2 users reflects the standpoint resisting the relevance of language

acquisition and L2 learners‟ social worlds. Because the primary focus of cognitive SLA

has been to describe universal processes of language learning from the psycholinguistic

perspective, social identities other than the learner identity as non-native speakers are

regarded as variables to be controlled rather than being valued as an important topic to

investigate. In general, issues like identity (re)construction taking place throughout L2

using and learning have been considered as something that has little to do with language

learning/acquisition in cognitive SLA.

Regarding the concept of L2 learners, Firth and Wagner (1997) continue to

criticize that cognitive SLA research has viewed L2 learners as those who have linguistic

deficiencies in the use of the language. When some communicative misunderstandings

occur between native speakers and L2 learners, the latter are usually considered to cause

communicative problems due to their non-nativeness in linguistic competences. On the

other hand, native speakers have been portrayed to be an ideal figure that L2 learners

target to reach and their communicative competences to be the ultimate goal that L2

learners have to accomplish in the end. However, according to Firth and Wagner, viewing

L2 learners as “inherently defective communicators” (p. 291) is biased in that it does not

involve the emic perspectives to real-life, communicative problems. Instead, they

promote the concept of considering L2 learners as participants/language users in social

interactions, which stems from sociocultural perspectives viewing language use (that also

includes language learning) as a social phenomenon rather than solely as an individual

and a cognitive event. Under their suggested mindset, communication is understood as a

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conjoint activity between interlocutors, and communicative problems should be viewed

as “contingent social phenomena” and “intersubjective entities” (p. 291.)

The third concern about cognitive SLA is that it “may draw people apart rather

than bring them together” (Sfard, 1998, p. 8). With the acquisition metaphor (AM), Sfard

states that knowledge is conceived of as a commodity and property, learning as

acquisition of something, and knowing as having and possessing. In other words,

knowledge is treated like material wealth in capitalist countries, so that knowing and

learning implies gaining more material wealth than others and being superior to those

who know or learn less. Therefore, viewing learning as having and possessing property

can cause unnecessary competition among learners, which can result in valuing

individualism and independence more than togetherness, solidarity, and collaboration. In

the second language learning situation based on the AM, it is natural to think that the

students who gain and possess more practical grammar knowledge and communicative

competence of the second language will be considered as successful learners, whereas

those who gain less fail as learners. Because the goal of L2 learning and teaching is

individual enrichment with linguistic competence according to the AM, if the learner

does not acquire this competence, he or she will be conceived as a L2 failure.

Sociocultural Perspectives of L2 Learning

Since the concerns about epistemological and ontological stances of cognitive

SLA were raised in the late 1990s, many efforts have been made to suggest alternative

models of L2 learning mostly from sociocultural orientations, which view L2 learning as

more than internal mental processes of linguistic knowledge (e.g., Firth & Wagner, 1997;

Hall, 1997; Johnson, 2004; Lantolf, 1994; Lantolf & Johnson, 2007; Lantolf & Thorne,

26

2006; Robbins, 2003; Swain & Deters, 2007; Watson-Gegeo, 2004). In general,

sociocultural theories foreground social origins of learning and development of human

beings (Zuengler & Miller, 2006). They promote the holistic point of view that each

individual is a part of the world, and the world exists on the condition that he/she lives

and acts in it; therefore, human development and activity cannot be fully understood by

taking apart from the world where they live (Leontiev, 1978). Among many important

concepts that sociocultural theories promote, I have paid attention to mediation,

dialogism, and situated learning in order to look into different interpretations of language,

language learners, and language learning.

Language as a mediational tool of mind. The view that language is a

mediational tool comes from Vygotsky‟s sociocultural approach to mind (1978, 1986).

Vygotsky conceives the human mind not only as a psychological but also as

socioculturally-mediated organ. Although Vygostky does not rule out the contribution of

biological growth of human mind to the development of its mental functioning, he

intends to find the sources and origins of human mental activity in our interactions with

social environments, particularly with people, which are mediated by cultural artifacts.

Vygotsky understands that mental activity is present first in interpersonal planes no

matter how individual it appears.

The social origin of mental activity is further explicated by the two roles of

cultural artifacts. First, as a tool that is “externally oriented,” they enable us to extend our

mental abilities to regulate and master our physical world; secondly as a sign that is

“internally oriented,” they enable us to regulate and master our inner world (Vygotsky,

1978, p. 55). Among many cultural artifacts that have existed so far, Vygotsky (1986)

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counts a language as the most influential meditational means, with which humans can

form and transform their actions and develop their mental functions to higher levels.

According to Vygotsky (1978), language originally exists for the purpose of

communication; therefore, through speech, humans can have interactions with and

eventually influence others in a certain way. Once language is appropriated and

internalized, it also starts functioning to help humans to shape their thoughts more easily

and to react to their environmental stimuli more efficiently and effectively. As Vygotsky

comments that “mental tools enable humans to plan ahead, to create complex solutions to

problems, and to work with others towards a common goal” (p. 17), the use of language

accelerates humans‟ ability to communicate and shape thoughts, control their cognitive

and physical behaviors, and master their inner and outer worlds in the end.

Wertsch‟s (1991) interpretation that “Vygotsky approached language and other

sign systems in terms of how they are part of and „mediate‟ human action” is helpful to

better understand the mediational roles of language (p. 29). Wertsch views that symbolic

artifacts are inherently related to human action and always exist as a part of it. In other

words, language is understood as “a way of „doing‟ things in the world” (McVee,

Dunsmore, & Gavelek, 2005, p. 546). From this view, language does not exist only as an

abstract set of sounds and written symbols independent of the social contexts where it is

used, but as a mediational tool that enables humans to facilitate their (inter)actions (e.g.,

communication) with others outwardly and themselves (e.g., thinking) inwardly. As

human actions occur in specific social, cultural, and historical environments and play a

role in (re)connecting actors with their environments, the use of language also occurs in

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specific communicative contexts and plays a role in (re)connecting speakers with the

world where they live.

Language as utterance in speech genre. Bakhtin (1986) views language not

simply as linguistic forms that exist as an abstract system, but as speech communication

that exists in reality; thus, an utterance, not a word or a sentence, should be the real unit

of speech communication. With the comment that “language is realized in the form of

individual concrete utterances (oral or written) by participants in the various areas of

human activity,” he underlines a social situatedness of language as a social act (p. 60).

According to him, concrete utterances are understood as human activities through which

“language enters life” and “life enters language” (p. 63).

Bakhtin (1986) introduces three major features of the utterance. First, the

boundary of each utterance is determined by a change of speaking subjects. By defining

the individual speaker as a criterion for separating each utterance, Bakthin emphasizes

the importance of human agency in language use and the importance of its understanding

within the boundaries of communication events between at least two social beings.

The second constitutive feature of the utterance is its specific finalization—the

possibility of responding to it, which is determined by “semantic exhaustiveness of the

theme,” “the speaker‟s plan or speech will,” and “typical compositional and generic

forms of finalization” (Bakhtin, 1986, pp. 76-77). He indicates that understandability or

comprehensibility of the meaning of language is not enough for units of language to be

an utterance; they must have the quality of being addressed to someone, “addressivity” (p.

99), so that they will arouse the addressee‟s responsive understanding and reactions. In

addition, this second feature implies that there exist varied forms of utterances; that is,

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not only can a short word be an utterance but also a sentence and a paragraph or even a

large volume of novel can be an utterance as long as they have a quality of addressivity.

The third feature is the relation of the utterance to the speaker himself (the author

of the utterance) and to the other participants in speech communication (Bakhtin, 1986, p.

84), and this is associated with his notion of a word. Bakhtin argued that a word (as well

as a sentence) exists in three aspects: “as a neutral word of a language,” “as an other‟s

word,” and “as my word” (p. 88). The first aspect indicates a word as a unit of language,

just like an entry in a dictionary. It does not belong to anyone yet, so its meaning remains

impersonal and abstract. The second aspect indicates a word used by others; it belongs to

others, and is filled with the reverberation of their utterances. However, once the speaker

appropriates words and populates them with his/her own specific intentions within his/her

own speech plans (no matter whether he/she picks them up from the dictionary or others‟

utterances), they are transformed into a third aspect of word, a “my word,” and are filled

with “the speaker‟s subjective emotional evaluation of the referentially semantic content

of his[/her] utterance” (p. 84). These three different aspects of the word illuminate the

active roles of “others” as well as “the author/speaker” in communication.

The above three features of the utterance also can be recapitulated by its dialogic

nature. Bakhtin (1986) notes that “any utterance […] has […] an absolute beginning and

an absolute end: its beginning is preceded by the utterances of others, and its end is

followed by the responsive utterances of others (or, although it may be silent, others‟

active responsive understanding, or, finally, a responsive action based on this

understanding)” (p. 71). When a speaker constructs an utterance, he/she is always

responsive to others‟ utterances. The speaker may respond to the semantic content of the

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previous utterances in such ways as agreeing, negating, questioning, and explaining, or to

their particular uses of lexical or syntactic elements. Therefore, the utterance does not

come out of nowhere; rather, it originates from others‟ utterances and is sensitive to their

own specific social and cultural contexts. At the same time, the utterance is also oriented

towards addressee(s)/listener(s). The speaker normally expects a response from the

listener, so he/she modifies the content and style of the utterance depending on who the

audience is and will be. The speaker has a particular audience in mind and takes into

account their responsive understanding and reactions, and this influences the quality of

his/her own utterances. To sum up, the utterance is always formed in multiple relations

with preceding and following utterances, and Bakhtin explains this dialogic nature of the

utterance as “a link in a very complexly organized chain of other utterances” (p. 69).

Although utterance is sensitive to particular contexts of speech communication

and heterogenetic in its forms, Bakhtin (1986) argues that we can study the utterance by

looking at speech genres that it belongs to. Bakhtin notes that “each separate utterance is

individual, of course, but each sphere in which language is used develops its own

relatively stable types of these utterances. These we may call speech genres” (p. 60). And

he continues that “a particular function […] and the particular conditions of speech

communication specific for each sphere give rise to particular genres, that is, certain

relatively stable thematic, compositional, and stylistic types of utterances” (p. 64).

According to Bakhtin (1986), all human beings speak in speech genres; therefore,

having a good command of language means to have the ability to command “a repertoire

of genres of social conversation” (p. 80). Without knowing different speech genres, we

cannot fully participate in social activities in various areas of our lives. Mastering speech

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genres does not occur by learning vocabulary and grammatical structures of language

abstractly; rather, we can learn and master them best by being exposed to the concrete

contexts in which each speech genre is embodied and by experiencing them in real

speech communication. However, Bakhtin also indicates that mastering speech genres of

a given language is not as easy as it sounds because of their heterogeneity. As there are a

myriad of areas of human activities in reality, there also exist countless categories of

speech genres. In addition, as the functions and conditions of speech communication

change in time, so do speech genres. Bakhtin says that “speech genres are much more

changeable, flexible, and plastic than language forms are” (p. 80). Therefore, a speaker‟s

command of a given language is manifested not only by his/her knowledge about speech

genres but also by his/her sensitivity to those changes and ability to catch up with their

flows.

Language as a world view in dialogue. Conceiving language as a worldview is

related to a close relationship between language and human consciousness. Medvedev

and Bakhtin (1978) argue that “human consciousness does not come into contact with

existence directly, but through the medium of the surrounding ideological world,” and

they continue that “the individual consciousness can only become a consciousness by

being realized in the forms of the ideological environment proper to it: in language, in

conventionalized gesture, in artistic image, in myth, and so on” (as cited in Morris, 2003,

p. 127). For them, language is one of the semiotic signs and tools that mediate between a

self and his/her outer world. It is a place where both of the worlds are in contact. Through

discursive practices, an individual comes to interactively communicate with the outside,

so that the outer world enters the inner world and becomes a source of self-configuration,

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and likewise, the inner enters the outer world and becomes an agent of the individual‟s

external activities. As the outer world is already stratified into many different classes and

groups, the language that is used in each different sphere of our lives has been already

stratified accordingly. Therefore, participating in dialogue implicates speakers‟

understanding of the stratified nature of specific social areas where the language is used,

selectively using it to represent or deny their ideological stances, and at the same time

fashioning it with their own thoughts, emotions, and volitions to complete their intentions.

According to Bakhtin (1981), “all words have the „taste‟ of a profession, a genre, a

tendency, a party, a particular work, a particular person, a generation, an age group, the

day and hour. Each word tastes of life; all words and forms are populated by intentions”

(p. 293). Due to this ideological aspect of language, he notes that our language

performances are a part of becoming an ideological self. Bakhtin stated,

We are taking language not as a system of abstract grammatical categories, but

rather language conceived as ideologically saturated, language as a world view,

even as a concrete opinion, insuring a maximum of mutual understanding in all

spheres of ideological life (as cited in Morris, 2003, p. 74)

In opposition to the idea that language performance is only an independent

individual act of creating meaning by assembling linguistic forms according to the rules

of the language, Bakhtin (1981, 1986) assumes that it is a social act of borrowing,

repeating, and appropriating others‟ words. He believes that language always lies on the

borderline between a self and the other. Before a speaker appropriates a word by

accenting it with his/her own intention, it exists as a word of others first. The speaker

takes others‟ words, which served their intentions at a specific social and cultural context

33

and a specific historical moment of their lives, and repeats them for his/her own purpose

in a given place and time. Therefore, the selected words involve not only others‟ specific

points of view on the world but also the speaker‟s own evaluation of others‟ voices. Since

many voices contribute to an utterance, Bakhtin says that we in fact speak with multiple

voices.

Language use, which involves contact of a self with others, implicates the

speaker‟s conflicts, tensions, and struggles in understanding and forming his/her own

worldviews from the differentness of others‟ voices. Bakhtin (1981) calls this kind of

nature of speech heteroglossia, introducing two oppositional forces existing in discourse:

centripetal and centrifugal. Centripetal forces move toward unification, centralization,

and homogenization of our thoughts, values, beliefs, and actions, whereas centrifugal

forces move toward their decentralization and heterogeneity. According to Bakhin, these

two forces exist simultaneously in humans‟ discursive activities, and affect our

ideological process of becoming. The confrontation of these two forces creates havoc on

our ways of viewing the world, but it is a starting point where new meanings of language

and a new ideological self are created.

One example of these struggles is explained in the concepts of authoritative

discourse and internally persuasive discourse (Bakhtin, 1981). Bakhtin notes that

authoritative discourse is like “the word of the fathers” (p. 342). It is generally conveyed

to an individual in a manner of authority, tradition, and formality, and its main role is to

unify us by centralizing our views of the world. Because of its embedded authoritative

manners, the authoritative discourse “demands that we acknowledge it, [and] that we

make it our own” (p. 342), and this enforcement nature causes our struggles with it.

34

However, Bakhtin also points out that each individual has a different degree of struggle

with authoritative discourse, depending on the contexts that he/she has grown up with and

his/her relationship with it.

Internally persuasive discourse, on the other hand, is from our daily discourse

with common people that we can easily encounter. Bakhtin (1981) explains that it is

“denied all privilege, backed by no authority at all, and is frequently not even

acknowledged in society” (p. 342). Rather, internally persuasive discourse is, “as it is

affirmed through assimilation, tightly interwoven with „one‟s own word‟” (p. 345). The

internally persuasive word is already half ours; thus it not only represents what we think

of who we are but also drives us to become who we want to be. However, it does not

block the channel to listen to others‟ voices. In contrast to authoritative discourse,

internally persuasive discourse is more flexible and open to change itself with a dialogic

interaction with the discourses of others, which is oriented not only to make itself more

internally persuasive, but also “to reveal ever newer ways to mean” (p. 346).

Bakhtin (1981) notes that authoritative and internally persuasive discourses can

“be united in one word,” but “what usually determines the history of an individual

consciousness” is not from such unity but from “a sharp gap between these two

categories” (p. 324). When an individual notices these differences, he/she tends to have

more chances of changing his/herself to a new self. However, this self-transformation

process does not occur by itself. An individual has to be in a dialogue with these

differences. Therefore, dialogue is characterized by “coexistence of socio-ideological

contradictions between the present and the past, between different socio-ideological

groups in the present, between tendencies, schools, circles, and so forth, all given a

35

bodily form” (p. 291). Bakthin explains that the stance of differentness in dialogue is not

destined to be synthesized into a finalized truth, but oriented to the generative production

of a new meaning and to the better understanding not only in a speaker him/herself but

also in other dialogue participants.

Notions of being: Unfinalized and dialogic phenomenon. With a view of

humans as social beings, Bakhtin (1984) notes that dialogic communication is a

prerequisite for our existence in this world. He stated,

The very being of man (both external and internal) is the “deepest communion.”

“To be” means “to communicate.” Absolute death (not being) is the state of being

unheard, unrecognized, unremembered. To be means to be for another, and

through the other, for oneself. A person has no internal sovereign territory, he is

wholly and always on the boundary; looking inside himself, he looks into the eyes

of another with the eyes of another (p. 287).

According to him, dialogue “is not a means for revealing, for bringing to the surface the

already ready-made characters of a person,” but an on-going action through which “he

becomes for the first time what he is” (p. 252). In the state of dialogue, a person is able to

see his/her own self-images in relation to others and get an opportunity to encounter

others‟ different voices, so that he/she comes to figure out his/her selfhood while

examining those differences between the self and the others and questioning his/her own

voices. Dialogue always involves the process of construction and reconstruction of self.

For this reason, when we stop the dialogue, we lose a chance to see and shape who we are.

In the process of self-production, therefore, it is essential to be in contact with

others. For Bakhtin (1986), the role of others is especially important because they are the

36

ones with “whom my thought becomes actual thought for the first time (and thus also for

my own self as well)” (p. 94). As my thoughts are recognized by others through dialogue,

my self-being also makes an appearance to its outer world. At the same time, the

presence of others and my contact with their voices function to be the foundation of my

self-being and consciousness. Bakthin (1981) says that “another‟s discourse […] strives

to determine the very basis of our ideological interrelations with the world, the very basis

of our behavior” (p. 342); therefore, “I cannot do without the other, I cannot become

myself without the other; I must find myself in the other, finding the other in me” (p.

185).

The significance of dialogic relations with others in the process of self-

configuration does not implicate each individual‟s passive role in dialogue. Instead,

Bakhtin (1986) views each individual as a creative agent of his/her discursive activity.

According to Hicks (2000), “agency entails the ability to take the words of others and

accent them in one‟s unique way. Moreover, response entails the ability to read the

particulars of a situation and its discourses and engage with those particulars in ethically

specific ways” (p. 240). As introduced in the Bakhtinian concept of utterance, each

individual bases his/her utterance on the responsive understanding of others‟ utterances

and fills it with his/her own intention. Therefore, Holquist (1986) commented that all

speakers can be considered as authors and creators of their own utterances from a

Bakhtinian perspective. However, this creative agency does not mean that our

consciousness can exist free from the time and place that we live in. Instead, its base is

the social and cultural spheres of our lives and the relationships with those who we are

living with; therefore, creative agency is also bound by the world where we live. Bakhtin

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says, “the better a person understands the degree to which he is externally determined

[…] the closer to home he comes to understanding and exercising his real freedom” (p.

59).

The Bakhtinian notion of dialogue also presupposes a difference between

conversers. According to Bakhtin (1986), it is essential for an individual to have

outsideness from others in order to have a meaningful dialogue. Even when a self and the

others are in the contact zone, there is no guarantee that all interlocutors will have a

meaningful dialogue if both sides remain identical. Without challenges and tensions

coming from outsideness and differentness, it is hard to expect growth of ourselves. As

indicated before, the stance of differentness in dialogue, however, is not destined to be

synthesized into a finalized truth. Instead, the differentness is oriented to better

understanding in participants in dialogue (including a speaker him/herself) and to

formation and transformation of a self into a new creative hybridized being.

The importance of outsideness also implicates the importance of uniqueness of an

individual and his/her equal status with others in dialogue (Bakhtin, 1986). An individual

can be different from the other because each of us keeps our own unique individuality.

Because of each individual‟s uniqueness, everyone can equally contribute to dialogue. As

Bakhtin (1984) explains with reference to Dostoevksy‟s polyphonic novels with their

simultaneous existence of plural voices on equal terms between the author and heroes, the

uniqueness of and equality between all interlocutors can be referred to as their

polyphonic relationship in dialogue.

As to the question about why humans have a dialogical relationship with others,

Bakhtin (1984) finds the answer in the unfinalized nature of human beings: “As long as a

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person is alive he lives by the fact that he is not yet finalized, that he has not yet uttered

his ultimate word” (p.59). According to Medvedev and Bakhtin (1978), “compositional

finalization is possible in all spheres of ideological creation, but real thematic finalization

is impossible” (cited in Morris, 2003, p. 176). Because of this unfinalizability, humans

can always have a possibility to change.

Learning as socially situated activity. One of the critical concepts that explain

how sociocultural theories view learning comes from a community of practice (CoP)

framework (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998; Wenger, 2006; Wenger, McDermott,

& Snyder, 2002). Wenger et al. (2002) define communities of practice as “groups of

people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who

deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basis” (p.

4). According to this view, humans learn interactively with others while participating in

the practices created and developed by their belonged community. A community of

practice is a context in which joint learning takes place. According to Wenger et al., the

concept of communities of practice has been with us all the time. No matter whether we

are aware of their presence or not, they have been everywhere in various names and

forms. Although there is a difference in the degree of participation level in each

community, each of us has been involved in a number of communities of practice and has

been learning with group/community members doing shared practices.

However, Wenger et al. (2002) argue that not all communities are a community of

practice. There are three major components that constitute it: domain, community, and

practice (Wenger, 2006; Wenger et al., 2002). The first element, a domain, indicates a

domain of knowledge or topics that matter to community members. The domain is

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something that group members are willing to pursue, which in turn functions to have

them gather in the beginning of community formation. Therefore, Wenger (2006)

indicates that the domain gives an identity to each group. Because the domain represents

part of what group members are/do and what they want to be/do, it also provides meaning

and value to their actions, which further leads to their strong contribution and

commitment to the community.

The second structural component of communities of practice is a community, a

group of people “who care about the [shared] domain” and create “the social fabric of

learning” (Wenger et al., 2002, p. 27). Getting together around a shared interest does not

necessarily make a community a community of practice unless group members try to

learn from each other while maintaining their interactions over time. In the process of

building a relationship through consistent communications, group members not only

develop knowledge and skills important to the domain of their interests, but also develop

a mutual engagement and “a sense of belonging and mutual commitment” (p. 34).

Wenger et al. state that characteristics of a strong community of practice can be found in

the relationship among group members, which is based on “respect and trust,”

“homogeneity and diversity,” “voluntary participation,” “distributed leadership,”

“reciprocity,” and “openness” (p. 35-37).

The last constituent component of a community of practice is a practice, a set of

shared knowledge that community members develop, which includes not only specific

ways of doing things but also specific ways of seeing, thinking, and understanding.

Wenger (2006) views that group members are “practitioners” in that “they develop a

shared repertoire of resources: experiences, stories, tools, ways of addressing recurring

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problems—in short a shared practice” (para. 5). In developing, sharing, maintaining, and

adjusting those resources over time, community members come to find ways to approach

the problems they face more efficiently and to gain more common ground to identify with

other community members. In most cases, community members learn about shared

practices while performing them in an actual situation; thus, practices are situated in a

specific context, but not always recognized and learned by all community members in an

explicitly and formally articulated format.

In order for a community to be a community of practice, Wenger at al. (2002)

claim that all these three components should be in place together. If one is missing, a

community cannot be qualified to be a community of practice. For instance, they

distinguish a community of practice from a community of interest. In both communities,

people are drawn to a certain topic and make a commitment to know more about it.

However, the main purpose of the community of interest is to access knowledge, not to

develop and expand knowledge; thus interactions through shared practices are not

necessary among the community of interest members. It is also described that a

community of practice is different from a general friend network. Although informal

networks also show connectivity between members, this connection is not necessarily

around the shared domain of interest; thus, commitment to the domain is not a

requirement to have a legitimate membership in informal networks whereas it is so in

communities of practice.

Although all three major components are essential to develop and maintain

communities of practice, stability in one component can also help the communities to

proceed even when they are in a transition stage (Wenger et al., 2002). As time goes by,

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small and sometimes big changes are inevitable within the communities. For example, a

domain of interest can be shifted as new topics come up, a relationships among

community members can change as people come and go, and practices can change as

members try to find a better way to tackle the topics. When the changes in the three

components occur at the same time, the communities are at risk of disintegrating.

However, if at least one element stays strong and stable, it can help “facilitate a transition

in another [component]” (p. 47). As Wenger et al. noticed, “the synergy between domain,

community, and practice…help a community evolve and fulfill its potential” (p. 47).

In terms of how learning is processed in communities of practice, Lave and

Wenger (1991) state that learning involves a process of legitimate peripheral

participation, which indicates the notion that “learners inevitably participate in

communities of practitioners and that the mastery of knowledge and skill requires

newcomers to move toward full participation in the sociocultural practices of a

community” (p. 29). In this model of learning, learning is not simply a cognitive process

of acquiring decontextualized knowledge, and does not simply happen only in the heads

of learners. Instead, learning, as a situated activity, is a constituent element of all social

practice and an essential part of the process of coming to belong to a community.

In the process of legitimate peripheral participation, legitimacy and peripherality

are the key characteristic conditions in which a learner becomes a full participant in a

particular community. Lave and Wenger (1991) explain that the legitimacy of

participation is about “ways of belonging” that a learner develops a status or a

membership that is legitimately accepted by their community members, which enables

them to access resources of the community (p. 35). Legitimacy is not automatically

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granted to members simply by having a passion for the common domain of interest. In

addition to that, the members also need to earn legitimacy by gaining reputation, respect,

and trust from other community members, grounded on their mutual engagement and

commitment to the domain and the community. Through this process, the members create

“a sense of common history and identity” (Wenger et al., 2002, p. 35).

The process of developing a membership in a community is necessary for a

newcomer to become a full participant; however, it is not a process of getting identical to

other community members in every aspect. Gaining legitimacy leads a newcomer to be

part of the community, but he/she does not have to lose his/her own selfhood in that

process. Instead, a good community encourages members to stay different from others by

using and developing their own unique knowledge throughout the community practices.

Through this process, Wenger et al. (2002) posit that people “achieve a status and

generate their own personal sphere of influence within the community” and “develop a

unique individual identity in relation to the community” (p. 35).

In addition to legitimacy, Lave and Wenger (1991) add that the learner also has to

keep a status of being peripheral—related to ongoing social practices of the community

in “multiple, varied, more- or less-engaged and inclusive ways of participation”—in

order to complete the process of legitimate peripheral participation in the community of

practice (p. 36). This status of peripheral participation indicates varying degrees of

engagement of and responsibilities for the practices of a community, which eventually

provides newcomers/learners with freedom to be more open to change, to have more

dynamic involvement in their social activities, and to develop skills and knowledge at

their own pace. Ideally, participation is, therefore, voluntary in communities of practice.

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Through this view of the learning process as legitimate peripheral participation,

Lave and Wenger (1991) stress that learning becomes “an integral part of generative

social practice in the lived-in world” (p. 35). This entails changes not only in the learner‟s

cognition but also in his or her identities in the process of becoming a member of the

community. Because learning is inherently situated in specific social activities, it

unquestionably involves a relation of a self to a particular community and entails the

process of becoming a certain kind of person. Therefore, Packer and Goicoechea (2000)

add that viewing learning as a socially situated activity means to adopt the point that

“gaining knowledge or understanding is an integral part of broader ontological changes

that stem from participation in a community” (p. 234).

L2 learning and sociocultural approaches. Sociocultural approaches implicate

that language, whether it is a first or a second language, is a mediational means with

which humans are able to control their interpersonal and intrapersonal activities. It

enables humans to reach a higher level of mental functioning and to contact with the

social environments. In addition, sociocultural approaches view that language always

exists as speech communication. It is socially, culturally, and historically situated; thus, it

is embedded in the time and place, the context where speakers live. The process of

communication is not simply about coding and decoding linguistic systems as a neutral

medium, but about the process of controlling our social interactions and thinking,

encountering world views, constructing our own voices, and transforming ourselves into

new beings.

From sociocultural perspectives, L2 learners try to increase their ability to control

their “psychological and social activity through the [new] language” (Lantolf, 2000, p. 6).

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They are not simply a passive learning device that processes only input and output of L2.

Instead, as Wertsch (1998) views individuals as “agents-operating-with-mediational-

means,” L2 learners are active-agents-operating-with-a new language, who are trying to

connect themselves with a new world (p. 12). In addition, L2 learners are active, creative,

and dialogic beings who are in contact with the past, present, and future. They are social

beings who are continuously trying to belong to L2 communities, (albeit to different

degrees), and come to figure out who they are through the dialogue with others in the

outer world. Norton (2000) states that “when language learners speak, they are not only

exchanging information with target languages speakers, but they are constantly

organizing and reorganizing a sense of who they are and how they relate to the social

world” (p. 11).

Therefore, L2 learning, firstly, is a process of mastering a new mediational tool,

which affects learners‟ psychological and social worlds; that is, it is a process of

interpersonal and intrapersonal transformation while controlling the second language as a

mediational tool (Lantolf, 2000). Secondly, L2 learning can be considered as a process of

“the struggle of participation” (Pavlenko & Lantolf, 2000, p. 156). Second language

learning is not simply for language learners to accumulate new linguistic knowledge and

skills for future reference; rather, it is an essential part of the participation process in

practices of L2 communities that they are currently involved in and/or want to belong to.

Second language learning consists of social practices that provide opportunities to meet

different others in a community, to come to know its speech genre, and to master it to

fully carry out discursive practices required for its social activities. Therefore, as

Zuengler and Miller (2006) suggest, language development can be observed not simply

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from the learners‟ language knowledge and communicative competence, but from his or

her “change from limited to fuller participation in social practices involving their second

language” (p. 41). Through this participation process, thirdly, second language learners

consequently experience ontological as well as epistemological changes (Robbins, 2003).

L2 Learning in Web 2.0 Environments

L2 learning and literacy practices with Web 2.0 technologies outside of school

contexts have just begun to be explored in the field of second language education.

Among a few, Lam (2000) conducted pioneering ethnographic research on online L2

literacy practices of Almon, a Chinese immigrant teenager living in the United States.

The study showed how online literacy activities helped Almon to transform himself from

a negative and marginalized self, who was struggling in a formal school environment and

concerned about his limited English proficiency and its potential influence on his future

career, to a positive and affiliated self, developed through active participation in online

discourse activities within the J-pop community. Lam argued that Almon‟s textual

activities, such as designing a personal website1 introducing a J-pop singer and

corresponding with J-pop fans through the online guest book, ICQ (an online chatting

program), and email, contributed to his development of global affiliations with those

interested in J-pop culture. As a result, the affiliating textual activities with the J-pop

culture and its global fans provided him with opportunities to successfully represent who

he was, and at the same time to be transformed into an active communicator in English,

which he had hardly experienced in his formal school settings. Lam‟s study showed that

1 O‟Reilly (2005) categorized personal websites into the types of Web 1.0. However, considering his

definition of Web 2.0 as not necessarily meaning the advent of new technology but the change of people‟s

minds on how to use the Web, I‟d like to consider Almon‟s use of his personal website, which combined

different types of CMC tools, as an example of Web 2.0 media in that it promoted his participation in J-pop

culture through its improved networking features.

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these online practices with Internet-based media, characterized by representation and

transformation of a self in the affiliation process, can provide an opportunity for L2

learners not only to improve their L2 proficiency but also to learn the ways of

participating in L2 discourse communities.

Black (2006) also explored L2 literacy activities of a Chinese adolescent

immigrant living in Canada, named Nanako, on the online fanfiction site Fanfiction.net.

Black focused on the role of popular fan culture among youth, a Japanese anime and

manga in this study, and of information communication technology embedded in this

fanfiction website in the development of Nanako‟s English writing skills and the change

of her online identities. When Nanako first immigrated to Canada, she was 11 years old,

and spoke mainly Mandarin Chinese. During the first semester of school in Canada, she

experienced a hard time in learning subjects and making friends due to her limited

English. However, while participating in social and discursive activities on Fanfiction.net

(such as reading other authors‟ fan fiction first, publicly posting her own fan fiction, and

receiving readers‟ feedback later), she started to build her image as a successful, popular

fan fiction writer on the site, and to improve her writing abilities concomitantly. Black

(2005, 2006, 2007) posited that the success of Nanako could be attributed to the hybrid

and participatory nature of the Fanfiction.net website where dialogic resources (such as

mixed plots and characters of existing fan media, positive and constructive critique from

fan members, and different modes of representation, expression, and interaction) were

provided in the networked computer environments.

The study conducted by Lam and Rosario-Ramos (2009) also showed an example

of literacy practices of immigrant youths living in the U.S. with digital media. On the

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basis of survey data collected from 262 foreign-born immigrant adolescents and

interview data from 35 focal teenage participants, the study found that the immigrant

youths were utilizing Internet-mediated digital media (e.g., email, social networking sites,

text- or video-based chat programs, and personal website/blog) to maintain close

relationships with family members and friends across countries (which include the

country of their origin and the United States where they were living) and to seek out for

transnational sources of information about social events. Here, the use of multiple

languages of immigrant teenagers played an important role of accessing resources of

information and forming their own social network beyond their physical national

boundaries, and valued and promoted their multilingual abilities in return. According to

Lam and Rosario-Ramos, these digital literacy activities encouraged immigrant teenagers

to keep and develop not only their mother tongue but also English proficiency by

diversifying their “access to linguistic resources” (p. 183), and enabled them to see social

events from bifocal or multiple perspectives. Lam and Rosario-Ramos also emphasized

that “the students‟ multilingual development is integral to their continued participation in

social relationships and information networks that cross geographical borders” (p. 183).

The findings of the previous studies have led to strong explanatory relationships

between L2 learning viewed from sociocultural perspectives and L2 literacy and learning

practices encouraged in Web 2.0 environments. For example, the studies showed that L2

learning and literacy practices of the research participants were taking place in the

interactive and cooperative ambience of the Web 2.0-based services. Through prompt,

affirmative, and constructive responses from community members, the L2 users could

recognize themselves not as struggling learners of L2 but as positive and confident L2

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users, and also develop strong memberships with the community members. In addition,

the environments of promoting multilingual, multimodal, and intertextual sources of

production also contributed to them being recognized as successful L2 communicators.

L2 learning of the research participants took place as an integral part of belonging to the

communities and forming close social networks with their members. The process of their

participation in the community practices also showed that what mattered was not what

they didn‟t have (e.g., the perceived lack of English proficiency) but what they already

had (e.g., their multilingual abilities and knowledge of their interest culture). By being

illuminated and valued with what they already knew, they could gain access to the

community that they wanted to participate in, and develop localized L2 proficiency in

return.

Need for the Study

While the studies reviewed above contributed to the L2 research field in that they

explored the social nature of L2 literacy and learning practices with Internet-mediated

Web tools outside of school settings in the 21st century, the applications of their findings

to other contexts are still limited in that they have mostly been conducted with youth

populations who immigrated to English speaking countries. Although Web 2.0

applications and services are popular mostly among adolescents, there still exists a large

L2 learner population beyond teenage groups. Because of different social needs for an L2

and different lifestyles according to age, adults may be expected to have different ways of

using Web 2.0 for their L2 learning. In addition, activities that L2 learners do and

opportunities for L2 learning that they get from Web 2.0 can be varied depending on

where L2 learning practices take place. The above studies mostly explored immigrants‟

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use of Web 2.0 who were living in environments in which they were exposed to their L2,

English, in their everyday lives. Therefore, examining another environment where L2

learners are hardly exposed to L2 in their daily lives may uncover a different story about

Web 2.0 and L2 learning. Thirdly, previous studies lacked information about the possible

conflicts that online users might face in the process of learning and practicing their L2s in

the Web 2.0 environments, which may lead us to the misunderstanding that there exists

no conflict in the learning process in computer-networked environments and to

idealization of the use of Web 2.0 in L2 learning.

In order to bridge the gaps that exist between the contexts of the previous research

and reality, it is significant to conduct further research exploring learning practices of L2

learner population that goes beyond teenage groups, immigrant groups, and investigating

challenges and struggles that they may encounter in online spaces. I believe that this will

contribute to expanding and deepening our understanding of the nature of Web 2.0 and its

roles in L2 learning.

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Chapter Three

Methodology

Research Site

Among many language learning websites that incorporate online networking

features (such as Palabea, Babbel, and Livemocha), I chose Lang-8.com as my online

research site. Lang-8 is a language exchange social networking site. It was created by

Yang Yang Xi in Japan in 2006, and the number of Lang-8 users has increased since then.

The meaning of “8” in Lang-8 originates from a symbol of “infinity,” which implies the

infinite number of learnable languages available on this website.

Lang-8 has features like blogging, establishing and maintaining friend lists,

messaging, and sharing photos that other social networking sites (e.g., Facebook,

MySpace, Cyworld, and Mixi) have, but there are some technological differences

between them. First, Lang-8 does not have chatting and file/music sharing features.

Secondly, it does not provide a key feature that most SNSs have—to automatically

recommend possible future friends who share common friends with a user and to allow

him/her to build networks on the basis of them (Halvorsen, 2009). Instead, Lang-8

provides the user with a list of friends who wait for his/her corrections or comments or

who share the same language interests. Thirdly, Lang-8 mostly relies on two

communication modes: visual graphics (e.g., photos) and written linguistic texts (e.g.,

written journals, comments, and emails). Therefore, it supports less multimodal ways of

meaning making than other SNSs do.

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Context of Research

When I first came to the U.S. as an international student, I imagined that my

English would be dramatically improved while I was making friends with Americans. For

the first five years in the U.S., I was somewhat satisfied with my social environments for

English learning: I attended classes almost every day where English was the medium of

instruction, participated in classroom discussions, and worked as a graduate assistant

(GA) in the office of International Admissions where I contacted English speakers on a

daily basis. However, since I finished my GA position and stopped taking classes, and

since I started a new family, my social environments were limited to my home where all

family members spoke in Korean, or a school library where I read only academic articles

or prepared a dissertation proposal at most. I started to worry about how few

opportunities I had to use English in my daily life. At that time, I did not have a single

American friend around me whom I could spend my leisure time with. Making friends

with Americans had been a big challenge for me since I came to the U.S., and I realized

that a long period of stay in the U.S. did not guarantee any social connection with

American communities. In the summer of 2008, I realized that there were physically

limited opportunities to practice English even in the U.S. I started to turn my attention to

the Internet, and happened to find this social networking site, Lang-8.com, to practice my

English.

I signed up for lang-8 on September 28, 2008, and I, as a L2 learner of English,

have been a member since then. When I first learned about this website, I was skeptical

about the way that it was promoting how this website worked: Native speakers of L2

would correct L2 learners‟ writing free of charge. It was an attractive feature of this

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website, but I was doubtful about its feasibility, so I decided to test it by posting my first

journal entry represented below:

To my surprise, six hours and twenty-one minutes after I posted my first entry, I received

a comment from another lang-8 member. Two days later, I posted another entry, and two

other members corrected and commented on it. Since then, I started to actively participate

in this Lang-8 community to support my English learning.

Since I started to use Lang-8, I was intrigued by the way that people participated

in this unique language learning activity. In my case, I have shared parts of my life story

with my Lang-8 friends, have met online L2 strangers and got to know them by forming

unique social networks, and have received many compliments and encouragement about

my English and my personality from them, not to mention many linguistic corrections

and comments on my journal entries. Once again, all of these activities were conducted

free of charge, and on a voluntary basis.

While participating in lang-8, I have sensed that there was something different in

learning in lang-8, which grew into my research interest in this unique L2 learning

practice. I started to wonder what made people fascinated about learning an L2 on Lang-8.

53

What kinds of activities were other members doing here? What kinds of advantages did

L2 learners take from this website? How do lang-8 users think about L2 learning

activities? Is there anything that L2 educators can learn from this voluntary, out-of-school

L2 learning activity? Inspired by these general questions, I have planned to start this

research.

Research Design

In order to understand this particular social phenomenon of L2 learning on Lang-8,

I conducted qualitative research in general and an ethnographic case study in particular.

The rationale for choosing a qualitative research design lay in my intention to understand

the nature of L2 learning practices taking place in this virtual environment by

contextualizing them and interpreting their meaning from an insider‟s perspective

(Glesne, 1999). That is, this study focused on describing specific L2 learning processes

taking place in the natural setting called a language exchange social networking site by

looking at a small number of individual cases, and understanding the nature of their L2

learning by “presenting a „detailed view‟ of the topic” (Creswell, 1998, p. 17).

Among varied qualitative research designs, I chose a case study combined with

ethnographic methods. First of all, I have followed Creswell‟s (1998) interpretation of

case study: “A case study is an exploration of a „bounded system‟ or a case (or multiple

cases) over time through detailed, in-depth data collection involving multiple sources of

information rich in context” (p. 61). In this study, each lang-8 member‟s L2 learning

activities functioned as a case, bounded by the time for which each member had used

lang-8, and by the online place in which they carried out their L2 learning practices. I

hoped that each individual case of my research participants would function as an

54

instrument with which the broader social phenomenon, learning L2 in the specific SNS

environment, could be illustrated (Stake, 1995).

As a way to better understand the culture of Lang-8, I also believed that applying

ethnographic methods would be appropriate for this case study research. Spradley (1980)

defined culture as “the acquired knowledge people use to interpret experience and

generate behavior” and viewed that culture can be understood through “cultural

behavior,” “cultural knowledge,” and “cultural artifacts” from members immersed in that

culture (pp. 5-6). One of the focuses of this study was to infer the embedded, tacit

knowledge such as what Lang-8 members value, what they believe, and how they act

through L2 learning practices on Lang-8. Therefore, I believed that the inference could be

made best through research methods used in ethnographic studies such as by situating

myself in the Lang-8 culture, having direct experiences with the artifacts that Lang-8

members were using, observing what they did and how they acted, and listening to what

they said.

Participants

As Patton (1990) addressed that “the logic and power of purposeful sampling lies

in selecting „information-rich‟ cases for study in depth” (p. 169), I purposefully selected

my research participants in order to deeply understand the nature of L2 learning in the

Lang-8 space by examining their individual information-rich cases. The research

participants were key informants, and their native perspectives helped to understand the

L2 learning phenomena taking place in the Lang-8 environment. For this study, I

selectively recruited Lang-8 members who were actively participating in Lang-8 practices

(such as posting, commenting, giving feedback, and making friends) at the time that I

55

started this research. What I mean by active participants were those who logged on to

Lang-8 at least three or four times a week and spent at least one hour on each visit

posting their journal entries, reading others‟ journals, and/or giving feedback to other

members.

Searching for possible research participants started from the network of my Lang-

8 friends. After investigating their participation patterns, I individually contacted those

who were actively participating in Lang-8 and asked for voluntary participation in my

research. Another sampling process was to randomly search for possible research

participants by using Lang-8 search function to check their availability. Due to my

linguistic limitations in understanding languages other than Korean and English, the

boundary of research sampling was limited to either Korean or English native speakers

and learners. I‟m a native speaker of Korean and a second language speaker of English,

so I could understand these four categories of Lang-8 users (i.e., English learner, English

native speaker, Korean learner, and Korean native speaker) without any assistance. In

total, I recruited twelve participants for this study (See Table 3.1).

56

Table 3.1

Demographic Information of Research Participants

Name Nation

ality

L2 Sex Age Job Level

of SL*

Length of

Use**

Kenshin Japan English M Late

30s

Web

coordinator

A 6

Miyoko Japan English F Mid

30s

Homemaker

/ Sub

teacher

A 4

Smiller U.S. Japanes

e

F Early

20s

Student A 18

Dog U.S. Japanes

e

F Early

30s

Homemaker I 4

Katz Korea English M Late

30s

Office

worker

I 8

Turquoisedee U.S. Korean F Late

10s

Student/Tea

cher

B 22

Azurviolet France Korean F Late

40s

Office

worker

B 21

CAM Japan English F Late

30s

Office

worker

A 3

Coby_코비 Neder-

land

Korean M Late

40s

Engineer B 4

Gai Japan English M Mid

30s

Chemist I 2

AriZona Korea English F Late

20s

Office

worker

I 3

Seiji Japan English M Late

30s

Engineer I 20

Note:* Level of SL (second language): A (Advanced), I (Intermediate), and B (Beginner).

Language levels were self-reported. ** Length of membership: from the month that

participants posted their first journal entry to the month that this research was started.

Data Collection

The major data collection techniques were participant-observations, interviewing,

and online document collection. Since I first started to use Lang-8, I have kept field logs

of my activities, experiences, and feelings as “a full participant” (Glesnes, 1999, p. 44).

57

These field logs were intended to understand my L2 learning practices on Lang-8, and at

the same time to grasp the nature of L2 literacy and learning activities of other Lang-8

users from my standpoint. Once I recruited my research participants, however, I started to

observe their learning activities as “an observer as participant” (p. 44). This type of

observation started in July 2010 and ended in March 2011. The purpose of doing

participant-observations was to immerse myself in the culture of Lang-8, to be a part of

on-going learning practices, and to observe the research participants‟ activities not in an

evaluative position but in the position of a learner, so that I could learn more about both

explicit and implicit L2 learning cultures among Lang-8 members.

Along with participant-observations, I also scheduled semi-structured interviews

with the research participants. The purpose of interviewing was to search for their

perceptions and attitudes toward L2 learning activities. As Glesne (1999) pointed out, the

strength of conducting interviews in this research was in that they helped me to learn

what I could not see and to discover alternative accounts of what I saw. In addition,

interviewing was an important way to learn about who my research participants are and

to build rapport with them. Lang-8 was a virtual space where real identities of its

members in the off-line world were often screened by their nicknames, “half-real” profile

pictures, etc. Therefore, I believe that a personal contact via different communication

methods like email and Skype rather than Lang-8 made it possible that I understood my

participants better and that they also came to know more about me, which possibly led to

building rapport between the researcher and research participants.

Regarding the medium of communication, the original plan was to conduct

interviews over the phone or via the Internet (e.g., email and Skype) due to geographical

58

limitations, but I ended up having the majority of interview data from email

correspondences, which was the choice of all of the participants. Each individual had

different starting and finish dates for interviews: The earliest interview was on July 19,

2010, and the last one was on February 4, 2011. The number of email messages that I

received varied by participant, and it ranged from 5 to 60 email messages, depending on

the number of questions answered per email and their level of involvement in the study.

The other important data source came from the participants‟ online postings on

Lang-8 such as journal entries, corrections, comments, and messages. These data helped

me to find the types of activities and interactions in detail that the participants performed

on Lang-8. The other important online document was each participant‟s home page,

which included information about the way they performed on Lang-8 and the types of

interactions that they had with their friends.

Data Analysis

Data analysis was simultaneous with data collection and began at the very start of

data collection. I read interview transcripts, observation field notes, and online documents,

and took memos when analytical and reflective thoughts arose while data collection was

in progress (Glesne, 1999). I believed that this early data analysis helped me to

understand where this research would be going, to refine my initial research methods, and

to monitor my subjectivities. As Glesne indicated, these early data analysis practices

helped me to better “focus and shape the study as it proceeds” (p. 130).

In particular, selecting types of interview questions for each email message was

indeed a part of my preliminary analysis process. The interview questions were

categorized into six groups—general background, language activity, making friends,

59

learning and friends, learning before Lang-8, and identity. Usually the first email was

sent with questions about participants‟ first contact with Lang-8 and their general use and

perceptions of it. The replies to those questions varied from participant to participant, so I

usually sent subsequent questions differently according to each participant‟ answers

rather than sending them in a pre-set order. Through this reflective process of reading the

replies and finding related questions to ask next via email, I was able to see the

relationships between each interview category in a much clearer way (such as how their

learning experiences before using Lang-8 were related to the ways that they used Lang-8,

how making friends on Lang-8 was related to their language learning, etc.). In addition,

due to the fact that email communications were carried out asynchronously, a time gap

was naturally created between these two processes of receiving answers and sending new

questions. Thus, it afforded me more time to find links between the received information

without pressure to ask my next questions right away. As a result of this reflective

process, the interview questions ended up being doubled in number by the time that data

collection was finished.

Once the data collection was completed, I organized and interpreted the data by

using both “categorizing strategies” and “contextualizing strategies” (Maxwell, 1996,

2012). First of all, I needed to transform my raw data into a manageable form, so it was

important to “fracture” (Strauss, 1987, p. 20) the data according to the emergent codes, to

find patterns and make comparisons within and between each research participant‟s data,

and to relocate the data into relevant categories. This data analysis process is similar to

one of the means of data transformation that Wolcott (1994) indicated— description.

Because the research questions were focused on such questions as “what activities” the

60

research participants did, “what perceptions” they had, and “what learning environments”

were facilitated, categorizing the types of activities, perceptions, and learning

environments on Lang-8 across the different participants were crucial starting points to

make a story out of the data.

Once finishing coding and sub-coding the data, I used taxonomies and tables in an

effort to organize the developed categories and themes in one place, see overall patterns

across each participant, and connect participants‟ stories with one another. Particularly

simple frequency counts based on descriptive statistics (such as word counts of each

participant‟s first and last ten journal entries, comparison between the rate of corrections

and the rate of journal entries, and the number of friends according to their types) were

useful when identifying the patterns of their activities (Glesne, 1999). Once I found how

those categories of the data interacted with one another, I tried to make meaning of such

interactions of the themes by using sociocultural theories as their interpretation structures.

Although the analytic coding process helped to develop general themes and

theories of what was going on Lang-8, it was limited in illuminating relationships among

the data and interpreting the found themes in context. For example, in the analysis of the

participants‟ responses to the questions about their language learning practices and their

meanings of using Lang-8 and forming friend networks on it, I was unable to see the

relations among their learning practices and the significance of their meanings only with

the categorizing methods. As an effort not to lose these contextual ties within and

between the data, I used contextualizing or connecting strategies as another analysis

method (Maxwell, 1996, 2012) when the context functioned as essential part of data

understanding. For instance, when the research participants were asked about the benefits

61

of using Lang-8, they did not simply list their perceived benefits in a format of isolated

bits of information. Instead, they also shared specific stories and episodes of their

experiences that made them think the use of Lang-8 as beneficial, and sometimes shared

their past experiences of L2 learning and tried to relate their perceived benefits with those

past learning experiences. Because of these narrative qualities of their statements, the

benefits of using Lang-8 from the participants‟ perspectives could not be fully understood

without the process of finding relationships among the components of their statements.

As Maxwell (2012) put it, categorizing and contextualizing (or connecting) strategies

were also used “as inherently complementary strategies for data analysis” in this study (p.

123).

Trustworthiness

As a way to increase credibility of this study, I dealt with Maxwell‟s (1996) three

types of validity—description, interpretation, and theory—throughout the whole research

process. First of all, in order to keep research data as accurate, intact, and rich as possible,

I tried to make field notes “as detailed, concrete, and chronological as possible” while I

observed the research site or at least right after I finished the observations (p. 89). I tried

to leave all interviews semi-structured, so that the interview data could be composed of

how and what research participants wanted to say rather than how and what I wanted to

listen to. In addition, the multiple email correspondences helped me to verify

consistencies of each research participant in their words and actions. As a way to

decrease reactivity to my presence on Lang-8 and to capture natural and intact activities

of the research participants, I tried not to be part of their Lang-8 activities such as by not

posting my comments on their journal entries, by not correcting them, and by not inviting

62

them to be my friends (except those who had already been my friends even before this

research started.)

Secondly, I attempted to triangulate my data collection methods in order to

increase credibility throughout the interpretation process. I believe that the multiple data

collection techniques—participant-observations, interviews, and documents collected in

this research— served to support, supplement, and even challenge my inductive thematic

analysis process by finding overlapping evidence from each method, by finding what one

method could easily miss from another, and/or by finding discrepant cases from one

another. In addition to the diversified methods, I often checked the results of my data

analysis with the research participants in order to monitor my research bias.

As stated in describing the motives for this study, I started to use this website to

meet my needs to improve my English, and I have got a good impression from it since I

participated in its L2 literacy and learning activities. While I was a part of this

community for about one year, I have had unique L2 learning experiences that I would

not have had outside of this virtual place. I was aware that my experiences, feelings, and

attitudes toward this website triggered me to start this study, and they might have affected

the whole process of my research in a certain way. As Glesne (1999) pointed out,

however, I saw my subjectivities as virtuous strength for this research in that they had

helped me to be close to a full participant in the culture of Lang-8 (even though all direct

interactions with the participants were avoided once the research started), and enabled me

to see its culture through the eyes of a full participant. Without this kind of strong

attachment to activities on Lang-8, I might not have been able to have a strong motivation

to learn more about L2 learning in this Web 2.0 environment in the first place. However,

63

I was also aware of the importance of monitoring my subjectivities by listening to other

Lang-8 members‟ opinions and observing their activities on the website. I believe that

research methods that I used in this study helped me to monitor my subjectivities and to

construct a story which would be also “imaginable” and “verifiable” by members of

Lang-8 (Glesne, 1999, p. 109).

64

Chapter Four

Lang-8 Users’ Main Activity: Building Images on the Profile Page

The purpose of this chapter is to describe types of practices that my research

participants performed when building their profile pages and to present their perceived

roles of these pages in the Lang-8 community. As one of a few mandatory procedures in

the Lang-8 sign-up process, users are required to build their own profile pages. As

presented earlier, users can regulate the level of privacy on most elements of the profile

page. (e.g., picture, real name, birthday, Skype ID, Twitter ID, nation, gender, occupation,

purpose of study, location, and About-me) except the three elements of nickname, native

language, and language of study. Thus, those three elements are always open to the

public. Most information on the profile page is in a short-answer format, which delivers

factual information about its user. Table 4.1 shows the list of elements that my research

participants included in their profile pages. Among many, the interview data revealed that

they spent most time working on the following elements: screen name (or nickname),

profile picture, and About-me. In the following sections, I will pay closer attention to the

types of activities that the research participants performed with each of these three

elements and investigate why those activities were important to them.

Screen Name

Types of screen names. Lang-8 users are required to make their own screen

name (or what is called a nickname on Lang-8) during their sign-up process. Each user is

allowed to have only one screen name, but it can changed if the user wants it to be. The

Lang-8 system recognizes and supports many different languages, so screen names can

be displayed in many languages.

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Table 4.1.

Elements of Profile Information

Kesh

in

Miy

oko

Sm

iller

Dog

Kats

Turq

uoised

e

e Azu

rvio

let

CA

M

Gai

Coby_코

비

AriZ

ona

Seijitap

a

Total

Screen name

12

Picture

12

Place

12

L1

12

L2

12

Nation

12

Gender

12

Testimonials

11

About-me

10

Age

8

Birthday

8

Occupation

8

Premium

6

Skype ID

6

Real name

6

Twitter ID

3

Total

15 14 16 12 16 15 16 14 13 17 9 17

66

Participants usually had their own ways of making screen names. For example,

some participants like Miyoko, Gai, and Coby_코비 used their real names as their screen

names on Lang-8. Some users like Kenshin, Katz, Dog, and AriZona named themselves

after people, animals, colors, or some commercial items. Others like Turquoisedee,

Azurviolet, Seijitapa, and Smiller used a coined name by combining a part of their real

name with something else, and CAM, by putting the first letters of her full name together.

Real name. Miyoko, Gai, and Coby_코비‟s screen names on Lang-8 are the same

as their real names. They were all aware that using their real name could make them

vulnerable to privacy breaches and identity theft that could happen in an online space, but

they used their real names on Lang-8 for various reasons. For instance, Gai said Lang-8

users are all real people so that he wanted to be called by his real name. Communicating

with them was real for him, so it was more natural to use his real name than a fake name

when talking with his Lang-8 friends. For the other reason, he said that his real name

“luckily” sounds easy even for “English speakers to pronounce and remember,” so he

hoped that his name would encourage foreigners to approach him more comfortably.

Miyoko used her real name because she wanted not only to be called by her real

name, but also wanted to remain “active” on Lang-8:

I'm usually a meek person (I think), however when I use English, I have to take

action. Of course, I have to take action in my daily life, but I usually stay still

(あまり自分から行動しないタイプです). To make friends with foreigners, I

have to take action, so I'm more active than usual. … I use my real name on Lang-

8, and I think this is one of my activeness on Lang-8. (Interview)

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For Miyoko, using her real name was related to her willingness to stay active on Lang-8.

Even though she generally has a quiet and reserved personality, she knew that she had to

step forward and take action in order to learn an L2 on Lang-8. Thus, rather than covering

who the real Miyoko is with a nickname and hiding behind it, she decided to step forward

to let other users know more about her real self by using her real name.

For someone like Coby_코비, using a real name is a matter of being honest with

others by revealing a part of his true self:

I know that using my real name might be dangerous if somebody hijacks my

account for instance. On the other hand I want people who talk to me to know my

real name… I have been talking to friends on lang-8 that were constantly using

names like “sunshine” for instance. Even after half a year I did not get to know

their real name. This is annoying… There is also a matter of trust. I'm an open

person that is willing to share a lot of personal thoughts and details about myself,

and I don't feel well to share that with someone that is hiding behind a mask

(nickname) constantly, certainly when I don't even know gender, age, place of

birth or current residence. It‟s like talking to a person wearing sun-glasses: you

cannot see whether or not this person is looking in your direction when you talk to

him. (Interview)

Coby_코비 understood that knowing and using someone‟s real name implies getting to

know that person‟s true/real identity, which makes him feel more comfortable and closer

to that Lang-8 user. Revealing a real name on Lang-8 is a gesture of openness and

honesty; therefore, knowing and using a real name is a matter of how much that person

can be trusted in the Lang-8 space for him.

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It is also interesting to note that the participants who took advantage of their real

names as screen names used only their first names. The use of their real first names on

Lang-8 had a special meaning. For example, Miyoko said:

Yes, Miyoko is my first name. I use my first name on Lang8 because I prefer to

be called Miyoko. I'm usually called by my last name (family name) in my daily

life, [but] of course, my friends call me Miyoko (first name). (Interview)

She believed that people call each other by their first name only when they are close

enough. She is usually called by her surname in formal social contexts in Japan. However,

when she meets her friends, she is called by her first name.

Gai also thought that a first name is related to the closeness of a relationship. He

was usually addressed “Uno-san” in his workplace and in his daily life, (“Uno” is his

surname and “-san” is a Japanese honorific suffix,) but was addressed by his first name

when with his friends. Using his first name indicates his wish to be close friends with

Lang-8 users. In the case of Coby_코비, he believes that addressing someone by his/her

first name gives a stronger “impact” to that person and helps him to “get [their] attention

easier” than the nickname does. The former involves a more real self than the later does,

so it sounds friendlier to that person when he/she is addressed by his/her first name.

Therefore, by using their first names on Lang-8, Miyoko, Gai, and Coby_코비 wanted to

deliver the message that they wished to develop a special and close relationship with

other users.

Borrowed name. The fact that some participants chose not to use their real names

as their screen names does not necessarily mean that they had the intention of tricking

others with false identities. For them, using nicknames is another way to represent

69

themselves in the Lang-8 space. There are unlimited ways of creating a nickname in

cyber space, but my research participants did it in two different ways: either by

borrowing names from pre-existing proper or general names or coining new names by

remixing a part of their real names with something different.

Kenshin, Katz, AriZona, and Dog belong to the group that got their nicknames

from the pre-existing proper or general names. For example, Kenshin is a very well-

known samurai (an ancient Japanese warrior) in Japan; Katz, an English baroque soprano

singer; AriZona, a brand name of a beverage sold in the U.S.; and, Dog is an animal. This

type of nickname reveals at least one fact about its bearer—he/she likes what they named

him/herself after (or at least has a special feeling and meaning for it).

Borrowed names can also be used to present Lang-8 users‟ plan of what they want

to be. For example, Kenshin said:

Ohh Kenshin is not my real name. I took it from the name of a famous ancient

samurai, Kenshin, because he is my hero…. Yes, I'd like to be a samurai like him.

By samurai here, I mean 'a person with a sharp mind…. It's a typical samurai

spirit and he was very good at it. I mean, he was one of the best in the Japanese

martial arts history…. He was very good at doing things without even being

conscious about it… By being sharp, I mean I can react to anything in

English/Spanish without even being conscious about my mother tongue, the

Japanese language. If I am sharp enough, I can respond to anything on Lang-8 by

replying, commenting or making suggestions without any stress. (Interview)

He chose Kenshin as his nickname on Lang-8 not only because he admired him but also

because he wanted to be like him, even when it came to language learning. Kenshin liked

70

ancient samurai warriors in general, and their mental alertness in particular. According to

him, they were trained to be alert to things around them even in unlikely and dangerous

situations, so they were known for being quick to perceive and act. He believed that this

samurai‟s mental quality perfectly matched with the ability that he wished to emulate:

being quick in using L2 without too much thinking in his first language.

One of Kenshin‟s main concerns during his language learning was that it was hard

to use his L2s (English and Spanish) without thinking in his mother tongue, Japanese. He

posted this concern in his journal entry of February 27, 2010 at the beginning of his

Lang-8 use. In order to write in English or Spanish on Lang-8, Kenshin had to think

about what he wanted to write in Japanese first, and then translate it into English or

Spanish. However, he believed that in order to effectively improve his L2s, it would be

beneficial to think in those languages so that there would be no translation process

needed from his native language to his second language or vice versa. Thinking in

Japanese and translating his thoughts into English or Spanish took time when he posted

his writings on Lang-8, which eventually got him tired. Therefore, as samurai Kenshin

promptly performed his martial arts at the very right moment without thinking too much

about what and how to use them, the English and Spanish learner Kenshin also wished to

use his target languages without thinking too much in Japanese about what and how to

use them. For him, the nickname, Kenshin, reflected his wish to be quick in perceiving

and acting in L2 as the samurai Kenshin did with his martial arts.

Coined name. Some participants coined their screen names by remixing existing

names and words. For example, Azurviolet created her nickname by combining her

favorite two colors azur (blue) and violet; Turquoisedee, her favorite color (turquoise)

71

with a part of her real name (Dee); Seijitapa, a part of his real name (Seiji) with a part of

his SecondLife screen name (tapa); Smiller, the first letter of her first name with her real

last name; and CAM, the first letters of her full name, C, A, and M, together.

No matter whether they are related to real names or not, the coined screen names

were also projecting some parts of real selves of name bearers. For example,

Turquioisedee and Azurviolet said respectively:

Dee is just a shortened version of my name xxx. Most of my coworkers and

colleagues call me this. I thought that xxx was a little formal and hard for my

fellow colleagues to remember so I chose the nickname "Dee." The name is

visually balanced and simplistic. So it represents me. I am a balanced person that

enjoys the simple pleasures in life…. And one of my favorite colors is turquoise

so when I put them together it sounded pleasant.....So I chose that :) (Interview

with Turquoisedee)

It's difficult to find a [screen] name. I didn't want to let my own name….

Azurviolet is one of my favorit color, with purple, black and pink (not all the pink,

just the very soft ones ^^) and it's very populaire and famous in the south. It's blue

with a little drop of purple. It's the coulor of a plant mixed with the blue of the sky.

I have this color in my house, my "volets" (do not how to say in english) , my

curtains, the walls of my kitchen....., I wear this color too, and when I do, I like it

because as my eyes are blue too, it' s good for me ^^ I like this color very much ^^

so my name says that I'm from the south of France, where there is the sun and a

very bright light and ......................that I like this color very much ^^ (Interview

with Azurviolet)

72

As other users did, Turquoisedee also wanted to show herself through her screen name,

so she chose to add a part of her real name into her favorite color. Although Azurviolet

did not include her real name, she did not pick any names or words at random, either.

Instead, she chose her favorite colors that were meaningfully related to her, in that they

not only reflected her taste in color but also represented the color of her eyes, house,

favorite clothes, and an atmosphere of the place where she lives. Although the name

“Azurviolet” simply consisted of two names of colors, it was also coined with an

intention to deliver some implicative information about its bearer.

Roles of screen names.

Telling about their bearers. Users need to create screen names in order to register

for the Lang-8 website. Technically, a screen name has a role of distinguishing one user

from another in the Lang-8 community. Creating their own screen names, therefore, may

look like a perfunctory routine procedure that does not bear much personal meaning to

Lang-8 users, but in fact it does, at least to my research participants. As discussed earlier,

creating screen names reflects Lang-8 users‟ effort to include part of their real selves in

that process. Although the ways that they represented themselves and the levels of

openness varied from user to user, they tried to put something real about themselves

(such as their hobbies, favorite colors, favorite historical figures, real names, language

goals, learning philosophies, wishes, and the like) in their screen names.

Showing language backgrounds. Screen names also indirectly tell what language

Lang-8 users learn and/or what language they can help with on Lang-8. Lang-8 is a

language learning website, so it is considered very important to reveal their language

interests (such as what languages they want to learn and what language learners they can

73

provide help for) throughout their Lang-8 activities. There is an independent descriptor in

the profile page that lists the Lang-8 users‟ native and second languages, but the screen

names also show the participants‟ language interests and backgrounds through their

writing systems, even though the delivered messages are not always clear. For example,

Coby_코비 used the Roman and Korean alphabets together for his screen name, saying,

“I use my name both in Dutch and Korean to show that I'm learning Korean and because

I'm proud to be able to say a few words in this language.” Coby is his Dutch name and

코비 is the Korean name written with the Korean letters into which the sound of Coby is

translated. Coby_코비 used both Roman and Korean alphabets in order to emphasize that

he was learning Korean on Lang-8. Because of this correlation between his screen name

and his language background, other Lang-8 users who first meet him by his screen name

may get a hint at what language Coby_코비 is learning and what native language he

speaks even though his screen name does not clearly say which one is which.

In fact, not only the writing system used in a screen name but also the sound itself

can provide Lang-8 users with a clue to guess their counterparts‟ language backgrounds.

For instance, Azurviolet is written with the Romanized letters, and “azur” and “violet”

are also French words, so that people may guess Azurviolet‟s French background even

though their guess could be off (like “she is American”) or broad (like “she has at least a

European language background”). Arizona and Dog are English words, so people may

guess that those who have these screen names might have English-language backgrounds.

In the case of Kenshin, Miyoko, and Gai, they formulated their screen names with the

Romanized alphabet, but they are all Japanese names; therefore, as long as people know

how Japanese names and words sound, they can guess that those users may have a

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Japanese-language background. After all, the names and words themselves can also

reveal something about their bearers‟ language backgrounds on Lang-8.

Orienting towards specific population groups. When most of my research

participants first joined the Lang-8 Website, they had a specific population in mind to

make a connection with: native speakers of the language that they are learning and/or

learners of their native language. Therefore, as Coby_코비 used the Korean alphabet for

his screen name to appeal to the Korean population on Lang-8, other Lang-8 users also

tried to formulate their screen names to appeal to their target population. For example,

Gai explained that he used the Romanized alphabet because it would help English

speaking Lang-8 users to recognize him on Lang-8:

I'd like the other Lang-8 users to recognize my name and to give me as many

correction and comments as possible. I think many English speakers cannot read

Hirakana [the Japanese character] character or Hangeul [the Korean character],

even though they began to learn our languages. That is why I decided that my

name is written in Roman character. (Interview)

From the position of someone who looks for Lang-8 friends, Gai is trying to orient

himself towards a group of English speaking Lang-8 users by Romanizing his Japanese

name. He is concerned that he might not get as much help as he needed if he wrote his

screen name in Japanese because there are few English speakers who could read

Hirakana, the Japanese alphabet. Because his intention was to approach as many English

speakers as possible, he intentionally Romanized his screen name on Lang-8.

Filtering. The screen name also plays the role of a filter when Lang-8 users find

their latent language matches. It will be discussed more in detail in Chapter 5, but one of

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the most active practices that Lang-8 users have on Lang-8 is to find their language

friends and make a social network with them. When Lang-8 users search for their

language friends, they have a tendency to look for those users whose native language is

the same as their target language. Therefore, by simply looking at a list of screen names,

Lang-8 users come to a quick idea of who would be able to provide help for their

language learning and who would not, and who might need their help or who might not,

even though this does not always lead to an accurate result. After all, screen names help

Lang-8 users to consciously or unconsciously screen randomly-met Lang-8 users in the

process of looking for their future Lang-8 friends.

Identifying users though their consistency. All participants in this study (except

AriZona2) had used the same screen names throughout their whole Lang-8 activities even

though they were technically able to change them if they wanted. One of the main

reasons for users to keep their screen names unchanged was because they wanted to avoid

unnecessary confusion. For example, Kenshin mentioned that keeping his screen name is

“a matter of consistency”; that is, by being consistent in using his nickname, he could be

“easily identified and accessible” to his Lang-8 friends over time. Gai also made a similar

statement:

Fortunately, some users became my friends just after I began to learn at Lang-8

and I've made a lot of friends. I have never thought about changing my Lang-8

name. Probably, I have never seen the Lang-8 user who has changed his or her

name frequently. If he or she were one of my friends, I could forget who's who.

(Interview)

2 According to AriZona, many people became confused whether she was American or not due to her

nickname, so she changed the name by adding an “iced tea” to her current nickname later in order to make

sure that her name came not from her nationality but from the brand name of her favorite beverage.

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If people keep changing their nicknames on Lang-8, he might lose track of who they are.

Fortunately, not many of his Lang-8 friends changed their names, so he could avoid such

confusion. However, in the case of Smiller, Miyoko, and Azurviolet, they actually saw a

few friends who changed their nicknames, and experienced a confusing time trying to

match them with their new names. In addition to that, when they were befriending more

members on Lang-8 over time, it was getting harder to identify them when their names

kept changing unless they were notified by their friends.

If the screen names remain the same, the benefit is that Lang-8 users can find their

friends more easily, particularly after they return to the Lang-8 site after a long interval.

Below is the comment that Azurviolet made regarding the email that she received from

one of her friends:

I do not change my name because I think that it's the name I chose, so I keep it, I

have had an interesting message from a friend I have not seen for almost 2 years,

and here is what he said ; "J'ai été surpris et en même temps très content de te

revoir dès que je me reconnecte sur le site après trop longtemps. C'est même

rassurant! :) With my poor english I can just translate ; he was surprised and in the

same time very happy to see me when he went on Lang_8 after all this time, he

said it was "rassurant" that means comforting, reassuring. I think that because I

write every day, my friends may have a lot of "Azurviolet" diary on their page

and I can imagine that they can be bothered or upset about that, always seeing my

name, but he was surprised and reassured. I was glad about that ^_^ (Interview)

When one of Azurviolet‟s friends who stayed away for a while revisited Lang-8, he felt

happy and comfortable to see his old friend who was still actively participating in the

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Lang-8 community and could regain his confidence in using Lang-8. Here, her

unchanged screen name played a role in that her friend identified her easily but also he

could make a reconnection with her even after a long absence from Lang-8.

Profile Pictures

Another important segment in building a profile page is a profile picture. Posting

the profile picture is not required, but most Lang-8 users posted a visual image on their

front page, and so did my research participants.

Types of profile pictures. Each of my research participants had his/her own

unique profile picture. (See Table 4.2.) For example, Turquoisedee posted her portrait

photo that shows her whole face, which enables people to clearly see what she looks like.

Kenshin posted a photo that clearly shows his face, but his daughter is with him in the

picture. Miyoko and Gai also show themselves in their profile picture, but each of them

captured their whole body (from head to toe) with background scenery behind, so their

face is hardly recognized. Azurvoilet, Coby_코비, and AriZona showed some objects

that they like such as a violin, a coffee mug, a keyboard, and a flower. For CAM and Dog,

it was their favorite animals, for Seijitapa, his 3-dimensional avatar that he used in

SecondLife, and for Katz, a musician that he likes. In the case of Smiller, she posted a

street scene that she took one day early in the morning when the sun was rising.

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Table 4.2

Types of Profile Pictures

Screen Name Profile

pictures

Types of profile

pictures

Picture change

(RP)*

Picture change

(B/F)**

Kenshin

Self (with his

daugther)

No Yes (before

and after)

Miyoko

Self (with a

background scenery)

No Yes (after)

Smiller

Landscape No No

Dog Not

consented

Pet No No

Katz Did not

give

consent

Well-known figure Yes Yes (before

and after)

Turquoisedee

Self (Portrait) No Yes (before)

Azurviolet

Things No No

CAM

Pet No No

Gai

Self (With a

background scenery)

No No

Coby_코비

Things

No Yes (after)

AriZona

Flower Yes Yes (before

and after)

Seijitapa Did not

give

consent

Second Life Avatar

No No

Note. * Picture change during the research period (RP) from July 2010 to February 2011.

**Picture change before or after (B/F) the research period.

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The ways that the participants chose their profile pictures also varied. For

example, Miyoko, Gai, Katz, and Azurviolet chose a picture that was directly related to

their own screen name, but the rest of the profile pictures were not in direct tandem with

their bearers‟ screen names. In terms of how often they changed profile pictures, some

users like Katz and AriZona did once and twice respectively while this research was

conducted, but the rest of participants‟ stayed the same.

Roles of profile pictures. As its name speaks for itself, a “profile” picture is a

visual representation of the self in the Lang-8 community. In the following sections, I

will look at the meanings of creating and using profile pictures in this Lang-8 space by

taking a close look at the different ways in which my research participants used their

profile pictures.

Visually representing one’s own self through profile pictures. First of all, a

profile picture plays a role in representing who and what Lang-8 users are in the Lang-8

space. Due to its visual element, the profile picture often shows one‟s own self more

vividly than a screen name does. The research participants tried to introduce themselves

mainly by factual information, by presenting their interests, and/or by projecting their

personalities through their profile picture.

Self-representation with visual information about real self. One of the

straightforward ways that a person may show who he/she is on Lang-8 is to post one‟s

real picture on the profile page, which serves to reveal some visually distinguishable

information (such as age, gender, and shape) about that person. For example, Kenshin

and Gai did not intend to tell their age, gender, or shape through their profile pictures, but

viewers can guess at least that Kenshin and Gai are male, young, and in a good shape.

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In the case of Miyoko, she intentionally posted her real picture (standing in a

flower garden) because she wanted to avoid a possible misunderstanding that her screen

name might cause. She thought that her Japanese name, Miyoko, did not obviously tell

her gender to foreigners, so she wanted to clarify it by showing her real self. Viewers

may not see her face clearly, but they can guess her gender by what she wears. After all,

whether it was a portrait that shows a real face or a snapshot that shows a whole physical

appearance, the real photos were used to give Lang-8 users‟ visually identifiable

information.

Self-representation with one’s personal and/or language interests. Instead of

using real photos, some users (like Dog, CAM, Katz, AriZona, SeijiTapa, Azurviolet,

Coby_코비, and Kenshin) tried to present themselves by intentionally selecting pictures

that reflected something they like or like to do. For example, Azurviolet took a picture of

her music instruments, three violins and a guitar, and uploaded it to her front page. She

explained that she was in love with music, so she wanted to use the picture that linked to

her “passion.” In reality, her life was filled with music; her husband is a musician, she

plays a violin, her daughter takes violin lessons once a week, and she is a choir director at

church. Music is part of her life, so she wanted to share her passion with others by

gathering her favorite instruments and taking a picture of them.

As for Coby_코비, he tried to show his passion for learning the Korean language

through his profile picture:

I think I'm not cute enough to upload a picture in my profile^^; so I have made a

picture in my office of my big coffee mug (0.5 litres) with the Korean Keyboard

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that I got from Samsung as a present, to show that I'm in love with Korea and it‟s

language and use the keyboard every day. (Interview)

He took a picture of the coffee mug and the Korean keyboard and posted it on his profile

page. He said that he wanted to show his personal taste for coffee, but most of all, to

show his love for the Korean language through his profile picture. At his job as an

electrical engineer in the Netherlands, he frequently worked with Korean workers. He

first got interested in the Korean language while working with them, so he included the

Korean keyboard that he received from one of the Korean engineers to show that he loves

learning the Korean language. He believed that instead of showing his real face on the

profile page, it was better to show his passion on Lang-8 so that he could deliver the

impression to native Korean speakers that he was passionate about learning the Korean

language.

Kenshin also tried to present his passion for learning English and Spanish through

his profile image. He posted his real picture that depicts him giving a piggyback ride to

his daughter by mounting her on his shoulders, surrounded by cherry-blossoms. It is a

close-up picture of him, so viewers can clearly see his real face. At first sight, this photo

does not seem to be related to his passion for language learning, but Kenshin confirmed

that it truly does:

Kenshin: My image with my daughter is clearly expected to deliver what I want to

do here; communication in learning language, not for associating with

the opposite sex like before, hahaha.

Researcher: You really meant it, right? :)

Kenshin: Yes I did. I really meant it. (Interview)

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People may not be able to unanimously receive the same message as Kenshin initially

tried to deliver through his picture. However, by showing that he is a married man and

the father of a child, he was trying to send a message that he wanted to learn and practice

his target languages on Lang-8 with no intention of looking for dates.

Self-representation with personality traits. Profile pictures are also used to

express Lang-8 users‟ personalities. As previously mentioned, Gai posted a medium-shot

that was taken from a medium distance from the camera, so that people can see how he

looks, but cannot clearly see his real face. Gai said that his real intention was not to show

how he looks through that profile picture; instead, he chose a picture that looked

“humorous” not only to himself but also to others because he wanted to reflect his sense

of humor in it:

When I thought to begin Lang-8, I wanted to use my picture, however I didn't like

having a photo taken clearly, because I'm not young and a nice looking guy. In

addition to that, I wanted to choose as a humorous photo as possible. Therefore, I

chose that one. My favorite is instantaneous pictures which I'm jumping up. I like

that such pictures are taken by my friends. (Interview)

In the picture, Gai is wearing a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. He is jumping in the

air with his arms and legs stretched on the grass. By posting this jumping shot casually

taken by his friend, Gai intended to introduce himself as someone who has a sense of

humor.

Kenshin also projected one of his personality traits into his profile photo. Besides

his passion for second language learning, Kenshin tried to convey an image of a loving

father. When asked whether there was any message that he wanted to deliver through his

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profile page, he replied, “I hope my friends would think that I‟m a family man.” He

hoped to be recognized as someone with a personality of a caring father by showing the

picture that he and his daughter spent time together under the cherry blossoms.

However, not everyone was conscious of selecting their profile pictures with an

intention to narrate their personalities. Instead, some users like Smiller posted their

profile pictures because they just liked them. She said:

It's a picture I took one morning when I woke up very early, around 4:30, and

went for a walk with my camera. I liked the colors and the hint of sunrise.

(Interview)

According to her, Smiller did not choose to use this sun rising street scene for the purpose

of telling about her personality; rather she chose that picture simply because she liked it.

As she said, there might be no hidden meaning behind her profile picture, but

interestingly she did not chose any picture at random for her profile page, either. Instead,

she selected a photo that she took and liked. The picture did not directly tell us who she is,

but at least Lang-8 users can indirectly see part of Smiller even though what they guess

could be still different from who she thinks she is.

According to Azurviolet, she sometimes guessed what kind of personality her

friends might have by looking at their profile pictures:

I have a friend “Jumpjump” who has a really enthusiastic picture and it's really as

she is, enthusiastic…. I liked yours very much because it's original, very simple,

and clear... are you like that? ^^ (Interview)

Jumpjump‟s profile page depicts someone‟s appearance from behind who is jumping

with her arms up in the sky. When Azurviolet first saw Jumpjump‟s picture, she got the

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impression that she would be an enthusiastic person. When she was getting to know her

more, she was assured that she is as enthusiastic as her picture suggested. No matter

whether others intended to show their unique personalities through their profile pictures

or not, Azurviolet did this guessing game by herself on the basis of what she saw from

their profile pictures.

Identifying Lang-8 users more easily through profile pictures. A profile picture

is like a virtual face on Lang-8. As each screen name represents its own bearer by the

medium of written letters, a profile picture also does so by its visual image, which in turn

helps Lang-8 users easily identify their Lang-8 friends. Smiller said:

I think having a picture is useful for several reasons. For one thing, people see it

and have an immediate visual association with the person…. When people see the

picture they automatically think, "oh, that's Juju" or "oh, that's Smiller."

(Interview)

One of the interesting facts about a profile picture is that there is no single user on Lang-8

whose profile picture is the same as any other. There are some cases in which multiple

people share the same screen names on Lang-8, but their profile pictures are always

different unless they leave their profile page at default. Thus, in a way, people may

associate their friends with their profile pictures more easily than they do with screen

names.

Azurviolet also commented that if someone uploads his/her profile picture, he/she

becomes recognized more easily than those who do not:

I do not attach much importance to the pictures but sometimes it helps to repérer

friends in a list…. I want to say that when you have a lot of friends if there is a

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special picture it's easier to find them, you can recognize them easily and quickly.

The word in French is "repérer." (Interview)

When the friend list gets long, it is not easy for Lang-8 users to locate their friends solely

by their screen names. As Azurviolet said, however, if they have their own image that is

visually associated with them, people come to spot them more easily than when there is

only a list of screen names. Especially, when the profile picture is unique and distinct

from others, the user has a better chance of being noticed and located by other Lang-8

friends. Therefore, as we more easily associate our friends with their face and physical

appearance in our offline life than we do with their names, profile pictures also make it

easier for Lang-8 users to identify their friends with their profile pictures than they do

with screen names.

Increasing trust level through profile pictures. In addition to its roles of

representing oneself and in return identifying other Lang-8 users, a profile picture

also contributes to building trust between each Lang-8 user, particularly those

who upload their real pictures. For example, Turquoisedee presented her real self

through the profile picture that captured a close-up of her face, so that other Lang-

8 users could clearly see what she looks like. She believed that showing her true

self would help to earn trust from her Lang-8 friends, which eventually helped her

to build a larger social network on Lang-8:

At first I only used pictures of things that interested me like my favorite animal,

favorite movies, etc. But then one day I decided to put one of my own pictures. I

noticed that more people requested me. Why? It is because people feel the most

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comfortable when they can see the person they are helping. They can build trust

from a visual aid like a picture or an icon. (Interview)

Many Lang-8 users often experience being in a dilemma between the risk for

showing their real faces in an online space and positive effects of posting real figure

photos in the Lang-8 community. In the middle of this dilemma, some participants like

Miyoko found a solution by choosing a picture that was taken from a medium distance.

Miyoko commented,

I'd prefer to look other‟s profile picture, so I posted mine, because I think that

most of the members of Lang-8 want to look my profile picture just as me….I

want to know who I am talking with. I know that people don't want to expose

their information as much as possible, but I'd like to know my friends look like.

(Interview)

Miyoko realized that it is a beneficial to show and look at real pictures on Lang-8 because

they would create a comfortable atmosphere between Lang-8 users by telling them whom

they were talking to. However, she also understood that people, including herself, are

reluctant to show their real face in cyber space in general. In struggling between creating

a comfortable feeling and assuring confidentiality in cyber space, she found a solution by

posting a picture photographed at a distance in which her face was clear enough to be

noticed, but not clear enough to be recognized.

Forming impressions through profile pictures. Another role that a profile picture

plays is to deliver impressions. It shows visual elements of its Lang-8 users (no matter

whether it is a real picture or not), so it tends to form a visual impression of them and

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thus draw more vivid and instantaneous responses from others. For example,

Turquoisedee stated that she created her profile picture with a careful plan:

Well my photo isn't just a simple photo but I took time to make the background

and make it look presentable. Choosing the right colors to represent the feelings

of sincerity, kindness, and creativity took some planning as well. When people

look at that picture, I want them to feel I am a person they can trust and someone

who will help. :) … I think adding a picture to a profile adds a personal touch and

gives off a friendly feeling. Not putting a picture or icon kind of gives off a cold

feeling. It is hard to relate to.

In her picture, Turquoisedee smiles a little bit. She puts on make-up. Her hair is black,

neatly combed and parted. Her face moderately shines with a reflection of bright light.

She is wearing a black coat with its collar up. The background is a light gray (which has

more white than gray) and is dotted with a chunk of blue, yellow, and pink squares.

When she created and posted this profile picture, she wished that others would have a

friendly feeling towards her so that she could be considered as a person who could be

trusted. She believed that adding a profile picture is giving “a personal touch” to the

profile, so that it “gives off a friendly feeling.” Therefore, if the profile picture is left at

default, that is, there is no picture on the profile, it looks unfriendly to her, which made

her feel distant from its user.

In the case of Smiller, she felt that it was nice to see someone with his/her profile

picture posted rather than left at default. For her, having a profile photo is a matter of

whether the user is sincere about using Lang-8 or not:

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I don't think I've ever seen a profile picture that I didn't like. Most pictures are

pretty neutral. I don‟t judge people by their profile pictures, but if someone has a

picture I particularly like, I might be more likely to accept them as a friend… I

think it‟s nice to have a picture, and when someone doesn‟t, I wonder if they're

not actually very interested in using lang-8. (Interview)

Thus, when she saw someone who did not post his/her profile picture, she usually formed

a negative impression that the user might not have an actual interest in using Lang-8 after

all.

It is also interesting to note that Smiller had not met anyone yet that posted a

profile picture that she did not like. For her, it was a rare case that she got a bad

impression through others‟ profile pictures. Instead, from time to time, she found some

profile pictures that she particularly liked. When she found pictures that were relatively

special to her, she became more likely to accept them as her friends due to her familiar

feelings. As Smiller did, the other research participants also seemed to be aware of the

potential influence that a profile picture would exert on first impressions of them, so they

consciously or unconsciously posted pictures that they wished would create good images

or at least that would not create negative images of them.

In terms of a degree of activeness in the usage of profile pictures, all participants

can be placed in the continuum between an active user and a passive user. For example,

CAM would be one of those who are at the active end. She was fully aware of such a role

that a profile picture plays, so she posted a photo of a golden retriever because she not

only loves this type of dog but also wanted to give “Lang-8 friends a friendly

impression.” On the other hand, AriZona was one of those that belonged to the passive

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side. She posted her profile picture, a flower, but she said that she did not intend to

impress others with it; she did it because it looked as if something was missing if there

were no profile picture. After all, whether Lang-8 users consciously intended to or not,

they ended up representing themselves through their own profile picture even though how

it would be perceived by other Lang-8 users might be different.

About-Me

The next element in the profile page that the participants spent much time is

About-me. It is a place where a statement about oneself is posted. Users still can talk

about themselves through their screen names and/or profile pictures, but the self-

representation through them is somewhat symbolic, so that there is always doubt whether

the same messages that they intended to deliver in the first place would be shared with

others, too. On the other hand, a self is introduced in text in the About-me section without

any limitation on its length, so users become enabled to deliver their personal information

in more apparent and detailed manner. Although filling the About-me section was not

mandatory for Lang-8 registration, the majority of my participants (except Azurviolet and

AriZona) wound up introducing themselves in it. In the following section, I will present

what and how the participants filled in About-me, and what roles it played in the Lang-8

environment.

Content: Personal information and language-related issues. People have their

own ways to write about themselves in About-me depending on their needs, but its

contents can be grouped into two categories: general background information and

language-related issues. As shown in Table 4.3, participants in this study introduced

themselves by revealing such personal information as hobbies, real names, where they

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lived, jobs, contact information, and routines of their daily life. Additionally, some

themes like marital status, age, birthday, favorite foods, pets, family members, and the

origin of their Lang-8 screen names were occasionally mentioned. As for language-

learning-related issues, such themes as L2 learning plans on Lang-8, reasons for learning

L2s, kinds of languages studied, L2 learning experience, and friend requests were

primarily stated in the About-me section. As miscellaneous, themes like a meaning of

language and language correction request were intermittently mentioned.

For example, below are Turquoisedee‟s and Gai‟s About-me sections:

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Table 4.3

Themes Frequently Addressed in About-me

Category Examples

Greeting (10) Hello! Nice to meet you!

Personal

background

information

Hobby (9) I love Korean music, 김치, gummy bears, and

anything Asian.

Real name (5) I’m Gai.

Living place (5) I live in a suburb of Tokyo, Japan.

Job (4) I’m a 21 year old college student.

Contact

information (4)

MSN: xxx

SKYPE: xxx

Daily life (2) My life is very simple. I work, practice Aikido, and

take care of my wife and daughter. That’s all.

Language-

learning-

related

stories and

information

Native language

(7)

I speak English and Spanish.

Japanese is my mother tongue.

L2 learning plan

(6)

My goal is to learn as much as possible, make a lot of

new friends, and have fun!!

Reasons for

learning L2 (5)

…to enjoy contacting people around the world…to

understand each culture deeper.

Target language

(4)

If you could help me with my Japanese, I’d really

appreciate it.

L2 learning

experience (4)

I’m an early riser and I study English in the morning.

I write about it on twitter every morning.

Friend request (4) Let‟s be Lang-8 friends!

Note. Parenthesized numbers indicate the total number of participants who included the

corresponding theme in their About-me sections.

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First, Turquoisedee started her introduction by saying “hi.” As personal information, she

included her real name, her favorite things like Korean food, 김치(Kimchi), and Asian

snacks like gummi bears. In addition, she revealed her passion for the Korean singing

idol group, “Big Bang.” As a language component, she indicated her native language,

target language, and her learning goal in the Lang-8 space. In the case of Gai, he also

started his introduction with greetings in seven different languages, and then introduced

himself by his name, age, and job. He continued with what he generally likes to do such

as traveling, watching movies, reading, watching sports, and running a marathon.

Regarding language learning, he indicated his passion for learning language, plans on

Lang-8, English learning experience, meaning of English, and reason for learning English.

Although some participants posted four-line long introductions, and some others up to

ninety-three lines, it was common that they all included their personal information related

to their off-line identity and life, and language-learning-related issues as L2 learners and

L1 speakers.

Turquoisedee also mentioned that she carefully chose topics to use in the About-

me section in that she wrote something not only that defined herself but also that could be

“related” to others. She said:

On my front page, or profile, I include things that define me. I include things like

hobbies, likes and dislikes, and my purpose on the website. That way people that

relate to me will be willing to be my friends. (Interview)

When Turquoisedee first joined the Lang-8 website, she was a junior high school student

who liked eating Asian foods and listening to Korean music, particularly by a Korean

idol group named “Big Bang.” By mentioning her likes, she was inviting others to contact

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her who shared similar interests with her. In addition, she described her native languages

and her learning language, and her purpose on the Lang-8 Website, which was her effort

to find someone who she could learn from and provide help for and someone who shared

the same learning goal on Lang-8. Through her About-me section, Turquoisedee was

trying to keep herself accessible and attractive to other Lang-8 users by introducing

things that she liked, so that people could judge how much they could be related to her on

the basis of them.

While participants generally posted information about themselves, it does not

mean that they revealed everything about themselves. Most of them commented that they

tried to show themselves as they are in their About-me sections, but any thematic

elements that relate their negative aspects or that may lead to offending other Lang-8

users were hardly found. For example, below is what Katz wrote in his About-me section:

Hello~

My real name is ***. I live in Seoul.

I like music, movie, travel, sleeping, eating, walking and taking pictures.

I‟d like to help many people practice Korean and learn English 'pleasantly' here.

Please, be my friends.

MSN : ***

Skype : ***

ps : My nick name came from 'Emma Katz, English baroque soprano, a treasure

of Early music.

Katz‟s written introduction is composed of the similar thematic elements that most

participants wrote about—greeting, name, living place, hobbies, his goal on Lang-8,

friend request, MSN/SKYPE information, and the origin of his screen name. Interestingly,

it was hardly found any message that could present his negative image or upset someone

else on Lang-8. In addition, he wrote his introduction in a respectful and considerate

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manner by using cheering and polite language such as “hello~,” “I‟d like to help” and

“please.”

The ways that the other participants wrote about themselves are not much

different from Katz‟s—politely asking for help, being willing to provide help, and

introducing something that might be interesting or at least something that might not

offend others. Therefore, About-me is not only about who a user thinks he/she is, but also

who he/she wants to be before the community of Lang-8. In particular, my research

participants tried to focus on delivering light and positive sides of themselves while

avoiding their negative aspects. None of my research participants commented that they

intended to write and deliver only good things about themselves, but they seemed to

unconsciously or consciously avoid presenting information that could bring out their bad

images.

Format: varied-language versions. As there was no rule for what to write, there

were no pre-set rules of how to write in the About-me section. For example, some

participants wrote four-line long introductions whereas someone like Kenshin posted a

ninety-three-line long introduction. Among many varieties in the ways of writing About-

me, it was interesting to note that there was a difference in types of languages they used.

In the following section, I will explore how and why types of languages were used

differently among the participants.

Single L2 version. In general, my research participants filled in their About-me

sections both/either in their native language and/or in target languages; five out of ten

research participants wrote a one-language version of About-me (either in a native or a

target language), and the remaining five wrote multiple-language versions. As for the five

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who used only one language, four participants (Katz, CAM, Gai, and Coby) wrote in their

target languages, and one participant (Turquoisedee) in her native language. Of the five

who wrote in multiple languages, four participants (Miyoko, Smiller, Dog, and Seiji)

used two languages (both the first and second languages), and one participant (Kenshin)

used three languages (his first and two different target languages). Whether it was in one

or multiple languages, the majority of participants used their target languages when

introducing themselves. This pattern of target language use in the About-me section

reflects that their target population that they plan to approach is native speakers of their

learning languages.

Both L1 and L2 versions. Five participants, Smiller, Dog, Seijitapa, Miyoko, and

Kenshin, posted at least two versions of introductions both in their native and second

languages in their About-me sections. They said that it was because they wanted to reach

more people than native speakers of their target languages. For example, Smiller said:

A lot of the people I know on lang-8 are Japanese, but I want English speakers

(and other non-Japanese speakers) to be able to see who I am too. Also, I used to

post in Korean sometimes, and most Korean users wouldn't be able to read the

Japanese--and my Korean wasn't good enough to do a version in Korean.

(Interview)

She is an English speaker learning Japanese (and sometimes Korean) on Lang-8. She

technically needed only native speakers of Japanese for her study, so the Japanese version

of her introduction might have been enough for her. However, she added the English

version because she wanted to extend her relationship even to “non-Japanese speakers”

on the Lang-8 community.

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In fact, the analysis of the list of her friends showed that twenty-three percent of

the friends Smiller made on Lang-8 were non-Japanese speakers whose first language

was Korean, Mandarin, Spanish, Indonesian, Croatian, or English. Particularly, since she

started to learn a new language, Korean, on Lang-8, she wanted to reach Korean speakers.

Even though writing her introduction in Korean might have been the fastest way to let

Koreans know that she was learning their language on Lang-8, she could not do that

because of her low level of Korean writing skills. Instead, she believed that her English

version of the About-me would enable her to reach them because many Koreans also

were learning English on Lang-8. In the end, Smiller posted the two versions of the

About-me in different languages because she wanted to reach a bigger population on

Lang-8 other than Japanese-speaking people that she wanted to learn her L2 from. In

summary, posting these two versions of About-me showed those participants‟ efforts to

make friends with diverse people on Lang-8.

Both L1 and L2 versions with different themes. Miyoko and Kenshin also posted

both L1 and L2 versions of About-me sections with an intention of reaching out to the

population beyond native speakers of their target language groups. However, their About-

me profiles were unlike the others in that each version had its own story. For example, as

Table 4.4 shows, Kenshin‟s Spanish version was mainly focused on his Spanish learning,

such as his reason for learning Spanish and experience of learning Spanish. In the

English version, however, he extended topics to a general area of L2 learning, such as his

purpose in and understanding of learning a new language. In the Japanese version, he

exclusively included Japanese- or Japan-related themes such as his view on one Japanese

writer‟s writing styles and ways of introducing Japan.

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Table 4.4

Themes of three versions of Kenshin’s About-me

Themes

Japanese English Spanish

His love for writing

His ways of writing

His life

(Hobby of

reading books)

(Living place/

work/ hobby of

practicing Akido/

family)

Views on one Japanese

writer‟s writing styles

Two ways of introducing

Japan—through English

and Japanese

Characteristics of Lang-8

users

Friend request (To Japanese

learner and

“Japanese doting

parents”)

(To English

speakers who learn

Japanese)

(To

Spanish

speakers)

Goals of using Lang-8

Purpose of learning L2 (In general) (Spanish

in particular)

Suggestion for help

Thank-you note

Lang-8 experience

L2 learning experience

(Spanish)

Meaning of learning a

new language

Further reference

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Regarding differences in content among three versions of his About-me profile,

Kenshin stated that it was partially because of the difference in his proficiency level of

each language. He was an expert in Japanese, advanced in English, and intermediate in

Spanish at the time, so he understood that a direct translation from one language to

another was not possible, particularly when he tried to put his complicated and theoretical

thoughts into Spanish. Therefore, in comparing the Spanish and English versions, the

contents in the former are straightforward and practical whereas the latter are rather

complicated and conceptual. For instance, in the Spanish version, he wrote that his

purpose of learning Spanish is to “understand a soccer match in Spanish for Euro 2012,”

but in the English version, he shared his general purpose of learning L2s by using the

“star and constellation” metaphor. In the Japanese version, the focus is specified in

Japanese- and Japan-related issues, but expressed ideas are as conceptual and

complicated as the English version‟s. (For his three full versions of About-me, see

Appendix A.)

In addition, Kenshin also commented that he told different stories in each

language version partially because he wanted to deliver a different message to each

language group. For example, the English version was for the group of English speakers

that included both native speakers and learners of English, which is the largest in number

in the Lang-8 community. Thus, he intended to pay more attention to general concepts

rather than specified details in that version. On the other hand, the Spanish version was

for native speakers and learners of Spanish, whose population is much smaller than

English on Lang-8, so he mainly focused on Spanish-related themes in his Spanish

About-me profile. In the case of the Japanese version, Kenshin addressed that it was

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mainly for learners of Japanese and “Japanese doting parents.” Thus, he wrote about his

thoughts on Japanese language, and his request to be friends with Japanese parents who

were in a similar situation with him. At the time, he was raising a three-year-old daughter,

so he wrote that he would welcome any Japanese parents who are in love with their

children.

Miyoko also posted two different language versions, English and Japanese, on her

profile page. She also said that the former was for English speakers, including native

speakers and learners of English, and the latter was for Japanese learners. The full version

of each is shown in Table 4.5. According to her, she posted the English version because

she wanted to “improve her English” by making friends with English speakers on Lang-8,

and the Japanese version because she intended to help other Lang-8 users to learn

Japanese. Besides the different target groups that each version tried to approach, there

was also a big difference in their contents too. In the English version, Miyoko mostly

talked about her personal life (such as, her family members, job, living place, and

hobbies) and then made an indirect friend request by mentioning her purpose of English

learning (“My dream is to have friends all over the world”) and her wish to improve

English (“I‟d like to improve my English”). On the other hand, in her Japanese version,

she mostly talked about Japanese or English learning (such as providing help for

Japanese learners and finding conversation partners in Japanese or English) and made a

direct friend request by saying, “Please send me a message.”

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Table 4.5

Two Versions of Miyoko’s About-me in L1 and L2

English version

Japanese version

There are three people in my

family. (husband, eight-year-old

daughter and I) I'm a housewife. I

live in Hokkaido, Japan. I like to

read(novels, comics, children's

books) and to watch foreign

series. ("Merlin", "glee",

"Brothers and sisters", Dr.House"

etc) One of my dreams is to have

friends all over the world. I'd like

to improve my English.

(especially speaking) Nice to

meet you. みなさん、よろしく

お願いします＾＾

日 本語を学習している人のお手伝いを、でき

るだけしたいと思っています。私と日本語を

話してみたい方（もちろん英語も OK）、

Skypeで話すことができま す。text chat のみ

でも OKです。（Please send me a message^^）

私の英語力は、書いている日記の内容が何と

か話せるくらいです。[Translation] I would like

to help those who are learning Japanese as much

as possible. If you want to speak Japanese with me

(it is OK to speak English, of course), you can talk

on Skype. It‟s OK with only text chat. (Please send

me a message ^^) In English, I like to somehow

speak about the contents of journal entries.”)

When Miyoko was asked why she made such differences, she replied that there

was no specific reason for that, but it might be understood that it was because of her

different positions that she took as a learner and a helper on Lang-8. That is, as a learner

of English, she might have wanted to let others know who she was first, so that she could

be less uneasy for asking for help later. It is like seeking help in the real world: People

are usually reluctant to directly ask for help of others unless they know each other well,

so Miyoko also might have introduced herself first in order not to appear insolent to those

she first met on Lang-8. On the other hand, in the Japanese version aimed towards

learners of Japanese, she showed her identity as a helper, saying “I would like to help

those who are learning Japanese as much as possible.” As a giver who could provide help

for others to learn Japanese, she might have been confident enough to make a direct

friend request even to English speakers that she had not met yet. Thus, her double

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positions of a learner and a helper could have contributed to the two different versions of

her About-me section.

Revisions: Changes for reasons. Many participants typically did not make

revisions on their About-me sections after their registration, but some users like Kenshin,

Miyoko, Smiller, and Seijitapa did even though it was not required. The interview data

and postings on their About-me sections showed that the changes they made reflected

their wish to stay “up-to-date,” “inspirational,” and „responsive” to the Lang-8

community.

To stay up-to-date. To begin with, Smiller and Seijitapa revised their written

introductions one time while this research was conducted. They made some changes on

minor information such as their age and length of study. For example, Smiller changed

her age from 21 to 22, and Seijitapa changed his statement about the length of his English

learning from “I‟ve been learning English for five years” to “I‟ve been learning English

since 2005.” These details are time-sensitive information; thus, by changing these details,

they intended to make their profile page look up-to-date.

To stay “inspirational.” In the case of Kenshin, he commented that he revised his

introduction at least four times for the first four months on Lang-8. When asked the

reason for his frequent revision process, he replied as follows:

I reviewed the about me section once a month and tweaked it (typos, trivial errors

etc), added some sentences or information to my profile. No, sorry that I don't

have the old version. I just re-wrote them online all the time. I added some

sentences or info in order to make my profile at the “About me” section more

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readable and inspirational. Now I think it‟s almost completed and nothing is left

for any tweak so far. (Interview)

He posted the first draft of his introduction in February, 2010, and completed the current

one four months later. He revised it every month before its completion because he said

that he wanted to make it “more readable and inspirational.” As an effort to make his first

draft “readable,” he posted it as a journal entry on Lang-8 on February 26, 2010, and had

it proofread by his Lang-8 friends. On the basis of the received feedback, Kenshin made

grammatical and mechanical changes. By correcting his grammatical and mechanical

errors, he wanted to make sure that his introduction would be legible to English speakers.

In addition to these grammatical and mechanical changes, Kenshin also wanted to

make his About-me section interesting and “inspirational” to read, so he added more

content to his final draft. In comparison between his first and final draft, big changes

were found. For example, the first draft consists of 63 words whereas the final one has

461, which is 7 times longer than the original in terms of word count.3. In terms of the

number of themes, 6 new themes were added to the final version, as shown in Table 4.6.

There were five overlapping themes between the first and final draft, and most of

them were supplemented with more detailed content or were filled with new contents.

First of all, the greeting in the first draft, “how are you doing” was targeted for general

Lang-8 users, but the greeting in the final one, “hello my friends and newcomers to Lang-

8,” was oriented for a more specific audience, his current and future friends and new

Lang-8 users. Particularly, Kenshin showed his position as an experienced Lang-8

3 Kenshin also added additional introductions in two different languages, Spanish and Japanese, to the final

draft, but only the English version was reviewed for this comparison

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member in the final introduction by welcoming newcomers and introducing his learning

experience on Lang-8.

Table 4.6

Comparison between First and Final Draft of English Version of Kenshin’s About-me

First draft

Final draft (English only)

Greeting*

Achievement goal*

Purpose of learning L2*

Suggestion to provide help

My life: Hobbies*

Thank-you note*

Greeting*

Achievement goal*

Purpose of learning L2*

Suggestion to provide help

My life: Hobbies and more*

Thank-you note*

Lang-8 experience

Meaning of learning a new language

Friend request

Ending with name and date

Further reference

Note. The underlined portions indicate the themes that matched in both the first and the

final drafts. The asterisk indicates there are some qualitative differences between the two.

New additions have neither an underline nor an asterisk.

Another difference was found in his purpose and achievement goal of learning L2

on Lang-8. In his first draft, Kenshin stated that he wanted to improve his English for use

in business and Spanish for daily conversation. However, in the final draft, he stated that

he wanted to improve his English to a level high enough to write without thinking in his

first language, Japanese, and he wants to learn new languages in order to vivify his

“ordinary life” and get a clear image of this world. The shift in his learning goal from

“business and daily conversation” to “for giving freshness to his „ordinary life‟ and

getting a clear image of this world” indicates that his purpose for learning L2 on Lang-8

changed from being down-to-earth to being more abstract and philosophical. On the other

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hand, the shift in his learning goal from “general improvement” to “synchronizing his

writing and thinking process in his target language only” shows that his achievement goal

of L2 learning changed from being broad to being more focused.

These changes in his L2 learning purpose and achievement goal on Lang-8 might

suggest that he was learning what he could do and how far he could go with Lang-8 for

his language learning. As he spent more time on Lang-8 and with his Lang-8 friends, he

seemed to start to understand that Lang-8 is not something that he could use for his

business-related language learning; instead, it was more suitable for him to meet various

kinds of different people from all over the world. In addition, his language-learning focus

had been narrowed down to something feasible that he could achieve particularly in the

Lang-8 environments. After all, the final draft of his About-me reflects his changed

position from a novice to an experienced Lang-8 user.

Lastly, the subsequent noticeable differences were in the themes of life

introduction and thank-you note. In the first draft, Kenshin described his life by simply

mentioning his favorite hobbies, “practicing Akido and reading books.” However, in the

final draft, he stated not only his hobbies, but also his working and social status as a

father and a husband. In terms of the thank-you notes, the first draft indicates that

Kenshin wanted to deliver his thanks to those who would correct his writing, saying

“Thank you all of you for making corrections on my poor English and Spanish,” but the

final draft shows that he extended his thanks to those who simply visited and read his

profile page, saying, “Thank you all for reading this through to the end.”

To stay responsive. Miyoko also revised her About-me section at least two times

while this research was conducted. She first registered for Lang-8 and posted her first

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draft in April, 2010. Six months later, she revised the original and posted a second one. In

February, 2011, she posted another revised introduction. Although her revisions were not

made at as a large scale as Kenshin‟s, they were made more obviously in response to

other Lang-8 users‟ reactions. Table 4.7 shows the parts of her introduction that were

changed through the revision process. One of the differences between the first and second

drafts is that she cut off her statement about her Twitter activity and instead added her

wish to make international friends. The third version is not very different from the second

except that she added more titles of her favorite English soft dramas such as “Glee,”

“Brothers and Sisters,” and “Dr. House.”

Table 4.7

Changed Parts of the First, Second, and Third Draft of About-me (Miyoko)

First (Original)

Second (10/24/2010) Third (3/1/2011)

I like to read (novels,

comics, children‟s books)

and to watch foreign

dramas(I LOVE "Merlin").

I like to read (novels,

comics, children‟s books)

and to watch foreign

dramas(I LOVE "Merlin").

I like to read (novels,

comics, children‟s books)

and to watch foreign series.

("Merlin","glee","Brothers

and sisters", Dr.House" etc)

I'm an early riser and I

study English in the

morning. I write about it on

twitter every morning.

One of my dreams is to

have friends all over the

world.

One of my dreams is to

have friends all over the

world.

Adding her wish to make international friends on Lang-8 to the second draft

makes sense because she always wanted to speak with foreigners via Skype.She did not

have to take out her statement about her early morning activity with Twitter, but Miyoko

commented that she felt she had to:

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I wanted people who want to communicate with me on Twitter to see my old

version of my profile. However, I had no reaction, so I changed this line into the

new version. (Interview)

She was using Twitter early in the morning on a regular basis at the time. She wanted

Lang-8 users to know about her Twitter usage so that she could expand her

communication channels. However, she rarely got a follow-up response from other Lang-

8 users on Twitter, so she decided to delete her statement about it. This revision was

made in response to other Lang-8 users‟ disinterest in her Twitter practice.

Miyoko made another revision in the area of hobbies. In the first and second

drafts, there was only one example of her favorite drama, “Merlin.” However, in the third,

she added more dramas to it such as “Glee,” “Brothers and Sisters,” and “Dr. House.”

The change may just show a longer list of foreign dramas, but it also reflects her attempt

to respond to current English speaking friends on Lang-8. In her journal entries posted

January 23, 2011, for example, she posted her reviews on “Glee”, saying:

…One of my friends recommended the show, he said it was worth watching. As

he said, I instantly like it. Especially, I love its musical scenes. Every time I watch

them, I sing along with songs. All songs are nice and I can't help swaying to the

music... (Miyoko‟s journal entry entitled “My Favorite Drama”)

Since the day that it was recommended by her friend, she had watched and loved the

drama. According to her, the person who recommended the show was one of her Lang-8

friends she often talked with over Skype. About one month after she posted this entry, her

third draft of About-me was observed, which included not only Glee but also other

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dramas. All in all, the changes of her statement of a Twitter activity and of the list of her

favorite TV dramas indicates her careful responsiveness to Lang-8 friends over time.

Roles of About-me. As the elements of screen name and profile page do, the

About-me section also plays a role of introducing users to the community of Lang-8.

Particularly, it plays roles like providing relatively-detailed information about users,

being a critical checkpoint before sending/accepting friend requests, helping to know

friends in a convenient way, and attracting latent friends.

Providing varied thematic elements through About-me. As the name itself

speaks, the primary role of the About-me section is to introduce Lang-8 users mostly to

as of yet unknown friends. Because introduction is made in a written form of language

without a length limit, participants were able to provide more detailed information about

themselves in the areas of their life, thoughts, beliefs, and language learning. As Table

4.4 shows, the participants integrated varied thematic elements in their About-me

sections that the pre-fixed descriptors of profile page do not cover, and this also implies

their efforts to show more about themselves than what is minimally required by the Lang-

8 system.

Being a critical checkpoint before sending/accepting friend requests.

Participants in this study indicated that they read others‟ self-introductions not simply to

gratify their own curiosity; they also wrote and read self-introductions in an effort to

make friends. The majority of participants considered an About-me section is the critical

checkpoint for them before they send and accept a friend request. For example, when

asked what she checked before befriending others on Lang-8, CAM replied:

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I check their native language, learning languages, and self-introductions. I think

native English speakers who are learning Japanese would be great to help each

other. Self-introductions are also important for me to know what they are like. If

there are no self-introductions, I read their journals to get some ideas to know

who they are. (Interview)

She generally first checked whether her language interests were matched with those of

her possible Lang-8 friends. Once she found her perfect match, an English learner of

Japanese, then she checked his/her About-me section next in order to know what kind of

person he/she is. Seijitapa also agreed that About-me is a good place to start a friendship,

saying, “It [the About-me section] is important for me because I always read it before I

decide to offer friend request.”

In the case of Smiller, she also checked About-me when she found someone who

she would like to be a friend with in expectation of knowing him/her more through it.

Thus, when it was empty, it sometimes “annoyed” her. She said,

If someone writes really interesting entries, but doesn't have anything in their

“about me”, sometimes I feel annoyed because I want to know more about them!

If someone doesn't write anything in their about-me section, I think it just makes

me less interested in them, because I have no idea who they are. (Interview)

According to her, the About-me section is one of the critical points that she would know

more about her future friends, so when this opportunity was missed, her interest in those

Lang-8 friends was more likely to disappear, too.

Conveniently meeting new friends through About-me. As discussed earlier, there

are varied ways to get to know other users on Lang-8. For example, people can get an

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impression of other Lang-8 users by guessing from their screen names or their profile

photos. They can also continuously check and read the journal entries of latent Lang-8

friends if they want to deeply understand them. However, some users thought that one of

the most straightforward, quickest, and easiest ways to know about their future friends

was to check on their About-me sections. For example, Gai stated:

If I want to know about someone and he or she don't write own information, I

hope they write it. This is because it's convenient for me to know about him or her

quickly. Of course after I read his or her several [journal] entries, I can know

about him or her. I mean, reading self-introduction part is easier than reading

some entries to know about someone. (Interview)

As others did, Gai also expected to read a future friend‟s written introduction when he

found someone interesting because it helped him to know about him/her in an easy and

convenient way. Reading his/her journal entries could work too, but he deemed that it

would take him time. On the other hand, reading others‟ self-introductions is more

convenient for him because it is a one-time action, and would save him time on deciding

whether or not to be friends with them.

Although Azurviolet did not post an introduction on her About-me section, she

understood that it is a place where Lang-8 users present themselves to others:

But these days, I thought that it would be good to write something. Because this is

like a presentation, it‟s like if we come in a room with lot of people, and that we

do say “hello, I'm xxxxxx.....nice to meet you”. thinking about that these days, I

thought that I have to think about something to write, but I didn't do it yet ^^

(Interview)

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She compared writing the About-me section on the Lang-8 website with introducing

herself in a crowded room. As the presentation is one way to deliver her introduction to

many unspecified people at once, Azurviolet thought that the About-me could be one of

the ways to tell people who she is without bothering to meet all individual users in the

Lang-8 space.

Attracting latent friends through the About-me section. The About-me section

also often serves to attract users when it comes to making new friends on Lang-8.

Whether it was intended in the first place or not, my research participants experienced

that they were contacted by other users through their self-introductions in the About-me

section. Miyoko, for example, experienced that some users contacted her after they read

her About-me section, so she tried to add more information, stating, “I have tried to write

more information about me on my profile page. Some people saw my profile and

accessed me.” Although it does not mean that posting an About-me profile was the only

attraction through which people got interested in her, she felt that it surely helped her to

make a smooth transition from the initial stage of searching and locating future friends to

the next stage of sending and receiving friend requests.

Some participants also deemed that it was important to post their introductions in

the About-me section because they would attract people by creating users‟ accountable

images. As a way to gain trust from Lang-8 users, it was often believed that revealing

their “real-life” and “language-learner” identities through their About-me sections would

be helpful. There is still no way to tell whether what people write in the About-me

section is true or not, but as Kenshin said, people seemed to give more trust to those who

were “open” enough to say first who they are:

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For example, you don't have any self-introduction on the “about me” section.

Normally, when I find the section empty, I don't want to send my friend request to

him because it‟s a bit scary to send one if I don‟t have any hint to understand his

personality.…In the real life, we need to be open “first” in a proactive way to

show them who I am if I want to make friends with. In fact, I've gotten a lot of

friend requests from English native speakers, saying “I'm impressed with your

„about me‟ section”. I know it bothers you a lot to write down all the self-

introduction in English, but I think it‟s worth it. (Interview)

According to Kenshin, he usually hesitated to send a friend request to those who had no

self-introduction in their About-me section because he was unsure of whether they would

be safe to contact due to the lack of their personal information. He took talking about

supposedly “real” parts of himself in About-me as a gesture that he is open to others.

When he stayed open, Kenshin believed that he would gain more trust from other users,

and they would therefore lower their guard and be more willing to become friends with

him. The simple practice of filling in the About-me section itself eventually helps deliver

a reliable image of that person, so that it give others a sense of security to be friends with

him/her.

Conclusion

In Chapter 4, I have examined the practices that my research participants

conducted with their profile pages on Lang-8. According to Collins English Dictionary, a

profile is defined as “a short biographical sketch of a subject” (Profile, n.d.); it does not

tell everything about that person in detail, but it shortly describes something important

about him/her. In the Lang-8 environment, my research participants described something

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important about themselves through their own profile pages in various ways (such as

short-answer format, screen name, profile picture, and the About-me). Each medium

delivered different, but sometimes overlapping, messages about its users, but they all

have something in common in that they serve to represent users in their Lang-8

community.

In general, my research participants were trying to introduce who they are on

their profile page by sharing their personal background information and language-

learning related information. They were aware that Lang-8 users often visit the profile

page when they want to know more about its creator, so they consciously or

unconsciously ended up forming identities on their profile page that looked relatively

positive or at least “non- negative.” One of the notable ways for my research participants

to create such positive images in the profile page was to bring part of their real selves into

the Lang-8 community. They told and showed their factual and presumably real personal

information, personalities, and offline life through their profile pages, which created

comfortable, reliable, interesting, and attractive images of them (whether intentionally or

not).

Another clear way to maintain their attractiveness on the profile page was to share

their L2-learning-related information. Lang-8 is a language learning website, so people

expect others to join Lang-8 for the purpose of L2 learning. Sharing language-learning

philosophies, experiences, and goals of learning with other Lang-8 users, therefore,

helped my research participants to reinforce the images of sincere L2 learners and/or

helpers in the Lang-8 community (whether intentionally or not). Additionally, the

language information targeted specific language groups showed what languages they

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were learning and could provide help with, which in turn showed which language

population groups they were specifically interested in and which language groups might

be interested in them. Therefore, it helped each participant stay attractive to those who

might need his/her help, and find those who could provide help with his/her L2 learning.

In summary, my research participants‟ practices on their profile pages were

closely related to their identity work, which was in line with their effort of making friends

in the Lang-8 space. They intentionally or unintentionally managed their impressions

through their profile pages, which is called impression management (Boyd & Ellison,

2007), while building accessible images of themselves, and this reflects their strong

wishes to make good friends on Lang-8, with whom they could learn L2s together. As

Norton (2000) says that language learners “are constantly organizing and reorganizing a

sense of who they are and how they relate to the social world” when they speak in their

learning language (p. 11), my participants were actively and creatively trying to build

appealing images by remixing varied resources (such as L1, L2, and pictures) and

dialogically trying to construct and reconstruct their images in response to their current

and future Lang-8 friends in this Lang-8 community. In addition, the activities of

building profile pages, particularly the About-me component, also show how the

participants were actively using their own L2s as a mediational tool to regulate

relationships with Lang-8 friends (Vygotsky, 1978; Wertsch, 1998). The identity work as

part of the Lang-8 learning process on Lang-8 will be discussed further in Chapter 7. In

the following chapter, I will move to the other major activity, friend-making practices, in

the Lang-8 environment.

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Chapter Five

Lang-8 Users’ Main Activity: Building a Friend Network

Finding and making friends who can consistently help with their second language

learning is of critical importance in having a successful learning experience in the Lang-8

community, for Lang-8 users mostly learn a target language with the help of their Lang-8

friends. Many Lang-8 users, therefore, have a tendency to build a friend network as soon

as they join Lang-8. The purpose of this chapter is to describe what practices the

participants performed in order to initiate and maintain their friend networks, what

relationships they made inside the networks, and how they perceived their Lang-8 friends

in general.

Initiating a Friend Network

Soon after setting up a profile page, Lang-8 users usually get into the practice of

making friends. Basically the friend network is built up under the mutual agreement

between two users, and it all starts by sending or receiving a friend request. If the request

is accepted, a friend is added to a friend list, which allows Lang-8 users to closely and

easily track their friends‟ Lang-8 practices.

Before sending friend requests, Lang-8 users have to go through a process of

finding their possible friends first. As discussed briefly in Chapter 3, they can find friends

by using some features that Lang-8 provides. For example, “Lang-Match” enables them

to find friends according to categories like target language and native language, and

“Footprint” to see the history of other Lang-8 users who visited their Lang-8 page. Once

finding someone interesting, Lang-8 users can check his/her profile, which usually

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provides more information. In addition to these features, Lang-8 users also meet their

friends for the first time through journal entries and feedback.

Initiating a friend network on Lang-8 can be as simple as clicking on the “Friend

Request” button, but my participants did some other preceding practices before sending

friend requests. Each individual had different practices, but the interview data revealed

the following practices that were commonly-conducted most: 1) Searching for their

language matches through various channels; 2) Posting their own journal entries and

receiving feedback; and 3) Reading others‟ entries and giving feedback on them before

they sent a friend request.

Sending friend requests: Criteria and practices. The preceding activities such

as searching, posting, reading, and giving and receiving feedback indicate that users do

not choose their friends at random on Lang-8. In this section, I will examine the factors

that my research participants considered important when choosing their Lang-8 friends

and the related practices that they engaged in before they sent friend requests.

Checking language needs before sending requests. People join Lang-8 primarily

for language learning purposes, so it is significant to find someone whom they can

receive help from and provide help for. Before my research participants sent friend

requests to somebody, therefore, they generally paid close attention to locating their

language matches. For example, Gai and Kenshin said:

We have a purpose to make friends in lang-8. We want friends as teachers who

correct our journals one another. I want my friends to tell me English and I want

to tell my friends Japanese. (Interview with Gai)

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A friend from the US, bilingual in English and Spanish, helps me a lot in both

languages and I can help him to learn Japanese. We really hit it off each other

because the match in languages is the best for both of us. (Interview with

Kenshin)

Gai was a Japanese native speaker learning English at the time. He commented how

important it was to find native speakers of English and learners of Japanese, and to make

friends with them. Although connections are not always formed in a way that their

language needs are matched so that two users can directly exchange mutual help, Kenshin

explained that he and his friend “hit it off” with each other when both could be mutual

help to each other.

One of many ways that Lang-8 users check their potential friends‟ language

backgrounds is to use the feature of “Lang-Match.” Once they type their L1 and L2, the

Lang-8 system itself finds and shows Lang-8 users whose language needs are matched

with them. Although Lang-Match can make it quick and easy to find language matches in

the Lang-8 community, participants in this study utilized it mostly in the beginning of

their Lang-8 use, and gradually reduced its use as they found other ways to make friends.

For example, Turquoisedee said:

In the beginning, I simply used the Lang-match tool on Lang-8.com and just

requested for people to add me as friends. But the more I posted entries and the

more I corrected entries people started requesting for me to add them more and

more until I reached more than 300 friends! (Interview)

As Turquoisedee indicated, another series of practices related to locating language

matches other than using Lang-Match is by posting a journal entry, waiting for feedback,

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and then sending a friend request to those who gave the feedback. For example, Miyoko

stated, “I post my journal, it is corrected by someone every time… I check their profile

and I send a friend request if they are native speaker.” Smiller also said, “When I get

particularly helpful corrections on an entry, I add the corrector to my friends with the

hope that they will continue to correct my future entries.” Receiving corrections is

dependent on posting a writing entry first, so she knew that posting journal entries would

raise her chances of meeting good correctors.

While finding someone whose language needs matched was mostly the first thing

to consider before my participants sent friend requests, it was not the only factor that

affected their friend-request-sending decision. If it had been so, all of their friends would

have ended up having friends with either native speakers of their target language or users

learning their native language. In addition, considering the fact that there were many

other Lang-8 users who could have exchanged mutual help with them, the language

match factor alone could not fully explain why they ended up selectively sending friend

requests to specific Lang-8 users among many others.

Checking activeness before sending requests. Another factor that participants

considered important before sending friend requests was the level of others‟ activeness

because it would tell how much they would be able to have quality interactions with them.

For example, Katz made a friend with someone in the beginning of his use of Lang-8, but

he had to delete her name several weeks later because she did not participate much in

Lang-8:

Right after I joined lang-8, a friend that I made was Russian who was learning

English but not active on lang-8. I might have been a little bit shy to ask native

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English speaker to be my friend. ^^ To be honest, I removed the Russian friend

from my friends list several weeks later because she didn‟t do anything on Lang-8.

I realized that making friends, who speak in English, are interested in Korean, and

really active on lang-8, are the most important. (Interview)

Although the Russian friend was not someone that Katz could receive help from and

provide help for, he wished that he could develop a good relationship with her because

she was also learning English. However, she was not an active user, so no interaction

continued. In the end, he decided to delete her from his friend list. Because of her

inactivity, Katz had to give up on her.

There are many ways for Lang-8 users to check general activeness of others in the

Lang-8 space, but most of my research participants looked at their postings, responses,

and log-in time. For example, below are the ways that AriZona, Kenshin, and

Turquoisedee checked other‟s activeness:

After I signed up Lang-8, I tried hard to find my friends for the first two weeks. I

corrected their Korean writings, and I sent my friend requests to those who

frequently wrote on Lang-8. (Interview with AriZona)

I usually check all the profile, have a swift look at all the entries and what one

corrects toward others because all I need is a communicative friends… I've

chosen friends who have good response in commenting, and we exchange our

opinion from each other. (Interview with Kenshin)

I check if they are learning English and if they login consistently. Some users

have accounts and then suddenly don‟t post anymore. I just make sure that they

have recently posted something. (Interview with Turquoisedee)

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AriZona checked how often potential friends posted their journal entries, and then she

sent friend requests to those who regularly wrote them. In the case of Kenshin, he

checked Lang-8 users‟ profile pages, journal entries, and responses that they gave to

others in an effort to find “communicative” friends, who were active in interacting with

other users through feedback. Turquoisedee also checked how recently her latent friends

posted their journal entries or feedback and visited their Lang-8 home page in order to

contact those who were recently active in the Lang-8 space.

Checking compatibility of interests in language learning before sending

requests. Before sending friend requests, research participants also factored in the

compatibility in their interests in language learning with others‟, so once they found

someone who had similar interests they were more likely to consider sending a friend

request to him/her. For example, for Coby_코비, it was important to find someone who

was related to his native and/or learning languages not simply because they both could

give and receive direct help, but because their compatible interests could create

something to talk about. Thus, even though he was a Korean learner, he sometimes sent

friend requests to native speakers of Japanese or Chinese. He said, “If the native language

is Chinese we can talk about the Hanja used in Korean. If the native language is Japanese,

we can talk about the similarities between Japanese and Korean.” In the case of Kenshin,

the level of his potential friends even mattered because he wanted to have those at the

same level of language. Kenshin was an advanced English learner at the time, so he

wanted to make friends with those who at least were not beginners, so that he could

explore topics in nuanced ways that beginner learners would not be able to do.

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In addition to the compatibility of language-related topics and the level of

language, the level of sincerity in language learning was also considered important.

Although Lang-8 users do not have to be active in using Lang-8 every day, most of my

participants preferred to send their friend requests to those who were at least at the same

level of their seriousness in learning language on Lang-8. For example, when asked what

types of friends she was looking for on Lang-8, Miyoko replied,

I noticed that some of my friends don‟t use the site for a long time. I think that

they don‟t study languages any more or they are too busy to learn. I‟ll learn

English in the future (learning English is my life‟s work), so I want to have

friends who have the same spirit (vision?) as me. (Interview)

Miyoko had a strong desire to learn English, so when she saw her friends disappearing on

Lang-8, she became disappointed by that. Thus, when she was looking for someone, she

wanted to have those who at least showed the compatible level of seriousness in language

learning to hers.

Checking topics of journal entries before sending requests. The interview data

also revealed that participants checked others‟ journal entries before they sent friend

requests. If the topics were interesting enough to read, they tended to send friend requests

to them even when their language needs were not perfectly matched. For example, Dog

said:

I have also friend-ed people just because I enjoyed their posts, and I will write

them telling them so. “Excuse me, I hope you don‟t mind, but I enjoyed reading

your post, so I would like to friend you to continue reading them.” (Dog, 3)

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According to Dog, she sometimes sent her friend requests to some Lang-8 users simply

because she enjoyed their posts. Since forming a friend network with them enabled her to

easily keep track of their updated entries, she wanted to add them to her friends by

sending friend requests to them. To the question of why she started her friend request

with the expression “excuse me,” she explained that it was because it could be unusual to

be friends with someone whose language needs are not matched with each other in the

Lang-8 space. Even so, when she enjoyed their journal entries, she sometimes sent friend

requests to them.

What journal entries are interesting to read or not may be different from person to

person, but many participants agreed that stories about cultures intrigued them most of

the time. Turquoisedee, an English native speaker learning Korean, commented that she

made friends with many people that included both Koreans and non-Koreans because she

was interested in knowing “new cultures”:

I make friends a lot of different people and some of them aren‟t Korean. Some are

Japanese. Some are Spanish. Some are French. I do this because I love to learn

about new cultures! They give me new insights and perspectives through their

messages and through their journals. Lang-8.com is not all study and corrections.

But, it is always about learning. (Interview)

She believed that people learned not only a language on Lang-8, but also Lang-8 friends‟

cultures, so the more she made friends with those who were willing to share their own

cultures through their journal entries, the more she was exposed to new cultures that she

was curious about. Therefore, she also sent friend requests to those who wrote something

interesting about their cultures on their journal entries.

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Checking personalities before sending requests. Sending friend requests to those

who are active and who have similar language needs and interests is an important

consideration because of the better chance for having long-lasting relationships with them,

but there is another factor that stands out along with them—personality. Personality is

something important when making friends in the real world, and so it was to my Lang-8

research participants. Below is what Kenshin and Dog said regarding the importance of

personality:

Yes, I think so because there are lots of people out there to speak English and

Spanish. It‟s not the only reason, though. Maybe somehow his cheerful and

positive attitudes attracted me in a way. (Interview with Kenshin)

I suppose I could be choosing friends who have similar interests without realizing

it, but the number one reason behind the friends I have chosen is our

respectfulness of each other, and our desire to inspire one another. (Interview with

Dog)

Kenshin previously said that he had a bilingual friend who he “hit it off” with from the

beginning due to their matched language needs. However, regarding his decision on

choosing specifically that person among many other Lang-8 users who could have

provided the same help for him, he commented that it was because he liked the way he

cheerfully and positively commented on his journal entries. In the case of Dog, she also

mentioned that the characters of each potential friend tremendously affected her friend-

choosing decision; thus, she tried to choose those who had respectful and inspirational

personalities.

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Among many types of personalities, generosity was the most frequently

mentioned personality trait by the participants, and it might be because it tells how much

help they could expect to get from others. No matter how active their potential friends are

in posting their own journal entries, in responding to others‟ comments (such as “thank

you for your comment”), and/or in visiting Lang-8, and no matter how much their

language needs matched with each other, they might end up receiving no correction if

their friends were not active in providing help. For example, the following interview

excerpt with Katz shows his disappointment in those who were not generous in providing

help:

Honestly, I felt disappointed when I did my best to give many corrections as

possible to my friends, but they did not correct a single journal entry of mine.

Actually, there are many people like that. We know this by checking their [history

of] “corrections for~” and [history of] “correction by~”, don‟t we? I sometimes

referred to these statistics… Nowadays, I prefer those who are active in helping

others, so I check their journal entries and their interactions with others

(Interview)

Katz put a lot of effort into correcting his friends‟ journal entries, but he found that there

were many who did not correct his in exchange. He felt disappointed in them because he

expected them to return his favor with the corrections that he needed. Since then, he tried

to make friends with those who were actively committed to providing corrections than

those who were centered only on receiving corrections.

Receiving friend requests: Perceived reasons. So far, I have looked into one

route that my research participants made friends, searching for friends and sending a

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request to each of them, but there is another route to make friends on Lang-8—receiving

a friend request from other users. All of my research participants had an experience of

receiving friend requests at points of their Lang-8 use even though there was a difference

in the frequency of receiving friend requests between each participant. For example,

some users like Turquoisedee and Azurviolet mentioned that they had received more

requests than they had sent, but some users like AriZona and Katz had sent more than

they had received.

One of the possible explanations for this unbalanced rate of receiving friend

requests is a different level of popularity in the native languages of particular research

participants; that is, depending on the popularity of each language, some users receive

more friend requests than others. For example, as of November 21, 2011, the number of

Lang-8 users learning English was 221,268, users learning Japanese was 109,848, and

users learning Korean was 19,991. These numbers show that there is a higher demand for

native speakers of English than Japanese, and a higher demand for native speakers of

Japanese than Korean in the Lang-8 community. Thus, native speakers of English have a

higher chance of receiving more friend requests than those of Japanese and Korean.

Smiller, one of the English native speakers, also agreed, saying:

I think that speaking English was extremely helpful to me as a user of Lang-8.

Since there are so many people who want to learn English, I never had to worry

that I wouldn‟t find very many people who needed my help, like I assume some

people do (like native speakers of less common languages). (Interview)

The popularity of each language may explain different rates of receiving friend

requests among different native language groups in general, but it alone does not fully

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explicate each individual‟s experience of receiving friend requests because as research

participants commented earlier, people also consider other factors (such as activeness,

personality, and compatible interests) besides language needs when searching for and

choosing their potential friends. For example, when I asked Turquoisedee what she

thought about the idea that her native language, English, would give her more advantage

in attracting people than other native languages would, she replied as follows:

I guess English is more in demand. So many people want to learn English these

days!!! Therefore, people want to add me as a friend partly because I speak

English and they want to find as many teachers as possible. [However] I think

another reason is because of my journal entries. My journals are random and are

easy to relate to. Therefore, readers are drawn to reading them and getting to

know me. (Interview)

She realized that English was in higher demand than any other language in the Lang-8

community, but she understood that it was a partial reason for her receiving many friend

requests. Besides that, she also believed that her effort to write something that could be

easily related to others prompted them to send friend requests to her.

While more varied reasons could be listed for receiving friend requests, my

research participants unanimously experienced receiving more friend requests

particularly after they first posted their own journals and/or provided feedback to other

Lang-8 users. According to Turquoisedee, she explained that it was because she was

more recognized by doing these activities in the Lang-8 community:

In the beginning, I simply used the Lang-match tool on Lang-8.com and just

requested for people to add me as friends. But the more I posted entries and the

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more I corrected entries people started requesting for me to add them more and

more until I reached more than 300 friends!…The more and more I posted I was

recognized more and the more I corrected people‟s work, the more people I met.

(Interview)

She thought that posting and giving feedback gave her better chances of getting herself

known to potential Lang-8 friends among many Lang-8 users in general and among many

native speakers of English in particular. In fact, Lang-8 lists its members in the order that

the newest journal entry is posted on top. Thus, the more frequently users post, the more

likely they are to be spotted in the Lang-8 space.

Accepting friend requests: Criteria and practices.

Once Lang-8 users received friend requests, they could accept or deny them

according to their needs. As a list of friends gets longer in particular, they become more

apt to take some factors into account before they accept or deny friend requests.

Interestingly, these factors are not much different from those considered when sending

friend requests. For example, before they accept a friend request, my participants also

consider whether their potential friends are active users, whether they have compatible

interests with each other, whether they are generous in giving feedback, and whether their

language needs match or not. In addition to these overlapping factors, however, the

interview responses also revealed unique practices and criteria that the participants

applied to their process of accepting and/or denying friend requests. For the purpose of

avoiding a repetitious explanation, I will present additional factors that were found

uniquely in the process of accepting friend requests.

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Accepting a friend request from anyone. The majority of participants in this

study stated that they generally tried not to deny friend requests once they received them.

There are varied reasons for that; for example, Smiller stated that she accepted all since

“it was just hard to reject them.” For Katz, it was because he formed a friend network in

the online space, so he deemed that there was “no harm” to make friends even with little-

known people. Miyoko also thought that “there are not many bad people to use [this]

site.” While each individual participant had their own reasons for rarely denying friend

requests, the following reasons have distinctively emerged from the interview data:

empathy (or sympathy) and unwritten future relationship.

Welcoming anyone out of empathy. Some participants in this study stated that they

had accepted almost any friend request without conditions because of their empathetic

feelings towards other Lang-8 users. For example, Miyoko stated, “Sometimes they

refuse my friend request, I feel a bit down about it. When my friend request was refused,

I felt a bit sad. I thought why they refused me, I had any fault or something. So when I

receive a friend request, I make sure accept them.” She could not help putting herself in

the place of others when someone sent friend requests to her because she understood how

others felt when their requests were rejected. Likewise, Dog also tried to accept others‟

requests as much as possible, but in her case, it was because she understood how “fun” it

was to be accepted by other Lang-8 users. She stated, “Sometimes if they are new I will

also friend them because I remember what it was like being new and getting a friend

online. It was fun to be friend-ed.” Due to her experience of the joy of acceptance, Dog

tried to give the same joy to other Lang-8 users by accepting their friend requests. All in

all, no matter whether it was due to the feeling of “sadness” or “fun,” the participants

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became easily empathetic towards other Lang-8 users because they had been in a similar

situation in the Lang-8 community.

Welcome anyone for unwritten future relationship. Among the twelve participants

in this study, Azurviolet was the only one who had never sent friend requests to make

friends. By the time that I interviewed her, she had made 196 friends since she joined

Lang-8 (which was in November, 2008), but the initiative in building her friend network

were taken by all of her friends. Interestingly, she commented that once she received

friend requests, she never rejected any of them. When asked why she accepted them all,

she found her reason in an unwritten future relationship:

…looking first if the person is activ, if the person write interesting messages, with

a good education or something like that, I thought that it was a good choice. I

have now 196 friends (who are not really friends but...). But in my case often it

can‟t work because I often have new users, and because people who ask even if

they are activ when they ask can be inactiv quickly. We never know...because we

never know before how the relation can be in the future…sometimes I would like

to remove some friends because they are no active, but I do not do that: why?

because I‟m on Lang-8 for 2 years now and some of my inactive friends became

active again…For example, imagine that I said “no” to Snoopy because I

thought that I had enough friends, or because he was not learning french, or

because he didn‟t write a certain number of messages each week, I might not have

wrote these sentences and I should have lost a chance ( j‟aurais perdu la chance de)

to hear a beautiful korean voice and to speak with a wonderful teacher...so...can

you understand ? (Interview)

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Azurviolet believed that accepting friend requests regardless of counterparts‟

backgrounds and situations would often create a chance of developing an unanticipated

relationship. For example, she saw some users who were active in the beginning become

inactive, and some users who were inactive become active at later time. Because users

can change anytime that they want, the current activeness of others did not affect her

decision to accept friend requests. In another instance, Azurviolet was able to develop a

special relationship with Snoopy (pseudonym) even though his learning language was not

French and he did not post as often as she did. If she had rejected his request in the first

place only because of his target language and/or low level of activeness, she recalled that

she might not have been able to develop this relationship which was important to learning

Korean, her target language.

Not accepting friend requests from strangers. Although there is a tendency of the

majority of participants to be generous when accepting friend requests in general, it does

not mean that they blindly accept all requests. Once receiving a friend request, many

participants in this study said that they examined whether the requesting user is an utter

stranger to them or not. For example, Kenshin explained that making friends on Lang-8 is

not much different from making friends in the real world; thus, as it is not normal to ask a

stranger from nowhere to be a friend, so is it in the online space:

I try to make the process the same way we are making friends off-

line…Especially if I get a request with no message, without any correction or

comment beforehand from the requesting person, I think this is a rude message as

I think the same way in the real world, for example when I am walking on a street,

someone passing by say to me, “Wanna be my friend?” No way! (Interview)

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In order to prevent being considered rude in the Lang-8 community, Kenshin noticed that

it is important to create a natural context for the friend request, by doing such activities as

including a message in the friend request and commenting on a journal entry.

For some participants, the messages that accompany friend requests appear to

matter. For example, Turquoisedee stated, “When I receive a request I only accept if

there is a message included with it. That way I know a little about the person and why

they want my friendship.” For her, whether a message is included is important because

she could know who that requesting person is and why they want to make friends with

her in brief. When there is no such message included, she said, “I sometimes just

deny/ignore the request.” Likewise, Dog explained, “I will generally friend anyone who

includes a message, unless that message feels like spam. I try and make a point of

including a message when I friend someone so that they know a real person is sending the

message, and that that person read their entry.” According to her, even when the request

includes a message, she denies it if it sounds like “a spam” for her.

As Dog and Turquoisdee did, many participants generally preferred receiving a

personalized message, which delivers an impression that “a real person is sending the

message” and that he/she has a specific interest in making a friend with “me,” not with

any Lang-8 users that he/she has randomly chosen. There are many ways to write a

personalized message, but Smiller said that one of the ways is to include a comment on

someone‟s journal entry that they want to be a friend with:

For a long time, I accepted anyone who added me as a friend, but at one point I

had so many friends, most of whom I didn‟t even know and who never even used

lang-8, so I went through and removed everyone who I felt like I had never even

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had an interaction with. Now I still find it very hard to reject a friendship request,

but my new policy is that if someone shows any sign that they have actually read

my journal or my profile (like, “your entry about the beach was interesting” or “I

like taking walks too”), I will gladly accept them, but if they send me a request

that looks like they just copied and pasted it and sent it to a bunch of different

people (like, “hi, I‟m from Japan, please teach me English”) I won‟t. (Interview)

Smiller realized that what was important for her was to have those who tried to know

about her before sending a friend request and those who did not bother to read her journal

entries. When she saw such an effort, she was willing to accept them as her friend on

Lang-8.

Accepting friend requests when having interest in “my” mother tongue.

Typically, Lang-8 users receive friend requests from those who are learning their native

language. For example, native speakers of English receive friend requests mostly from

learners of English, native speakers of Japanese from learners of Japanese, and native

speakers of Korean mostly from learners of Korean. It is usually considered most ideal to

make friends with those with whom they can exchange mutual help, but in reality, they

also receive many friend requests from those who they can provide a favor for, but cannot

receive it in return. When receiving friend requests from them, however, they did not

deny their requests simply because they could not get their favor back; instead, they also

had a tendency to consider accepting their requests due to the fact that their counterparts

are learning their native language.

Many participants stated that they felt “thankful” to those who learn their native

language. When Katz saw those who were learning Korean, he stated, “I feel proud and

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even thankful to those who learn Korean on Lang-8 because it tells me that Korea, even

though we are a very small country, is getting recognized in this world.” Miyoko also

said, “I think that Japanese is minor language. So I‟m glad to know the people who are

learning Japanese. They want to know Japan and learn Japanese, so I‟d like to help them

with their Japanese.” Similarly, Azurviolet said, “I‟m so grateful because they have

interest in my mother language, [French,] and I‟m proud too.” Turquoisedee, a native

speaker of English, also commented, “I also feel very moved that they are trying to learn

my mother tongue and are opening their mind to a foreign culture. I am very privileged to

be part of such a large community where so many people strive to broaden their

horizons!!”

As indicated above, some participants felt proud and thankful when seeing

foreigners learning their native language because they often relate others‟ interest in

learning their native language with the interest in their native country and culture. For

this reason, when they received friend requests from learners of their native language,

they tried to accept them as much as possible even when they could not receive help in

return.

Maintaining a Friend Network

As Lang-8 users form a network of connections by sending or accepting friend

requests, they often realize that all in their friend list do not stay with them throughout

their Lang-8 use. Some people learn together for a long period of time, but some people

do not. In order to keep learning happening, therefore, it is crucial to maintain a stable

friend network on Lang-8. Next, I will first look into the general tendencies in

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relationships between friends, and explore primary practices that my research participants

carried out to maintain their friend networks.

General tendencies in relationships.

Tiers of relationship: Inner and outer. The interview and observation data show

that the participants have at least two tiers of friend relationships: inner and outer. The

inner friends are those with whom the participants have had consistent interactions over

time and with whom they have often developed high emotional engagement. However, as

time goes by, the interactions and mutual intimacy with some inner friends can decrease,

and they move to the outer circle. The outer circle of friends is, therefore, those whom

they rarely had interactions with; they are the ones who once belonged to the inner circle

but lost contact, or those who made active interactions a few times mostly in the

beginning, but barely interacted with since then. The friends in each tier can change over

time even though the inner tier of friends changes less than the outer.

Whether intended or not, participants in this study realized that they ended up

consistently interacting with a small number of close friends mostly in their inner circles

during their Lang-8 use. For example, Turquoisedee, who had the highest number of

friends among the participants, said, “[The circle of close friends] stays pretty consistent

as the weeks pass by. The same members correct my work and comment on my entries...

This is like around 15 or more people.” Katz, who had the smallest number of friends

among the participants, said that he consistently communicates with “20-30 percent” of

his friends, but rarely contacts with “50 percent” of them.

“People come and go.” Participants in this study experienced that not all friends

that they had made (by either sending or receiving friend requests) remained the same

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throughout their Lang-8 activities; some friends have stayed very active, but some others

have not. Gai stated, “Making friends is not so difficult, but most of them stop using

Lang-8 after a few times.” CAM also addressed that “it is not always true that the

relationship lasts for a long time [because] some people seem to quit using Lang-8 after a

while,” stating, “Maybe easy come, easy go?” Kenshin summarized this phenomenon,

stating, “People [on Lang-8] come and go without any major reason, and I can‟t help it.”

Many participants agreed that there is a tendency for Lang-8 friends to “come and

go” and they sometimes lose connection with them without prior notice. Turquoisedee

expressed that “the friendships on Lang-8.com are very erratic,” stating, “you can make a

friend and message them daily but then they stop using the website for a while and you

lose contact.” Due to this feature of “erratic” relationships, having a consistent

relationship with her friends for a long period of time does not always come easy as she

wishes to be on Lang-8. Azurviolet also shared her experience of this unexpected loss of

contact with some of her friends:

I have had (as you had too), some people with whom I have had great

conversations who disappeared one day, and I have had no news. Everybody

knows that it‟s virtual. Sometimes virtual relationship can bring real relationship,

but we also know that life is life and that everything can change in a glance.

(Interview)

Her experience tells that once friends stopped visiting Lang-8, people can lose

connections with them no matter how close they think the relationship was.

Participants sometimes feel helpless, realizing that there is unpredictability of the

duration of their friends‟ stay in the Lang-8 system, and are consequently concerned

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about uncertainty of stable relationships with them. Regarding this phenomenon that is

beyond each user‟s authority (or control), for example, Kenshin said that there is not

much that he can do about friends‟ unexpected abandonment, stating, “I can‟t help it.”

Regarding her loss of connection with her friends, Azurviolet stated, “Life is life and

everything can change in a glance.” Other participants also view that that is how

relationships go in the Lang-8 system. However, it does not mean that they easily give up

on the hope for a close relationship; instead, they have made an earnest effort to maintain

their social network as close as possible, and in fact, each participant has kept their own

close friends in their social network as shown earlier.

Practices for maintaining networks. In the following section, I will look at

specific practices that my participants performed in an effort to make a stable social

network with their friends in general and inner circles of friends in particular.

Keeping friends with matched interests to maintain friend networks. Although

participants already consider sharing similar interests important when they sent and/or

received friend requests, they also realized that their importance, particularly the

importance of a shared interest in a language, increased when trying to maintain their

social network. For example, Dog indicated that similar interests helped her to have

stronger relationships with other friends as time went by, stating, “I have some good

friends who are the same from the very beginning, and the relation becomes stronger,

with the time. We share same passions, so it‟s easier.”

The majority of participants have experienced that relationships are more likely to

be sustained particularly when language interests match with each other. In other words,

there is a good chance that relationships can be disconnected if language interests do not

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match. Katz, a native speaker of Korean learning English, indicated that he had hard time

staying connected to his friends mainly due to their mismatched language interests:

I realized that the relationship between foreigners, who neither speaks English nor

learn Korean, cannot last for a long time, because there would be not that many

things to talk with them. Actually, there was nothing that I could do with them,

and it was somewhat bothering to me. To be honest, I removed the Russian friend

from my friends list several weeks later. (Interview)

The Russian friend was the first Lang-8 user that Katz made friends with. However, her

native language is Russian and target language was Japanese at the time, so there was not

much that he could do with her on Lang-8.

AriZona also went through a similar experience with an English native speaker

learning French and Chinese named Lovi (pseudonym). AriZona was learning English, so

she first met him through his corrections on her journal entry on June 28, 2010. After she

made friends with him, he corrected another journal entry of hers four days later.

However, she had received no feedback from him since then. When asked about this

disconnection, she replied that that was what she expected:

I think that‟s a natural course of events. Because we could not exchange our

languages, I think he could not correct my journal entries forever. I expected this

would happen even though I appreciate what he had done for me so far.

(Interview)

Although it was not always true that each person had to mutually satisfy each other‟s

language needs in order to keep close relationships with their friends, many participants

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felt that the matched interests in language surely provided one more reason to keep that

person in their social network.

Reading postings to maintain friend networks. Many participants also indicate

that knowing more about their friends can raise the possibility to sustain relationships.

For example, Kenshin replied, “The more you understand and know about the person, the

more you want to correct him because you think you feel close to him emotionally.” Gai

also added, stating, “Basically, we can form a close relationship with a friend if we know

about him or her.” Although Turquoisedee voiced that “knowing about friends does not

necessarily mean a close relationship (even though it helps form a relationship),” many

participants often experienced that they become more attached to their friends as they

come to know about them, which in general contributed to forming closer relationships.

As previously mentioned, there are varied ways that Lang-8 users know each

other. For example, when looking for new friends, they mostly get brief information

about them (such as age, location, occupation, native language, target language, and

purpose of joining Lang-8) by reading their profile pages. Depending on the contents of

friend requests, they also get a hint of whether their friends are sincere in making friends

with them, and whether they have a polite attitude or not. Although such practices as

reading profiles and checking on the received friend requests help users to know about

their newly-met friends, they conduct them mostly in the beginning when sending and

receiving friend requests. If they want to know more about them after the friend network

is formed, my participants stated that they relied more on reading their friends‟ journal

entries and comments than checking on profile pages and friend requests. Although

someone like Turquoisedee pointed out that we can never fully know a person online

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because “it is too difficult to reveal details about oneself on a website,” she experienced

that reading her friends‟ journal entries and messages enabled her to have a better idea of

who her friends would be in the world of Lang-8:

But the way I determine what kind of people my friends on Lang-8 are is by

observing and reflecting upon their entries and messaging them. When I see their

opinions, perspectives, reactions, and writing styles, I can see what kind of people

they are. I can see what they value and what is troubling them. It can be

compared to determining the personality of an author that you have never met.

You must observe their writings carefully to find out who they are. (Interview)

Kenshin also agreed that reading his friends‟ journal entries and comments helped

him to know more about them. He was one of the most active Lang-8 users in that he

wrote at least one journal entries everyday, regularly provided feedback on his friends‟

writings, and posted a reply to every single feedback that he had received. He said that

these practices help him get to know his friends‟ personalities, and as he knows more

about them, he can also avoid unnecessary misunderstanding between his friends and him.

For example, there was an argument between two of his friends one day, and one friend

decided to leave Lang-8 because of that. Their argument started when a friend named

Tim (pseudonym) left his comment on one of Kenshin‟s entries and another of his friends,

named Jack (pseudonym), commented that Tim‟s feedback was too negative and sarcastic.

After these messages were exchanged, Tim posted a good-bye message, saying that he

would not come back to Lang-8 anymore. Kenshin felt sorry for what just happened

because both of them were very close friends to him. He believed that if both friends had

known each other as deeply as he did, they could have avoided such a mishap. He said, “I

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know the personalities of Jack and Tim. They are talking to me with each voice on their

own and I can read between the lines of their comments. But they do not know each other

directly.”

Kenshin stated that he knew both of them very well because he continuously

communicated with them for a long period time on Lang-8. When this mishap occurred,

he ascribed the conflict between Jack and Tim to their different personalities. For

example, when asked about Tim‟s response to Jack, Kenshin stated,

In my humble opinion, he is, so to speak, “an elephant in a pottery store” type of

person. I mean, he is intelligent, smart and very agile, mentally full of good but

innocent will. Sometimes, however, he is too quick or too smart in response and

he is not so good at thinking in deep consideration. Normally, it‟s OK because he

is smart enough to persuade others with his well-structured reasoning, but

sometimes other smart people or sensitive persons get annoyed with his sharp

opinions, which leads to this kind of disappointing result.

Kenshin describes Jack as a “smart” and “intelligent” person with full of good and

innocent will, but he is somewhat clumsy at delivering his good intentions in a skilled

manner. For this reason, his comments sometimes sound very sharp and annoy others. On

the basis of the way he leaves comments on others‟ journal entries, Kenshin illustrates

Tim‟s personality like “an elephant in a pottery store.” When asked how he knows about

his friends‟ personalities, he replied, “I check not only my friends‟ entries but also their

comments on others, and keep tracking what they say in the group (of their friends).”

Reading friends‟ postings (e.g., journal entries and comments) is not just a one-off

matter. Instead, it is an activity that Lang-8 users do for a long period of time in

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chronological order when they find someone who they want to keep a close relationship

with. Due to these extended, continuous interactions with their networked friends‟

postings, they come to know more about them. For example, Katz commented that he had

many online friends known from other websites, but he feels much closer with his Lang-8

friends than with friends from other websites for the following reasons:

All these opportunities were made through natural communications with my

Lang-8 friends, who I could meet them in a friendly way. Because I come to

understand my friends‟ personalities, cultures, hobbies, and values while reading

their journal entries, not for a short period of time, but for several months in

general, I think I can keep longer relationships with my friends on Lang-8 than

with friends on other websites where the relationships are relatively shallow.

(Interview)

According to Katz, he has a closer and longer relationship with friends on Lang-8 than on

other websites because people write stories that reflect their own “personalities, cultures,

hobbies, and values” in the world of Lang-8 and because he knows about them by reading

their writings for a long period of time.

Making extra companionships to maintain friend networks. Someone like

Smiller said that she mostly communicates with her Lang-8 friends through journal

entries and comments, stating, “I love all my Lang-8 friends, but for the most part I try to

keep our interactions within the world of Lang-8 and not get too involved with any one

person.” However, many participants still try to find other ways to communicate with

their Lang-8 friends in order to strengthen their relationships. One of the examples is an

internal emailing system known as “messages” on Lang-8. The ways of using the internal

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email system are different from participant to participant. For example, Turquoisedee

stated that she had a small, select number of friends who she consistently exchanged

messages with, usually asking and answering “language and cultural questions.” CAM

said, “Sometimes I send messages to specific friends if I write something which might be

interesting to them.” Coby_코비 used messages when he wanted to check what other

friends were doing from time to time. In the case of Azurviolet, she mentioned that she

usually used the Lang-8 email when she needed to send a “private” message to her

friends, so that she could communicate only with those specific friends in a way that

other friends do not need to know. Below is one example of emails that she sent after she

read one of her friend‟s journal entries:

After she read his journal entry regarding his wedding anniversary, Azurviolet wanted to

share her experience to comfort and give advice to him. She could have posted it as a

comment on his journal entry, but she chose to send it by email because it was somewhat

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“personal” to her.

Along with the “messages,” some participants used extra communication tools

such as Skype, Twitter, and MSN messenger, and continued their talk with friends even

outside of Lang-8. They perceived that these extra companionships, particularly with

Skype, could help to build a close relationship with their existing friends. Interestingly,

six out of twelve participants posted their Skype IDs on their profile pages, which shows

their general desire to communicate with Lang-8 users verbally. For example, when

asked about her Skype activity with Lang-8 friends, Miyoko stated, “Now I have some

friends to talk with on Skype, who all exchanged messages with me. I talk to them on

Skype, [and] I know them more than before.” In the case of Seijitapa, he voiced that the

extra companionship is even necessary to keep a close relationship, stating, “I think it

needs more communication to form a close relationship; for instance, chatting on Skype

or exchanging messages.”

Usually, talking via other communication tools outside of Lang-8 is considered as

a supplementary way of posting journal entries and comments within the Lang-8 space,

but sometimes, participants made an effort to use other communication media when their

friends did not use Lang-8 as the main tool of communication. For example, Miyoko had

a Lang-8 friend whose nickname is Kiwi. He was a New Zealander, learning Korean and

Japanese. He was very active in giving corrections and comments to English language

learners on Lang-8, but he had not posted any journal entries in Japanese yet because he

did not know how to read and write Japanese characters at the time. Instead of learning

Japanese through writing, he was paying more attention to learning how to speak in

Japanese over Skype. Miyoko was receiving corrections from Kiwi on Lang-8, but she

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also realized that this friend needed her help in his speaking area. For this reason,

although she had never used a chat tool for language learning before, she made an effort

to engage with him over Skype. CAM also had the similar friends like Miyoko‟s who did

not use Lang-8 much but shared the same interest in language and music with her.

Because she could not engage with them as often as she wanted on Lang-8, she stated,

“We stay in touch by Twitter or Last.fm (an SNS for music sharing).”

Being active in correcting and responding to maintain friend networks. One of

the salient practices that are thought to lead to making close friendships is to actively

correct journal entries and leave comments on them. According to the participants, they

felt a closer relationship with friends when they gave and/or received more corrections

and comments. For example, when asked whether he had any close friends on Lang-8,

Gai replied, “I just feel more special and closer some friends who often give me

corrections than other friends. If possible, I‟d like to make more special friends in Lang-8

in the near future.” Dog also stated that she felt much closer to the Lang-8 community

when she started to give corrections to others. She said, “Receiving feedback so quickly

inspired me to want to write more. But it wasn‟t until I started correcting other people

and gaining more friends who continuously check my diary that I started to feel a part of

the community.” In the case of Turquoisedee, she viewed that responding to her friends‟

journal entries and to their corrections and comments on her postings is the same as

interacting with her friends on Lang-8, and the frequency and activeness of interaction

with friends correlate with the intimacy of their relationships. She stated:

The social network is important because it makes people more inclined to show

interest in your work. Like in a normal classroom, your interaction with the other

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students will affect their willingness to work with you. So as you make more

friends and interact with them [by posting, correcting, and commenting] you are

showing your interest in learning and helping them learn as well.

That is, as interactions increase, she believes that people can have a better chance of

having a closer relationship with their friends on Lang-8; therefore, being active in

posting, correcting, and commenting serves as a foothold to build a strong network on

Lang-8.

Katz also thinks that being active in responding to his friends‟ work is also

important to keep a good relationship. When I first interviewed him, he was actively

using Lang-8, but towards the end of the year, he got busier with his office work and

could not post journal entries as often as he did before. However, he tried to continuously

visit Lang-8 and actually spent some time correcting his friends‟ journal entries. When

asked why he kept providing corrections for his friends even though he rarely posted his

own, he replied, “I could not post my own journal entries, but I continued to correct my

friends‟ little by little because I also did not want to be forgotten. That is what‟s on my

mind.” From his experience, he knew that he forgot the existence of his friends when he

received no corrections from them. Thus, by regularly correcting his friends‟ journal

entries even when he could not actively post his journal entries, he wanted to create a

chance for revitalizing his relationships with them in the future.

General Impressions of Lang-8 Friends

So far, I have examined the practices that the research participants conducted in

order to initiate and maintain their friend networks on Lang-8. In the next section, I will

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present how they perceived their Lang-8 friends while they were establishing their own

networks with them.

Language friends: The same but different. Participants sensed their sameness

with their Lang-8 friends on many occasions (such as when they shared the same interests

and when they learned the same language), but they seemed to feel the same most when

they shared the same goal on Lang-8—learning a language from each other. As Seijitapa

said that “everyone is eager to learn a language that he/she wants to master [on Lang-8]”,

the majority of users have joined this website due to a desire to learn and improve their

L2s. Because of this desire, the participants sensed that most of their friends naturally

took the position of a learner on Lang-8. Azurviolet commented,

Everybody is learning here…We are all here to learn. This is the first reason why

we are on Lang-8 and the reason why we met. So in this way, we are the same.

We are all students. (Interview)

Because of this common position, participants seemed to become more

empathetic towards their Lang-8 friends as L2 learners. Turquoisedee stated, “When they

post articles they really try hard to express their feelings in the language they are learning.

I try to do the same thing because I feel like I can‟t express myself fully when I write in

Korean.” That is, she felt the same with their friends in that all her friends felt difficulty

expressing their feelings in their learning language as she did in Korean. Likewise,

Miyoko had an empathetic feeling towards her friends when she came to realize that her

friends were also in the same situation as language learners as she was:

I think they are like me in learning languages. When I speak to them at first, they

were all nervous like me. I felt they were the same human and they had the same

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feeling with learning foreign languages. I felt everyone have the same feeling like

mine. (Interview)

The participants commented that because of this shared goal and empathic feelings with

others, people seem to stay friendly and be kind to their own friends. Gai commented,

“The relationship on Lang-8 is relatively affirmative and generous because we can share

the common goal to improve our languages.”

Interestingly, Lang-8 users sensed differences from their Lang-8 friends at the

same time due to the diverse population in the Lang-8 community. In general,

participants in this study easily felt they were different from their friends when looking at

their demographic backgrounds (such as in education, second language, career, interest,

age, gender, ethnicity, and nationality) even though what particular areas were different

varied from participant to participant. For instance, Smiller commented that she

noticeably felt different in the area of age, saying that most of her friends were “older”

than her and had different careers. In the case of Azurviolet, she also found big

differences in the areas of a level of education and L2 proficiency. She said:

Almost all of my friends went to the university four years, and are very intelligent

^^. I went at the university just 2 years, and most of the time I was not in the

classrooms because I had to work too…I didn‟t have my diploma, of course…

very bad student ^^…Sometimes I think that people are all advanced level, so I

fell a little discourage, but, it‟s just for one or two seconds. But I noticed that my

friends are very open and kind and I feel comfortable with them.” (Interview)

Participants became aware of these factual dissimilarities derived from varied

demographic backgrounds, but many of them also felt a sense of difference when

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noticing their different ways of using Lang-8 and their different points of view on culture,

which were revealed mostly from prolonged interactions with their friends. For example,

Katz mentioned that he used Lang-8 to improve his English, so he tried to post his journal

entries whenever he had free time. However, he noticed that some users had posted few

journal entries since they joined Lang-8 and were mainly interested in sharing their

chatting IDs to have an oral conversation outside of the Lang-8 setting. He stated, “When

I saw those who took Lang-8 seriously for their language learning, I felt similar to them.

However, when I saw those who were using Lang-8 mostly for free talking, I felt a

distance from them.” Although he seemed to understand those users using Lang-8 mostly

to find their L2 speaking partners, he felt somewhat different from them because of the

different ways of using Lang-8.

Some participants also felt a sense of difference when facing their friends‟ diverse

perspectives on their and other cultures. AriZona felt the same with her friends because

they were learning languages together on Lang-8, but said, “I also feel distant when I see

my friends living in a different culture, having different ways of thinking, and being

placed in a different living situation.” Turquoisedee also added, saying:

We are different culturally and in thinking as well. Talking to Korean people on

Lang-8 has opened my eyes to some really foreign traditions…They are so

different from American thinking! One example is what women call other men.

They call them 오빠. It is kind of an abstract concept for foreigners. Women here

usually call men “dude” or “hey you” haha...So to call them a name that literally

means „older brother‟ is strange for foreigners.

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As seen in the comments by AriZona and Turquoisedee, most of other participants also

came to notice differences in ways of living, acting, and thinking from their friends

through their consistent communications in the Lang-8 community.

Lang-8 friends: Authentic language teachers. When asked what they thought

about their Lang-8 friends for their learning, participants replied that they were like

language teachers to them due to the help they received from them. In some cases like

Azurviolet‟s, she considered one particular friend more than a teacher:

One is more than a teacher, he is like a father, or maybe like a master, or a mentor,

I do not know exactly the good word, but what I know is that I feel like a child, I

keep every thing he teaches me ^^ A child is full of confidence toward his parents

because he knows nothing, he just have to learn. With this user, I‟m like a child

knowing that he has the knowledge, I have just to follow his advice. It‟s how I

feel…I think that I can say that I have total confidence so that I follow all the

advice of this person... (Interview)

Before him, she felt like a child because he had knowledge of Korean language. She had

confidence in his friend, so whatever advice he gave to her, she found that she was

following any advice that the friend gave to her.

However, as they used Lang-8 more and more, most participants eventually came

to realize that their Lang-8 friends are somewhat different from professional language

teachers in that they were not trained to teach language in general. Thus, they were aware

that they could receive corrections without detailed explanations and/or that feedback

could be incorrect even though it came from native speakers of that language. For this

reason, someone like Kenshin pointed out that it is important to go through a filtering

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process after receiving corrections, stating, “We have to be careful about not trusting too

much the corrections we receive, but we should compare the different corrections and

suggestions form other people.”

Despite their friends‟ position as non-experts of language teaching, the

participants still gave credit to their received feedback and accepted their friends‟

authority in the knowledge and usage of that language. For example, Gai commented that

he was aware of his friends‟ amateurism in language skills and knowledge as most Lang-

8 users were (that included himself), but he still gave them respect as native speakers of

their language. No matter whether they were perfect or not in the language, he still

considered them as “a teacher and a coach” because he felt he was “always learning from

them.” Similarly, Turquoisedee also thought that native speakers of Korean among her

friends are like teachers because they have authority in that language. She said, “I think

that Koreans have an authority to a certain extent since they are more experienced in the

language.”

Lang-8 friends: In reciprocal and equal relationships. While participants

considered that most of their friends are like language teachers who could provide help

with their target language, they were also well aware that they are in, what some

participants called, “reciprocal,” “two-way,” and/or “give-and-take” relationships with

them. There is general agreement among Lang-8 users that people join Lang-8 to learn a

target language from each other; thus, they both are teaching and learning on Lang-8.

According to Coby_코비, he receives help from his friends, but considered them as those

“in the same boat”:

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I rely on them and am thankful towards them for making corrections, but usually

they are in the same boat as me which means that they are struggling with a

foreign language too. So generally speaking it feels like a give-and-take

relationship.

That is, as he needs help with his target language learning, other users also need help with

their own. Thus, there is a general tendency that users on Lang-8 are expected to give and

receive or receive and give in return.

In this give-and-take or reciprocal relationship, the act of “giving” stands out and

plays an important role in maintaining this type of relationship, and on Lang-8, the act of

“giving” is performed by offering knowledge of their native language to its learners.

Simply put, Lang-8 users have something to provide because they are native speakers of

their own language. Smiller said:

I think that if I hadn‟t been able to use English with my lang-8 friends, the

balance of our relationships would have been different, because they would be the

teachers and I would be the student, and there would be less give-and-take. I don't

necessarily think that would be a bad thing, but to be honest I can‟t really imagine

what it would be like. (Interview)

Azurviolet also deemed that her native language, French, made it possible for her

to thank their friends properly because she was able to return the received favors to them

by helping their French learning. Thus, when her friends did not learn French, she was

sometimes “frustrated” because she could not help them back. Although she preferred to

thank them with linguistic feedback, she also came to realize that she could thank them at

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least by substituting her corrections with other activities such as sharing her grateful mind

through comments and personal messages:

The most important thing is that I feel that I can thank them. I do not know how to

thank people if I do not help on lang8. I have some friends I like very much, but

I‟m frustrated because they come to help me and I can‟t help them...But I can see

that sometimes I can share something with these people who do not learn French.

(Interview)

Due to the mutual reliance on each other‟s target language learning, the

participants perceived that they had an equal relationship with their friends. For example,

AriZona said, “I did not sense an authoritarian attitude from my Lang-8 friends.” It was a

very rare case for the participants to see their friends act like they were superior to others.

And likewise, the participants themselves seemed to rarely think that they were inferior to

their friends in the Lang-8 environment. For example, Katz said that the reciprocal

relationships with native speakers of English on Lang-8 gave him a chance of thinking

again about his perceptions of them:

I am not good at English, so I used to think that English speakers were better than

me. I think that most Korans have the similar thought like me. However, since I

used Lang-8, I started to think that they are more like partners or friends, and I felt

much comfortable with them. Because we teach language to each other, I think

we are in an equal relationship. (Interview)

In the past, Katz used to think that English speakers had an ascendency over himself

because of his poor English ability, and believed that many Koreans also had the similar

impression towards native English speakers. It may be because Koreans including

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himself were in a position of learning and native speakers of English in a position of

teaching in most cases of English learning, which might have caused an unequal power

relationship between them. However, in the Lang-8 environment, native speakers of

English were more like partners or friends who would exchange help with each other‟s

target language so that he rarely sensed they had more power than him or vice versa.

Lang-8 friends: Between “contacts” and “friends.” While interviewing

participants, I realized that they were using the word “friend” in different ways. For

example, they used “friend” when differentiating unknown Lang-8 users from those who

they had already built a social network with on Lang-8, when referring to language

partners who were different from language experts and teachers, and/or when indicating

language learning helpers who were in a reciprocal or equal relationship. Although the

meanings of friends on Lang-8 varied depending on whom they were compared to,

participants seemed to agree that Lang-8 friends are friends in that they are “friendly,”

“comfortable,” and “encouraging” not only to talk about language and language learning

but also to share personal, and sometimes private moments with. Because of this “friend”

relationship, Gai said, “I think we can enjoy learning languages better than school,

because studying with friends is more enjoyable than doing with a teacher.”

As discussed earlier, there are in general two tiers of friendships on Lang-8: inner

and outer. As friends are closer to an inner circle, participants are more likely to interact

with them. Although participants made a large number of friends on Lang-8, there is a

small group of friends who belong to this inner circle in most cases. Turquoisedee‟s

comment below is somewhat representative of most participants‟ general relationship

with typical Lang-8 friends on Lang-8:

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The relationship I have on Lang-8 is like the relationship between a teacher and a

student. It is respectful and pleasant but with the right amount of distance that we

don‟t immerse ourselves too much in their private lives. It‟s kind of a unique

distant/close relationship. (Interview)

However, typical does not mean that it represents the relationship that the participants

“felt” to have with their friends because most interactions occur with their inner circle not

with their outer circle friends. Therefore, it would not fair to say that the participants

experienced only a superficial level of relationship with their Lang-8 friends just because

the outer circle of friends outnumbered the inner circle. In fact, the majority of the

participants built a special and close relationship with their friends in most cases although

the number was very small.

A good example was found in the story of Azurviolet. Before she joined Lang-8,

she already had the experience of participating in a virtual community. It was about

health and gardening, and she enjoyed exchanging ideas with its members. However, she

did not want to make “friends” with them; instead, she said, “I wanted that these friends

stay virtual friends because I didn‟t want to take too much time. I have already a lot of

good friends in real life so I didn‟t need more.” Thus, when she first signed up for Lang-8,

she did not expect to make “friends” on Lang-8 either; rather, she was looking for

“contacts” whom she could exchange help with. So, when she first visited Lang-8, she

said, “I was surprised by the name, „friend‟ that was used [because] I was looking for

„contacts,‟ not „friends.‟” However, as time went by, she realized that she not only

received help in terms of her Korean learning but also shared many things with some of

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her Lang-8 friends, so she often found herself missing them if they did not appear on

Lang-8. Regarding this emotion, she stated:

I do not know if it‟s just me or if it‟s the same for others. I do not need friends. I

have friends in the real life. I can‟t understand why I need to keep relationship

with some of them that I appreciate so much that I want to see them...Am I a

E.T ? ^_^ (Interview)

At first, she did not expect to experience this kind of relationship in the online space like

Lang-8, but now she said, “It is incredible to experience this: It‟s like people can‟t be

satisfied with just a superficial relation [on Lang-8].”

Lang-8 friends: Different from off-line friends. Although many participants

experienced this close and special relationship with their Lang-8 friends in most cases,

they also agreed that their Lang-8 friends are different from their offline friends in some

ways. First of all, they felt different in that Lang-8 friends were more interested in and

open to a new language than their offline friends would be. Kenshin described his Lang-8

friends as “language loving people,” saying, “Online friends are more eager to learn

languages and share the same interest, which encourages us to talk more than we do

offline.” He received an impression that his friends on Lang-8 are motivated to learn a

second language, which naturally formed an “encouraging” environment for him to talk

more about language than he did with his offline friends.

Some participants like Turquoisedee perceived that their Lang-8 and offline

friends are different in that the former are more likely to be open to a different culture

than the latter are. She said:

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I am more talkative and am more eager to share my insights and opinions because

I am in a community of learning. Unlike the people that usually surround me on a

daily basis, which is at work, most are ignorant of other cultures. (Interview)

Turquoisedee explained that her town is placed in an “isolated” location and “small” in

size. She described the people in her town as “conservative” who “rarely step out of their

„comfort zone.‟” According to her, people around her did not understand why she was

learning Korean and why she liked listening to Korean pop music; instead, they often

asked her, “Why do you spend your time on an unpopular language?” In contrast to her

offline friends‟ attitude toward Korean language and culture, which she called their

“closed-mindedness,” she considered her Lang-8 friends as more open to learning about

different cultures, and she felt “more liberated” to express her opinions to them.

Many participants also commented that they shared their life stories with their

Lang-8 friends as they did with their offline friends. In some special cases, participants

like Azurviolet and Coby_코비 mentioned that they shared their life stories as much as or

sometimes more with their Lang-8 friends than with their offline friends, and did

something together like meeting in person, traveling together, and having lunch or dinner

with their close Lang-8 friends as they usually do with their offline friends. However,

most participants agreed that their friendships were usually made within the Lang-8

website, and therefore their interactions were also bounded to the online space. Below is

what Gai said about his Lang-8 friends:

I‟m doing a variety of activities with my off-line friends. We sometimes enjoy

talking about our hobbies, works, interests, ambitions, lives and so on over beer

freely. On the other hand, Lang-8 activities are relatively defective, because the

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aim of doing Lang-8 activities is learning languages, although I can exchange a

variety of thoughts and ideas with my Lang-8 friends. (Interview)

Gai used the word “defective” when describing his Lang-8 friends in that his activities

with his Lang-8 friends were usually limited to the Lang-8 website and bounded by the

goal of language learning. However, he did not mean that the relationships with his Lang-

8 friends were less valuable than the ones with his offline friends; instead, he commented,

“I think that each have different kinds of values.”

The participants also stated that Lang-8 friends were different than those offline in

that there were more varied types of friends in the former group than in the latter. For

instance, when asked about their offline friends, the majority of the participants

mentioned that their friends are generally those who they met in school, in their

neighborhood, and at work. Because their social mobility is mostly limited in where they

live and work, their offline friends are those who speak the same language. Although

some participants like Kenshin, Smiller, and Coby_코비 had some experiences of

meeting and talking with native speakers of their target languages for their business and

study, they also said that they it was hard to make consistent and close relationships with

them. However, as Table 5.1 shows, the participants could make friends not only with

native speakers of their target language but also with those from other countries on Lang-

8. Turquoisedee stated, “Most of my friends come from different parts of South Korea,

Japan, South America, USA, and some in Europe.” As she said, “They come from all

over the place!!”

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Table 5.1

The Number of Lang-8 Friends according to Language Categories (as of March 1, 2011)

Ken

shin

Miy

oko

Sm

iller

Dog

Katz

Turq

uio

sedee

Aurv

iolet

CA

M

Coby

_코비

Gai

Seijitap

a

NSTL* 93

74 104 64 44 462 219 117 79 85 116

NNSTL** 46

36 30 34 21 57 85 21 28 23 31

LLPNL*** 82

97 127 63 55 488 161 129 87 99 126

FMLN*** 71

69 104 55 39 449 103 117 76 81 105

Total 139

110 134 98 65 519 304 138 107 108 147

Note. NSTL* (Native Speakers of a Target Language)/ NNSTL** (Non-Native Speakers

of a Target Language)/ LLPNL*** (Learners Learning the Participant‟s Native

Language)/ FMLN**** (Friends who Match Language Need).

In addition to nationality and native language, some participants felt very

impressed by being able to make diverse friends in age on Lang-8. Below, Gai explained

how hard it was to make friends with foreigners in general and foreigners across

generations in particular in his real life:

Personally most friends of mine are only Japanese in my real life. Of course

nowadays a lot of foreigners visit and live in Japan, but I don‟t have good

opportunities to contact with them. Beyond that, it‟s almost impossible to contact

with foreigners who are other generations. Generally speaking, on the internet we

can deal with people from other generations, other sex, and other nationalities

easily. (Interview)

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Gai experienced that it was not easy to meet and talk with foreigners through his daily

activities, but he observed that online spaces like Lang-8.com made it easier to have a

contact with foreigners even across varied generations.

Azurviolet is also one of the participants who were impressed by the fact that she

was able to make friends with people of generations on Lang-8. She stated:

In the beginning I thought that I would be the oldest one, but I saw that there are

people of all generations, so that is like a great family of language learners ^^…

It‟s usually an exchange of ideas. There is no problème of age, image of oneself,

nothing is interfering…

When she first joined Lang-8, she was worried about her age because it was not common

for a woman who was in her late 40s to start learning a new language, and she thought

she would be the oldest. However, she was surprised that there were varied generations of

people on Lang-8 including those older than her, and realized that not only age but also

other factors that negatively defined ourselves in a real society did not matter in this

Lang-8 community. In the case of Smiller, she also noticed that not only meeting

someone beyond her generation (she was in her early 20s) was very common on Lang-8

but also it was even acceptable to point out their mistakes, which she felt very hard to do

in real life. She stated, “Most of my friends are older than me…I used to feel awkward

about pointing out the mistakes of people much older than me, but now I realize that

shouldn‟t be an issue [on Lang-8].”

Another difference between Lang-8 and offline friends was found in issues of

making and maintaining friendships (which has been discussed earlier). Although many

participants understood that losing contact with friends could happen in both online and

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offline spaces, they still noticed that they not only more easily made friends but also were

more vulnerable to losing connections with Lang-8 users than with offline friends. The

also experienced that they could not see their friends as often as they wanted to no matter

how hard they used the Lang-8 website since friends on Lang-8 visited the website when

they felt like it. CAM described friendships on Lang-8 as “easy come and easy go.”

Regarding this “easy come and easy go” phenomenon, Dog explained that it was

because Lang-8 users do have not any “obligations” (or “responsibility” in Kenshin‟s

term) to each other in real life. She said, “My friends on Lang-8 are removed from my

real life, so there are no obligations to get in the way.” Not all participants separated their

Lang-8 friends from their real life. For example, Miyoko acted as a tour guide to a Lang-

8 friend from Norway when he visited Japan for sightseeing, and Azurviolet stayed at

Katz‟s house while her family took a trip to South Korea. In the case of CAM, she

attended a couple of international exchange parties held by Lang-8.com in Tokyo to meet

her Lang-8 friends. However, those were very special cases, so in general, participants‟

friends on Lang-8 were not involved in their real life as much as their offline friends were.

Because of this lack of involvement, Dog saw that people easily made friends, but at the

same time were prone to easily lose connections on Lang-8.

Lang-8 friends: Positively good. No matter whether participants in this study felt

that they are the same as or different from Lang-8 friends or their Lang-8 friends are the

same as or different from their real offline friends, there was a unanimous feeling

received from their friends; a sense of goodness and positivity. The interview data show

that the participants often portrayed their friends as “friendly,” “kind,” “nice,” “positive,”

“generous,” and “supportive.” For example, Seijitapa voiced that “everyone [on Lang-8]

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is very kind and supportive” and Gai said that “most people on Lang-8 are nice and

kind.” Azurviolet even considered her friends as “a great family of language learners,”

stating, “For sure I like this Website because people are so nice. They all try to do their

best. There is a good [and] positive energy.” In general, Turquoisedee‟s comment below

is somewhat representative of the participants‟ general impression of their friends:

I think that the members on Lang-8.com are a friendly group of people that have

realistic goals. They are all striving to communicate with each other and are

willing to ignore barrier like race and culture. I like how many of them are very

open-minded and eager to learn.

The participants seemed to feel their friends‟ positive and friendly attitude

through varied practices. As seen in Kenshin‟s comment that his friends are “kind enough

to correct me,” most participants sensed their friends‟ kindness when receiving not only

encouraging and complimentary comments but also corrective feedback. Some

participants were also aware that not every Lang-8 users received the same amount of

feedback as they did, which added more appreciation towards their friends who provided

help. For example, Miyoko, a native speaker of Japanese learning English, was aware

that there were many English learners on Lang-8 besides her, so she was thankful for her

friends who corrected her journal entries. She said, “My journal is usually corrected by

my lang-8 friends. I think there are a lot of people who learn English on Lang-8, so I have

some friends to correct my journal. I appreciate them.” Smiller, as a native speaker of

English learning Japanese, also noticed that many English learners had difficulty

receiving as much corrective feedback as she did, so she felt more appreciative of the act

of kindness of her friends:

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All my friends have been extremely kind and willing to help. I always feel an

amazing sense of gratitude and appreciation after I write an entry and get a bunch

of corrections and responses, especially since I know there are a lot of people

(especially people studying English) who sometimes don‟t get any corrections at

all. (Interview)

Some participants also seemed to receive this positive energy when they see their

friends attentive to others. For example, Coby_코비 became more appreciative when one

of his friends gave him detailed explanations about his corrections because that friend

seemed to understand what difficulties foreign learners of Korean have when they learn

Korean language. However, it does not mean that the participants sensed kindness from

all of their friends. As Katz pointed out that there are still some friends who did not care

about correcting him even after he gave corrections to them on a regular basis. He stated,

“Once I made friends, I tried to give my corrections to them as much as possible, but

among my friends, there are some people who did not care about correcting my journal

entries.” Kenshin was also aware that Lang-8 is not a place where people can receive

blind generosity without their efforts to help others out first. Therefore, to the question,

“what advice would he give to novice Lang-8 users?” he replied, “Don‟t expect too much

from Lang-8. Make corrections beforehand if you want to be corrected properly.”

Conclusion

This chapter described the research participants‟ process in building their social

networks and their perceptions about Lang-8 friends with the aim of deeply

understanding main features of learning environments formed in the Lang-8 community.

As the findings showed, the process of forming a network of connections on Lang-8

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involved many types of practices and a unique relationship configuration. Particularly,

there are four points that were apparent in my research participants‟ case.

First, their relationships with Lang-8 friends were characterized by such words as

“the same but different,” “reciprocal,” “like friends,” “different from offline friends,” and

“positively good,” which take forms of a “strong” community that has similar features

like “respective,” “trust,” “homogeneity,” “diversity,” and “reciprocity” (Wenger et al.,

2002). For example, although they joined Lang-8 to learn an L2 from its native speakers,

they saw them as someone in an equal status due to mutual help demands. On top of that,

their relations sometimes remained as “contacts” who simply provided linguistic help, but

in many cases, they were developed into “friends” who positively supported one

another‟s language learning. On one hand, they were very similar in that they were

learning L2s together, but very diverse in that they came from different linguistic and

cultural backgrounds on the other hand.

Secondly, the research participants were given the liberty to choose the size and

types of their friend networks. As discussed earlier, people on Lang-8 freely came and

left without any restrictions. A once-best friend can move to the outer circle of friends at

any time, but it also means that a once-distant friend can move to the inner circle. In

addition, there are a theoretically unlimited number of potential friends on Lang-8.

Therefore, the success of building a strong network of Lang-8 friends on Lang-8 is

entirely up to the user him/herself. That is, a network of people particularly based on

strong relationships is not simply given to its users. Instead, Lang-8 users should remain

active, and be proactive in initiating and maintaining strong friend networks on Lang-8.

L2 learners‟ positioning in the Lang-8 community represents Lave and Wenger‟s (1991)

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legitimate peripheral participation. As learners have to make effort to move toward full

participation in order to master knowledge and skills, my participants also experienced

that deep learning came through their full participation by forming strong relationships

with other Lang-8 members. However, it did not mean that they had to be a full

participant in every relationship they had; instead, they were given the flexibility to

choose their stance so that they could learn L2s at their own pace.

Thirdly, building networks relied mainly on Lang-8 users‟ L2 learning and

literacy practices. While the system itself provides its technical affordances that make it

easy to locate possible friends and form networks with them, the research participants

showed that they relied more on such language practices as posting, reading, giving

feedback, commenting, and messaging when forming their networks because they

worked the best in initiating and maintaining their friend network. This close relationship

between L2 practice exercises and social networking activities shows a process that

learning becomes a constituent part of social practices and an essential part of belonging

to a community (Lave & Wenger, 1991).

Last, but not least, as participants gained more experience in the Lang-8 space,

they realized how important it was to have matched interests in their relationships. While

Lang-8 itself is a specialized SNS for language learning so that its members already share

the common interest of learning language together when they join it, it is still too broad to

give a concrete identity that can hold the social network tight. However, as the

participants experienced, when someone‟s interests, desires, and activeness become more

compatible with his/her friends, he/she is in more likelihood to have strong networks on

Lang-8.

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The features of the process of building networks and the relationships that the

participants had with their friends will be examined further within the concept of

communities of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 2006; Wenger et al., 2002) in

the discussion chapter. In the next chapter, I will explore what benefits the research

participants perceived to have received while participating in the Lang-8 community.

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Chapter Six

Perceptions of Lang-8: Perceived Benefits

The purpose of this chapter is to understand the types of benefits that the research

participants believed they received while participating in the language learning practices

in the Lang-8 environment. Participants in this study came to know Lang-8 from various

channels. For example, Kenshin first heard about Lang-8 from a radio show, and Smiller,

Turquoisedee, and Coby_코비 from their friends. The rest said that they first came across

Lang-8 from someone else‟s blog or website. Whether introduced to Lang-8 by a radio

show, blogs, or friends, participants recalled that they were excited when they first heard

and read about it, and their excitement had been sustained even up to the time that this

research was conducted. The research data revealed that the reasons behind their

excitement were based on the perceived benefits of using Lang-8 in the following four

areas: technical, social, cognitive, and psychological. The following will explore their

perceived benefits in each area in detail and how they contributed to their L2 learning and

practices.

Technical Aspects

The technical aspects of Lang-8 that participants viewed as beneficial to their L2

learning and literacy practices are as follows: 24/7 accessibility, platform for user-

generated learning content, technical simplicity of making friends, writing as a

communication medium, and easiness of receiving feedback.

Technical benefit of 24/7 accessibility. Participants reported some technical

benefits of using Lang-8 for their L2 learning and practice, and one of them was they

were able to have access to a language learning community anytime they wanted. As

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briefly mentioned before, all participants had their own hectic life as a parent, a husband,

a wife, a student, a worker, and more, so it was not easy for them to access language

learning resources and aids (such as language institutes, tutors, and conversational

partners) when they wanted. However, Lang-8, which is in a cyberspace and open to

users around the clock, allowed them to have more flexible time for their L2 learning

activities. For example, Kenshin stated, “We, parents, don‟t have any extra time in our

daily lives, but I can communicate with native speakers on line whenever I want, and this

is sensational.” Katz also commented that when he attended language institutes, he

wasted a lot of time on the street in commuting from his office to the language institutes,

and to his home, not to mention the cost of tuition. However, since he joined Lang-8, he

said he was able to spend more time on his actual learning practices. He even stated, “It is

also very convenient that I can access this Website even during my working hours.”

AriZona also stated, “[Lang-8] is good for me because I can access this Website, upload

my writings, and leave my feedback for others at my convenient time and according to

my personal circumstances.” That is, depending on her schedule, she is allowed to

regulate her pace of L2 learning in the Lang-8 space. All in all, many participants agreed

that Lang-8 is beneficial in a way that it allows them to access their learning resources

without any time restriction.

Technical benefit of having platform for creating learning content. Another

benefit of Lang-8 is that it services as a platform so that users can create their own

learning content. For instance, Turquoisedee stated that Lang-8 helped her learn at her

own pace because what she learned was based on what she liked to learn. She said:

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I think we all have some autonomy on what we want to know and what we don‟t

know. In my case, I just want to write a decent Korean sentence with no

mistakes…So in that case, I am controlling my learning. I also have autonomy of

my learning because I learn at MY pace. (Interview)

Lang-8 is not a learning place that provides language learning contents to its users.

Instead, the potential learning contents are basically planted into their writing entries, but

come to the surface through other users‟ feedback on them. Regarding this feature of

Lang-8, Turquoisedee said that Lang-8 users have “some autonomy” on what they want

to know because they can set the pace of their learning by posting what they don‟t know

and what they want to know. That is, what they are about to learn is placed without the

boundary of what they write and what they want to know.

Technical benefit of simplistic process of making friends. Before participants

knew about Lang-8, they often came across varied types of obstacles in their journey of

language learning. One of the most frequently mentioned obstacles was that they had few

opportunities (if any) to use their second language because they were living in an

environment that their mother tongue was used as their everyday language. Most

participants believed that an ideal place for language learning is where they are immersed

into that language. For example, Katz considered immersion as ideal because it would

allow him to have “more chances of getting exposed to the language,” Gai, because “a

conversation is a good output opportunity,” and Azur said, “I don‟t know how to use

words if I have no communication.” No matter what the reasons were, the majority of the

participants seemed to agree that immersing themselves in the target-language-speaking

environment would be ideal for their language learning.

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During the period of time that this research was conducted, however, all of the

participants were residing in their own countries where their mother tongue was used as

their everyday language so that they had a hard time practicing their second languages in

natural environments on a daily basis. Although each individual had different levels of

exposure to the use of target language, their experience with the target language in their

life was not much different than what Gai mentioned:

I usually had very few chances of communicating with a variety of people in my

daily life. I usually speak with my wife and colleague. I sometimes speak with my

other family members or real friends from high school or college. All of those

conversations are taken place in Japanese. Unfortunately, the changes of using

English are very limited. (Interview)

Gai is Japanese, living in Japan. He is a married man, working as a chemist at the time.

He was learning English as a second language, but as he described, there was a very little

chance of using English in his daily life. As he said, using a target language was not

imperative or even recommended in his home environment, in his working place, and for

his social life, and the other participants were also put in the similar situation.

Due to this realistic impossibility to get themselves immersed into a target-

language-speaking environment, participants looked for an alternative way, which was to

make friends with native speakers of their target language. However, they also realized

that it was still a big challenge for them because of the limited scope of their social

interactions in their real life. Participants‟ daily activities were mostly bound to two

major places, a home and a working place. As mentioned above, the home environment

was far from the “ideal” place for their target language learning, and it was also true

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when meeting and making new friends. Particularly it was nearly impossible for someone

like Miyoko, who lived in a rural area in Japan and spent most of her time at home, to

meet and make friends with foreigners. Thus, before she knew about Lang-8, she stated,

“I didn‟t think that I would get a chance to speak with English speakers in my life.”

Although there were some cases that participants were using their target languages for

their work such as translating English into Japanese and vice versa (Kenshin), meeting

Korean engineers at a work place (Coby_코비), and corresponding with clients in

English by email (CAM), they were still facing the similar situation with the rest in that

they also had few chance of meeting and making friends with foreigners outside of their

work place.

In general, the rate of foreigners around the neighborhood and in the work

environment was low, English learners seemed to have a better chance of seeing its

native speakers than other language learners due to the popularity of English as an

international language these days. However, even with this increased chance of seeing

English speakers, making friends with them still remained a challenge to most English

learning participants. When asked whether it was hard to make language friends before

using Lang-8, CAM, an English learner in Japan, replied, “I don‟t have chance to meet

English speakers around me. On top of that, if I meet someone who speaks English, I

don‟t know how to be friends with them.” In other words, even though she might have a

chance of meeting English speakers, she thought that it would not be easy to be their

friend due to a lack of experience and familiarity in making friends with foreigners.

AriZona, an English learner living in Korea, also added:

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Even when I had a chance of seeing them, it was hard to manage time to meet

with them. And there are more Koreans who want to learn English from native

speakers of English, so it is very competitive. And most of all, I sometimes saw

English speakers upset when they met some Koreans intentionally approaching

them only for the purpose of their own English learning. (Interview)

According to her, there were some occasions of meeting English speakers, but it was not

easy to time a meeting that fit her and the counterpart‟s schedule. Besides, there are more

English learners than its native speakers in Korea, so finding English native speakers was

sometimes “competitive” among Korean people who wanted to learn English. She also

noticed that English native speakers got disturbed by some Koreans who wanted to take

advantage of them only for the sake of learning English. All in all, some other factors

besides a lack of chances of seeing and meeting native speakers inhibited them from

having friends with native speakers of their target language.

However, participants unanimously commented that making friends with native

speakers is relatively easy on Lang-8 in comparison with the real world. Miyoko said, “In

real world, I seldom meet foreign people, and no chance to make friends with them, but

in the social network, like lang8, I can make friends with foreign people easily.” There

were varied reasons reported for this relatively easy process of making friends. First,

most participants agreed that it was mainly because Lang-8 has been designed as a place

in which people who are interested in learning language get together and learn from each

other. Because many potential friends are already gathered around in this online space,

people do not have to spend much time seeking their language exchange friends as long

as they are within the system. Besides, Lang-8 provides technical support for finding

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friends by the automatic sorting process of language match. Coby_코비 said, “You don‟t

have to search for new friends because they will appear in language matches or in the

lists of people studying the native language and the language you‟re learning.”

Secondly, participants perceived that the common goal of learning L2s that Lang-

8 members share from the beginning of their Lang-8 use makes it easier for them to make

friends on Lang-8. AriZona said, “It is relatively easy to make friends on Lang-8 because

we are in the same situation that we learn second language and are able to help each

other‟s language.” Katz also added that a friend relationship is as easy to make on Lang-8

as it is on other social networking sties, but the relationships between friends may last

longer on Lang-8 because of the goal that Lang-8 members commonly share:

Like other SNSs, it is very easy to make friends on Lang-8, so as a side effect,

there are also many cases that people do not correspond to each other often even

after they become friends. However, Lang-8 is “the Website that people get

together to study,” so once we find those who we are interested in and become

familiar with, I believe we can have longer friendships on Lang-8 than on other

sites where we just exchange our simple greetings. (Interview)

Thirdly, some participants considered the fact that Lang-8 is in cyberspace as a

contributor to the relatively easy process of making friends. Before and even after joining

Lang-8, many participants showed their concerns about revealing their real information to

unknown people in the online space. According to Coby_코비, however, he did not have

to worry much because Lang-8 allowed him to keep him “a low profile” if he wanted. In

fact, Lang-8 does not require any real information except their working email address for

membership, so it gives assurance for those who are sensitive to these privacy issues. In

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addition to this technical assurance, some participants stated that Lang-8 seemed to be a

safer place to know new friends than other online places because of what AriZona called

the widely spread general agreement between Lang-8 members that “people come and

join Lang-8 to learn each other‟s language.” Because of this general belief that Lang-8

users hold, she said, “I am not uncomfortable to make new friends on Lang-8.” Gai also

said that since he realized there is “a low risk” in making friends on Lang-8, he said, “I

started to make new friends without any hesitation or with little hesitation.”

The fact that Lang-8 is located in an online space was also perceived to benefit

participants in a way that they are able to make friends with the minimum investment.

Lang-8 users do not have to confront their potential friends in person as they may have to

do in offline places. Instead, they introduce themselves through writing, get to know

others by reading writing entries, and build up friendships by sharing feedback with each

other on Lang-8. CAM stated, “Making friends on Lang-8 is very easy because we can be

friends just by reading and correcting our journals each other.” Kenshin also added,

“Here on Lang-8, I can find close friends rather easily because I can correct them in

detail in Japanese in return or make many and/or long comments on their journals.” After

these reading, writing, and giving feedback practices, if they find potential friends, they

can simply send or accept friend requests, but if they don‟t, they simply skip or decline

the requests. However, this simplified process of making friends does not mean that

everybody can be friends on Lang-8. In many cases, people are also rejected, and get hurt

by the act of rejection. Nevertheless, many participants seemed to understand that the

rejection is part of online activities as Miyoko said as follows:

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If I refused in real world, I would get hurt badly. However, I know that it happens

all the time on the Internet, so I don‟t care that much. It‟s because if I cared each

time I refused my friend request, I would feel down many times. Just try to get

used to it on the Internet relationship. (Interview)

Last, but not least, some participants perceived that the asynchronous written

form of communication within the Lang-8 system makes their friends-making process

easy. For example, when asked why it is relatively easier to make friends on Lang-8 than

offline, Seijitapa replied, “[It is] because writing is much easier than talking for me.” Gai

said, “I think writing can express more complex ideas than speaking can, so writing is

better than speaking when expressing my complex ideas.” Although Gai and Seijitapa

were not in an advanced level so that it was still challenging to convey their ideas even in

a written form, they found that writing allows them to communicate with foreigners much

easier than speaking with them. In the case of AriZona, not only written but also

asynchronous features of communication within Lang-8 helped her to make friends easier.

She said:

I think we can also make friends and build up relationships through the Internet

chatting, but it is not as easy as we do on Lang-8. To begin with, it is very hard to

set up the time to meet. In addition, we do not know who the counterpart is.

(Interview)

That is, because the communication is usually carried out in an asynchronous way, she

can communicate with others without any time concerns. In addition, because people can

get to know what their potential friends are like through their profile pages and archived

writings and comments even before the first interaction begins, she felt it is much easier

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to make friends on Lang-8 than through other chatting services. Seijitapa also agreed he

came to know his friends‟ personalities beforehand by saying, “I know my friend‟s

personality through their entries, comments, and profiles.”

Technical benefit of writing as the major learning method. Participants were

also excited about this increased opportunity to make friends with native speakers of their

target language because it also creates a chance of making language output. When asked

about the benefits of using Lang-8, Miyoko stated, “After I joined Lang-8, I had more

time to write and speak English…I think I can do more practices of learning English on

Lang-8.” In the case of Turquoisedee, she replied:

I was spending so much time with memorizing vocabulary and understanding

grammar that I couldn‟t use this background information and write a proper

sentence. I had lots of information from textbooks but I did not know how to

apply it in writing. Since learning on Lang-8 depends on writing, you get more

practice and get prompt feedback. I really like that. (Interview)

Before using Lang-8, she had been learning Korean through a Korean textbook that she

purchased online, and she had been accumulating some Korean knowledge since then.

However, she had felt bad about a lack of chance of practicing it. Since using Lang-8, on

which the main learning medium is writing, she could do writing practice that allowed

her to apply her Korean knowledge into writing and to get prompt feedback on it.

Many participants believed that this output process is important in improving their

language proficiency. CAM stated, “Lang-8 is a great exercise to write English and to

learn what is bad in my English.” Miyoko also mentioned that she often noticed that her

English was not good enough yet when she produced her language in a spoken and/or

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written format. Azurviolet added that she could pay more attention to what she did not

know through writing, saying, “Learning [on Lang-8] takes all my brain ^^…I can see all

the things I have to learn because almost all the time, I have not the words.” In the case of

Katz, he indicated that Lang-8 is a good place to test out his knowledge of English,

stating, “Lang-8 seems to be designed to utilize our knowledge about language very

easily and effectively.” All in all, as Swain‟s (1985) output theory explains, many

participants perceived that they had many chances of noticing what they were short of in

terms of linguistic knowledge through the writing process on Lang-8. Also, participants

have experienced benefits of producing output, noticing/triggering and hypothesis-testing,

in their learning language.

Technical benefit of easiness of receiving feedback. One of the benefits that all

Lang-8 users unanimously agreed that Lang-8 has entailed is the language feedback that

they received. Like other L2 learners, participants usually desire to be checked whether

what they say and write is right or wrong. During school days, most participants

commented they rarely received teachers‟ feedback. According to CAM, it was because

not only her English classes were focused on receptive skills like reading and listening

but also there was only one teacher that had to take care of many students in class. For

these reasons, CAM said, “I never had a chance to get my writings corrected [during

school days] other than on Lang-8.” In the case of Gai, who was taking online English

conversational sessions at the time that this research was conducted, he also wished that

his online speaking tutors would have corrected his mistakes even though he appreciated

the oral communication opportunities that the online sessions provided. With regards to

his rare chance of getting his English corrected, Gai said, “That gives me a little stress.”

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He also commented that he even had tried to write journal entries in English before he

tried on Lang-8, but he failed to keep up this exercise because he said, “It was so boring

and not educational without any corrections.” Regarding this repeated lack of feedback,

Katz showed his frustration, saying, “It was a little frustrating to keep using my broken

English without knowing whether it is right or wrong.”

In this respect, Lang-8 successfully meets participants‟ needs by providing a

reciprocal and interactive interface enabling its users to easily give and receive language

feedback. Although it was very different from participant to participant how quickly they

receive feedback, most participants seemed to have been impressed by the quick

responses on Lang-8. Turquoisedee said, “The good thing about writing entries [on Lang-

8] is the fast feedback.” For example, as Table 6.1 shows, all participants except Go and

CAM received their first feedback quickly, within 5 minutes to 3 hours after they posted

their first entry, even in the circumstance that they had not formed their solid friend

network yet. Although it took 20 days and 6 hours for Go to receive feedback on his first

entry, he got the feedback on his second entry within 2 hours and 57 minutes. In the case

of CAM, it took her 1 day and 6 hours and 3 days, 2 hours, and 42 minutes to receive

feedback on her first and second journal entry respectively, but she also got feedback on

her third writing entry within 1 hour and 28 minutes.

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Table 6.1.

Time Gap between the First Entry and the First Received Feedback.

First Entry

Posting Time

First Received

Feedback Time

Time Gap

Kenshin

Feb. 17, 2010 06:14 Feb. 17, 2010 06:19 5 mins.

Miyoko

Apr. 10, 2010 03:35 Apr. 10, 2010 03:52 23 mins.

Smiller

Jan. 26, 2009 18:45 Jan. 26, 2009 19:01 16 mins.

Dog

Apr. 11, 2010 20:46 Apr. 11, 2010 23:37 2 hrs. 51 mins.

Katz

Nov. 17, 2009 12:15 Nov. 18, 2009 02:27 2 hrs. 12 mins.

Turquoisedee

Oct. 12, 2008 09:36 Oct. 12, 2008 10:48 1 hrs. 12 mins.

Azurviolet

Nov. 13, 2008 15:08 Nov. 13, 2008 15:39 31 mins.

CAM

May 14, 2010 22:38 May 16, 2010 04:10 1 day 5 hrs. 32 mins.

Coby_코비 Apr. 14, 2010 14:28 Apr. 14, 2010 17:18 2 hrs. 50 mins.

Gai

Jun. 18, 2010 07:57 Jul. 08, 2010 13:57 20 days 6 hrs.

Seijitapa

Dec. 14, 2008 09:04 Dec. 14, 2008 09:36 32 mins.

Participants said that the received corrections helped them to pin down their

mistakes mostly in the areas of grammar and word usage and to learn “alternative

expressions” that show new ways to express their ideas. Particularly many participants

mentioned that multiple instances of feedback from diverse participants spiced up their

L2 learning. Smiller stated:

Having many teachers, like on Lang-8, provides an opportunity for students to get

a variety of different opinions and explanations and to learn many different ways

of saying things. When I ask a Japanese professor a question, I only get one

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answer, but when I ask a question on Lang-8, I get many different answers and

opinions, which I find is very beneficial to my learning. (Interview)

Gai also pointed that “listening to diverse views of my second language is very beneficial

for me because for language there is more than one right answer.” Regarding the

feedback from diverse Lang-8 users, AriZona commented that diversity plays a positive

role in that she was able to see some examples of how English could be used differently

according to such factors as “age, area, and culture,” and Katz added that that was the

benefit of “collective intelligence” that the Lang-8 learning environment is supporting.

Social Aspects

As participants started to add Lang-8 users to their social network, they

experienced many benefits that they received from their Lang-8 friends. The apparent

social benefits were having reliable L2 correctors at hand, carrying out genuine

communications, having increased awareness of others and cultures, experiencing

encouraging and inspirational atmosphere, and gaining more power.

Social benefit to keeping reliable L2 correctors at hand. One of the most

frequently reported benefits of doing L2 practice in the Lang-8 community was that

participants can keep native speakers of their target language at hand, from whom they

can receive corrective feedback when it is needed. AriZona said that she feels “reassured”

when knowing that there is someone near her who will provide help for her when she

needs it, and she started to have this feeling of reassurance since she formed a network

with Lang-8 friends. According to her, there are not many people around her in Korea

with whom she felt free to ask questions about English unless she paid for it. However,

since she made social networks with native speakers of English on Lang-8, she addressed

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that she felt “assured” when she had trouble with her English because she knows that

help is at hand and on its way. Regarding getting help by having friends of native

speakers of an L2, Azurviolet expressed it as “so cool,” saying, “I have friends if I

questions ^^ and I have answers ^^ so cool ^^ and I can also improve my Korean.”

Although receiving correct feedback was not the only purpose of making a

network on Lang-8, there was no doubt that it was one of the participants‟ main interests

when they joined. Table 6.2 shows the number of each participant‟s friends of native and

non-native speakers of a target language. It shows that about 75 percent of participants‟

friends on average are native speakers of their target language, which indirectly explains

that they had been searching for language helpers who could directly help with their

target language. According to Coby_코비, having such friends who can help with L2

learning is what makes Lang-8 different from other social media like blogs. He stated:

Friends are simply indispensable because of the principle of Lang-8: friends that

comment entries. Without friends, the site would function like some kind of diary

or BLOG, which I have too. But I merely write entries to get response from

friends. (Interview)

In other words, Lang-8 is a place where people gather to learn each other‟s language by

receiving and providing language-related comments. Thus, if his friends on Lang-8 had

been like friends on his blog who responded mainly to the content of his blog entries, he

would have not used Lang-8 as often as he did. He added what he primarily expected

from his Lang-8 friends was “to receive corrective feedback on grammar and/or usage of

words” for his Korean learning.

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Table 6.2

The Percentage of NSTL Friends and NNSTL Friends

Ken

shin

Miy

oko

Sm

iller

Dog

Katz

Turq

uoised

ee

Azu

rvio

let

CA

M

Coby

_코비

Gai

Seijitap

a

NSTL*

(%)

70 67 78

65

68

89

72

85

74

79

79

NNSTL**

(%)

30

33 22

35 32 11 28 15 26 21 21

Note. NSTL* (Native Speakers of a Target Language)/ NNSTL** (Non-Native Speakers

of a Target Language).

All participants were looking for second language correctors on Lang-8, but they

did not expect their friends to have teacher-like knowledge who can teach in detail about

the second languages. Although CAM said that some of her Lang-8 friends gave her

“detailed explanations about grammar or usage of English like a linguist” and many

participants also happened to keep at least one or two language experts (such as L2

teachers and professors) in their list of friends, they found that it was not realistic to

expect all of their friends to explain linguistic aspects of language like real language

teachers do. For example, when Coby_코비 first joined Lang-8, he anticipated that he

would be able to get answers to his grammatical questions from his friends, and used to

post a lot of questions about Korean grammar on Lang-8 in the beginning. However, as

time went by, he came to realize that his expectation was too high. He stated, “I must

however admit that most of them don‟t have all the answers to my questions, so I remain

dazed with some unanswered questions after every post.” Although he preferred to

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receive feedback that answered his grammatical questions, he also came to realize that

that was the not type of feedback that all Lang-8 users were able to give.

According to Azurviolet, she also did not expect her Lang-8 friends to be like real

L2 teachers who would give language lessons. Instead, she said:

The principle of lang8 is not to be good teachers. This is to try to learn with the

help of native people, so we learn the good way to say the sentences, or to use the

words, but there are not grammar courses, or things like that…Correctors are here

to say “yes it‟s like that” or “no you have to use this or this instead.” And you

have to understand by yourself what they give to you. (Interview)

She perceived that their role in her language learning was to help her out by telling

whether what she said made sense to them and giving suggestions on how to make her

sentences better, not by giving language lectures to her.

Participants also did not expect that the received corrective feedback would be

100 percent accurate. For example, Gai was aware that most people on Lang-8, including

himself, are not “professional teachers,” so he said, “My friends and I may make a few

mistakes when we correct other‟s journals, because we are not language experts but just

native speakers of our own language.” As Gai said, most participants were aware of the

fact that their language friends gave them corrections because they are native speakers of

their target language rather than professional experts on them; thus, they tried to accept

the corrections that they received not as 100 percent accurate, but still reliable to trust.

Social benefit to having genuine communication. Another benefit of Lang-8

that participants frequently reported was the opportunities for communication with real

people. According to Smiller, “the main purpose of language is communication,” and in

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that respect, she commented that Lang-8 is beneficial because it “provides many

opportunities for genuine communication with real people from other cultures.” There is

a slight difference in the interpretation of “genuine communication” among participants

in the Lang-8 environment, but in general, it means (at least) a two-way written

correspondence between each user, and topics are centered around their interests (e.g.,

language, language study, culture, life, and hobbies). Thus, telling stories about their

interests through written entries, reading others‟ stories, and responding to them via

comments and/or Lang-8 email are considered as genuine communication on Lang-8.

However, some participants (i.e. Kenshin, Katz, and CAM) extend its meaning to an

exchange of language corrections. According to Katz, it is because “Lang-8 users get

familiar with each other by going through many correction exchanges.”

Lang-8 also serves as a starting point to use other channels of communication

outside of Lang-8 (such as Skype, Twitter, Facebook, and blogs). Katz stated, “I think

Lang-8 plays a pivotal role in inspiring people to start other forms of communication like

Skype.” Around the time that this research was conducted, Miyoko was using Twitter and

a blog, Katz, Facebook, Turquoisedee, a blog and Skype, Azurviolet, Skype, CAM,

iTunes Ping, Coby_코비, Facebook, a blog, and Skype, and Seijitapa, Twitter, to

communicate with their target language speaking friends. In general, once they made

friends on Lang-8, they invited them to blog, Twitter, Skpye, and/or Facebook pages in

order to extend their communication outside of the Lang-8 environment. For instance,

Miyoko, Katz, Turquoisedee, Azurviolet, and Coby_코비 had strong desire to improve

their speaking ability, so they often continued their communication with their Lang-8

friends in an oral form via Skype by directly indicating their Skype IDs on their Lang-8

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profile pages. In the case of CAM, she was using a music social networking site called

iTunes Ping, and invited her Lang-8 friends to join that website through her journal entry.

When asked why she wrote about iTunes Ping on her journal entry, she replied, “We can

share our favorite music there.” In other words, she intended to have another

communication channel particularly designated for Lang-8 music lovers, so that she

could not only talk about music but also easily share and listen to each other‟s favorite

music there.

Whether inside or outside of Lang-8, the benefit of having a genuine

communication is related to one of the roles that participants perceived their Lang-8

friends play in the Lang-8 community—a conversational partner who pays close attention

to not only their language needs but also their social needs. For example, Miyoko said

that she enjoyed using Lang-8 because she had friends “who not only correct each other‟s

journals but also send messages and talk apart from the Lang-8 activity.” To begin with,

many participants appreciated their friends‟ role as language partners because it provided

them more opportunities to practice target languages with them. Gai stated, “Having

friends on Lang-8 helps me with the activities that I want to do for English learning, and

one of them is communicating with them in English, which gives me a good opportunity

to use English.”

Their favorable stance towards opportunities for L2 use given by genuine

communication activities on Lang-8 is very closely related to participants‟ belief that they

can learn a target language well (if not best) through interactions with its native speakers.

For example, Kenshin stated, “I think the best language learning is accomplished through

those kinds of interactions between native speakers and me.” When Miyoko also made

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friends on Lang-8, she was glad to meet someone who could help her English, saying “I

have no friends to teach me English before, but now I have some friends to help me

with.” The importance of the conversational partner role was emphasized by those who

learned an L2 in a place where it is not used in daily lives. For example, since Smiller

came back to the U.S. after studying in Japan, she had difficulty keeping up with her

Japanese by herself only with textbooks. Most of all, her current school did not provide

advanced Japanese courses, so she had hard time improving it. However, since she joined

Lang-8, the conditions for Japanese practice got much better:

My lang-8 friends have played an indispensable role in my Japanese learning

while I‟m in the U.S. It‟s so hard to improve without interacting with people,

especially now that I‟ve studied pretty much all the grammar and kanji there is to

know and there isn‟t really anything I can do with textbooks anymore. (Interview)

That is, since she made Lang-8 friends, she could have a better chance of interacting with

Japanese people in Japanese in her daily life, which she believed contributed to language

improvement.

In addition to the opportunities for L2 practice, the role that Lang-8 friends were

perceived to play as conversational partners is also beneficial in a way that participants

have a real audience who not only listens but also responds to their stories, which thus

entails their enjoyment of talk in an L2. For example, Turquoisedee described native

Korean friends on Lang-8 as “both teachers and friends,” saying, “They are teachers

because they show interest in helping others learn their beautiful, unique language, and

they are like friends because they are friendly and want to get to know each other better

and share good times!” Although she admitted that there was a limit for the use of her

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target language, Korean, during conversations with Korean friends due to her low level of

Korean proficiency and the relatively high level of English of her Lang-8 friends, she did

not think that conversing with her friends even in English was a waste of time. She said:

“It does not consume my time because it is really fun to converse with them. :)…

We share funny moments, sad moments in life, current events, and other things

just like other [offline] friends.”

Having a real audience turns out to be important for participants because it helps

them to be more active in L2 learning practices. For example, according to CAM, having

her Lang-8 friends as a real audience motivated her to learn English more. She stated, “If

no one read or correct my entries, I think I would stop writing…because it is much more

interesting to know other people‟s thoughts on my entries than nothing.” In other words,

her friends‟ responses to her journal entries are important to her because she wishes to get

her voice heard when she writes and posts her stories on Lang-8. For her, writing and

posting her entry reflects her wish to have a two-way communication with others with

intentions of language learning (e.g., Can anyone check whether what I wrote is right or

wrong?) and/or socializing (e.g., I had a very special experience today). Thus, when she

found that her voice and intentions were heard through other‟s responses, she got more

encouraged to communicate through writing to her Lang-8 friends. Many other

participants also agreed and conceived that Lang-8 users in general and their Lang-8

friends in particular are their audience for their writing and they were delighted to write

and post journal entries with their audience in mind. According to Kenshin, it is

“sensational” to “have readers from all around the world” because he said, “I am given

the opportunity to tell my stories [to those readers from all around the world] and learn

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English at the same time.” Turquoisedee also stated, “Since it is so fun to post and write

humorous entries for my Lang-8 friends, I actually look forward to studying Korean!”

Interestingly, many participants liked the diverse audiences on Lang-8, which

they believed kept their communication more genuine and interesting. According to Gai,

there were several good things about Lang-8, and one of them was that he could

“communicate with a variety of people easily regardless of their age, sex, and nationality.

He said, “That makes me learn English in an enjoyable way.” Azurviolet stated that she

had many types of friends on Lang-8, and she often shared different types of stories

depending on whom she talked with, saying “I share things about health with some

friends, about religion and faith with another, and about music with others.”

Coby_코비 also added that his audience was a good mix of Lang-8 friends in terms of

job and age, so he was able to have diverse types of communication with them:

The diversity makes the conversations more diverse, which is nice. There are a lot

of students among my friends, but also house-wives, a police officer, and some

engineers. And in life there are some things I would like to discuss with a mother

of my age and certainly not with young students and vice versa. (Interview)

Because of this diverse scope of friends, he could have more extensive topics to talk

about on Lang-8, and thus have more frequent talk with native Koreans.

Social benefit of encouraging atmosphere. Many participants said that they are

encouraged to learn more in general and write more in particular simply because they

know that there are some people out there who would willingly not only read their

writings as an audience but also provide help with their language learning as L2

correctors. Although the awareness of their friends as the audience and L2 correctors

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played an important role in creating an encouraging atmosphere by itself, participants

recalled that they were more stimulated to write and talk more when hearing encouraging

comments directly from Lang-8 users, particularly their Lang-8 friends. For example,

Miyoko said that being aware of her Lang-8 friends who would read and correct her

journal entries motivated her to write more, but the direct comments from her friends also

encouraged her to keep writing. Around the time this research was conducted, Miyoko

usually stayed at home in a rural area in Japan. According to her, “using English is not

imperative [because] particularly I live in Japan [and] I don‟t have to use it in my daily

life.” However, once she made friends on Lang-8, she became more encouraged to write,

saying, “I guess my audience is my Lang-8 friends [and] their comments encourage me to

write.”

Although participants receive encouragement from the comments that their

friends leave on their journal entries in most cases, some participants reported that they

received encouraging messages by Lang-8 email. For example, Dog said that she

sometimes received email messages from her Lang-8 friends that reminded her to study if

she is not active on Lang-8 for a while, which she thinks is “funny and helpful of them to

do so.” Whether it is through the journal entry comments or Lang-8 email, many

participants were very impressed by this stimulating role of their friends who offer

encouraging messages to them, and Dog even described her friends as “cheerleaders.”

Seijitapa also commented that his friends‟ cheers helped him to have “energy to keep a

diary” on Lang-8.

Participants received many types of encouraging feedback on their target

language and writing content from their friends on Lang-8. Table 6.3 shows some of the

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types of comments that participants received, which served to encourage them to write

more. Here, I will take one of the example comments that Miyoko received on her journal

entry that she posted on January 16, 2011. Below are her original posts and some selected

comments that she received from her friends:

In her entry, she wrote about chores that she did after a trip. The feedback shows that the

first commenter was trying to deliver his wish that she would not get hurt while shoveling

the snow, and the second commenter was acknowledging the event that it showed a lot in

her place, complimenting her on the interesting story, and complimenting her on her

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impressive English proficiency. As Miyoko said before, these kinds of comments have

encouraged her to keep writing on Lang-8.

Table 6.3

Types of Comments Encouraging the Participants

Encouraging Comments Examples

Congratulating Congratulations!!!! A year passed by so quickly!

Making a good wish/taking

care

Great to hear!! Hope she makes a fast recovery!

Welcoming back Nice to hear from you after a long while! Glad to see

you are well.

Sympathizing Ouch! I remember guitar finger pain very well...

Admiring I'm always wowed by people who can play musical

instruments. It takes so much practice!

Sharing similar experience Glad you didn’t get hurt. :)

My wife walked into a pole while texting a few months

ago and bruised her knee pretty badly. She still laughed

about it though, even though it hurt. ^^;

Acknowledging I also enjoyed visiting Ueno when I was in Tokyo. The

park was beautiful and the National Museum was really

cool.

Questions-answered [How do you wash your body?] Usually in America we

take showers standing up, and baths sitting in the tub.

Offering another perspective I also love the scene featuring Darth Maul. You can

really see the evolution of choreography from the older

movies to the present day.

Complementing language Your English is very impressive :)

Complementing writing Thank you for writing a very interesting journal post.

I am a fan of your writing Can’t wait for your entry about your trip Gai- san!

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Thanks to this encouraging atmosphere formed by their Lang-8 friends, many

participants, especially beginner level learners, said that they felt less stressful in posting

their journal entries. For example, Turquoisedee recalled how nervous she was when she

first posted her journal entry on Lang-8. When she first joined Lang-8, her Korean was a

beginner level, just knowing about Korean characters and simple expressions but rarely

having tried them before others and not even knowing how to type them on a computer

keyboard. Due to this lack of knowledge on the written form of Korean, it was not easy

for her to post something on Lang-8:

Posting my first journal entry was not easy. I could not yet type in Korean so I

had to write my entry in romanized Korean. I felt extremely nervous to be posting

because I thought the native speakers would think I was an ignorant foreigner… I

was very insecure and nervous about writing for the first time. I thought that they

would think I am mocking their language...But later I found out I was very

mistaken! (Interview)

About a couple of hours after she posted her first journal entry, she received feedback

from a native speaker of Korean, teaching how to write her entry using the Korean

alphabet. On a following day, she also received the advice on how to type in Korean

from a Japanese learner of Korean. Regarding the comments that she received on that day,

Turquoisedee remarked, “I felt so grateful that someone had noticed my humble journal

entry.” That is, she was nervous because her romanized Korean writing could have been

misunderstood as a mocking behavior to the eyes of native Koreans, but after she got the

feedback, she realized that her limited knowledge of Korean language was not something

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that she had to be ashamed of and to hide, but something that she could try out on other

Lang-8 users.

Azurviolet also had a similar experience as Turquoisedee had in the beginning of

her learning. When she signed up for Lang-8, she was a very beginner in Korean, so she

said she was shy and even afraid of posting her entries.

You didn‟t hear the first word I said in Korean, but one did, and I could say this

first word because I have had a special relationship with this person…You didn‟t

hear my first sentence without a dictionary, but one did, and I could do that

because I was full of confidence because of my special relationship. I can be less

shy because of this special relationship…I was afraid to make big mistakes before.

Now I‟m afraid because I want to write too much and I think that my correctors

will not want to correct anymore: in my short entries, I always have a lot of

mistakes. You can imagine if I write a long entrie. ^^ Poor correctors -_-.

(Interview)

According to Azurviolet, she was afraid of having her entries seen by others because of

the errors that she made and felt shy because she thought that they were not good enough.

She was not even sure whether what she wrote could be understood by Koreans, so she

also posted French and English versions of her entries along with the Korean in the

beginning of her Lang-8 use. However, she overcame her fear and shyness thanks to her

friends‟ encouraging comments. Below are some example comments that she received on

her first journal entry:

[Tranlations: ^^ Keep it up! You did well. I will help you a lot.]

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Thanks to these encouraging and supporting comments and extra help from her friends,

she could gain more confidence in using Korean, and now she worries about writing too

much on Lang-8.

Social benefit to staying inspired.

Participants also said that Lang-8 benefited them in that they were inspired to

study harder by observing other Lang-8 users and their language learning activities. First

of all, some participants were often impressed by language and language learning

abilities of their friends, which instigates them to set their goals higher. For example,

Azurviolet mentioned that she was very impressed to see that most of her friends studied

more than one language on Lang-8, which inspired her to plan to learn languages other

than Korean in the future. Dog was also impressed by the knowledge of language that

some of her friends had and the way they communicated in the Lang-8 space:

I have many friends, but only a few regulars who make a point of reading my

entries and correcting them. This group of friends all knows each other and we all

enjoy leaving comments on one another‟s entries. Three in particular banter back

and forth and I enjoy that. They all know languages more than me, so they are

able to jump from one another‟s entries (in different languages). I find this

inspiring and hope that one day I can do the same. (Interview)

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She said she had a few “regulars” who made an effort of reading each other‟s entries and

giving corrections on them, and it was inspiring to see those regulars‟ abilities to

communicate with each other in different languages. Impressed by those friends‟

knowledge on language and an ability to communicate in different languages, she said

that they became like role models to her.

Secondly, some participants were inspired by their friends‟ strong will to learn an

L2 and their high goal to reach with that language. For example, Turquoisedee expressed

her admiration towards her friends due to “their determination to learn English” and their

“great effort to learn,” and she said, “I am trying to copy their example.” When CAM

saw Lang-8 users in general and her friends in particular “learning languages very hard,”

she also said it motivated her to learn English harder. When asked about memorable

friends on Lang-8, Gai mentioned two. The first friend was a 17-year old high school

student living in Hong Kong whom he met in the beginning of his Lang-8 use. He

commented that knowing about this friend was very impressive to him not only because

of his language ability but also because of his mature plan in life:

He gave me thoughtful advice about my English, although he was young. I think

most of the high school students in Japan are not so mature. He had already

looked out to other countries and had the admirable goal to go on a college in the

USA and become a university professor. I developed a feeling of respect for him,

although he was quite younger than me. I could feel that the world is a big place

and a variety of people are living there and I realized that I can connect with a

variety of people in Lang-8.” (Interview)

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This unexpected contact of a teenager living in Hong Kong was a chance for Gai, who

was in the mid 30s, to learn that the world is still big enough to explore, which inspired

him to use Lang-8 more.

The next person that Gai remembered as an impressive friend on Lang-8 was an

American student who had a dream to write a novel in Japanese:

An American student living in Japan said that he had a dream to write a Japanese

novel and get Akutagawa Award which is one of the most authoritative Japanese

literary prizes. I think that sounds so nice. I think I also try to write an English

novel in the future. (Interview)

Throughout the interviews with Gai, he commented that his main purpose for learning

English was to talk with many people around the world and to get a chance of having a

job that might provide a better working environment for him. Thus, the mention that he

wanted to try to write an English novel might be a spur of the moment and impulse

reaction that he had after he talked with that American student. No matter whether it was

a one-time feeling or a long-term desire, it was obvious that he was inspired to think of

another goal to reach with his target language that he would not have even imaged to

consider without knowing this friend on Lang-8.

Thirdly, some participants commented that their friends often inspired them to

spread their acts of kindness to other users on Lang-8. For instance, Azurviolet and Dog

mentioned that when they receive a favor from Lang-8 users—sometimes from her Lang-

8 friends and sometimes from random users—they feel happy about it and want to share

this type of joy with other Lang-8 users:

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There is the understanding that we are all there to learn. I view it as the idiom,

“one good deed deserves another.” If they help me, I feel I should reciprocate by

helping someone else in a similar manner. We are passing the good help along.

(Interview with Dog)

I think that people learning and writing on lang8 know very well the feelings of

the other learners on lang8. So they help because this is an exchange, when

something good comes to you, you want to do something good for the others in

order that they can feel the same joy. (Interview)

According to Dog, once she received help from Lang-8 users, she also came to be

inspired to return the favor to someone else who also might need help with English

because of the atmosphere that people pay forward acts of kindness to others. Azurviolet

added that Lang-8 users understand each other‟s status as a language learner, so they are

more inclined to share this type of goodness with others. In fact, Table 7.4 shows that

Dog and Azurviolet posted their own writing entries and provided corrections for other

users in the ratio of 1: 2.8 and 1:1.8 respectively.

The average ratio of the written entries to the corrections that participants

respectively posted and made as of February 2, 2011 is also 1:2.1, which indicates they

gave corrections to others two times more frequently than they posted their journal

entries. The ratio itself does not prove this “one good deed deserves another” trend that

Dog and Azurviolet sensed and carried out during their Lang-8 activities because some

participants also said that they had provided corrective feedback for others with an

intention to get their written entries corrected in return. However, no matter whether it

was purely for others or for themselves or between the two, Table 6.4 shows a clear

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tendency that participants in this study gave back to others two times more than what

they received on average.

Table 6.4

The Ratios between EW and CM (as of February 2, 2011)

Ken

shin

Miy

oko

Sm

iller

Dog

Katz

Turq

uoised

ee

Azu

rvoilet

CA

M

Cob

y_코

비

Gai

Seijitap

a

EW* 527 113 120 85

124 132 611 85 46 60 704

CM** 861 182 909 238

274 365 1092 240 131 102 1177

EW:

CM

1

1.6

1

1.6

1

7.6

1

2.8

1

2.2

1

2.8

1

1.8

1

2.8

1

2.8

1

1.7

1

1.7

Note. EW (Entries Written)/ CM (Corrections Made).

Fourthly, some participants reported that their friends sometimes inspired them to

learn other target languages in addition to their current one. For example, Gai noticed that

many of his Lang-8 friends were learning more than two languages, and watching them

learn many languages challenged him to learn additional languages on Lang-8:

Some Lang-8 users are learning more than 2 languages at the same time.

Especially one of my friends, who is 27 years old, decided to learn 10 languages

until he became 40 years old. I had interested in learning languages before I read

his entries, but I had never come up with such a great idea by then. I think people

tend to be limited by self-imposed restrictions easily, especially I think I am such

a person with a weak mind. Therefore, I need different perspectives. I think I was

given the great idea that I can challenge to learn several languages by him.

(Interview)

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When talking about his learning experience before using Lang-8, he said that he had a

wish to learn languages other than English such as Tagalog and Korean, but he almost

gave up learning them because he thought he was not good enough. However, after he

met this special person through this journal entry who had a dream to be a polyglot and

had a master plan to learn ten languages before 40, he realized that he gave up on his

dream simply because of what he called, his “self-imposed restrictions.” That is, once he

set a limit for himself that he has no capability to learn more than one L2, he had not tried

hard to go beyond that limit. Once he knew that there were people out there who had a

similar dream to learn more than one other language and who set a specific plan for their

goal, he also wanted to challenge himself further. As an effort to go beyond his self-set

limit and to attract language friends who have varied native language backgrounds, he

changed his greeting expression from “Nice to meet you” [as of August 22, 2010] to

“Hi,” “안녕하세요,” “你好,” “¡Hola!,” “Hallo,” “Salut,” and “Привет” [as of March 4,

2011] on his profile page as below:

In the case of AriZona, she stated that she had an urge to learn a new foreign

language because of her friends. For example, after she joined Lang-8, she happened to

read an entry written by a French user learning Korean. Because she was a native speaker

of Korean, she corrected her French friend‟s Korean on that day, and continued to

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provide help for her even though their language needs did not perfectly match each other.

(AriZona was a Korean woman learning English and Azurviolet was a French woman

learning Korean). Some times after AriZona corrected more of this friends‟ entries, she

recalled that she received an email from her saying that she felt very sorry that she could

not help with her English learning, but she was willing to help her out if she was

interested in learning French:

She sent me a message that she way sorry not to be able to help my English

learning, so if I want to learn French, she really wants to help me out. Since then,

we often exchanged messages, and I got a feeling that she is a good person.

People sometimes say that they become interested in a certain culture and

language because of their friends, and it is true for me. I am tempted to learn

French because of her. In reality, however, I may not learn it though. Hahaha

(Interview)

AriZona had no plan to learn French at that time, but she said that she was “tempted to

learn French” because of her French friend. That is, since she was impressed by her kind

message that reflected her friend‟s good personality. She felt an urge to know more about

her and her culture through learning Azurviolet‟s native language.

Lastly, some participants were inspired to change their attitudes towards target

language learning while observing their friends‟ learning practices on Lang-8. For

example, while Katz was watching his Lang-8 friends learn Korean, he commented that

“it seems like foreigners learn Korean faster than Koreans learn English” and it was

partially because of an uninteresting English education in Korea. Recalling the English

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education that he had received during his school days, he portrayed it as a series of

“boring” moments that he could joke about:

There was no teaching of English for practical purpose such as writing in class

during the 10 years of school education in Korea. English class was just a joke,

and it was boring itself. Teachers wrote a lot more in Korean than in English on a

blackboard to explain English grammar. It was not interesting at all… Because

Koreans hadn‟t received efficient foreign language classes in schools, we seemed

to have some kind of „trauma‟ when it comes to language learning. (Interview)

For Katz, it was not a usual experience to see someone enjoy him/herself and learn a

target language at the same time because of his unpleasant English learning experiences

in Korea. Because of what he called the “traumatic” experience of English learning

during school days, Katz felt that most Koreans (including himself) subconsciously had

hard time to see a compatible connection between enjoyment and L2 learning.

However, as he saw how his foreign Lang-8 friends were approaching Korean

learning on Lang-8, he realized that his English learning also does not have to be as it

was in his school days:

When I saw foreigners learning target languages, however, I felt that they learn

them while enjoying themselves. Because they have kept the habit of learning a

language while enjoying it at the same time since their school days, I think they

learn Korean better than us. Among my Lang-8 friends learning Korea, there are

many admirers of Korea such as those who already have an experience of

studying in Korea who like Korean food, and who like Korean music. I think I

have learned something important from them. (Interview)

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Katz noticed that his foreign friends were not learning Korean for the sake of

learning it; instead, they became interested in Korean language learning because they had

fallen for Korean culture (such as ways of Korean life, Korean foods, and Korean music)

first. In fact, many participants learning Korean said that they were first introduced to

Korean culture, and then Korean learning followed. For example, Azurviolet fell for

Korean people, drama, and history first, Coby_코비 for Korean people, and

Turquoisedee for Korean foods and the Korean idol group called “Big Bang.” As Katz

saw how much fun it was for his foreign Lang-8 friends to learn Korean language in

order to get to know more about Korean people and their cultures, he realized that

language learning practices and a feeling of enjoyment do not have to be separated.

Social benefit of staying with equal power. Participants commented that they

enjoyed doing L2 learning activities in the Lang-8 community because they had the

general impression that they could keep an equal relationship with their Lang-8 friends

because all Lang-8 users join this website to learn and take turns correcting each other‟s

writing entries. For example, Katz stated, “Everyone who joined Lang-8 has a mind of

beginners, so they basically access this Website with a heart of understanding, so that I

do not sense any authoritarian attitude from my Lang-8 friends.” AriZona also deemed

that she participates in Lang-8 on the same footing with her Lang-8 friends because of the

similar learner position that most Lang-8 users take in the Lang-8 community. She said:

“One of the biggest reasons that I keep accessing this Website is because

everyone is equal in a way that we are learning a language here. On Lang-8, we

know that a target language that we are learning is not perfect, and we seem to

understand each other‟s situations. And most of all, we are in the same position

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that we are learning a foreign language here, which makes my mind at ease. When

I used to learn English in language institutes, I sometimes felt offended when

English teachers treated Korean students with disdain. Personally, I have rarely

studied English at this comfort level as I do on Lang-8. (Interview)

Thanks to this shared position as a learner, AriZona believed that she were able to

participate in Lang-8 in a more comfortable and active way. Most of all, she had some

negative experience with native English speaking teachers who looked down on not only

Korean students but also the Koreans because of their poor English proficiency and

different cultures. However, on Lang-8, she felt like her Lang-8 friends showed relatively

more respect to each other‟s language level and culture, which helped her to feel more at

ease with her English learning.

Katz and AriZona also considered their concurrent roles of a tutor and a tutee

contributed to their equal relationship with their friends. Katz stated, “Lang-8 is not a site

where knowledge is unilaterally delivered from someone who has higher knowledge, but

each member corrects each other‟s writing, and that‟s why members naturally approach

each other in a polite manner.” Because of this mutual relationship, AriZona said that she

feels free to ask questions of her friends whenever she has some:

Because we can exchange our language, it is really great that I do not have to

unilaterally study their faces when I have questions to ask. I don‟t know much

about other English learning Website, but it is the best merit that distinguishes

Lang-8 from others. (Interview)

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She becomes more comfortable to ask questions because the reciprocal relationship with

her friends that allowed her to pay back her friends‟ favors by correcting or commenting

on their journal entries.

Some participants counted having a social network with multiple friends as an

important contributor to this equal relationship. That is, by having many friends who can

help with their language learning, participants can have more freedom of their L2

learning activities because they actions are not bound by a few language helpers. In the

interview excerpts below, Katz and Kenshin tell how having multiple friends can prevent

a possible subordinate relationship that they could have with their language helpers:

I can receive help from not only my Lang-8 friends but also people that I‟ve never

known before every day, which means there is no limitation in the number of

teachers who can teach me [on Lang-8]. (Interview with Katz)

If I had one friend to correct me offline, I‟d study his/her face every time I ask

questions. Especially, [having multiple friends on Lang-8] is good for us to make

„choices‟ between corrected sentences, phrases, and styles. (Interview with

Kenshin)

Katz was happy about the fact that there are many helpers on Lang-8, not only from his

existent Lang-8 friends but also from unknown, but potentially available Lang-8 friends,

so that he did not worry about whether he could get corrective feedback or not.

According to Kenshin, thanks to these multiple helpers, he did not have to study one

teacher‟s face when asking his questions as he would do in the real world. Because there

are many helpers in his network, he was not subject to one person for his learning, which

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created a space for him to be more himself while doing his language learning practices on

Lang-8.

Social benefit to increased awareness of others and cultures. Participants also

unanimously stated that they became more aware of other people‟s lives and cultures

through their Lang-8 practices. AriZona said, “My friends‟ entries provided me

opportunities to learn about their personal thinking and life and their countries‟ customs

and cultures.” According to Turquoisedee, “Lang-8 is a very rich source of content that

you can learn about anything,” and added, “On Lang-8 I also learn about culture,

traditions, sayings, pop culture, art, music, and much more.” She also said, “Since I can‟t

travel to Korea or Japan and immerse myself in the culture, I try to immerse myself in the

culture through the communities on Lang-8.” In general, Lang-8 users come to know

about these varied elements of cultures through others‟ journal entries and comments.

Dog stated, “I have learned so much about other cultures just from the comments and

entries that fellow friends have written.”

While reading about his friends‟ lives and cultures, Kenshin stated, “I feel some

sense of „reality‟ that we are currently living on this earth together, consuming our calorie

in each own way.” That is, through friending a variety of people all round the world and

communicating with them on Lang-8, his awareness of others went beyond his living

boundary, but became much clearer and more realistic. Turquoisedee also added that she

already realized by reading books, watching media, and hearing from others that there are

many other people living in this world, but a direct contact with Lang-8 friends from

different countries helped her to reach the clearer realization that “the world is much

bigger” than she thought, and provided good opportunities to broaden her mind:

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Before using Lang-8.com I was really ignorant. I could not distinguish Korean

from Japanese or Chinese. I had the typical American way of thinking that every

Asian is Chinese or Japanese…I [also] heard that Koreans were rudely blunt and

had a superiority complex…I thought that these stereotypes were ridiculous. So,

when I had my first conversation with Korean I saw for myself how wrong those

people were…and I chose to ignore any stereotypes. (Interview)

Before she used Lang-8, she did not know much about Koreans, and what she heard

about was somewhat negative. However, since she communicated with Lang-8 users, she

started to have a much clearer and personalized idea of who Koreans are, and to have a

mind to see other cultures from her experienced perspective rather than from a

stereotypical perspective. Regarding this increased awareness of lives and cultures of

native speakers of a target language, Kenshin stated, “It helps me feel closer to native

speakers of English than I did without Lang-8.”

The increased awareness of others‟ lives in general and others‟ cultures in

particular is closely related to the role that Lang-8 friends play as a cultural insider. As an

insider, Lang-8 friends serve to share views on their own cultures with participants. Dog

portrayed making friends on Lang-8 as “opening a window into another world” because

she learns about different cultures through her friends‟ posts. For her, “the social network

is important” because she said, “I feel the people who have stood out as friends on Lang-

8 have influenced me both in my language learning and my understanding of their

respective cultures.” Gai noted that he learned about a new culture from his friends on

Lang-8, stating, “I read another cultural custom like how to spend new year days in other

205

country for the first time.” Smiller also pointed out that some of her Lang-8 friends really

helped her to understand Japanese culture. She said:

I have another friend who also writes in English very well, and she always writes

extremely interesting things about current events and issues that are relevant in

Japanese culture. I always learn a lot from reading her entries, and she always

responds in detail to any questions I have about Japanese culture. (Interview)

In addition to knowing about others‟ lives and cultures, some participants realized

that Lang-8 practices benefit them in a way that they are able to see their own lives and

cultures in what Miyoko called “a broader picture” while reading their friends‟ entries,

comments, and questions. Azurviolet, Miyoko, and Gai commented below how their

friends provided them an opportunity to rethink about their own life and cultures:

I learn a lot because they describe their life, some times, when they live in France

I can learn about their life in my country, and sometimes I learn about my

country…I learn about how do people see french people, and how they

understand french culture, interesting ^^ (Interview with Azurviolet)

I learn from those learning Japanese that Japanese culture is interesting and there

are a lot of things that I don‟t notice. For example, for me it is natural to wait lines,

but for others it‟s strange.” (Interview with Miyoko)

I read an opinion about my culture, which is like that I haven‟t ever thought about.

They give me new ideas, so those are very interesting to me. (Interview with Gai)

As Azurviolet, Miyoko, and Gai commented, Lang-8 friends‟ interpretations of others‟

cultures sometimes help cultural natives see their own cultures from different

perspectives.

206

For example, CAM posted a journal entry titled “How do you wash your body?”

on November 13, 2010:

Once she posted this journal entry, she received six content comments from Lang-8 users,

and below are some of the examples:

207

While exchanging these correspondences with her friends, CAM was able to confim that

sitting down while taking a shower is very uncommon in the eyes of “non-Japanese”

people, and moreover, she learned that the idea of sitting on a chair that somebody

already sat on is interpreted as unacceptable for her foreign friends.

According to AriZona, knowing how people from different countries receive her

own culture is not only interesting but also helpful for her because she believed it would

assist her to have a better conversation with them. She said:

It is interesting to read about the difference in cultures between their countries and

mine. I don‟t think the customs and culture of my country had problems because

they feel uncomfortable and unfamiliar with them, but I think it‟s important to

know how others see my culture in order to minimize communication

misunderstandings that these differences can cause. (Interview)

She was fully aware that others‟ discomfort with her own culture is natural because of

their unfamiliarity with it. From this belief, it is important for her to know about these

differences on Lang-8 not because she wants to justify superiority or inferiority of her

own or others‟ cultures but because she wants to have a smoother conversation with

foreigners by minimizing possible misunderstandings that these cultural differences may

create.

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Aspects of Language Development

People join Lang-8 for many reasons, but the most frequently-mentioned one is to

improve their L2s. Thus, whether they are cognitively satisfied or not is one of the

important factors that increases their overall satisfaction level on Lang-8. According to

the participants, they benefited from getting linguistic knowledge, improving vocabulary

retention, improving writing proficiency and styles, improving their native languages,

and learning through varied learning methods.

Language development: Gaining linguistic knowledge. One of the questions

that participants frequently and consistently asked themselves while doing Lang-8

practices was whether they were making progress in L2 learning, and many participants

perceived that they were. Katz expressed his progress on Lang-8, saying, “I had written

only 100 journal entries on Lang-8 so far, but I think I have learned many times more

than I did during my school days.” Participants felt their progress in varied areas, and

firstly, in accruing knowledge of both “correct” (grammatically accurate) and “natural”

(sounding right to its native speakers) language through the written feedback made by

their Lang-8 friends. For example, Katz posted his writing entry on October 25, 2010

under the title, “Junk Food.” The entry was about his reluctance to eat junk food so as to

keep his body healthy. One day, however, he ate a hotdog and explained why he enjoyed

it. Once he posted his entry, he received corrections from one of his friends that same day,

and below is the one example:

209

The received corrections indicate that an article “the” has to be added before “ironic

thing” and the phrase “pushing by” has to be replaced by “at the urging of” in order to

make this sentence grammatically correct. In addition, although the original adjective

“ironical” and the verb “push” have meanings that Katz initially intended to deliver, the

corrections imply that “ironic” and “urge” would sound more natural and authentic to

English native speakers in general, and at least to the corrector. With regard to this type

of feedback that is grammatically correct and sounds right to its native speakers, Gai

commented that it is “very educational” for his L2 learning.

More in detail, many participants commented that they receive much feedback in

the area of word usage, which helps them better articulate their ideas/thoughts. An

example below shows how the feedback that Miyoko received helped her to realize the

difference between “series” and “season” and their lack of interchangeability in the

context of TV dramas:

The example is a part of her TV drama review posted on February 8, 2011, and

corrections and comments that she received from one of her Lang-8 friends who is a

native speaker of English. Miyoko used the term, “series,” in this case to indicate the

whole episodes of the third year run of Brothers & Sisters, saying, “I used „series‟ every

time when I wrote about watching dramas [because] I thought „series‟ meant an episode

and some episodes.” However, after she received the following comment of her friends

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that “a „series‟ is the actual entire show (that has multiple episodes)” and “the „season‟

refers to a particular collection of episodes in a show,” she realized that she had been

using the word, “series,” inappropriately, and that she had to use the word, “season” in

order to accurately convey her intended meaning, a period time that all Brothers &

Sisters episodes were aired in its third year.

Participants often learned natural-sounding language by being introduced to

more-commonly used words/phrases by its native speakers, and this type of feedback

helped them to deliver their intended meaning in a clearer way. For example, in the

journal entry that Gai posted on October 1, 2010, he wrote about his favorite Japanese

dish, an eel bowl. As usual, he received feedback from one of his Lang-8 friends that

same day, and below is one of the examples:

In this instance, Gai was comparing the difference in taste between eels that are caught in

nature and eels that are raised and caught on a fish farm. For the former, he called it

“natural eel,” and for the later, “farm-raised eel.” Although the received corrective

feedback did not clearly point out whether “natural eel” is still an acceptable term or not,

it suggests the corrector‟s intention that “wild eel” sounds more appropriate or more

commonly used than “natural eel” to native speakers of English or at least to the corrector

him/herself.

As part of word usage, participants also often received feedback that shows a

subtle difference in their meanings between similar words. One good example was found

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in Kenshin‟s journal entry titled “I take him to a school playground” posted on November

15, 2010. In this entry, he posted his conversation with his wife about what might happen

if their four-year old daughter brought and introduced her boyfriend home in the future.

According to the entry, if his daughter introduced her boyfriend to him, Kenshin would

not accept him at first and would take him to the playground and have a physical fight to

test whether he would be strong enough to protect her. When his wife heard his plan, she

walked away, saying, “Oh, cut the crap.” Below is the last part of this journal entry along

with the feedback given by his native English speaker friend on that same day:

In his original sentence, he used the phrasal verb, spit out, with an intention to show his

wife‟s explosive response to his nonsensical plan, but the corrector crossed it out, and

suggested to use the verb “mutter” instead. There was no specific explanation listed why

the word “mutter” is more appropriate than “spit out” in this case, but the possible reason

might be that his wife was speaking while she was walking “away” from him, not

standing still and facing him. In response to his friend‟s feedback, he posted this

comment later that day:

First, Kenshin expressed his appreciation to his friend by writing a thank-you statement,

and then showed his acceptance of the friend‟s correction by adding the uptake that

repairs “spitting-out” into “muttering.”

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Participants were also introduced new and alternative words and phrases that

could enrich their ways of expressing thoughts and ideas. Below is the feedback that Gai

received from two Lang-8 users on the same day and three days later respectively after he

posted a summary of the book on October 17, 2010 that he enjoyed reading.

The first corrector changed the clause “they won free” into “they succeeded,” and the

second corrector into “[they] managed to win their freedom.” The first correction

augmented its original meaning by adding the verb “succeed” which implies they

accomplished what they intended to do. It is not clear though whether the original

meaning that “they won free” was cut off by replacing it with the clause “they

succeeded” (because it could mean they succeeded “in breaking out” or “in winning

free”). On the other hand, the second corrector not only rephrased the original clause with

its original meaning untouched but also adding a new meaning that they won freedom

despite all difficulties by using the word “manage,” which serves to color Gai‟s original

sentence with a more dramatic, but contextually appropriate tone.

The below feedback that Katz received from his Lang-8 friends on November 30,

2010 and December 2, 2010 respectively shows an example of the feedback that

introduces alternative ways of saying something without changing its original meaning:

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Although it was not clear whether these two correctors considered the phrase “seeing the

scenery” inappropriate or not, and if it was, why it was so, they showed alternative ways

of saying “seeing the scenery” by suggesting “viewing the scenery” and “looking at the

scenery” respectively.

Participants also often believed that they learn up-to-date language on Lang-8 due

to the fact that they and their Lang-8 friends live in the contemporary world. Kenshin

mentioned that one of the reasons that he likes Lang-8 is because he could test out his

“bookish” knowledge of English and receive its up-to-date version that current English

speakers use or that his Lang-8 friends are familiar with at least. For example, he

remembered the expression “dance a jig of joy” that he came across in the book one day

before, and used it in his entry to express his joyful feeling. Below is the corrective

feedback that he received on the day that he posted his entry, September 24, 2010:

Although the received correction was not correct in that an article “a” was placed before

“joy,” not before “jig,” Kenshin was able to learn alterative ways to express his feeling of

joy that his friend said are more commonly used in this day of age. According to Kenshin,

“dance a jig of joy” is a good example of his “bookish” English—words/expressions that

he was acquainted with more from books than from their actual usages in real contexts—

and Lang-8 is beneficial in that he could get more “updated” English such as “I was on

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clued 9,” “I was walking on air,” and “I was walking a few inches off the ground.” He

said, “After registering on Lang-8, I‟ve been spreading out all my obsolete English in

front of native speakers around the world, and been checking whether it is okay or not.”

Language development: lengthening vocabulary retention. Besides

grammatically correct and natural-sounding language, another beneficial area that

participants believed to have gotten from the cognitive perspective is in the retention of

vocabulary in general, and the retention of productive vocabulary in particular. For

example, Azurviolet wrote that she usually misspelled the word “좋아하는” as

“촣아하는.” However, one day she received the comment that “you have made the

mistake again ^^” and she said it helped her to write it correctly next time. She said,

“Because of his comment, it came to my mind, and when I have to write the word [again],

I remember.”

According to Webb (2005, 2008), L2 learners usually have larger receptive

vocabulary size then productive vocabulary, and one possible reason is that L2 learners

learn vocabulary in a receptive way (such as through reading and listening) in most cases.

Cope, Kalantzis, McCarthey, Vojak, and Kline (2011) said, “By making comprehension

a proxy for „literacy,‟ such texts value a receptive meaning capacity (reading) over a

productive meaning capacity (writing).” Thus, although participants know many words

and phrases when they read or listen, they often have a hard time utilizing their receptive

knowledge in their speech and writing. Kenshin expressed this type of challenge as

follows:

I can read them, [and] hear them well, but I sometimes cannot put them into my

speech…and when I try to write something. Through interaction of exchanging

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suggestions and comments [on Lang-8], the words come into my mind easily and

they just stay there for a long time.

Many times, Kenshin had a hard time applying his listening and reading vocabulary into

the productive process of English. However, through practice of using this receptive

knowledge in the context of real communication offered by Lang-8, he felt that he was

able to expand the size of his productive vocabulary and retain it for a long period of time.

Language development: Improving writing proficiency and styles. Another

cognitive benefit of participating in Lang-8 is that it affords opportunities for participants

to make progress in their writing due to communicative writing practices. The

aforementioned knowledge in accurate and natural language received through friends‟

feedback was believed to be one of the contributors to this progress because it helped

them write in more accurate and natural-sounding ways. In addition to that, they also felt

their improvement in writing was due to increased writing fluency. For example,

Azurvoilet commented that she was proud of herself when looking at the length of her

writing at the present time and comparing it to her first writings. When asked whether her

Korean had improved, Azurviolet responded, “Of course, I write a lot.” In fact, the

average number of words that she had written for the first ten journal entries was 32 per

entry whereas the average for the latest ten entries (as of March 31, 2011) was 104 per

entry. Increased word count has been also observed among the majority of participants

(See Table 6.5).

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Table 6.5

Means of Word Count for the First (F) 10 and Latest (L) 10 Journal Entries

Word

Count

Ken

shin

Miy

oko

Sm

iller

Dog

Katz

Turq

uoised

ee

Azu

rvio

let

CA

M

Coby

_코비

Gai

Seijitap

a

First 10

136 50 423 133 158 24 32 108 72 81 423

Latest 10

143 109 454 110 456 36 104 179 90 206 454

Participants also had opportunities to learn about writing styles indirectly by

reading others‟ journal entries and directly receiving tips from their friends. For example,

AriZona believed that there are many things to learn from Lang-8 users when reading

well-written entries on Lang-8, saying:

Also, I think it may depend on people, but western people tend to produce better-

organized and more concise and accurate writings than Koreans do. It may be

because they have made more practice in composition during school days than

Koreans have. So, when I see well-written Korean writings done even by

foreigners, there are many things that I can learn from them. (Interview)

While reading Korean learners‟ writings posted by Western people, she experienced that

their writings tended to be relatively short, but to be well-structured and went directly to

the point in general. By finding the patterns of writings that her Western friends posted

on Lang-8, she implicitly learned a different writing style.

Participants also received direct tips about writing styles from their friends. Some

correctors gave suggestions according to their own taste, and some according to the

conventional rules. For example, Kenshin posted this journal entry on October 14, 2010,

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writing about the conversation that he and her daughter had on the way home in his car,

and received the following corrective feedback:

In the first piece of feedback, he received additional expressions to start his story with

like “the other day in the car” and “on our way to preschool this morning” along with the

comment that “we [Americans] introduce anecdotes that happened in the car with some

reference to time.” Although the corrector did not say that Kenshin‟s personal way of

starting the story—only mentioning a place, in my Honda in this case—was inappropriate,

she was also suggesting that his writing would sound more native-like if he would follow

how she believes Americans conventionally start their anecdotal stories—with a

combination of a place and time in this case. In the second piece of feedback, the

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corrector is suggesting her personal way of making Kenshin‟s writing sound more

complete by adding “your prince” after “Am I.” Given that this conversation was

between a father and a daughter, she was also attempting to spice up the story by adding

more casual and colloquial expressions, which she believed would make his writing more

natural. In response to the corrector‟s feedback, he posted his comment four days later as

follows:

His response shows how helpful it is for him to directly receive tips about writing styles

from the friend.

Language development: Improving knowledge on “my” language. As an

unexpected benefit of using Lang-8, participants stated that Lang-8 offered an

opportunity for them to learn more about their native language through the activity of

giving feedback on their friends‟ journal entries. As native speakers, participants give

corrections that they believe sound right to the learners of their native language, and this

process gives them an opportunity to think about their own language. Smiller said,

“Correcting people‟s English has also been an amazing experience for me, and it‟s made

me think so much about the English language and grammar in general.” In particular,

many participants said that they often thought about and learned their own language more

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when having trouble finding right answers even though it was their own language. For

example, regarding restudying their own native language, Katz and Gai said as follows:

There are many times when I have to study Korean language grammar to explain

and correct foreigner‟s journal. Actually I had get trouble explaining about

Korean language grammar that is even difficult to Koreans many times. I had to

study Korean language grammar that I have taken for granted so that I can correct

their journal correctly. However, studying grammar was also helpful to me. ^^

(Katz, 6)

I mean…although we can speak our mother tongue fluently, we don‟t know its

grammar in detail. So in my case, I have to study my mother tongue so that I can

teach it to its learners. I think it helps me improve my Japanese and get some

knowledge of it. (Gai)

Although Katz is a native Korean speaker, and Gai, a native Japanese speaker, they often

encountered many situations that they were not sure about correct forms of their native

languages, so they had to restudy their grammars in order to give correct feedback to

learners of Korean and Japanese. In the same vein, AriZona, a native Korean speaker,

also mentioned she restarted to study her native language since she joined Lang-8.

According to her, she barely opened a Korean dictionary to look for some words or

phrases since her high school graduation. However, once she started to try to give

corrections to learners of Korean on Lang-8, she said, “I even started to look up words in

a Korean dictionary, which I never have done for a long period of time.”

In particular, participants seemed to spend further time looking for resources of

teaching their native language when they wanted to make explanations of their

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corrections. Dog, an English native speaker, stated, “I find it hard to explain why things

are in English, and I have to stop and think, or find the answer myself to better explain to

someone else.” She also said, “It has also given me a better understanding of my native

language, English.” As Dog stated, many other participants also agreed that they often

have a hard time explaining why things sounds more natural than others in their native

language even though they can easily distinguish which one sounds more right and which

one does not because they have lack of metacognitive language to explain those “why”

questions. For this reason, many participants often spend time to look for other resources

(such as grammar instruction textbooks or websites) to help them explain the workings of

their native language. Coby_ 코비 said:

I experience how difficult my mother tongue is for a foreigner. By trying to find

explanations for the reasons of my suggestions on others‟ texts, I use lots of

sources to find a clear explanation and learn about my mother tongue too (mostly

grammar). I use lots of sources to find a clear explanation. (Interview)

In summary, participants are aware that they have an ability and authority to tell

something sounds right or not in their own language as a native speaker of that language,

but they also come to realize that they lack metacognitive knowledge to explain questions

of why it is so.

Language development: Learning about experienced learning methods. Many

participants came up with an idea of how to learn and practice L2s on Lang-8 by

observing the ways that other users were learning inside and outside of Lang-8 and by

directly receiving tips of learning methods from the comments, Lang-8 emails, and

journal entries that their fellow Lang-8 users had written. Those tips range from general

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ideas (such as reading books, studying grammar everyday, socializing with others in an

L2, and using other learning websites) to specific ones (such as how to practice L2s

through writing and how to receive more feedback on Lang-8). For example,

Turquoisedee commented that she solely relied on Google Translator when stuck with

Korean words and phrases in the beginning. However, since she was introduced to an

online Korean-English and English-Korean dictionary at Naver.com by one of her friends,

she was enabled to use more correct Korean words in her sentence. She said, “A user

recommended it to me to replace my constant use of Google Translator, and it has helped

quite a bit.”

Some participants like Turquoisedee and Azurviolet mentioned that they also

learned organizing skills from their friends:

I learned my current learning techniques from my friends on Lang-8!!! A user

was explaining what he did with his corrections and where he would keep all his

entries. I thought that his method was very efficient, so I tried it and it provide to

be very effective!! (Turquoisedee)

Because I work and because I have some activities for my family, I needed to be

organized. I didn‟t really receive conseils, but when I read the day life diary of

some people, I can understand how they organize their time. (Azurviolet)

One day, Turquoisedee read a journal entry posted by one of her Korean friends,

explaining what he did with the received corrections, and she copied and utilized his

learning method into hers. In the case of Azurviolet, she was a mother of two daughters,

doing office work during the day and house work in the evening. Once she started

learning Korean, she realized that it was challenging for her to learn something new

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while working and how important it was to organize her time efficiently. Through

reading her friends‟ journals, she came to understand how others successfully squeezed in

time for language learning, and it gave her an idea of how to organize her time.

In some cases, participants also got a hint of what to write on Lang-8 with the

help of their friends. Some time after they joined Lang-8, many participants reported that

they experienced a hard time coming up with topics to write about. For example, Miyoko

said:

I also choose what I write. It‟s good for me, but at the same time I sometimes

don‟t have a topic to write about. Now, this is the time. I don‟t have what I want

to write now, so I have a break to post my journal entries.

As Miyoko did, many participants who had difficulty finding writing topics usually

waited until they came up with topics to write about, but they also often found writing

topics while reading their friends‟ journal entries. For example, Coby_코비 reported that

it was a challenge for him to write a story that is “worth mentioning” on Lang-8, but if he

found that someone wrote an interesting story, he borrowed its topic and posted his own

story. On December 8, 2010, he posted the entry titled “한국 젓가락-Korean

Chopsticks,” but the topic was borrowed from one of his friends, Kenshin. Coby_코비

first read Kenshin‟s journal entry “How to Use Chopsticks and Where is the Holding

Points of your Middle Finger” posted on the same day, and six hours later, he posted his

entry, asking whether he held a pair of Korean chopsticks in the right way. That is, he just

borrowed an interesting topic from one of his friends‟ journal entries, and developed his

own story that was “worth mentioning” on Lang-8.

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However, the lack of writing topics was a bigger problem for those who were

trying to post journal entries every day in particular. There were three among the

participants who were trying to post their journal entries on a daily basis: Kenshin,

Seijitapa, and Azurviolet (See Table 7.6). Among them, Azurviolet reported that she had

trouble in coming up with topics to write about on Lang-8. Since the beginning, she tried

to post her journal entries almost every day, but she realized that she was running out of

writing topics as time went by. However, one day, around June 2010, she happened to

read one Korean user‟s profile page, which explained how he came up with his writing

topics, and since then, she had been using the same method by the time that this research

was conducted. Basically, it is to write word-association journal entries; that is, people

choose one word that comes across the writers‟ mind and write about it in an L2. It is a

very simple method, but she could not think of it until she read about it on her friend‟s

profile page. She liked this method very much, so she posted her testimonial for that

friend as follows:

[Translation] I could not imagine that such a person exists who designs learning

in a different but simple way. The explanations he gives on this page are so clear

and give obvious answers… learning method based on the description: tested and

approved… ^^

According to her, it was a very successful learning method because it enabled her to keep

writing on Lang-8.

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Not many, but a few participants also stated that they received some important

tips from their friends regarding the simultaneous process of thinking and writing in an

L2. One day, they were advised to skip the translation process from their native language

to the target language when writing, and instead, just to think and write in their L2s. For

example, Kenshin commented that he had been writing directly in English rather than

translating Japanese into English, and it helped him to write and react faster in his target

language. He said, “It‟s kind of challenge for me to do so, but it‟s worth it.” Dog also

praised this simultaneous thinking and writing process, stating, “I have learned more by

keeping up this habit, writing and thinking in Spanish daily, than I have by taking

classes.” In the case of Seijitapa, he did not receive this advice directly from his Lang-8

friends, but he posted this idea on his journal entry and received support from one of his

friends:

The commentator was supporting Seijitapa‟s idea that the habit of thinking in English

would help him to improve English output ability.

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Psychological Aspects

Last but not least, participants often experienced that they received some

psychological benefits while learning L2s on Lang-8 such as more being motivated to

stay consistent and active in their learning, enjoying learning and practicing L2s, being

less afraid of making errors, and feeling less alone in their journey of learning.

Psychological benefit of increasing motivation, consistency, and activeness.

One of the most frequently mentioned benefits of using Lang-8 from the psychological

perspective is that participants were motivated to learn in a more active and consistent

manner. When asked whether they wrote in their L2s actively and consistently before

they used Lang-8, all participants replied that they rarely wrote anything in their L2s

before. However, as Table 6.6 shows, all participants4 posted their writing entries on a

regular basis on Lang-8. According to AriZona, for example, she agreed that knowing

about Lang-8 served as momentum to keep her learning on a regular basis:

Others said that they started to have mutation to study harder after they came back

from a trip overseas, but I wasn‟t motivated…However, since using Lang-8, I

have changed a bit. I think Lang-8 gives me a reason not to stop learning English.

Most of all, I had been frustrated because I could not understand why my learning

practices were not as strong as my desire for learning English is, but I am

studying English little by little every day thanks to Lang-8.

AriZona knew how important English would be for her future, so she tried many ways to

study it, but she had trouble keeping her studies up. Even overseas trips from which she

heard most people were motivated to learn L2s were not strong enough to provide her

4 The rate of postings of AriZona is not included in Table 7.6 because she only gave me consent to use her

interview data.

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with a motive to learn English. However, she felt that she was able to get into a regular

pattern of learning English once she began using Lang-8.

Table 6.6

The Rate of Postings Each Month (from July, 2010 to March, 2011)

Kenshin (34.9) Miyoko (8.1) Smiller (2.3) Dog (6)

Katz (4.1) Turquoisedee (7.8) Azurviolet (31.3) CAM (7.2)

Gai (6) Coby_코비(4.7) Seijitapa (22.1)

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Among the participants, Kenshin was the one of the most active users who visited

Lang-8 and posted his journal entries everyday, but he also agreed that it was not easy to

keep himself motivated to learn his L2s:

Without Lang-8, I‟d do all my daily activity in Japanese and would rest in peace,

but I feel a bit frustrated because I can‟t improve my language skills without any

practice. I would have been just a laid-back person if there had been no

motivating communication with Lang-8 friends.

That is, he had a desire to learn and improve his L2s (English and Spanish), but he would

have not done anything special about it; instead, he would still have had a laid-back

attitude toward practicing the L2s and would have felt frustration because there was

nobody around that he could practice English and Spanish with. However, thanks to

encouraging people like his Lang-8 friends, he kept himself motivated to learn further on

Lang-8.

According to the participants, before they joined Lang-8, they had a trouble

keeping themselves consistently motivated to learn language, particularly when there was

no one around to help with their language leaning. Around the time that they joined

Lang-8, many participants were learning language without the help of others not because

they liked to study alone but because they could not afford to get help from others (like

hiring tutors or attending language institutes due to their busy schedule and limited

budget) or simply because they could not find anyone around them who could provide

consistent help for them. Although their motive was strong enough to keep up their study

alone, they also knew the limitation of a self-directed learning with no help from others.

For instance, Azurviolet stated, “Learning by oneself, with nobody speaking around you,

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is difficult: Self-motivation is good, but is not all.” Namely, self-motivation is important

in learning a language, but it is not enough to keep up her learning. Gai also mentioned

that it was hard to sustain his motivation when there was “no one around” to ask

questions of and to try out what he learned.

As Kenshin and AriZona said before, all other participants also reported that

Lang-8 helped them keep their learning practices going. Dog stated, “Lang-8 to my study

seems to be the best way so far that I have found to inspire me to want to work on my

language studies daily.” The benefits that participants perceived they received from

participation in Lang-8 contributed to sustaining their L2 learning motivation, so it may

be redundant to address them all here. Among many, it is worthwhile to note one

particular reason that all participants agreed to: they unanimously said that they became

more motivated to keep up their language learning because of their friends on Lang-8,.

All in all, the reply below that Azurvoilet gave during the interview sessions seems to

sum up the other participants‟ thoughts, too:

I write in Lang-8 because I want to exercise, then because I want to help people

who learn French, and because I can see that I progress. I want to write more and

more in order to progress more and more. I continue to write because of my

friends‟ encouragements, and because of my friends‟ help. I can find people like

my friends in Lang-8 nowhere. ^^ (Interview)

Psychological benefit of learning and practicing with enjoyment. Participants

also reported having the feeling of the joy of learning and practicing L2s as one of the

benefits of using Lang-8. When asked about language learning experiences before using

Lang-8, most participants reported many unpleasant feelings, ranging from “passive” to

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“boring” to “unenthusiastic” to “being lost” to even “painful.” During schools days, for

example, Kenshin recalled that his English classes were “boring” because he most did

drill-type exercises and rote-memorization of vocabulary and grammar rules. Miyoko

also shared similar memories, saying, “Learning English in my school days was a passive

activity in a way that I had to study English for a test, and I didn‟t have [the same]

enthusiasm [to learn English] that I have now.” For her, learning English back then was a

passive activity because she was forced to learn it for a school test. In the case of Dog,

she remembered that she had a great time learning Spanish during her elementary school

days because the class was full of fun activities like learning “culture,” creating “Spanish

names,” and having “fiestas (parties).” However, once she went to high school, she ended

up losing her interest in learning Spanish because she could not catch up with all

grammar rules taught in class, stating, “We focused primarily on grammar, and I felt very

lost.” Although each participant showed different levels of enjoyment of learning L2s

during their school days, they had negative feelings towards L2 learning in school,

particularly when it was full of passive and unmeaningful learning exercises.

Once they graduated from elementary and secondary schools, participants

theoretically had more liberty to choose their learning ways as they wanted, but in reality,

it was not as easy as they thought. As mentioned earlier, participants were limited in the

amount of time and budget they could afford to use for L2 learning; therefore, although

they found good ways of learning language (such as enrolling in private language

institutes), they were not able to consistently keep them up due to these time and money

reasons. AriZona was the one participant who invested most in her English learning.

Since she graduated from high school, she tried many ways to learn English such as

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attending TOEIC classes and conversational classes taught by an English native speaker,

enrolling in online English courses focused on conversation skills, and registering for a

telephone English service, which cost her not only time that she could have been working

but also money because she had to pay about 150 dollars each month. However, since she

had to take a break from her work for a personal reason, she had to drop all these various

ways of learning English. Looking back on those days, she remembered that she did not

enjoy learning English even using all those methods. She said, “I felt like I wasted my

time and money back then.”

Because of these obstacles, many participants turned their attention to free

language learning materials that also could free them up from constraints of time, money,

and space, which are, for example, radio broadcasting programs, podcasts, TV programs,

movies, books, and multi-media materials found on the Internet. These multi-media

materials served to keep their language learning more interesting than mere paper

textbooks did during and even after their school days, but they were still mostly focused

on listening and reading activities, which were passive and isolated in a way that there

was no interaction with people.

Once they started to use Lang-8, however, the majority of the participants agreed

that they began to enjoy learning L2 more than they did before. For example,

Turquoisedee commented that it was a “painful” experience for her to learn Korean with

a textbook by herself, but she regained her enjoyment while participating in Lang-8

activities:

It was painful because I wasn‟t completely enjoying it. When you don't enjoy

what you are learning you tend to get bored easily and be distracted. My Korean

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studies was more of a routine rather than an activity. Since it is so fun to post and

write humorous entries for my Lang-8 friends, I actually look forward to studying

Korean!

She believed that the nature of fun on Lang-8 is similar to that on any other social

networking website; that is, the fun on Lang-8 “comes from socializing and connecting

with people from all over the world and learning from them.” Like Turquoisedee, many

other participants also agreed that the social affordances that Lang-8 provided for their

L2 learning was a reason for their enjoyment. Kenshin said, “It is just fun to discuss with

the world.”

Psychological benefit of being less afraid of making mistakes. No matter

whether at a beginner or advanced level, the majority of participants reported that they

were not comfortable with writing in L2 because of the language errors that they usually

made. However, in the Lang-8 community, it turned out that they had less stress about

making language errors because of comforting environments formed by their Lang-8

friends. First of all, participants became less embarrassed by their errors due to the

supporting corrections and comments of their Lang-8 friends. That is, participants saw

that their friends play a role in encouraging them to be less shy about their errors because,

as Coby_코비 mentioned, “corrections have a kind of friendly nature, and comments are

mild suggestions for improvement” on Lang-8. Describing herself as “introversive,”

CAM stated that she was “afraid of making errors more or less in other places because it

could result in misunderstanding.” However, in the Lang-8 environment, she felt “at ease

with making errors.” In other words, because of the supporting and understanding

atmosphere created by Lang-8 friends who she believed were willing to understand her

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writings with a good intention, she felt that there was a low risk of causing

misunderstanding due to her errors in English on Lang-8.

There were also some cases reported that participants gained confidence in using

L2s on Lang-8 even with their language errors. For example, Miyoko stated, “I am less

afraid of making mistakes on Lang-8 because… everybody makes mistakes.” Seeing that

all Lang-8 users made errors in their writing regularly, she realized that an error is part of

the language learning practices for every Lang-8 user, which is related to AriZona‟s

remark that “everyone on Lang-8 takes a learner‟s position.” Because of this shared

position as a learner, Coby_코비 said, “making mistakes is not bad but natural in this

case.” Miyoko also reported another reason for not being afraid of making errors.

Interestingly, she said that she was encouraged to keep using English with foreigners

since she found that her imperfect English did not impede her from building a good

relationship with English speaking friends. She stated, “My English is not good enough

to communicate with foreigners, but I manage to have a good relationship with Lang-8

friends.” Because of this achievement of a successful relationship with Lang-8 friends

even with limited English, she became less shy about her errors and was able to gain

more confidence in using English. In the case of CAM, she became less nervous about

making errors since she noticed a positive relationship between errors and language

improvement, stating, “On Lang-8, the more I make errors, the better I could be in

writing English.”

Psychological benefit of feeling less alone. Another psychological benefit that

participants received was that they felt less lonely in studying their target language in the

Lang-8 community. As addressed before, many participants were learning L2s alone

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around the time that they first learned about Lang-8, and they often felt lost with nobody

around them to support their study. However, thanks to their Lang-8 friends, some

participants felt that they were less alone in their L2 learning. For example, when

receiving comments and corrections from her Lang-8 friends, Azurviolet said, “It‟s like I

was not alone.” Turquoisedee and Miyoko also commented that they were relieved to

know that they were not alone in the struggles of language learning thanks to their

friends:

Lang-8 is not a miracle worker. It won‟t just solve your language problems

immediately. It is a tool…I still struggle with Korean and I still find it hard to

write a decent paragraph but using Lang-8 I am not alone in my struggle. I have

plenty of patient teachers who are willing to help. (Interview with Azurviolet)

I teach myself English, I sometimes feel lonely, and not gain at all. When I feel

depressed, I write journals on Lang-8. So my friends correct my journal and write

comments. I‟m always cheered up by them. Lang-8 is necessary for me to learn

English with fun… Now I have some friends who learn languages on Lang-8.

Now I don‟t feel lonely at all because I have friends to talk with (Interview with

Miyoko)

As Azurviolet and Miyoko said, most participants also agreed that their feeling of

loneliness in the process of self-studying had been overcome by having someone with

them in their journey of language learning.

Conclusions

The findings of this chapter showed that the research participants benefited from

the participation in the Lang-8 community in varied areas. From the technical perspective,

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Lang-8 functioned as a platform where the participants could create their L2 learning

content and make friends with native speakers of their target languages relatively easily.

Because the Lang-8 community was online, they were less restricted by time and place,

which allowed its users to learn at their own pace, too. From the social perspective, their

friends became their reliable L2 correctors, conversational partners, and real audience in

the Lang-8 community. Thanks to the unique relationships that the participants had with

diverse friends, they could learn L2s in an encouraging, inspirational, empowered, and

culturally-sensitive atmosphere. From the aspect of language development, they were

more likely to receive linguistic knowledge situated in their daily life events, improve

vocabulary and writing, and learn about other L2 learning methods. Lastly, as

psychological benefits, they gained more motivation to consistently and actively learn

L2s, and received emotional support to feel less alone, to be less afraid of making errors,

and to enjoy their own L2 learning.

These perceived benefits are in line with findings of existing research studies on

L2 literacy practices with social media in out of school contexts. For example, as Almon,

the research participant in Lam‟s study (2000), transformed himself into a positive and

active communicator in his L2 while creating a personal website featuring a J-pop singer,

being affiliated with the J-pop communities, and continuously participating in social

relationships with J-pop fans through the Internet, my research participants also were able

to establish more positive images of themselves while participating in the Lang-8

community. As Nanako, the research participant in Black‟s study (2006), gained

confidence in using her L2 while posting her fan fiction, receiving prompt, affirmative,

and constructive responses from Fanfiction members, and experiencing cooperative and

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participatory ambience on Fanfiction.net, the participants in this study also benefited

from the supportive and encouraging atmosphere that Lang-8 members promoted. Lam

and Rosario-Ramos (2009) indicated that multilingual development became essential to

online social relationships of immigrant youths in the United Sates, and the Lang-8

participants also experienced the social meaning of learning and developing a new

language in the Lang-8 community.

The benefits that the participants mentioned are closely related to their efforts to

overcome hardships that they often encountered before they knew about Lang-8, which

are also parallel to L2 learning situations in typical classroom settings. For example, as

participants said that they had a hard time making real friends with speakers of their L2s

and having consistent conversations with them, typical classrooms are often devoid of

authentic communication in L2s. As the participants always desired to have immediate,

meaningful, and supportive feedback before using Lang-8, students in L2 classrooms also

often receive yes- or no-type feedback through written exams of whose content has

nothing to do with their life. In addition, as most participants had a hard time keeping

their motivation high to learn L2s, students in L2 classrooms often do not understand

why they are learning L2s so that they pay little attention to classroom activities.

The findings of this chapter show that the participants viewed that they benefited

in many ways from using Lang-8, particularly overcoming challenges that they often

faced before using Lang-8. If that was so, the next question will be, “where do all these

benefits came from?” In other words, what made it possible for the research participants

to improve their L2 learning experience in this Lang-8 space, and can those learning

principles found on Lang-8 be applicable to classroom settings, too? The next chapter

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will further discuss the main features of learning environment on Lang-8 that facilitate its

members‟ L2 learning, and their educational implications.

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Chapter Seven

Discussion and Implication

The first two findings chapters of this qualitative study covered two core activities

that SNSs users usually work on: creating profiles and networks of friends (Harrison &

Thomas, 2009). Participants in this study generated their profile pages simply by

answering some questions regarding such descriptors as age, native and target languages,

and location, but in general, they took more time and effort on the following three

elements: screen name, picture, and “About me.” Once they joined Lang-8 by creating

their profile pages, they started to form a social network of friends on the basis of mutual

confirmation from each other as other SNS users do (Boyd & Ellison, 2007), and tried

various activities to maintain their relationships on Lang-8. In Chapter 6, I examined

participants‟ impressions of their Lang-8 friends and perceptions of using Lang-8 for

their L2 learning. Although there were some challenges reported in the midst of their

participation in Lang-8, participants in general perceived that it benefited their L2

learning in many ways.

In general, Lang-8 users in this study created a social network to facilitate their

L2 learning experiences. The network took a form of a community of practice (Lave &

Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 2006; Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder, 2002) in which the

research participants not only received support from group members but also in that L2

learning became a social act in the context of real communications. In this chapter, I will

further discuss some major characteristics of the L2 learning environment that have been

formed and facilitated in this Lang-8 space from a sociocultural perspective in general,

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and the concept of a community of practice in particular, and their pedagogical

implications for L2 learning and teaching in classroom settings.

Lang-8 as a Community of Practice

As reviewed in Chapter 3, a community of practice is a group of people who not

only share an interest but also learn together by developing and doing joint activities

through regular interactions, and is composed of the following three crucial constituents:

a domain, a group of people, and a practice (Wenger, 2006; Wenger, McDermott, &

Snyder, 2002). The findings of this dissertation suggest that L2 learning activities that

participants carried out in this social networking site take the form of community of

practice.

The shared domain: L2 learning. According to Boyd and Ellison (2007), there

is a SNS, categorized as a niche SNS, in which the focus is on accommodating people of

a specific interest rather than attracting people of all interests like Facebook. From this

perspective, Lang-8 is a niche SNS, which was specifically focused on attracting people

interested in learning a new language with the help of its native speakers. When

participants first joined Lang-8, thus, they already had a desire of learning an L2, and that

was the initial reason they gathered in this SNS. Given that the shared domain of interest

among Lang-8 members is learning an L2, the Lang-8 system serves to provide technical

and social support for finding language exchange partners so that each member can

experience his/her own development of linguistic knowledge and skills.

The community: A group of L2 learners. The second constituent component

that makes Lang-8 a community of practice is a group of people who care about learning

L2s. Although the Lang-8 website is used by those who are basically interested in

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learning a new language, this group of people does not automatically form a community

of practice until they start to learn L2s through constant interactions with other Lang-8

members.

Community and sub-community. As Boyd and Ellison (2008) pointed out that

typical SNSs are structured “around people, not interests” as “personal (or „egocentric‟)

networks” (p. 219), Lang-8 also has been organized around its members, not by topical

themes. Once people join the Lang-8 community, they are theoretically given unlimited

chances of having new relationships with as many Lang-8 members as they want.

However, it is virtually impossible for each individual user to interact with all registered

members, so he/she winds up creating a personal network. If the whole Lang-8 system is

an overarching community that functions to gather people with the common interest of

learning L2s from each other in the first place, the personal network that each individual

forms with relatively a few friends can be called a sub-community. This sub-community,

the personalized social network, has some important features as follows.

First, although the website itself (the whole community) preliminarily filters

people by the shared domain of interest, L2 learning in this case, the whole population on

Lang-8 is still too broad and vague for an individual Lang-8 user to feel an attachment to

the community. On the other hand, a sub-community is composed of those that users seek

out on their own. It is not a group of people automatically given and assigned to each user

upon their registration; rather, it is a group of people that each user selectively chooses to

be friends with according to his/her own criteria. For example, when Lang-8 users send

requests, they consider language matches, others‟ activeness, compatibility of their

interests, and personalities. When accepting requests, they mostly welcome all requests,

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but also consider whether requesting users are total strangers and/or whether they are

interested in their native languages or not. These criteria indicate users‟ own active role

in forming personal networks in the Lang-8 environment. In the sub-community,

therefore, the composition of members is relatively narrowed, but more focused and

specified. Due to these personalized social networks, users are more likely to be attached

and related to their selected friends, and their interactions with them become more

frequent and stronger, and more tangible and real.

Secondly, the sub-community that each Lang-8 member makes consists of people

that he/she spends most of his/her time with in the Lang-8 space; thus, depending on what

experience he/she has with their own sub-community members, their perceptions of

Lang-8 can be different. In other words, their impression and perceptions on the whole

Lang-8 community does not come from the contact with the whole Lang-8 population,

but from their local experience with their sub-community members. Therefore, depending

on the quality of L2 learning activities and relationships with their Lang-8 friends, Lang-

8 users can have positive or negative perceptions towards the whole Lang-8 community.

Thirdly, due to the selective process of choosing group members and more intensive

interactions with them in this sub-community, the domain of interest tends to be more

intensified and focused as long as solid and constructive relationships continue among

group members. Fourthly, the multiple relationships in the sub-community seem to make

it possible to keep the power balanced between a user and his/her friends. Because each

user usually keeps multiple helpers and readers who give L2 feedback and are willing to

read his/her journal entries (between 53 and 448 in the case of the participants in this

study), the degree of dependability that goes to a single native speaker is divided into

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many, and it helps the user to be less subject to one or a few helpers in their L2 learning

process.

Legitimacy for peripheral relationships. As discussed in Chapter 5, there exist at

least two tiers of friendships on Lang-8. In general, the inner circle of friends are those

that users interact with most on a regular basis and feel close to, but the outer circle are

those that users feel distant from because they are just starting to get to know them or

they lose contact with them over time. Except for the core inner circle friends who

consistently stay with the users for a long period of time, the composition of friends in

both inner and outer tiers tend to change over time. For example, new members join the

outer first and then move to the inner as the number of interactions increases. However,

as time goes by, some members stay in the inner circle or even become a core group of

friends, but some make a transition to the outer circle depending on their own situations.

There are some interesting characteristics of member relationships noted in this

Lang-8 community. The first characteristic is that the process of obtaining a legitimate

status as a member in the Lang-8 community is not complicated. In general, people

acquire their legitimacy of staying and participating in the Lang-8 community upon

signing up for it, which is even before forming a network of connections and/or joining

others‟ social networks. As long as people have a desire to learn L2s together, the Lang-8

community welcomes them and confers legitimacy of their membership regardless of

their personal backgrounds. However, it does not mean that this easily-granted legitimacy

is automatically transferred when it comes to each individual‟s sub-community. Since

people make their own network or join others‟ with more criteria in mind (such as

activeness and personalities), the process of securing legitimacy at this sub-community

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level tends to be more complicated than when they are joining Lang-8. Nevertheless,

creating and joining social networks on Lang-8 is not something too difficult to perform

because those criteria are still closely related to their general interest of learning L2s

together. Therefore, as long as a strong desire for mutual learning of L2s (such as active

participation and a generous, giving personality) is verified by other users, users can form

and join social networks on Lang-8 without much difficulty.

Secondly, it is interesting to note that there are diverse ways to stay in someone

else‟s network. Wherever users choose to stand, each status has its own place in the

Lang-8 community. That is, no matter whether people stay at the margin or at the core of

each relationship, or somewhere in between, networked friends are valued in their own

way. When users make friends on Lang-8, they realize that it is not realistic to equally

invest their time in all those in the list of friends due to their hectic lifestyle in real world,

so they usually end up having a close relationship with some friends, but a peripheral one

with others. However, the marginal status does not mean that they consider those at the

margin to be of no value. As reported by some of my research participants before, their

presence is still appreciated by many Lang-8 users, for they are still possible readers for

their journal entries and could be potential L2 correctors and commentators. In addition,

some people have a belief that they might be able to re-gain their relationship with these

peripheral friends at later time because life is always full of unexpected things and events.

For them, keeping their peripheral friends alive (even those who seem to be gone forever)

in their network means to save their hope for unexpected but pleasant happenings in their

journey of L2 learning.

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The third characteristic is that the user mobility is somewhat fluid in this Lang-8

community. Depending on their needs and conditions, Lang-8 users can not only freely

position themselves either in the outer circle (as contacts and distant friends) or in the

inner circle (as close friends), or in between, but also easily move back and forth between

these circles simply by choosing their levels of activeness in user interactions. The fluid

mobility in member relationships suits most Lang-8 users well who already lead a hectic

lifestyle in their work and personal lives. If users were required to maintain close

relationships all the time so that they had to equally interact with all of their friends, not

many people would be able to remain on Lang-8. Instead, the Lang-8 community allows

users to freely regulate their levels of relationship with Lang-8 friends according to their

own circumstances by easily moving back and forth between inner and outer tiers of

friendships. Therefore, if they cannot afford to actively participate in activities conducted

by their friends at a certain point of their Lang-8 use, they can temporarily withdraw from

their networks but rejoin them by their active participation later. All these withdrawal and

re-entering processes frequently happen and are considered a normal part of Lang-8

activities, so users feel free to take more flexible relationships with others.

“Strong” community. As Wenger et al. (2002) comment that group members‟

relationships in a strong community of practice is characterized by “respect and trust,”

“homogeneity and diversity,” “voluntary participation,” “distributed leadership,”

“reciprocity,” and “openness” (p. 35-37), the relationships that participants in this study

talked about in the Lang-8 space also reflect such characteristics. In general, the

relationships between Lang-8 users are based on the respect of and trust in each other‟s

expertise in their own native language and culture. They frequently see a coexistent

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stance of sameness and differentness in their relationship. The sameness as L2 learners

raises a sympathetic feeling towards their friends, and the differentness in ways of

thinking and doing caused by factors like a language level, cultural knowledge, lifestyle,

and learning experience serves to provides something new to learn from each other. A

social network on Lang-8 is also based on a user‟s voluntary participation, so that access

to and withdrawal from others‟ sub-communities are relatively easy; however, once a

relationship is formed, a sense of mutual commitment that users build up from each

other‟s caring behaviors tends to remain strong due to this voluntary participation. In the

Lang-8 community, leadership is dispersed among group members due to the large

number of language helpers, diversity in their expertise, and their reciprocal, “give-and-

take” actions. Therefore, a user plays the role of a master to many apprentices, and at the

same time, the role of an apprentice to many masters. In some cases, this “give-and-take”

action often evolves into a “one-good-deed-deserves-another” spirit as users participate

more over time. Lang-8 users also experience others‟ presence through the continuous

process of friends making and maintaining, which helps them to be more exposed to

different ideas and thoughts.

Although this “strong” community of practice is based on such positive and

constructive relationships between members, it does not mean that no conflicting feeling

occur among Lang-8 users. For example, a diversity of group members brings in

something new in their learning, but it may also cause a misunderstanding among them.

Due to the difference between members, some participants in this study had experienced

being cut off from their friends‟ networks and losing contact with them. Many

participants also had such experiences that their inner voices were challenged through

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their L2 learning activities. For example, in the process of meeting different perceptions

of their own and others‟ cultures from the lens of outsiders and insiders, Lang-8 members

often experience an inner conflict between their old and these new perspectives.

Borrowing Bakhtin‟s (1981) words, the previously held perspective functions as a

centripetal force, which has a tendency to unite and reconcile different thoughts, values,

beliefs, and actions to the current way of thinking. On the other hand, the different

perspectives from friends on Lang-8 functioned as a centrifugal force, which made Lang-

8 users keep a distance from their old ways of thinking and acting. When the conflict

occurred between these two, participants did not simply choose to accept or deny one

side‟s viewpoint. Instead, many participants said that they tried to take those conflicts as

an opportunity to know more about both their own and others‟ cultures and ideas, and as

conversation topics with which they could develop closer relationships with their friends.

Conflicts also take place when what Bakhtin (1981) calls authoritative and

internally persuasive discourses are discordant. When first joining the Lang-8 community,

most users usually contact such an authoritative voice not only from their Lang-8 friends

but also within themselves that native speakers‟ use of their target language is natural and

reliable, and this authoritative voice is also persuasively accepted by them. That is, their

authoritative and internally persuasive voices correspond with each other. However,

while occasionally going through their own struggles to give corrective feedback to

learners of their native language and while noticing errors of native speakers‟ of their

target language in their corrective feedback, Lang-8 users often realize that even native

speakers (including themselves) cannot be always right. When their inner voice begins to

question native speakers‟ authoritative stance on their own language, Lang-8 users try to

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adjust the native speakers‟ stance in their own persuasive ways; for example, they think

that the accuracy of corrective feedback can be different depending on who corrects,

native speakers may also lack knowledge of their own native language as they themselves

do, and they may know how to say something naturally but not know how to explain why.

In this negotiation process with their internal voice, Lang-8 users adjust native speakers‟

positions from “they know everything” to “they may be wrong.” However, it does not

mean that the native speakers‟ authority in their own native language is disregarded by its

learners; instead, this negotiation indicates that L2 learners gradually play a role of being

a major agent of their language learning.

As Bakhtin (1981) explained, collisions between current (centripetal) and new

(centrifugal) forces and between authoritative and internally persuasive discourses can be

a starting point to rethink what people have taken for granted and to create new meaning

out of it. In addition, it tends to raise the chance for people to understand their own and

others‟ perspectives better. However, all these increased chances may end as mere

chances unless there is a continuous dialogue over those conflicts. People may encounter

a difference, but they may not be able to project it into the process of better

understanding and new meaning creation if a consistent dialogue over that matter is not

followed. In the Lang-8 community, supportive and encouraging relationships based on

respect and reciprocity between Lang-8 users promote a dialogue-friendly environment

that users take those conflicts in a constructive way, which benefits them by increasing

the likelihood of being more open to new and different thoughts and actions and to create

their own meanings out of them.

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The practice: Ways of doing in L2s. A community of practice is not just people

who gather around their common interest, but practitioners who develop, share, and

maintain “a set of frameworks, ideas, tools, information, styles, language, stories, and

documents” (Wenger et al., 2002, p. 29). A practice is a way of approaching things with a

set of knowledge, thoughts, conduct, and artifacts that are shared by community members.

Although some practices may be externally observed even by non-members (outsiders),

most practices are fully understood and embodied only by community members. In the

following section, I will summarize some main characteristics of the practices that Lang-

8 users do when approaching L2 learning in this Lang-8 community.

Blurry boundary between learning and networking activities. In the Lang-8

community, L2 literacy and learning activities are deeply rooted in a networking activity

in that the activities for acquiring linguistic knowledge become an essential part of

making and maintaining friends, and vice versa. For example, the possibility for

cognitive growth in L2 starts with a process of posting journal entries and giving and

receiving feedback on Lang-8. From the cognitive perspective, the posting activity is an

output process, which functions for Lang-8 members to realize what they know and do

not know about L2 and/or test out their hypothesis about it (Gass, 1997; Swain, 1985;

VanPattern, 2003). In the Lang-8 community, however, it also has another important

meaning as a primary action for making and maintaining friend relationships. As the

participants in this study already experienced, posting is like an invitation to others to

join the poster‟s network. Through the texts of their journal entries, Lang-8 users are able

to present many different aspects of their life and publicize their own presence in the

Lang-8 community. In addition, the high rate of posting creates an image of an active L2

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learner, which positively affects a process of building and maintaining relationships. In

general, posting activity is closely linked to both users‟ intention of improving their

linguistic knowledge and their desire for making friends in the Lang-8 space.

Feedback activity on Lang-8 is a practice of giving and receiving modified input

of a target language, but at the same time, it carries out social meaning. In general, giving

feedback entails a commenter‟s desire to make a friend with a poster and maintain a

consistent and close relationship with him/her. It also releases an image that the

commenter him/herself is generous and confident enough to give corrections and

comments. The act of receiving feedback also has a similar social meaning. Receiving

feedback matters to most Lang-8 users because it creates not only an opportunity to

receive native speakers‟ input on their language use, but also a feeling that their presence

has been recognized and acknowledged by other Lang-8 users.

Even errors and mistakes also have double meanings on Lang-8. In a cognitive

account of SLA, errors are typically viewed as something to be repaired (no matter

whether they have positive or negative connotations). For example, although Dulay, Burt,

and Krashen (1982) said that L2 errors reflect learners‟ creativity and systematic

tendency in L2 learning, they also defined them as “the flawed side of learner speech or

writing that deviate from some selected norm of mature language performance” (p. 139).

On the other hand, from the social dimension, particularly in the Lang-8 community, they

are the first contact point in most cases that both a poster and a reader are introduced to

each other. Theoretically, if Lang-8 users made no errors and mistakes so that their

second languages were perfect, there would be no reason for them to meet one another in

the first place. They join Lang-8 because they know that they are imperfect. Because they

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know that there is something that they need to work on, they are trying to meet others on

Lang-8. Although no user deliberately makes errors and mistakes just to make friends,

they lay out a pretext for both posters and correctors to communicate with each other.

Errors and mistakes could be viewed as L2 learners‟ vulnerable points, but in the Lang-8

community, they are accessible points. They are something that triggers contact between

Lang-8 members, serves to become conversation topics, and links people to people in a

smooth and consistent way. In the end, errors and mistakes are an indispensable part of

friend making process.

L2 practice as real communication: Utterance. Besides that L2 learning

practices are embedded in actions of building social relationships, L2 practices on Lang-8

have a tendency to take place in a context of real communication. Following Bakhtin‟s

(1986) perspective on language, L2 writing in the Lang-8 space take features of an

“utterance” in that each posting (e.g., a journal entry and a comment) is bounded by a

change of posters, finalized by the possibility of responding to it, and related to both the

poster and his/her current and potential Lang-8 friends. When preparing postings, Lang-8

users conjure up their writing topics in response to their surrounding life events, and post

their own understandings of them. This suggests that the posting activity is preceded by

previous interactions with the writers‟ inner and outer worlds at its beginning stage.

However, it is not simply a reflection and interpretation of the past. The posting always

functions as a link to the future utterance in a way that it targets a general or specific

audience in the Lang-8 community and reflects the speaker‟s wish to be reached and

responded to by others. This also partially explains why Lang-8 users try to write and

post “interesting” entries and why such positive feelings as happiness, satisfaction, and

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relief are followed when getting others‟ active responsiveness. All in all, the view of L2

posting on Lang-8 as an utterance reemphasizes the view of L2 practices as a social act in

a real communication that links people to people through written texts.

L2 practice as real communication: Contact with a new world. In the Lang-8

community, learning a new language naturally leads to making connections with new

people who are related to that language. In many cases, a network that each Lang-8 user

weaves is limited to those members who understand the weaver‟s native language and/or

target language. For example, a native French speaker learning Korean usually forms a

network with French speaking/learning and Korean speaking/learning people. For those

users who do not know French or Korean, the network is not even accessible to them due

to language barriers. (They can physically see the network, but cannot understand what is

going on inside the network.) In the Lang-8 community, learning/knowing another

language (regardless of its level) is like acquiring a password that enables users to enter a

specific sub-community that they want to take part in. Therefore, knowing and learning

many languages implies a better accessibility to varied sub-communities on Lang-8 than

those who know/learn less.

Although it happens as a course of L2 learning activities rather than as an

intentional outcome, the connection with diverse people through L2 learning activities

leads Lang-8 members to contact with new worlds. Throughout the process of posting

and commenting in L2s on Lang-8, users often encounter new cultures, thoughts, and

ideas posted by diverse types of Lang-8 friends. Contact with these new worlds raises a

sense of both sameness and differentness in the ways of living, acting, thinking, and

learning. They sometimes find someone who they can identify with, and find some others

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who they think are distant from themselves. Through this consistent contact and

communication with others in the Lang-8 environment, users at least get a chance of

recognizing their selves and countries from other perspectives and re-thinking about the

meaning of “otherness” in more constructive ways.

L2 practice as real communication: Identities. As Bahktin (1984) views that use

of language in communication involves a process of (re)construction of a sense of

identity, Lang-8 members‟ language practices also take the form of real communication

in social relations, and varied forms of identity engagement are always followed by them.

The first example is found in Lang-8 users‟ profile activity. As a first step to make

appearance in the Lang-8 community, they create a profile page, with which they

characterize themselves through multiple methods of self-representation such as symbolic,

visual, textual, and behavioral. For instance, although some users use their real names as

screen names on Lang-8, many people use borrowed or coined names, which

symbolically represent their characteristics through such things as their favorites and

language backgrounds. Profile pictures also serve to directly or symbolically depict users

by showing their real figures or things that are related to them. In the About-me section,

users form their images textually by writing about themselves and behaviorally by

creating multiple versions of their introductions in different languages and/or with

different contents and/or by updating and revising them on a regular basis. These L2

activities in their own profile page are a big part of their friend-making practice, which

eventually reflects users‟ ideas of how to define, announce, and perform who they are in

this Lang-8 community. Some users do this in passive ways and some in active ways, but

in the end, the combination of varied segments of a profile page (e.g., screen name,

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profile picture, and About-me) and of multiple modes of self-representation help Lang-8

members manage their images in the way that they want.

Another example for identity (re)construction embedded in L2 learning practices

is found in the varied roles that Lang-8 members take up throughout their Lang-8 use. For

example, once users start interactions with their friends on Lang-8, they realize the

importance of balancing both positions of a teacher/tutor and of a learner/tutee. Lang-8 is

designed to match people who are willing to help each other learn his/her partner‟s native

language, so their relationship is basically grounded in mutual help. When giving help

outweighs receiving it, it tends to give out a positive image as a generous friend, but

when receiving exceeds giving, it tends to produce a negative image that that person does

not care much about others‟ learning, and it may eventually affect his/her friend-making

process. However, when someone‟s practice relies primarily on giving, it may also put

his/her friends into an awkward situation in that there are few ways to return the favor to

him/her. Therefore, when active users start L2 practices on Lang-8, they think of playing

those two teacher and learner roles in a thoughtfully balanced way.

Engaging in a teacher role when giving feedback on their native language and a

learner role when receiving feedback on their target language may look the same as the

roles that teachers and students typically take in a teacher-centered classroom setting

where the former have authority over the latter in every aspect of teaching and learning.

However, the meanings of those roles are taken somewhat differently on Lang-8.

Although teacher and learner roles can be separately activated according to types of L2

practices (such as giving and receiving), the role itself also takes a hybrid characteristic in

a way that each role reflects a teacher-learner crossover identity. Because their practice is

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rooted in a mixed relationship as a teacher and a learner to each other, Lang-8 users have

their learner position in mind even when teaching and their teacher position in mind even

when learning. In addition to this teacher-learner crossover, L2 users also add a friend

personality to their L2 practices. As participants in this study reported that Lang-8

members consider those who are in a close relationship as friends, L2 learning practices

in the Lang-8 community are based on friend relationships. Therefore, when they teach

and/or learn, they also take a hybrid personality like a friend-teacher and/or a friend-

learner, which promotes such qualities as mutual respect, trust, reciprocity, and equality

in their teaching and learning activities.

Thirdly, as Bakhtin (1984) claims that a person becomes for the first time who

he/she is through a dialogue, Lang-8 users become for the first time who they are in their

target language through the dialogue with L2 speakers. As discussed earlier, in most

cases a dialogue starts with a journal entry in the Lang-8 space, in which a user shows

his/her understanding of who he/she is by consciously or unconsciously talking about

something important, interesting, and meaningful to his/her life. Through these journal

entry practices, the L2 learner‟s existence not only as a language learner but also as a

whole person appears on the surface of the L2 world. Once the user posts his/her journal

entry, current or potential Lang-8 friends typically give their response to it by reading and

leaving linguistic or content feedback. Here, the response itself functions as a sign of

others‟ recognition of the writer‟s presence in the Lang-8 space, through which the writer

him/herself starts to form a sense of being in L2 in the response to the recognition by the

world of L2 speakers. As Bakhtin claims that a dialogic communication is a prerequisite

for our existence in this world, Lang-8 members‟ interactive communication with their

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audience makes it possible for them to be heard, recognized, and remembered in the L2

world.

Learning content in personalized contexts. Another interesting feature of

practices performed in the Lang-8 community is that linguistic knowledge that learners

are trying to acquire is contextualized in their real life stories. In general, Lang-8 users

contextualize learning content by writing journal entries related to their life events. In

most cases, writings posted by Lang-8 users are like personal logs, which take many

forms of writing (such as anecdotes, book or movie reviews, descriptions, how-to-do-it

essays, opinions, etc.) and cover varied types of writing styles (such as narrative,

expository, descriptive, and persuasive). Although there exists diversity in each learner‟s

writing in the Lang-8 community, they are similar in that they reflect the writer‟s

personal experiences in real life. Therefore, potential learning content (such as words,

expressions, grammar, and structures) are contextualized in the stories that are possibly

the most relevant to the learner him/herself.

Fluidity between peripheral and full participation. Lave and Wenger (1991)

claim that learning is a situated activity and the mastery of knowledgeable skills involves

a process of “becoming a full participant in a socio-cultural practice” (p. 20). In order to

have active and inclusive participation in practices of social communities, it is crucial for

newcomers to be legitimately accepted by community members at first. As discussed

before, L2 learners easily gain the legitimate status of Lang-8 membership through a

simple sign-up process. In other words, anyone who has a passion for learning an L2 is

basically eligible to be a member of Lang-8. However, the passion itself does not grant a

full-level of legitimacy that is particularly needed when initiating and maintaining friend

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relationships. As in the case that more rigid criteria were considered in the friend-making

process by participants in this study, the actual legitimacy of being someone else‟s friend

takes more than the registration process. According to Wenger et al. (2002), legitimacy

involves a process of gaining trust from other group members and is built up through

mutual commitment to the domain and the community. Likewise, actual legitimacy in the

Lang-8 space comes from gaining and showing their trustworthiness as language friends,

which is grounded not only in their passion for language learning but also in their

corresponding efforts of actively participating in L2 learning practices with other Lang-8

members.

Full-scale legitimacy is needed and preferred in forming a network of connections

in the Lang-8 community, but it does not mean that users always have to stay active in all

of their learning practices. As fluid mobility in friend relationships (between the margin

and the core) is well received, users‟ flexible participation in the Lang-8 community is

also commonly carried out and positively received by community members. As Lave and

Wenger (1991) explain that peripheral participation helps newcomers experience more

dynamic engagement in their social activities, legitimate flexibility in participation in the

Lang-8 community also allows its members to have more diverse ways to contribute to

the community and to orchestrate their learning in their own ways and at their own pace.

Whether Lang-8 users choose stay at the margin or at the core, they will get better

chances of learning language when they are fully involved in L2 practices on Lang-8.

One of the interesting tendencies formed in this community is that the status as a full

participant is not something that only a few talented members can achieve; instead, as

long as users are native speakers of any language, willing to provide constructive

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feedback for their language learners, and actively involved in L2 practices on Lang-8,

they can easily achieve this full participant status. Although the process of being a full

participant is within any user‟s reach in the Lang-8 space, it is not easy to sustain their

motivation to stay as full participants over time. However, in the Lang-8 community,

members are continuously encouraged and stimulated to be full participants by their

Lang-8 friends. For example, members are emotionally supported by their friends‟

sympathetic and complimenting comments, their intellectual thirst is quenched with

linguistic and cultural feedback, their own voices are attentively heard and responded to

by other Lang-8 users, they are inspired by other Lang-8 users‟ active and consistent

language learning behaviors, and they are gently exhorted to post more through direct

messages from their friends. In the end, Lang-8 friends‟ support provides strong

incentives for the members to go for and maintain a full participant status in the Lang-8

environment.

Educational Implications

The participants in this study perceived that the learning environment that they

had experienced in the Lang-8 space was different from what they had had in classroom

settings in many ways. Thorne, Black, and Sykes (2009) comment that typical L2

classrooms often miss the contexts and opportunities “for committed, consequential, and

longer term communicative engagement afforded by new technologies” (p. 804).

Similarly, in this study, many participants mentioned they often had been isolated from

the contexts and opportunities for genuine communication in their target languages in

classroom settings. However, the Lang-8 website equipped with social networking

features made it possible for the participants not only to have a chance to learn and use

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L2s for real socialization but also to experience other benefits in the technical, cognitive,

social, and psychological areas. With these perceived values of Lang-8 use in mind, I

want to raise the following questions for L2 education in school settings, which are based

on the learning principles reported by participants in this Lang-8 environment.

Does our classroom facilitate a “strong” community? Building a “strong”

network (Wenger et al., 2002) is one of the major factors that helps determine the quality

of language learning experiences that Lang-8 users have in the Lang-8 space. Likewise, it

is also important to promote strong relationships among students and teachers in

classroom settings. Although a class can be a physical place in which lessons are

conducted, it also represents a group of people (usually students and teachers) who gather

and do something for learning to happen. Thus, the aspect of social interactions and

relationships (between students and teachers and between students) also become a

fundamental component in every type of class. Turquoisedee said:

If the social aspect didn‟t exist while you were in school, you wouldn't enjoy

school very much and it would reflect on your grades. Therefore, a student can

succeed in school partly because they enjoyed their experience in school and had

friends that supported them through it...Just like it is not a waste of time to find

friends at school, it is not a waste of time to find friends on Lang-8. (Interview)

As she said that finding friends on Lang-8 was not a waste of time, finding supportive

friends in class is an important part of a successful life during school years, and finding

and creating a “strong” community from which learners can receive an emotional and

intellectual support is something that teachers should not overlook.

Knowing that a strong community is characterized by such relationships based on

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respect, trust, reciprocity, and so on (Wenger et al., 2002), the next question to ask will be

how to foster this kind of relationship between classroom participants. Regarding this

“how” question, there seems to be no simple answer to that because each class has

different social, cultural, and economic backgrounds. However, in the case of the

participants in this study, such factors as their shared interests in studying language as a

hobby, their expertise in their own native language, their communal position as a learner,

their dual position as a learner and a teacher, and the dispersed learning resources have

contributed to their strong relationships with other Lang-8 members. Once again, how to

make a class a strong community will be and should be differentiated class by class, but

the findings of this study suggest that teachers may start to think of fostering an

environment that provides opportunities for learners to identify themselves with others in

varied ways and to contribute to each other‟s learning with what they value in an equal

power relationship.

The features of a sub-community in the Lang-8 space also provide insight into the

work of making a class a strong community. First, as participants‟ general impressions

and perceptions of Lang-8 were based on their experiences with the selectively chosen,

relatively small number of Lang-8 members in their friend list, encouraging learners to

form their own supporting group with a manageable number of classmates may also

contribute to increasing their own sense of belonging to the whole class. Secondly, a

“me-centered” configuration could be recommended as a way to structure students‟ sub-

community. In the Lang-8 environment, sub-communities existed because participants

were there. In his/her own sub-community, each participant had to take on an agent-role

in order to bring his/her network to life. If he/she him/herself disappears, so does the

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network. Therefore, the me-centered structure of relationships could create each learner‟s

strong attachment to their own group. Thirdly, although the number of classmates in each

learner‟ sub-community should be manageable, it is recommended to be large enough to

create a flexible power relationship between the weaver and his/her friends. When

sources of knowledge are distributed across the large number of people, the learner does

not have to lean on one or just a few people.

Are students given a chance to expand their social connections? Lang-8

members‟ social networking activities in the Lang-8 space also suggest the importance of

forming a social network with people from outside of classroom settings. Although a

classroom can provide opportunities for interactions in L2s and learning about L2 people

and cultures on its own, they are often restricted by its geographical limitations and lack

of diversity among class members. However, Web 2.0 tools like Lang-8 based on SNS

features enable learners to form social networks outside of the walls of a classroom and

to receive many benefits as the participants in this study listed such as interactions with

native speakers of the target language, meeting people with varied life backgrounds,

knowing about L2 cultures from an insider‟s point of view, and so on.

Gee (2004) refers to these places where informal learning takes place outside of

school settings as an “affinity space,” which is a “place, or set of places where people can

affiliate with others, based primarily on shared activities, interests, and goals” (p. 73).

The notion of an affinity space is originated from the concept of communities of practice

(Lave & Wenger, 1991) so that both share similar characteristics. However, Gee claims

that the re-conceptualization of communities of practice is particularly needed in today‟s

era of the Internet because the word „community‟ has a connotation of having close social

260

ties with group members valuing a sense of belonging and membership, which is not

necessarily present in the form of today‟s learning in online spaces. As Gee said, some

users may learn L2s while coming and going on Lang-8 without a sense of attachment to

their Lang-8 friends as people do in online affinity spaces, but my participants, who are at

least actively using the Lang-8 Website, perceive that close social ties with their Lang-8

friends, particularly with their inner circle friends, is one important factor that makes

them stay motivated and consistently and actively sustain their learning with enjoyment.

Therefore, the Lang-8 environment suggests that teachers should not overlook the

important role of a sense of belonging in learning, which is based on close social ties

between community members even in online spaces.

Are L2 learning exercises are situated in social practices? Finding reliable and

authentic friends who create an interactive and cooperative ambience and enrich and

support language learning has been also found as a key theme in online literacy activities

in many other studies (e.g., Lam, 2000; Black, 2006). In addition to that, the findings of

this study suggest anther implication: creating L2 learning exercises that demand

learners‟ social participation. Having support groups will benefit students‟ learning in

many ways, but it may not be enough for them to experience a true joy of learning a

second language yet unless their L2 activities become an essential part of participation in

social practices that they want to pursue. According to the participants in this study, their

L2 learning during their school years was defined as boring, mundane, or even producing

unhappy memories because it was all about rote memorization of forms backed up by

drill-type exercises or getting good grades on written exams mostly focusing on grammar

and reading comprehension. The acquisition of linguistic knowledge was

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decontextualized and isolated, so that learning activities were conducted mainly for the

sake of acquisition itself.

On the other hand, when the participants learned and practiced L2s on Lang-8,

they started to experience a more social version of L2 learning. In the Lang-8 community,

no matter whether a learners‟ L2 level was beginner or advanced, they could use the

Lang-8 forum as a mediational tool with which they connected themselves with an outer

world (Vygotsky, 1978). In this way, the use of L2s created communication, which is the

original reason why language exists and why participants were interested in language

learning. Ultimately, this communication began to influence everyone involved in it. In

this approach, L2 finally came to life for participants. Certain L2 learning exercises on

Lang-8 like posting, reading, and commenting, are all a vital part of communication

activities related to social practices for weaving a friend network and for being a

participant in the Lang-8 community. The L2 learning exercises themselves have their

own social meanings in that they serve as resources for social networking practices,

which add more reasons for learners to continue those exercises. Here, the language

learning practices embedded in social practices for participation should not be confused

with real-world relevant learning exercises that simply bring authentic topics to discuss or

read about in L2 classrooms. Although the latter provide meaningful contexts for L2

learning, the act of doing those exercises is not part of the learners‟ participation in social

practices in real L2 communities, which thus often fail to connect the L2 learners to an

authentic L2 world and the social joy of L2 learning.

Are L2 learners valued as they are and as they want to be? As Norton (2000)

says, L2 learners constantly organize and reorganize a sense of their identity when they

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speak and learn L2s. Lang-8 users also do a lot of identity work throughout their L2

practices in the Lang-8 environment. One of the interesting features of their identity work

is that Lang-8 users successfully leverage their real-life identities to form their social

connections and to find language learning resources. Through profile pages and journal

entries, Lang-8 users try to show their real selves and life, which functions to form a solid

relationship with other members and add more elements of diversity to the Lang-8

community. However, it does not mean that teachers can bring every aspect of students‟

real-life identities into their learning settings. As Lang-8 users did not show every aspect

of their life and their selves, L2 learners need to be given autonomy in selectively and

attentively choosing what real-life identities to bring and use in their learning settings. In

the Lang-8 environment, it seems that there are certain images that Lang-8 users think

may work best for their social networking and L2 learning activities. By having

flexibility in the way that they are recognized, L2 learners may be able to create more

confidence and comfort in learning L2s even in classroom settings.

Another way to think of creating a classroom environment that values L2 learners

as they are and as they want to be is to allow learners to have flexibility in their ways of

participating in classroom activities. My participants gained more control of their

learning through flexible ways of presenting themselves (e.g., text, visual, and

performance), making friends (e.g., profiling, posting, correcting, commenting, and text-

messaging), and participating in practices of Lang-8 learning community (e.g., peripheral,

full, and somewhere in between). It also stands to reason that L2 learners may also gain

more control of learning if they have more room for demonstrating their flexibility in the

ways of learning L2s even in classroom settings. This flexibility should be granted based

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on a solid domain of interest and a “strong” community atmosphere that learners keep

encouraging one another to learn more and better.

Is L2 identity considered as a resource? Real-life identity has been an important

issue particularly in the research focusing on online L2 literacies outside of school

settings (e.g., Black, 2006; Chandler-Olcott & Mahar, 2003; Lam, 2000 ). In general,

those studies observed teen agers who had been left out from school environments due to

their limited English proficiency, but had found their affiliation to online communities

where they were well received. A partial reason for their marginalization was due to their

own and others‟ view of L2 learners as linguistically deficient participants in school

settings. Here, even in those studies (which are grounded in sociocultural views of

learning), learner identity did not receive attention as a resource for (re)constructing

positive images of L2 learners themselves and improving their L2 proficiency.

In the Lang-8 environment, however, Lang-8 users‟ position as L2 learners not

only are very well received but also play an important role as an resource for connecting

people. To begin with, people gather around Lang-8 because they are L2 learners. The

position of an L2 learner is the backbone of Lang-8 community identity. Therefore, what

learners do not know is not something that they should be ashamed of, but something that

they can use for their social connections. It is a possibility rather than deficiency.

Secondly, L2 learner position can create a mutual sympathy among group members

particularly when they learn each other‟s language like tandem language learning. For

instance, because they are all learners, they understand better how hard it is to learn L2s

and to speak accurate language. Thus, when they see others‟ errors or when they make

errors, they can be more generous to others and themselves. Thirdly, no matter whether

264

L2 learners are seen as a whole person or not, they always have an ambivalent desire to

speak and learn an L2 at the same time, as the participants in this study do. For instance,

some participants were using other Web 2.0 tools like Facebook, Twitter, and a blog for

their language learning along with Lang-8, but most of them ended up using Lang-8 more

than the other Web tools or stopped using them in the middle. Although they said that

they could practice their L2s and enjoyed real communication with real people through

those tools, they also wished to receive linguistic feedback as they did through Lang-8

friends. As Firth and Wagner (1997) observed, it is problematic to see L2 learners only in

the category of “learners” who have linguistic deficiencies, but teachers also should not

overlook the desires of L2 learners to receive feedback not only for real communication

but also for linguistic improvement.

Are teachers aware of the social meaning of a feedback activity? When L2

learners write on Lang-8, they try out linguistic forms like words, phrases, and sentences,

which are in the zone of their uncertainty, and wish to get them reviewed by native

speakers. In Bakhtin‟s (1986) words, those linguistic forms before writing are not Lang-8

users‟ own yet; rather, they belong to others or are neutral like dictionary words.

However, the meanings of those words, phrases, and sentences become personal through

the writing process because it involves a process of personalization by filling them with

writers‟ own emotions, understandings, judgments, and intentions. Thus, the feedback is

not simply a response to the degree of correctness or naturalness of the forms themselves,

but a response to the writers‟ judgments on their own choice. Here, the feedback is not

given on something neutral that does not matter to the writers, but on something that

personally belongs to writers. Just as the participants experienced a change of their

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feelings when they receive (or even when they do not receive) feedback in the Lang-8

community, teachers need to be aware of the emotional aspect of giving and receiving

feedback activities in L2 learning contexts. In addition, as Bakhtin notes, these social

interactions are dialogic allowing for the language of the participants to become

intertwined with the language of those with whom they interact, which may also create a

learning point for all participants involved. Within a classroom community, thus, L2

learning can be enhanced when these feedback practices occur between the teacher and

students or even among the students.

Conclusion

As the case of Lang-8 users in this study showed, we often see that L2 learners in

the 21st century experience more diverse learning environments online than were

available before, and learn L2s in more interactive, supportive, empowered, and authentic

ways than in traditional L2 classroom settings, which is one of the contributions that

current social media have made to the L2 learning community. As Gee (2003) argues that

good things about video games should not lead to the blind inclusion of video games in

classroom activities, I am also trying not to make a claim to literally incorporate L2

learning websites based on social media into classroom settings. Instead, I suggest L2

educators think about what makes L2 learners excited about using Web 2.0-based

learning websites for their L2 learning and apply their good learning principles into our

classroom settings. I believe that a classroom itself already has a lot of potential to be a

community of practice in that it is already there for learning purposes; people already

gather around it to teach and learn something. However, the question is whether

educators stand by and watch their classrooms become an isolated entity from the real

266

world, their students learn and use L2s only for passing exams or getting a good grade, or

L2s used mainly as a practice for rule memorization. As suggested by the learning

environments of Lang-8 where learning becomes a social act, an L2 becomes a tool for

participation, and L2 learners become who they are and who they want to be, I hope that

the findings of this dissertation can contribute to creating L2 classroom environments

where students can experience a true joy of learning L2s.

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Appendix A

Three Versions of Kenshin’s About me

English Version

268

Spanish Version

Japanese Version

269

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