Students’ frame shifting – resonances of social media in schooling

Abstract

This case study explores how Swedish upper secondary students communicate in English as part of second language learning, in a blog shared with Thai students. Grounded in a sociocultural perspective on learning, the notions of Goffman's frame shifting and Bakhtin's concept of carnival are employed to analyse two specific students’ negotiations and co-construction of postings in relation to authorship and audience. The findings show that when encountering a task introduced as part of schooling but contextualized in social media, the two students struggle to come to grips with how to frame the task. Initially, they frame the activity in relation to what counts as conventional language-learning practices but shift framing as they discover that other classmates’ postings are framed more in line with social media contexts, distinguished by a carnivalesque spontaneous writing. Thus, for the two specific students who author the postings, the local audience consisting of their classmates plays the most significant role.

Keywords:

• social media
• English as second language
• frame-shifting
• carnival
• digital vernacular

Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the Marcus and Amelia Foundation and conducted within the University of Gothenburg Learning and Media Technology Studio (LETStudio) and the Linnaeus Centre for Research on Learning, Interaction and Mediated Communication in Contemporary Society (LinCS).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Annika Lantz-Andersson is a senior lecturer in education at the University of Gothenburg and a member of The Linnaeus Centre for Research on Learning, Interaction and Mediated Communication in Contemporary Society (LinCS), as well as part of the University of Gothenburg's strength area of learning research (LETStudio). Annika has a Ph.D. in educational science (2009), and her research focuses on social interaction, the use of digital technologies and its implications for learning. She is currently involved in research projects concerning participation in contemporary media ecologies.

Sylvi Vigmo is a senior lecturer in education at the University of Gothenburg and a member of LinCS, as well as part of the University of Gothenburg's strength area of learning research (LETStudio). Sylvi has a Ph.D. in educational science (2010) and is interested in research that investigates people's communication when digital technologies are part of interactions, and what questions these interactions raise concerning learning. At present she is investigating open educational resources in international collaboration.

Rhonwen Bowen is a Associate Senior Lecturer in English linguistics and at present Director of the Unit for Academic Language, Faculty of Education, at the University of Gothenburg. Her background and previous research interests include English syntax, corpus linguistics, academic writing, language learning and English medium instruction. For the past four years, Rhonwen has been involved in a collaborative research project entitled ‘Linguascapes - Language learning in social media worlds’. In this project, funded by the Marcus and Amalia Wallenberg foundation 2011-2014, we have investigated students at upper secondary level, and their innovative uses of English in an international collaboration.