Abstract
This chapter explores WhatsApp interactions and the benefits of mobile instant messaging (MIM) in teaching and learning processes within the context of an inter-university telecollaboration project. From a cyberpragmatic framework, this study analyses how the participants communicate by taking advantage of the possibilities of the medium and considering its constraints, as well as how the creative use of the multimodal elements fosters the development of learners' communicative competence. After categorising the learning activities, a mixed-method analysis was performed to identify which multimodal elements were used and what pragmatic effects they had in the analysed WhatsApp conversations. Of these multimodal elements, emojis have been explored in greater depth owing to their pragmatic relevance in MIM. The results show a rich communication landscape in which multimodal elements play a significant role in generating conversation topics, establishing a friendly and safe learning atmosphere, facilitating communication, and providing language learning opportunities.
TopIntroduction
Telecollaboration or virtual exchange has a long tradition in language education, but the digital spaces in which collaborative tasks take place are constantly developing (O'Dowd, 2016; O'Dowd, R. & O'Rourke 2019). Since technology in language education plays an important role in relation to interaction, socialization, and learners’ engagement, it is paramount not only to research the communicative tasks in which they are involved (Guth & Helm, 2012), but also how interactions occur in these new channels (González-Lloret, 2015). While at the beginning of telecollaboration interactions were mainly asynchronous and written (Appel & Gilabert, 2002; Vinagre, 2005) or synchronous through text chat (O’Rouke, 2005), the present virtual exchange language learning projects take advantage of digital communication by videoconferencing (Black & Barron, 2018; Çimenli et al., 2022; Wigham, 2017; Wigham & Satar, 2021), mobile instant messaging (Andújar & Franco, 2020; Espejel et al., 2022b), or even social networks (Korkealehto & Leier, 2021). Moreover, such interactions are no longer vernacular textual practices limited to written texts, but multimodal texts of greater pragmatic richness that allow for exploring new ways of communication. Much remains to be learned about the affordance of these digital interactions in language education and teacher training in telecollaboration. Thus, the study presented in this chapter focuses on the pragmatics of mobile instant messaging (MIM) interaction in digital communication landscapes (Concheiro et al., 2019) set up for collaboration and learning.
This study specifically aims to analyse the multimodal texts during a WhatsApp task in the HI-UB Telecollaboration project (Espejel et al., 2022b). The research questions are as follows:
RQ1: What kind of interactional activities do participants in the University of Iceland (HI) – University of Barcelona (UB) telecollaboration project engage in through a WhatsApp task?
RQ2: Which multimodal elements use the project participants during their WhatsApp interactions?
RQ3: What type of pragmatic effect do the multimodal elements have on their MIM communication?
TopTheoretical Background
Using words alone is not enough to express meaning in contemporary digital communication in which different semiotic modes (Kress & Van Leeuwen 2001; Kress 2010; Jewitt 2009), such as images, written text, video, and audio, interact to form digital texts in different environments and channels such as Mobile Instant Messaging (MIM), virtual worlds (Jauregui Ondarria et al., 2020), or social networking such as Instagram or TikTok (Espejel et al., 2022a). Digital texts expand the traditional idea of a written static text to what it can be defined as digital communication landscapes (Concheiro et al., 2019) where the interaction of these semiotic modes allows for more creative and innovative ways of communication within MIM environments.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Virtual Exchange: Refers to technology-based educational programs that connect students located in different geographical locations to develop collaboration in their learning processes. In this study, we use telecollaboration and virtual exchange interchangeably.
Emojis: Are pictograms usually embedded in text used in digital messages with the main function to provide extra information, such as emotions, beyond the written or spoken word.
Multimodality: Refers to the interplay between different representational modes, for instance, between images and written or spoken word.
Mobile Instant Messaging (MIM): Is a messaging service, such as WhatsApp, WeChat, etc., that uses instant messaging via mobile devices, employing various technologies such as text messaging, images, audio, etc.
Cyberpragmatics: Is an analysis of Internet-mediated communication from the perspective of cognitive pragmatics.