Discursive construction of social presence and identity positions in an international bilingual collaboration

Abstract

This article examines the discursive construction of social presence and identity in a bilingual collaboration between tertiary distance learners of German in New Zealand and Academic English students in Germany. Drawing on positioning theory, this small-scale study investigated the collaborative practices of a group of students, whose synchronous online interactions were analyzed for manifestations of social presence and discursive strategies to project or resist identity positions through bilingual means. The findings showed the enactment of a ‘work & play’ identity, where formal monolingual discourse patterns alternated with playful and creative uses of humour and translanguaging strategies. The learners developed a rich interactional structure supported through multiple layers of cohesive ties which helped build a productive learning community embedded in social interaction and facilitated by social presence.

Keywords:

• Social presence
• online learning community
• positioning
• translanguaging
• identity

Acknowledgments

Christina vom Brocke, my collaborating German co-teacher; Ulrike Rehm, for coding assistance.

Notes

1. A post-project written reflection for the NZS and an oral presentation for the German students.

2. Voice-enabled tools with chat function.

3. The fourth synchronous meeting was excluded as the NZS was sick and the German students spent their time discussing their presentation.

4. The early start aimed to get the project underway as soon as possible because there was only a small window of time during which the New Zealand and German semesters overlapped.

5. Another NZS who did not participate in the introductory meeting joined the second small group, which was not included in the analysis.

6. Shown in the ‘TL’ column.

7. ‘Nerd’ is a more derogatory connotation associated with the term.

8. Fresh cheese with Nutella.