CINLE - Studies of everyday Communication and Identity processes in Netbased Learning Environments

This research conducted within project CINLE lies at the intersection of sociocultural theoretical points of departure, postcolonial theory and research conducted within the fields of identity and communication broadly. Our work deals with issues of languaging in virtual multimodal environments as well as the making of identity and negotiation of meaning in these settings. The empirical focus in project CINLE is on situated practice: what people do in contraposition to the study of how people talk about their activity.

• What are the ways in which students engage in language learning?
• What are the interactional patterns in virtual institutional settings?
• What communicative strategies are employed by students and teachers?
• How are institutional activities negotiated within the constraints and opportunities accorded in virtual multimodal & multilingual settings?
• How are identities negotiated and (co)constructed by participants´ ways-with-words?
• What are the ways in which participants subject positioning become salient in micro-level interaction in virtual settings?

These are some of the research questions that are posed in the empirically pushed CINLE project "Communication and identity processes in netbased learning environments - Language learning over the boundaries of time and space". This research project originates in the attempt to investigate and reach a deeper understanding of the communication that occurs in virtual institutional settings in higher education. Here, participants in online courses can come together in virtual sites from everywhere on the planet, as long as they have access to an internet connection and digital technology. We contend that notions like learning, identity, context, borderlands, hybridity, ubiquity, mobility, transnationalism, diaspora, multilingualism and multimodality need to be understood in relation to a shift in focus where the objects of inquiry are communities of practice in online glocal nexus which allow flexibility in that the boundaries of time and space can become diffuse.

The project presents new perspectives on issues based upon completed and ongoing work within the research group CCD, Communication, Culture and Diversity, at the School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences (HumEs) at Örebro University and the research school Technology-mediated knowledge processes in the university and in professional life, at the School of Languages and Media Studies at Dalarna University.

Project CINLE aims to contribute towards an understanding of the complexity of students´ interaction and their activity of languaging in online synchronous environments from empirically pushed theoretical framing. The results of the project will, it is suggested, be of interest for teacher education and for the development of best practices in language learning in computer mediated communication situations.

Project CINLE is ongoing until 2015 and its members are:

1) Giulia Messina Dahlberg, (a) doctoral candidate in education, School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences, Örebro University; Research school Technology-mediated knowledge processes in the university and in professional life, Dalarna University; (b) Lecturer in Italian, School of Languages and Media Studies, Dalarna University;
2) Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta, (a) professor in education & didactics, School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences, Örebro University; (b) research leader, Centre for Rehabilitation Research, Örebro University Hospital;
3) Mats Tegmark, (a) Senior Lecturer in English, (b) head of development for teacher education and adjunct head of School of Education and Humanities, Dalarna University.
4) Sylvi Vigmo (a) Senior Lecturer in Education; (b) Director of Studies for the LinCS-DSES Doctoral School in Educational Sciences

Project CINLE international peer-reviewed journal articles

Messina Dahlberg, G & Bagga-Gupta. S (2014) Understanding glocal learning spaces. An empirical study of languaging and transmigrant positions in the virtual classroom. Special theme issue "Media and migration: learning in a globalized world". Learning, Media and Technology. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2014.931868

Messina Dahlberg, G., & Bagga-Gupta, S. (2013) Communication in the virtual classroom in higher education: Languaging beyond the boundaries of time and space, Learning, Culture and Social Interaction 2 (3) http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lcsi.2013.04.003

Project CINLE international peer-reviewed conference presentations

Messina Dahlberg, G., Lindberg, Y. Virtual sites for sustainable lifelong language learning. Symposium accepted at 17th World Congress of the International Association of Applied Linguistics (AILA) 10 - 15 August 2014, Brisbane, Australia

Viberg, O., & Messina Dahlberg, G., MOOCs’ structure and knowledge managment. Short paper accepted at the 21st International Conference on Computers in Education. 18-23 November 2013, Depansar Bali, Indonesia

Messina Dahlberg, G., & Bagga-Gupta, S., Socialization in transnational epistemic practices: lesson types and representations in virtual classrooms 13th IPrA, International Pragmatics Association Conference. 8-13 September 2013. New Delhi, India.

Messina Dahlberg, G., & Bagga-Gupta, S., Constraints and affordances in epistemic practices: Socialization in the virtual classroom as an affinity space. SIG 10 Social Interaction and Learning Symposium “Literacies, Languaging and Learning inside and outside institutional settings” 15th Biennual EARLI, European Association of Research on Learning and Instruction. August 27 – 31 2013. Munich, Germany.

Messina Dahlberg, Giulia & Bagga-Gupta, Sangeeta. Virtual learning sites as transnational borderlands. Dialogical approaches to participants "multilingual-modal" languaging. Presentation at Conference Eurocall 2012. Theme Using, Learning, Knowing. Gothenburg University, Sweden 22-25 August 2012.

Viberg, O., & Messina Dahlberg, G., Who gains the leading position in online interaction? Power shifts in the online synchronous language classroom – paper accepted in the Next Generation Learning Conference 2012 – Högskolan Dalarna, Falun, Sweden, 21-23 February 2012

Messina Dahlberg, G., “I’m not so good at this”. An analysis of processes of inclusion and marginalization in online institutional virtual environments, across and between boundaries of time and space. Paper presented at the International conference-cum-workshop on Marginalization Processes, Örebro University 17 - 19 October 2011

Messina Dahlberg, G., Languaging in online higher educational environments. Unimodal multilingual behaviors? Abstract accepted as Round Table during the biannual EARLI 2011 conference “Education for a Global Networked Society in Exeter, England, 30 Aug – 3 Sep 2011

Messina Dahlberg, G.., Teaching Italian as a foreign language in the virtual classroom: how do students interact during chat seminars which are not teacher-led? Abstract accepted for oral presentation in the thematic area of “Personalizing learning environments and networking” during the 11th CercleS International Conference (CercleS 2010) in Helsinki, Finland, on 2 - 4 September 2010.