Comparing protest movements in Chile and California: interculturality in an Internet chat exchange

Abstract

This paper is based on an analysis of chat transcripts from an English-language telecollaboration project between students at universities in Chile and California. This research found that the richest intercultural interactions involved events that could not have been foreseen: the immigrant rights demonstrations in the USA and the massive student protests in Chile in May of 2006. Through a discursive analysis of the chat transcripts in which participants compared these two protest movements, this paper elucidates the linguistic resources through which intercultural attitudes, knowledge, skills, and critical cultural awareness were constructed.

Este estudio analiza transcripciones de chat seleccionadas de un proyecto telecolaborativo en inglés entre estudiantes universitarios en Chile y California. La investigación descubrió que las interacciones interculturales más profundas surgieron de asuntos imprevisibles: las manifestaciones en los Estados Unidos por los derechos de inmigrantes, y las protestas masivas estudiantiles en Chile en mayo de 2006. Basado en un análisis discursivo de las transcripciones de chat en las cuales los participantes comparaban los dos movimientos políticos, este ensayo elucida los recursos de lenguaje e interacción por medio de los cuales se construía la interculturalidad: actitudes, conocimiento, habilidades, y conciencia cultural crítica.

Keywords:

• politics
• intercultural communication
• foreign language education
• computer-mediated communication
• Chile
• the USA

Notes

A draft of this paper was presented under a different title at the Forum Universal de las Culturas, Monterrey, Mexico, October 2007; an abbreviated version will appear in the conference proceedings.

1. I focus on these five groups because the tutors turned in complete transcripts at the end of the quarter, conveniently formatted in MS Word. Transcripts from other groups were either incomplete or saved in a difficult-to-cut-and-paste format.

2. Names of Chilean and Californian students are pseudonyms.