Begoña Montero-Fleta

A Spoken Genre Gets Written: Online Football Commentaries in English, French, and Spanish

Many recent studies on computer-mediated communication (CMC) have addressed the question of orality and literacy. This article examines a relatively recent subgenre of CMC, that of written online sports commentary, that provides us with written CMC that is clearly based on firmly established oral genres, those of radio and television sports commentary. The examples analyzed are from two English, two French, and two Spanish online football (soccer) commentaries. The purpose of the study is to examine oral traits and genre mixing in online football commentaries in the three languages and carryover from the spoken genres of radio and television commentaries to this developing genre, following Ferguson. Special attention is paid to Web page design. The study reveals that form and content of online football commentaries are strongly affected by the style of the online newspaper.

The Study of Motivation in Library and Information Management Education: Qualitative and Quantitative Research.

The application of new technologies and media has changed the concept of teaching and learning, offering effective and attractive possibilities to the educational system, particularly to the learning of languages in specific contexts. Educators in general will agree on the importance of motivation as a key to success in language acquisition as it is both a condition and a result of effective in-struction. However, although research has recognized the positive effect of intrinsic motivation on learning and academic achievement, little is known about the impact of different technology-supported learning activities on students’ intrinsic motivation, the most critical factor for success in language teaching through computers according to some scholars. In this paper we present a university course project carried out in the English class in a degree of Library and Information Management. By means of an integrated analysis which includes qualita-tive and quantitative research, we see the influence of a CMC (Computer-mediated Communica-tion) genre, that of weblogs, in learning, and the way this new learning environment enhances motivation. In the project we present, students were asked to participate in blogs dealing with top-ics of their field of studies, a fact that constitutes the authentic learning environment suggested by some scholars in the field of education. Blogging was the key activity of their writing course. Students’ participation in blogs implied exchanging posts, making comments, agreeing and dis-agreeing on what was discussed in the posts, asking for clarification, etc., always with the hope of raising the interest of other bloggers and starting a discussion.

Simulation and Gaming in Virtual Language Learning Literacy

The CoMoViWo project, financed by the European Union’s Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA), aims to improve the employability of graduates and professionals by developing literacy training for virtual communication. The innovative aspect of this project is the fusion of communication, technology, and multiculturality in association with business enterprises. The present study centers on detecting the specific needs for virtual communication and mobility in the workplace by means of a descriptive analysis studying work context of 102 employees using virtual communication and a qualitative analysis based on the opinions of nine linguists, experts in the field of simulation and gaming, which brings to the foreground characteristics that games or simulations should provide, as well as the importance of effective virtual debriefing, if used in online literacy. After the fieldwork is carried out, the results obtained provide the necessary feedback for orienting the materials designers to take into account the multiple applications of simulation and gaming. The development of a series of intensive modules for improving foreign language use in virtual and mobile contexts in the workplace is the ultimate objective of the present project.

Communicating Virtually: The Case of Blogging in Professional Environments

This work was supported in part by CoMoViWo, a Project financed by the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) of the European Union within the Erasmus + Programme.

A first glimpse at mobile instant messaging: Some sociolinguistic determining factors

Abstract Despite the vast body of research on the linguistic peculiarities of Instant Messaging and Short Messaging Service, little is known about the language used in Mobile Instant Messaging in a cross-generational and cross-cultural context. To fill this gap, the crosslinguistic study addressed here is an attempt to approach age-specific variation from a blended ethnography approach. The current research is grounded on an analysis of a naturally-occurring dataset of WhatsApp messages from the point of view of oralisation and deviations from standard forms. Two distinct generations of English and Spanish texters provide empirical data on the parameters of the oralised written discourse suggested by Yus (2011): emoticons, orthographic mistakes, phonetic orthography, abbreviations, acronyms and clippings, and the use of words in other languages. Subsequently, an analysis of the interviews held with the writers approaches the factors that may determine language variation in the messages. The conclusions drawn highlight the persistent use of deviations from standard language of English and Spanish teenagers. The study confirms a higher frequency of a conversational style in Spanish than in English. Not only brevity and speed reasons but also familiarity, playfulness and intimacy with the addressee are behind the intentional variations used.