Articoli di riviste sul tema "Linguistic affordance"

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

Abstract Given that face-to-face interaction is an important locus for linguistic transmission (Enfield 2008: 297), it is argued in this paper that conversational structure must provide affordances (Gibson 1979) for transmitting linguistic items. The paper focuses on repeats where an interactant (partially) repeats their interlocutor’s preceding utterance. Repeats are argued to provide affordances for the transmission of innovative and conservative linguistic items by forcing interactants to repeat linguistic material uttered by another person, facilitating production by exploiting priming effects. Moreover, repeats leave room for modification and thereby for actively resisting transmission. In this way, repeats unite the competing forces (Tantucci et al. 2018) of automaticity and creativity. To support this claim, this paper investigates the use of Spanish insertions and alternative variants in utterance-repeat pairs in Yurakaré (isolate, Bolivia) conversations. The findings are compatible with a holistic view of language where all linguistic levels are interconnected (Beckner et al. 2009).

This paper addresses epistemological issues raised by the use of elicited data in linguistic analyses. A common suspicion raised by experimental settings is this: participants in the lab do not replicate their everyday use of language, due to the artificiality of the tasks and of the contexts involved, so that elicited speech should not constitute a reliable source of data. I set out the experimental settings and results of four empirical studies – two studies investigating the pragmatic value of prosodic focalization through the controversial use of elicited data, one study on dative alternations based on a corpus and on a rating task, and one study on the contextual determinants of intonational contours based on a production task – to dispel this methodological suspicion: the artificiality of elicitation protocols does not prevent participants from using language as they do in spontaneous interactions. Careful examination reveals that the biases observed in the first two studies arise because subjects are not provided with sufficient cues concerning the context. I borrow the Gibsonian notion of affordance to characterise the state in which a context provides optimal resources to enable the production of the targeted construction, and argue that elicited data are reliable only when contexts optimise affordances.

This study took a sociocultural theory perspective and investigated interactive contact with French by 18 participants in a short-term study abroad (SA) program and the degree to which interactions with homestay families, U.S. peers, and other French speakers in the local community were perceived as valuable affordances for language learning. Findings demonstrate that whereas contact in French with host families was viewed as a valuable affordance for cultural and/or linguistic learning, participants' interactions in the local community were infrequent and viewed less positively. Peer-to-peer interaction in French was construed by some students as useful for developing confidence with interacting in French whereas others saw the SA group as a motivational constraint. Implications of this study include the notion that interactive contact is not inevitable during short-term SA, therefore the SA curriculum should respond by assisting students in devising strategies to nurture interaction, particularly between students and speakers of the foreign language in the local community.

The main objective of this research was to describe the mechanisms for engagement with affordances that help to sustain written interpersonal interactions of students in online discussion forums of a virtual learning environment while they were learning English as a foreign language. The notion of affordance was discussed in this study according to three dimensions: (i) environmental, (ii) technological, and (iii) linguistic, associating a pragmatic theory to the latter (GREENO, 1994; VAN LIER, 2000; LAMY & HAMPEL, 2007). The research findings showed that the environmental and technological affordances contributed to the construction of students’ presence as well as of a learning community. New forms of online interactions afforded new forms of language learning, especially by the movement of relexicalization and gap-filling.

This paper proposes to explore the theory of affordances in the light of cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) to study affordances in complex Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) environments. The term ‘affordance’ designates an action possibility that is offered by an environment or an object to an actor in the environment either “for good or ill” (Gibson, 1979). It depends not only on the inherent characteristics of the environment but also on the users’ perception and action capabilities. CALL affordances are said to be a unique combination of social, educational, linguistic, and technological affordances (Blin, 2016a). However, there is limited research to date that looks at affordances from an ecological perspective linking the micro moment-to-moment interaction levels with the macro level within which they are embedded in educational contexts (Blin, 2016a). This paper explores the analytical tools of CHAT (Leontyev, 1978; Engeström, 1987) as particularly suitable to investigate affordances at the macro, meso and micro levels of technology-mediated sociocultural educational contexts in CALL.

The goal of this study is to illustrate the affordances mediated by digital socio-literacy practices of university-level EFL learners engaging in collaborative reading of texts from an ecological perspective. For this purpose, a total of 38 first-year undergraduate students taking a compulsory EFL course in Turkey participated in the research. Data collected from learners' digital annotations on a digital annotation tool (DAT) and reflective papers were qualitatively analyzed. As a result, the construct of affordance was operationalized in an EFL digital social reading context through indicators derived from learners' annotations. The findings based on student-reported data showed that digital collaborative reading practices had contextual, social, and linguistic affordances for EFL learners. Following the discussion of the findings, the study invites future research to examine L2 learners' practices in a DAT-mediated environment in relation to affordances for specific language areas such as grammar and writing.

This paper delves into the integral role of game-based learning (GBL) in advancing English as a Second Language (ESL) education, scrutinised through three distinct lenses: theoretical foundations from an affordance perspective, critical evaluation of traditional and gamified methodologies, and the demonstrable superiority of fully integrated GBL frameworks. The first section explores affordance theory, emphasising how GBL leverages affordances such as contextual engagement, adaptivity, and instructional scaffolding to surpass conventional educational approaches. This section also adopts the Theory of Change framework to conclude that GBL offers significant long-term cognitive and motivational benefits for ESL learning. Subsequently, the analysis identifies shortcomings in existing ESL resources, such as textbooks and digital applications, which fail to sustain genuine linguistic proficiency and engagement. By comparing the gamified product with the GBL experience, the advantage of later in ESL learning is further conveyed. The final section presents a case study of Language Valley, a purpose-built game that rectifies these deficiencies. It illustrates how immersive, narrative-centric GBL environments significantly bolster cognitive development, motivational dynamics, and practical language application in an ESL learning context. The paper posits that GBL, focusing on interactive and applicable learning experiences, offers transformative potential in ESL settings, fostering profound and enduring educational outcomes.

AbstractIn this study of affordances for second language (L2) learning in World of Warcraft (WoW) group play, we compared three gameplay episodes spanning a semester-long course. Applying multimodal analysis framed by ecological, dialogical and distributed (EDD) views (Zheng and Newgarden, forthcoming), we explored four English as a second language learners’ verbalizations and avatar actions. Players learned to take skilled linguistic action as they coordinated recurrent WoW gameplay activities (questing, planning next moves, traveling, learning a skill, etc.). Frequent activities matched Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) speaking proficiency descriptors, used widely in L2 teaching and learning (L2TL), providing evidence that players engaged in the types of communicative activities interaction-oriented classroom approaches develop. However, in the WoW context, interactions were not planned, but emerged as players dynamically directed the course of play. Furthermore, modalities of avatar-embodiment and conversing over Skype allowed players to flexibly integrate language and actions to co-act toward game goals, discuss non-game topics during play, or demonstrate comprehension with avatar actions alone, an affordance for less verbal players. This research builds on previous work (Zheng, Newgarden & Young, 2012) relating WoW’s multiplayer activities and L2 learners’ skilled linguistic actions. We refer to Chemero’s (2009) model of the animal-environment system to explain how L2 learners develop abilities to take skilled linguistic action by acting on affordances in WoW. The EDD framework presented may enable other researchers to account for more of the complexities involved in L2 learning in multimodal, multiplayer virtual environments.

This qualitative case study aimed to explore the cognition (focusing on beliefs) of English teacher educators, from a state university in Paraná, about different aspects of initial teacher education (linguistic, theoretical and didactic-pedagogical knowledge). In this sense, teacher cognition is adopted both as a unit of analysis and as the theoretical foundation (BORG, 2003). For such purposes, a semi-structured interview with open questions was administered in the aforementioned context. Results reveal three dimensions: Linguistic Command (homogeneity, heterogeneity and expectations); Affordance (including agency, theoretical-methodological advancement, expectations in didactic-pedagogical and curriculum terms, identity factors, linguistic advancement and curriculum factors); and Hindrance (encompassing no agency; didactic-pedagogical factors; theoretical-methodological and linguistic gaps and physical and human factors). It is expected that this research can contribute to theoretical and methodological reflections in the scope of language teacher education, given that teaching practices are significantly based on the set of beliefs of individuals in such scenario.

The internet is an environment where users display the prowess in language and all forms of semiotic resources for different forms of communication. The current study examines Generation Z’s use of language in order to highlight the emerging forms of language structures on TikTok, as a result of the innate ability of humans to create new forms, mostly in verbal communication. The research questions are: What are the forms of construction of Generation Z’s lingo on TikTok? What semantic peculiarities are Generation Z’s lingo on TikTok characterized by? The premise of this study is that, Generation Z’s creative use of language on TikTok, shows the innate ability of humans to create new forms, and adapt to the affordances of new platforms in using language for communication. Crystal’s (2005) propositions concerning Internet Linguistics— the Stylistic perspective is applied in this study. Fifty Tik Tok videos were downloaded from the TikTok platform, some of the videos had the same lingos, in which case only one of such videos was chosen. Seventeen videos were used, each video was played; the part of the video that had the Generation Z’s word(s) was screen shot and used as the data for the analysis. In all, seventeen images were used. Findings show that the Generation Z’s lingo is replete with: acronyms used as full words in speech, combination of words and image in speech, the use of neologisms, esoteric words, and laconic structures. Some words and phrases have new meanings in addition to their previous meanings; all these show a new variety of the English language. The study recommends that language users should deploy the affordance of new internet platforms to freely express themselves, in doing so, naturally, new varieties will spring up and widen the lexicon of the English language.

In this article, we examine the affordances of polylingual and polycultural learning ecologies in expanding the linguistic repertoires of children, particularly young Dual Language Learners. In contrast to settings that promote the development of English and academic language at the expense of maintaining and developing home language, we argue that the social organization of learning should privilege participation in dynamic, hybrid literacy practices. Children are often more likely to experiment with English and academic genres, while also taking on powerful identities as learners and language users, when formal and informal modes of communication are leveraged, multimodality and language-crossing encouraged and the use of both home and academic vernaculars promoted within a context that values social relationships and the playful imagination. We argue that children’s literacy practices develop in particular social and ‘located’ relationships, and we examine one such after-school setting designed with these principles in mind, the long-standing UC Links/Las Redes partnership, where home languages and intercultural experiences are unmarked and necessarily integral to participating in the shared practices of the community. We highlight the affordance of one common practice of the community, children s communication with the mythical cyber wizard, El Maga (sic), and the ways this practice strategically draws on students full linguistic toolkits in order to invite them to integrate modes and genres of communication that challenge the divide between everyday and school-based literacies, stretching children beyond their current levels of literacy development.

In today's rapidly globalizing world, classrooms are increasingly becoming microcosms of diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds. In an effort to promote inclusive education, educators are increasingly turning towards multilingual-oriented pedagogy as a means of creating an environment that supports the learning needs of diverse learners. This paper aims to explore the potential of understanding and implementing multilingual-oriented pedagogy to enhance inclusive educational practices. This study draws on theoretical framework of Gibson's Affordance theory. The paper recommends training and retraining of teachers to equip them with requisite knowledge and skills to open up to the flexible use of multilingual-oriented pedagogy, for teachers and education stakeholders to create and sustain inclusive learning spaces that respect learners' linguistic backgrounds, and empowering learners to embrace their multilingual identities, through the use of their multilingual skills in various academic and social contexts to enhance learning and cherish their identities. The paper concludes that multilingual-oriented pedagogy will help create learning environment that embraces linguistic diversity that is not only crucial for promoting inclusion, but also prepares learners for success in an increasingly interconnected world. It is through this inclusive approach that classrooms can truly become spaces where learners thrive and flourish

Abstract This article investigates linguistic metaphors in four English newspapers from the perspective of Conceptual Metaphor Theory, focusing on their variations at the macro-contextual level. Analyzed in their respective macro contexts were lexicalized and non-lexicalized metaphors in 1,105 full-length news stories. The exploration reveals that: (i) the distributions of non-lexicalized metaphors are far more variable than those of lexicalized metaphors across the four newspapers, (ii) lexicalized metaphors are much more common than non-lexicalized metaphors in all the four newspapers, (iii) non-lexicalized metaphors occur more in the news stories for native speakers than in those for international or global readers, with a decreasing tendency toward those for EOL and EFL readers, and (iv) the lexicalized and non-lexicalized metaphors both have cognitive functions, while the latter serve additional stylistic purposes. The study sheds some light on the affordance between linguistic metaphors and the macro contexts of the news stories.

Abstract This paper reviews current literature on contributions of the study abroad context to second language (L2) Chinese pragmatics and discusses the future prospects of this rapidly growing research area. By synthesizing sixteen empirical studies on pragmatic competence in L2 Chinese in the study-abroad context, this paper answers one question: What impacts L2 Chinese pragmatic competence in the study abroad (SA) context? The findings show that the SA effect on L2 Chinese pragmatic development is mediated by seven factors including general proficiency, pre-program pragmatic competence, language exposure, intercultural competence, learner agency, linguistic affordance, and learner language and cultural background. Based on the research synthesis, this paper suggests future research directions regarding target pragmatic features, measurements, pragmatic competence in writing, and learner factors mediating study-abroad effect from a dynamic-system perspective.

The sensorimotor system plays a critical role in several cognitive processes. Here, we review recent studies documenting this interplay at different levels. First, we concentrate on studies that have shown how the sensorimotor system is flexibly involved in interactions with objects. We report evidence demonstrating how social context and situations influence affordance activation, and then focus on tactile and kinesthetic components in body–object interactions. Then, we turn to word use, and review studies that have shown that not only concrete words, but also abstract words are grounded in the sensorimotor system. We report evidence that abstract concepts activate the mouth effector more than concrete concepts, and discuss this effect in light of studies on adults, children, and infants. Finally, we pinpoint possible sensorimotor mechanisms at play in the acquisition and use of abstract concepts. Overall, we show that the involvement of the sensorimotor system is flexibly modulated by context, and that its role can be integrated and flanked by that of other systems such as the linguistic system. We suggest that to unravel the role of the sensorimotor system in cognition, future research should fully explore the complexity of this intricate, and sometimes slippery, relation.

Existing literature reflects that VR technology is widely used in language learning settings. Although many studies have identified the multiple benefits and affordance of Virtual Reality (VR) technologies in language learning, most studies are qualitative studies that do not provide substantial evidence to investigate the impact of this technology on language learning. To this end, this study conducted a meta-analysis of 21 quantitative studies with 1144 participants published between 2010 and 2021. The study’s main purpose was to examine the effects of VR on students’ language learning academic performance, including linguistic gains and affective gains. The results indicated that VR-assisted language learning had a medium effect on the linguistic gains (Hedges’ g = 0.662, 95% CI [0.398–0.925], p < 0.001) and affective gains (Hedges’ g = 0.570, 95% CI [0.309–0.831], p < 0.001) of students compared to non-VR conditions, respectively. Furthermore, the study further analyzed the impact of several moderator variables such as education levels, hardware types, language skills, target language, and L1/L2 on language learning gains. The research indicates that VR technology has a great potential to improve language learning as an educational resource and provides suggestions for further research and practice on the use of VR-assisted language learning.

In this study, the author integrated QQ into the study of non-English majors in a medical university. The purposes of this study are to find out learner attitudes towards the design of the English writing program in QQ, to examine student performance in terms of linguistic accuracy and complexity, and to explore affordance of QQ as a platform for English writing. The guided theoretical framework for the design of the study is constructivist learning theory. Task based learning approach is applied to control the learning procedure and guide the participants. The research methodology includes a combination of quantity and quality methods, descriptive analysis, and content analysis. Results indicate that the participants all hold positive attitudes towards the design of the English writing in this platform. Learner performance in terms of linguistic accuracy has been enhanced as evidenced by: the decreased number of grammatical errors and decreased percentage of grammatical errors to total number of sentences. Learner performance in terms of linguistic complexity is significantly improved according to the following aspects: the relatively increased length of the essay within the given time; the decrease of various errors; and the increase of the compound sentences and the complex sentences, etc. Findings showthat task-based English writing in QQ is effective in scaffolding English language learning. Participants preferred the writing in QQ, including either the real-time interactions and communications or non-real-time ones, which proved to be a promising language learning environment and should be considered and further studied by educators.

Abstract This article focuses on the interweaving of constructive praxis with communication in ontogenesis, in phylogenesis and in biocultural niche evolution (ecogenesis), within an EvoDevoSocio framework. I begin by discussing the nature of symbolization, its evolution from communicative signaling and its elaboration into semantic systems. I distinguish between the symbol-ready and the language-ready brain, leading to a discussion of linguistic conceptualization and its dual grounding in organism and language system. There follows an outline account of the interpenetration in the human biocultural niche-complex of semiosphere and technosphere, mediated by the evolution of the niche of infancy. Symbolization (the foundation of the semiosphere) is by definition normative; the normative character of the technosphere is demonstrated by the interrelations in human development between affordance, action schema and canonical functional object schema. A model of the neuro-computational implementation of dual grounding is proposed.

The considerations behind choosing pseudonyms over the real name may be varied depending upon extraneous or intrinsic circumstances including the need to circumvent social norms, taboos, and practices. However, one that transcends these bounds is the affordance of freedom to act natural that comes with adopting a pseudonym which masks one’s true identity. The vast choice of media for social expression in the age of technology has added a new dimension to the practice of adopting pseudonyms. Accordingly, this study investigates whether patterns of screen name choice and typology are discernible among Saudi male and female students. The study created a database of two hundred screen names selected from the forums of foundation year at two Saudi universities (male =100 and female =100). The screen names gained are classified and examined based on the attraction theories’ framework. As far as findings are concerned, the choice and typology of screen names according to the type of gender are significant. The screen names are varied whether the gender is male or female. Findings also show that the "real names" category is applied by female students in screen names more than male students whereas "unreal names" category is applied more by male students than the females. For fictional names, both male and female students prefer to use romantic names and neglected names which show wealth or looks. Three new categories in pseudonyms are found and established in the study i.e., popular, romantic, and real names due to the Saudi contextual variation. A significant effect of choosing the screen names on the names of their devices is also found in the study.

The notion of affordance remains elusive, notwithstanding its importance for the representation of agency, cognition, and behaviors. This paper lays down a foundation for an ontology of affordances by elaborating the idea of “core affordance” which would serve as a common ground for explaining existing diverse conceptions of affordances and their interrelationships. For this purpose, it analyzes M. T. Turvey’s dispositional theory of affordances in light of a formal ontology of dispositions. Consequently, two kinds of so-called “core affordances” are proposed: specific and general ones. Inspired directly by Turvey’s original account, a specific core affordance is intimately connected to a specific agent, as it is reciprocal with a counterpart effectivity (which is a disposition) of this agent within the agent-environment system. On the opposite, a general core affordance does not depend on individual agents; rather, its realization involves an action by an instance of a determinate class of agents. The utility of such core affordances is illustrated by examining how they can be leveraged to formalize other major accounts of affordances. Additionally, it is briefly outlined how core affordances can be employed to analyze three notions that are closely allied with affordances: the environment, image schemas, and intentions.

AbstractThe importance of affordance in Engineering design is well established. Artifacts that are able to activate spontaneous and immediate users’ reactions are considered the outcome of good design practice.A huge effort has been made by researchers for understanding affordances: yet these efforts have been somewhat elusive. In particular, they have been limited to case studies and experimental studies, usually involving a small subset of affordances. No systematic effort has been carried out to list all known affordance effects. This paper offers preliminary steps for such an ambitious effort.We propose a set of three different approaches of Natural Language Processing techniques to be used to extract meaningful affordance information from the full text of patents: 1) a simple word search, 2) a lexicon of affordances and 3) a rule-based system.The results give in-depth measures of how rare affordances in patents are, and a fine grain analysis of the linguistical construction of affordances. Finally, we show an interesting output of our method, that has detected affordances for disabled people, showing the ability of our system to automatically collect design-relevant knowledge.

The notion of culture implies the relative stability of sets of algorithms that become entrenched in human brains as children become socialized, and, to a lesser extent, when immigrants become assimilated into a new society. The semiotics of culture has used the notion of signs and systems of signs to conceptualize this process, which takes for granted memory as a natural affordance of the brain without raising the question of how and why cultural signs impact behaviour in a durable manner. Indeed, under the influence of structuralism, the semiotics of culture has mostly achieved synchronic descriptions. Dynamic models have been proposed to account for the action of signs (e.g., semiosis, dialogism, dialectic) and their resulting cultural changes and cultural diversity. However, these models have remained remarkably abstract, and somewhat disconnected from the actual brain processes, which must be assumed to be involved in the emergence, maintenance, and transformations of cultures. Semiotic terminology has contributed to a systematic representation of cultural objects and processes but the philosophical origin of its basic concepts has made it difficult to construct a productive interface with the cognitive neurosciences as they have developed and achieved notable advances in the understanding of memory over the last few decades. The purpose of this paper is to suggest that further advances in semiotics will require a shift from philosophical and linguistic notions toward biological and evolutionary models.

Abstract Versailles humblebragging is becoming an increasingly pervasive pragmatic and linguistic phenomenon since late 2020 in face-to-face and social media communication in China. Despite its ubiquity, there is a relative paucity of empirical research on this new phenomenon, particularly on the reactions of followers in the digital communicative context and the self-identities constructed by the posters, as well as the theoretical limitations to explicate the social cognitive factors behind the novel pragmatic behavior. This study integrated pragmatic and social cognitive theories to conduct quantitative and qualitative analyses of the responsive strategies followers used and the self-identity the humblebraggers built in this phenomenon. Based on the data retrieved from Chinese social media Weibo, we have found generally two major types of responsive strategies, namely the explicit and implicit. A majority of followers employed the implicit strategies to express their acceptance and liking with a preponderance of clicking the “like” affordance, suggesting that Versailles humblebragging helps to build good interpersonal relationship on Weibo. We have also identified seven types of self-identities and explored the underlying factors from the perspective of social cognition. It might be concluded from the findings that certain social and cultural shared beliefs, values and patterns of life are potent factors in shaping Chinese posters’ interpretation of themselves and other people.

Abstract In this study, we explore how language affordances are exploited in intercultural communication using the socio-cognitive approach. Based on previous discussions of language affordances, we divide the exploiting practices into three categories, namely, enabling a language affordance, constraining a language affordance, and presenting multiple language affordances. Data were collected from 16 roundtable discussions that took place over four seasons of a Chinese TV program. Each roundtable discussion involved four L1 Chinese speakers and eleven L2 Chinese speakers. The L2 speakers are multilingual, frequently speaking more than one language, including English. A quantitative analysis of the data reveals a collective pattern in the participants’ exploitation of language affordances, that is, they tend to activate more core common-ground knowledge than the knowledge of emergent common ground. In addition, they are inclined to construct multicultural common ground, which they actively align themselves with. Their awareness of communicative goals and self-identification as competent multilingual speakers also influence their choice of language affordances.

This paper presents the results of a pragmalinguistic analysis of the hashtags included within the tweets published in the profiles of the Spanish government, the Ministry of Health and the Public Health agency from May 2020 to May 2021. The study aims at identifying the linguistic formal and content similarities and differences of the hastags related to the Covid-19 disease, that were used within these accounts, and determining the role played by this affordance in the Spanish public institutional discourse about the pandemic. The results show that there are significant differences regarding the number of hashtags used, while, formally and functionally, they are used in a similar way in order to contextualize the message, and to inform and persuade citizens. En este trabajo se presentan los resultados de un análisis pragmalingüístico de un corpus de hashtags contenidos en los tuits publicados desde marzo de 2020 hasta mayo de 2021 en los perfiles del gobierno español, el ministerio de sanidad y el de salud pública. El estudio tiene como objetivos identificar las semejanzas y diferencias que presentan las etiquetas relacionadas con la Covid-19 en estas tres cuentas y determinar qué papel ha jugado este dispositivo en el discurso público institucional sobre la crisis pandémica. Los resultados muestran que existen diferencias respecto a la cantidad de etiquetas empleadas, mientras que, formal y funcionalmente, se utilizan de manera similar para contextualizar el mensaje y para informar y persuadir a los ciudadanos.

Abstract The Internet of things (IoT) affords people plenty of opportunities and a higher quality of life as well as drives a huge amount of data. By drawing on the concept of affordances, this study examines the user experience of personal informatics focusing on the technological and affective nature of affordance. A multi-mixed approach is used by combining qualitative methods and a quantitative survey. Results of the qualitative methods revealed a series of factors that related to the affordance of personal informatics, whereas results of the user model confirmed a significant role for connectivity, control, and synchronicity affordance regarding their underlying link to other variables, namely, expectation, confirmation, and satisfaction. The experiments showed that users’ affordances are greatly influenced by personal traits with interactivity tendency. The findings imply the embodied cognition process of personal informatics in which technological qualities are shaped by users’ perception, traits, and context. The results establish a foundation for wearable technologies through a heuristic quality assessment tool from a user embodied cognitive process. They confirm the validity and utility of applying affordances to the design of IoT as a useful concept, as well as prove that the optimum mix of affordances is crucial to the success or failure of IoT design.

Abstract Preceding works tend to explicate affordance through supposing what is happening here and now. They seldom relate it to actual social, diachronic activities, such as foreign language learning. To tackle this issue, this study explores how students actualize affordances in technology-enriched language learning environment (TELLE) by examining their perezhivanija (lived and emotional experience), a term borrowed from sociocultural theory. Because an individual’s social life is a developing process or a perezhivanie Perezhivanie is the singular form of perezhivanija. , it is necessary to base the research in a dynamic development of language learning to figure out how the affordances are actualized. Narrative interviews were adopted to collect data from three Chinese college students who learn English as a foreign language in a Northeastern university in China. The results showed that due to the students’ different past perezhivanija in English learning, their present interpretations of the perceived affordances in TELLE varied. This influenced hugely in their actions taken during their English learning in college to actualize the affordances. The findings indicated that the actualization of affordances is historical, dynamic and developmental instead of static. It does not lie in the autonomy of the students or the teachers, but in the institutional and cultural legitimacy of technology use in student’s social life. The paper contributes to the application of affordance theory in foreign language learning and provides implications to language teaching practice in TELLE.

The objective of this study is to discuss affordances in foreign language (L2) teacher education in the digital age. With that aim, some pedagogical interventions were carried out in the course of “Supervised Internship” within the context of the Undergraduate Degree in English Language Teaching, at a federal university in the Southeast of Brazil in order to obtain empirical data concerning the perceptions of pre-service English teachers. The theoretical framework is based on the concept of affordance, in relation to the effects of globalization (and its Information and Communication Technologies - ICTs) on the education of language teachers in the digital age, considering aspects of interculturality, through hybrid approaches such as CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning), COIL (Collaborative Online International Learning) and the Intercomprehension approach. Data were obtained through participant observation and interviews with educators and pre-service teachers, and include: 1) discussion of texts about language teaching, interculturality and the use of technologies in education; 2) virtual meetings in COIL format with pre-service teachers enrolled in the course of “Supervised Internship” at a Brazilian university and at Alberto Hurtado University (AHU) in Chile; 3) discussion/reflection sessions; 4) interviews with participants. The analysis suggests that ICTs and approaches such as CLIL, COIL and Intercomprehension promote affordances for inclusive practices (for financially disadvantaged people, with the use of internet); multilingual practices (including other languages besides English); and intercultural practices, promoting contact and learning among different cultures and languages.ResumoO objetivo deste estudo é refletir sobre affordances na formação de professores de línguas adicionais (L2) na era digital. Com esse objetivo, algumas intervenções pedagógicas foram realizadas na disciplina de “Estágio Supervisionado” do curso de Licenciatura em Letras Inglês de uma universidade federal do Sudeste brasileiro, a fim de ilustrar e embasar essa reflexão por meio de dados empíricos das percepções de professores de inglês em formação. O arcabouço teórico se baseia na noção de affordance em relação aos efeitos da globalização com suas tecnologias de informação e comunicação (TICs) na formação de professores de L2 na era digital, com a ampliação da interculturalidade por meio de abordagens híbridas como a CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning), COIL (Collaborative Online International Learning) e Intercompreensão. Os dados foram gerados por meio de observação participante e entrevistas com os professores formadores e em formação, e incluem: 1) discussões de textos sobre ensino de idiomas, interculturalidade e uso de tecnologias na educação; 2) reuniões virtuais em formato COIL, com professores em formação, matriculados na disciplina de estágio supervisionado na universidade no Brasil e na Universidade Alberto Hurtado, no Chile; 3) sessões de reflexão; e 4) entrevistas com os participantes. A análise sugere que as TICs e abordagens como a CLIL, COIL e Intercompreensão propiciam affordances para uma prática mais inclusiva (alcançando pessoas desfavorecidas financeiramente por meio da internet); multilíngue (por meio da inclusão de outras línguas além do inglês); e intercultural, permitindo contato e aprendizado entre culturas e línguas diferentes.ResumenEl objetivo de este estudio es discutir las posibilidades en la educación de profesores de lenguas extranjeras (L2) en la era digital. Con ese objetivo, se llevaron a cabo algunas intervenciones pedagógicas en la asignatura de "Práctica Supervisada" de la carrera de Licenciatura en Inglés en una universidad federal en el sudeste de Brasil, con el fin de obtener datos empíricos sobre las percepciones de profesores de inglés en pre-servicio. El marco teórico se basa en el concepto de affordance, en relación con los efectos de la globalización (y sus Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación - TIC) en la educación de los profesores de idiomas en la era digital, considerando aspectos de la interculturalidad, a través de enfoques híbridos como CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning), COIL (Collaborative Online International Learning) e de Intercomprensión. Los datos se obtuvieron a través de la observación participante y entrevistas con educadores y profesores en pre-servicio e incluyen: 1) discusión de textos sobre enseñanza de idiomas, interculturalidad y el uso de tecnologías en educación; 2) reuniones virtuales en formato COIL con maestros de pre-servicio inscritos en la carrera de la universidad brasileña y en la Universidad Alberto Hurtado (AHU) en Chile; 3) sesiones de discusión / reflexión; 4) entrevistas con los participantes. El análisis sugiere que las TIC y los enfoques como CLIL, COIL e Intercomprensión promueven posibilidades de prácticas inclusivas (para las personas con desventajas financieras, con el uso de internet); prácticas multilingües (incluidos otros idiomas además del inglés); y prácticas interculturales, promoviendo el contacto y el aprendizaje entre diferentes culturas e idiomas.Palavras-chave: Educação intercultural, Tecnologia da informação e da comunicação, Línguas estrangeiras modernas, formação de professores.Keywords: Cross cultural training, Information technology, Second language instruction, Teacher education.Palabras clave: Educación intercultural, Tecnología de información y comunicación, Idiomas extranjeros, Formación de profesores de idiomas.ReferencesABRAHAMS, Mary Jane; RÍOS, Pablo Silva. What happens with English in Chile? Challenges in teacher preparation. In: KAMHI-STEIN, Lía D.; MAGGIOLI, Gabriel Díaz; OLIVEIRA, Luciana C. De (Eds.). 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<p>Virtual worlds by nature of their persistence and ability to have multiple simultaneous users in the same space can act as contact zones, defined by Mary Louse Pratt as a "social space where disparate cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in highly asymmetrical relations of domination and subordination," (1991, p. 34). One affordance of virtual worlds in constructing the contact zone is the ability for the developer to use localization to bridge language gaps between a user and the virtual world and, to some extent, between players who have a shared understanding of the virtual world. This understanding extends to the properties of objects and locations and any narrative lore or background in the world. However, localization can be a double-edged sword, with choices in translation and localization leading to confusion among virtual world users and conflict between users and developers. </p><p>Language impacts two aspects of the virtual contact zone. For one, players communicate using languages they are proficient in, using whatever affordances are available in the interface and paratextual platforms, such as the official forums and social mediaplatforms like Reddit and Tumblr. For another, the world itself is awash in language. That text manifests itself in gameplay elements from user abilities and item names to more narrative elements such as character names, dialogue, and written story and worldbuilding elements. These textual and narrative components, called "lore," are essential in contextualizing virtual spaces. Lore helps build the virtual world beyond the actual mechanics and interactions within a virtual space. Lore gives users a sense of not just place but of geography, not just time, but of history, and not just context for players but their place within the story of the virtual world. Lore offers players motivation for playing in addition to traditional gameplay motivators such as exploration, achieving, socializing, and defeating enemies or other players (Yee, 2006; Bartle, 1996) to interact with the world. </p><p>This paper focuses on the case of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn (FFXIV), an MMORPG initially released in 2013, its production, approaches to localization,and how it contributes to building a "virtual contact zone." In looking at specific instances where controversies in translation and localization led to confusion and conflict among the participants and developers of the game, this case study illustrates the role of localization in games beyond translation and acculturation. Localization not only serves as the linguistic bridge among members of the contact zone but, in the case of online games where world-building and narrative are important aspects for immersion and play, creates shared experiences and understandings of that virtual world among all members of the virtual contact zone.</p>

Over four decades ago the so-called Chomskyan revolution appeared to lay the foundation for a promising new partnership between linguistics and psychology. Many have now concluded, however, that the hopes originally expressed for this partnership were not realized. This chapter is about what went wrong and where we might go from here. The discussion first identifies three reasons why initial efforts at partnership may have been inherently flawed — divergent criteria for choosing among competing theories, different ideas about what was to be explained, and different approaches to questions about biology and environment. I then argue that recent developments — especially in associative learning theory, in cognitive neuroscience, and in linguistic theory — may provide a more solid basis for partnership. Next, the chapter describes two possible ways that bridges between the disciplines might develop. One draws on recent psychological research on attention focusing and on linguistic research concerning language constructions. The other draws on the concept of affordances and perspective taking. The chapter concludes that an enduring partnership between linguistics and psychology may indeed now be possible and that there may be a special role for applied linguistics in this new development.

This study aimed to present the status quo of linguistic studies on social media in the past decade. In particular, it conducted a bibliometric analysis of articles from the field of linguistics of the database of Web of Science Core Collection with the aid of the tool CiteSpace to identify the general characteristics, major strands of linguistics, main research methods, and important research themes in the area of linguistic studies on social media. The main findings are summarized as follows. First, the study reported the publication trend, main publication venues, researched social media platforms, and languages used in researched social media. Second, sociolinguistics and pragmatics were found to be major strands of linguistics used in relevant studies. Third, the study identified seven main research methods: discourse analysis, critical discourse analysis, conversation analysis, multimodal analysis, narrative analysis, ethnographic analysis, and corpus analysis. Fourth, important research themes were extracted and classified based on four dimensions of the genre framework of social media studies. They were the participation nature and technology affordances of social media in the dimension of compositional level, the researched topics of education, (language) policy and politics in the dimension of thematic orientations, the researched discursive practices of (im)politeness, humor, indexicality and multilingualism in the dimension of stylistic traits, and the researched communicative functions of constructing identity, communicating (language) ideology, and expressing attitude in the pragmatic dimension. Moreover, linguistic studies on social media tended to be characterized by cross-disciplinary and mixed-method approaches.

ABSTRACT With the increasing incorporation of digital media in 21st century societies, a paradigmatic phenomenon is occurring on the language issue: communicative practices have started being widely mediated by technology. Besides incorporating earlier technologies, such as radio and television, computers have enabled users, who were mere passive recipients, to become information emitters as well. Starting from the principle pointed out by Marshall McLuhan (1964) that the medium controls the scales and actions configured in language, this paper seeks to understand the scalar levels of new technologies contexts and how they reverberate on meditated linguistic practices. Digital media are considered here as their own computational designs, communication channels that, far from being neutral, are previously set by large computational companies and, therefore, present ideologies and already configured forms of interaction, stimulating semiotic and pragmatic dimensions of language, reflecting on aspects of culture and, consequently, on political life.

In UK schools, there remains a compartmentalisation of English into ‘language’ and ‘literature’, evident in the ways that the subject is taught and examined and in the degrees to which teachers perceive themselves as being either a ‘language’ or a ‘literature’ teacher. In this paper, we suggest that an approach informed by cognitive linguistics and cognitive stylistics offers a wealth of affordances to the teacher who wishes to integrate aspects of linguistic and literary studies into their teaching. We argue that, in particular, the cognitive discourse grammar Text World Theory provides an accessible and usable set of pedagogical principles, and present two case studies of collaborative research with teachers in which they drew upon Text World Theory as a model for thinking about grammar teaching, literature teaching, lesson design, classroom talk and their own identity as a teacher of English. The data suggests that this approach may have positive benefits for students engaging in high-level linguistic analysis and the developing of responses to literature, and for teachers thinking about lesson and activity design.

AbstractThe possibility of exploiting technology for more robust and meaningful learning and teaching has invoked messianic responses from the language education community. Yet to be explored are teachers’ pedagogical choices based on the perceived technological affordances as well as interactions between teacher and student agency mediated by these affordances in the ecology of a classroom. This qualitative case study adopts an ecological approach, aiming to address rather than factor out the broader social context in a physical classroom. With data collected from 30 hours of classroom observation and 10 post-observation interviews with the participant teacher, the study makes an attempt to show how the ecological model of language learning can provide a theoretical lens through which to explore teachers’ practices of CALL that aim to encourage learner agency. The analysis centers on three focused extracts that illustrate interaction between and among the affordance of technology, the teacher participant’s pedagogical considerations, and her goal of encouraging learner agency. The result of the study emphasizes the teacher’s role from an ecological perspective and classroom learner agency mediated by technology, which provides useful insight that can contribute to language teaching practice with technology in the classroom.

In this paper, we combine analytical tools of conceptual metaphor theory with the affordances of corpus-based linguistics and quantitative analysis to investigate the translation of synesthetic metaphors found in Donna Tartt’s novels into Ukrainian. A synesthetic metaphor is addressed as a linguistic expression representing a sensation of one modality in terms of another. We claim that the choice of a translation procedure – retention, removal, omission, modification, or addition is partly determined by linguacultural similarity (i.e. isomorphism) or specificity (i.e. anisomorphism) of cross-sensory mappings that underlie the source-text and targettext linguistic expressions and partly – by the translator’s free choice, which cannot be explained by objective reasons. The obtained results show the following trends. Original metaphors as well as conventional metaphors based on isomorphic crosssensory mappings are mostly retained. Conventional metaphors that rest on anisomorphic mappings are mostly modified or removed/omitted. However, the translator can choose to remove/modify a synesthetic metaphor that rests on an isomorphic mapping. Added synesthetic metaphors usually root in isomorphic mappings. The applied methodology minimizes subjectivity of judgment in differentiating between the compulsory (i.e. imposed by the linguacultural specificity) and free strategic choices, which contributes to the potential impact of this research.

Abstract The established descriptions of information structure assume that the basic cognitive unit is a categorization, and that the basic semantic structure is a predication. Descriptions based on these assumptions, however, cannot provide an adequate analysis of certain types of utterances that form a part of activities. The article presents a solution to this problem based on Wittgenstein’s private language argument and the concept of information in Gibson's theory of affordances. The basic cognitive assumption is that performers of activities attend to variations in the environment, for example visibility, and perceive the states of variations (e.g., 3000 feet). A state is defined as a local, temporary occurrence of a stimulus configuration that specifies an affordance. The basic pragmatic assumption, then, is that performers of activities share the states of variations by means of utterances. This ecological-pragmatic assumption allows for a rethinking of the usefulness of the reference-predicate distinction and bring forward different dimensions of informational analysis of utterances. It is claimed that an informative and accurate analysis of utterances that form a part of activities relies two distinctions: a distinction between a convention based regulation of attention and a convention based specification of an affordance, and a distinction between sharing information and nesting information

This article describes a representation-based framework of distributed cognition. This framework considers distributed cognition as a cognitive system whose structures and processes are distributed between internal and external representations, across a group of individuals, and across space and time. The major issue for distributed research, under this framework, are the distribution, transformation, and propagation of information across the components of the distributed cognitive system and how they affect the performance of the system as a whole. To demonstrate the value of this representation-based approach, the framework was used to describe and explain an important, challenging, and controversial issue — the concept of affordance.

AbstractPeople often begin stories in conversation by referring to person, time, and place. We study story beginnings in three societies and find place reference is recurrently used to (i) set the stage, foreshadowing the type of story and the kind of response due, and to (ii) make the story cohere, anchoring elements of the developing story. Recipients orient to these interactional affordances of place reference by responding in ways that attend to the relevance of place for the story and by requesting clarification when references are incongruent or noticeably absent. The findings are based on 108 story beginnings in three unrelated languages: Cha'palaa, a Barbacoan language of Ecuador; Northern Italian, a Romance language of Italy; and Siwu, a Kwa language of Ghana. The commonalities suggest we have identified generic affordances of place reference, and that storytelling in conversation offers a robust sequential environment for systematic comparative research. (Storytelling, place, narrative, conversation analysis, interactional linguistics)*

Abstract Within the digital world, new multilingual contacts appeared, which led to a more multilingual Web and enabled local and global participation that assert new identities (Lenihan and Kelly-Holmes 2017). For multilingual people, language choice and code-switching serves as a means for users to perform a specific image of cultural or personal identity and signal their affiliation with a particular community. The paper analyses digital multilingual practices of bilingual (Hungarian-Romanian) university students in Romania. The data consists of students’ public Facebook profiles, examining language choice, code-switching, and hybrid practices. My research question refers to how their linguistic identity is constructed in their online communicative practices. Multilingual practices in the social media are not necessarily connected to language competences in a traditional sense and may serve as a space for resolving conflicting linguistic identities. In my data, students use their diverse linguistic and semiotic resources in varying ways to express and build their online identity, relying on the multimodal affordances of the digital world. Online multilingual practices rely on the speaker’s complete language repertoire, but they do not necessarily depend on language proficiency.

In this paper, we investigate how the interactions of a robot with its environment can be used to create concepts that are typically represented by verbs in language. Towards this end, we utilize the notion of affordances to argue that verbs typically refer to the generation of a specific type of effect rather than a specific type of action. Then, we show how a robot can form these concepts through interactions with the environment and how humans can use these concepts to ease their communication with the robots. We demonstrate that iCub, a humanoid robot, can use the concepts, which it has developed, to to understand what a human performs, perform multi-step planning for reaching a goal state as well as to specify a goal to the robot using symbolic descriptions.

Abstract Iconic words are supposed to exhibit imitative relationships between their linguistic forms and their referents. Many studies have worked to pinpoint sound-to-meaning correspondences for ideophones from different languages. The correspondence patterns show similarities across languages, but what makes such language-specific correspondences universal, as iconicity claims to be, remains unclear. This could be due to a lack of consensus on how to describe and test the perceptuo-motor affordances that make an iconic word feel imitative to speakers. We created and analysed a database of 1,860 ideophones across 13 languages, and found that seven articulatory features, physiologically accessible to all spoken language users, pattern according to semantic features of ideophones. Our findings pave the way for future research to utilize articulatory properties as a means to test and explain how iconicity is encoded in spoken language. The perspective taken here fits in with ongoing research of embodiment, motivation, and iconicity research, three major strands of research within Cognitive Linguistics. The results support that there is a degree of unity between the concepts of imitative communication and the spoken forms through cross-domain mappings, which involve physical articulatory movement.

In the past two decades translanguaging has proven to be a potent concept in applied linguistics, having generated a large amount of literature that explores theoretical and empirical dimensions of this linguistically inclusive pedagogical approach to language teaching and learning. This systematic literature review focuses on empirical studies that draw on the translanguaging framework in English language teaching (ELT) and beyond. Following PRISMA guidelines for systematic reviews, this study aims to shed light on the current state of knowledge about the affordances of translanguaging pedagogies in a plethora of educational contexts worldwide and to highlight possible avenues for future research. Eleven databases were searched to obtain a dataset spanning from 2011 till February of 2021 and yielding nearly 3000 publications. After duplicate removal, abstract screening, and application of the inclusion/exclusion criteria, a total of 233 studies were coded and analysed to address the research questions. As a result, this systematic review synthesizes the state of knowledge on pedagogical translanguaging, with the aim to inform educators about developments in this rapidly growing field and support researchers in identifying future research priorities on the subject of drawing on learners’ full linguistic repertoires for linguistically inclusive education.

Abstract Our contribution maps the journey towards setting up a transdisciplinary, interprofessional collaboration between coaching practitioners and coaching researchers from the fields of Applied Linguistics and Applied Psychology. The goal of such a project is to build a community of interest around a common cause, i.e., a practically relevant, language-based coaching problem (in our case, questioning practices in executive coaching), and to collaboratively solve the problem on the basis of assembling and integrating the various epistemes. The purpose of our contribution in the form of a travel report is twofold: firstly, to theoretically and conceptually discuss the challenges and affordances of aligning perspectives and assembling epistemes for such a transdisciplinary research project; Secondly, to present the available epistemic bases and offer first empirical results from our applied linguistic research and our cooperation with Applied Psychology that served as the basis for conceptualising the project Questioning Sequences in Coaching (Graf, Spranz-Fogasy, & Künzli, 2020). We end this travel report by critically assessing the transdisciplinary character of the current project and by envisioning another kind of cooperation between coaching practice and coaching research as the future destination of our research journey.

<p>Mobile-assisted language learning (MALL) is popular worldwide. One related issue under discussion is how to effectively harness mobile devices to help English writers. This paper first unpacks writing as a meaning making process from the perspective of systemic functional linguistics. It then summarizes the major MALL-based studies on writing instruction, including the affordances and challenges of MALL-based writing instruction. This paper then discusses how to address challenges as identified in the existing studies on MALL-based writing instruction, centering on writing as a meaning making process. The paper ends with pedagogical tips for educators who are interested in using mobile technology to comprehensively improve students’ English writing construction across different contexts.</p>

The emergence of big data in educational contexts has led to new data-driven approaches to support informed decision making and efforts to improve educational effectiveness. Digital traces of student behavior promise more scalable and finer-grained understanding and support of learning processes, which were previously too costly to obtain with traditional data sources and methodologies. This synthetic review describes the affordances and applications of microlevel (e.g., clickstream data), mesolevel (e.g., text data), and macrolevel (e.g., institutional data) big data. For instance, clickstream data are often used to operationalize and understand knowledge, cognitive strategies, and behavioral processes in order to personalize and enhance instruction and learning. Corpora of student writing are often analyzed with natural language processing techniques to relate linguistic features to cognitive, social, behavioral, and affective processes. Institutional data are often used to improve student and administrational decision making through course guidance systems and early-warning systems. Furthermore, this chapter outlines current challenges of accessing, analyzing, and using big data. Such challenges include balancing data privacy and protection with data sharing and research, training researchers in educational data science methodologies, and navigating the tensions between explanation and prediction. We argue that addressing these challenges is worthwhile given the potential benefits of mining big data in education.

Creativity is a design feature of human language. This paper presents a cognitive model of verbal creativity that draws on insights from the psychological research into creativity—particularly Glăveanu’s 5A model that distinguishes five crucial perspectives on a creative act (actors, audience, artefacts, actions and affordances). The paper will outline a linguistic version of this model that adopts Construction Grammar as its theoretical foundation. The resulting “5C model of constructional creativity” argues that the central elements of linguistic creativity are constructors, co-constructors, constructs, constructional blending and the constructional network.