Affordances e restrições na interação interpessoal escrita online durante a aprendizagem de inglês como língua estrangeira

Abstract

The processes of foreign language learning and teaching in distance education have conquered increasing space in both course offerings in this educational mode and in applied linguistics research agendas driven by the interest in understanding how the continuous technological and scientific progress impact methodologies and practices of teaching and learning languages (PAIVA, 1999, 2010 2011). Inserted in this universe, the context of this research was one course of English teacher education (Letras), through distance education, offered for municipalities located in the countryside of the state of Ceara, Brazil. Due to various technological and environmental constraints present in this scenario, the online interpersonal interaction in the virtual learning environment was realized predominantly in the written mode. Text-based Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) presents several constraints on interactants because of its visually-reduced mode. On the other hand, text-based CMC presents different features, which help to sustain the interaction and can promote language learning (WARSCHAUER, 1998; CHAPELLE, 2001, 2003; FELIX, 2003; WHITE, 2003; LEVY & STOCKWELL, 2006; LAMY & HAMPEL, 2007). In this context, the main objective of this research, characterized as qualitative-complex research (SILVERMAN, 2000), was to describe the mechanisms of engagement with the affordances that helped to sustain the text-based interpersonal interactions in a virtual learning environment where English was learned as a foreign language, specifically in discussion forums and chats. The notion of affordance, which came from ecological psychology (GIBSON, 1986), was discussed in this work according to three dimensions: (i) the environmental dimension, (ii) the technological dimension, both of them with contributions by Lamy & Hampel (2007) and Rama et al. (2012), mainly, and (iii) the linguistic dimension, associating a linguistics pragmatics theory about contextualization cues to the latter (GUMPERZ, 1982; GREENO, 1994). The complexity theory offered subsidies to study text-based interpersonal interactions in forums and chats as complex systems in which factors interacted and were perceived as affordances or as constraints to the engagement during the interactional trajectories (LARSEN-FREEMAN & CAMERON, 2008), as well as helped to preserve the notion of affordance as a resonance between an individual and what they can perceive as useful for engagement in the environment, which avoids the objective-subjetive dichotomy. In order to study perception, data-stimulated interviews were conducted with participants as a form of context reconstruction. The findings showed antagonistic sides of affordances: what was perceived as affordances by some of the participants, others could perceive as constraint, such as the chronemics in the chats and forums analyzed. Technological and linguistic affordances contributed to the construction of presence in the environment, helping participants to project both individual and group identities, and the learning community identity (LAVE & WENGER, 1991; WHITE, 2003), which, in turn, was an environmental affordance to build a sense of confidence and trust to engage in the interactions. Finally, it was possible to verify that affordances could be mediated by the teachers.