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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 1021

Part of General Poster Session (Other abstracts in this session)

‘His class is incredibly boring and pointless’: Interaction in online academic contexts

Authors: Vladimirou, Dimitra (1); House, Juliane (2)
Submitted by: Vladimirou, Dimitra (Hellenic American University, Greece)

The study of academic ‘tribes and territories’ (Becher and Trowler 2001) has largely focused on journal articles, students’ writing and lectures, in other words on academic discourse produced within formal, institutional contexts. This paper aims to shift attention to academic discourse practices in online informal contexts.

The empirical data for this study consist of students’ contributions to a Greek university student forum. 892 responses to the ‘opinion for lecturers’ thread have been collected, dating from 2007 to 2012. The dataset includes the code of practice established by the moderators. Drawing on views of (im)politeness as socially ubiquitous in ‘virtually all modes of human communication’ (Bousfield 2008), this study initially examines the linguistic instantiations of (im)polite behaviour, including unconventional orthography, images and emoticons. The analysis focuses on the co-construction of offensive behaviour and the function of (im)polite strategies as a means of establishing common ground, strengthening solidarity between the participants of a student community of practice, and entertaining one another. (see Culpeper 2005). Special attention is given to a number of contextual factors specific to computer mediated communication, such as, asynchronicity and anonymity of participants, but also the public nature of the forum.

References

Becher, T. and P. R. Trowler (2001) Academic Tribes and Territories, Buckingham/Philadelphia: The Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press.

Bousfield, D. (2008) Politeness in Interaction. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 

Culpeper, J. (2005) ‘Politeness and Entertainment in the Television Quiz Show: The Weakest Link’, Journal of Politeness Research 1: 35-72.