An Analysis of Negotiation of Meaning Functions of Advanced EFL Learners in Second Life: Negotiation of Meaning in Second Life

Introduction

In today’s world, technology is seen in every field and it is developing and spreading every day. As a result, it has become inevitable to use it for education as well. As the researchers, educators and instructional technology specialists are aware of this fact, they try to implement the recent computer assisted teaching tools in their classrooms. As for the language teaching, the Internet also provides a wide variety of potential uses of technology. Moreover, each and every day, a new online tool appears and both teachers and students are willing to use online platforms for their courses. However, there is a need for computer assisted discourse analysis of these environments for all stakeholders of education, administrators, teachers, educators, researchers and students and they should be aware of the patterns used in these platforms in order to better understand the online contexts. In literature, there are some studies based on discourse analysis of online environments; however, the number of these studies is quite limited. This study specifically focused on the negotiation of meaning functions used in Second Life, a 3D environment. Thus, the following literature review focusses on two dimensions of this study – the negotiation of meaning and Second Life as a 3D virtual world example.