Conversazioni sulla lingua: il forum italiano-inglese di WordReference

Computer-mediated communication (CMC), in particular the use of e-learning platforms and forums, has introduced less institutionalized domains into language teaching, which are potentially able to promote interaction-based collaborative learning. The language forums of WordReference provide a particularly interesting place to analyze written interaction in CMC not only insofar as their materials are publicly available, but because these forums have been conceived within a perspective of Knowledge Building Communities, where learning is seen as the result of interaction between users in processes of co-construction, negotiation, and social sharing. These forums are therefore potentially ideal places to observe learning processes from the point of view of interaction not simply between teacher and student, but rather between experts and non-experts, or better between more expert and less expert participants in the community. This paper analyzes three aspects of a set of discussions selected from the Italian-English forum: the manners in which interactions develop; the positions participants take with respect to their co-participants’ expertise (i.e. how they assess that expertise as greater or lesser); whether and what implications these processes may have for learning in general. These aspects are addressed by considering a number of linguistic phenomena treated as indicators of the degree of interactivity and collaboration in participants’ writing, and as surface signals of levels of competence. The phenomena examined include opening, closing and thanking routines; expressions signalling turn-taking and turn-ending; expressions signalling agreement and disagreement; and expressions serving to strengthen or mitigate participant claims.