1. Methodological issues concerning research of
plurilingual online communication
Ana Beaven
University of Bologna, Italy/University of Warwick, UK
Researching Multilingually Seminar
25th - 26th April 2012 - University of the West of England

2. PhD research project
• Investigating cross-cultural adaptation process in
the context of Erasmus student mobility
• Cohort of 21 Italian students going to 10 different
countries (Cyprus, Czech Rep., Denmark,
England, Finland, France, Germany, Norway,
Scotland, Spain)
• Longitudinal study. Data collection: pre- and post
sojourn interviews, weekly “diary-tables”,
monthly interviews. For 8 students, Facebook.

3. Languages
• Researcher: bilingual
• Informants: Italian
• Data collected primarily in Italian, some
English
• Data analysed in both languages
• Data presented in English (translation)
with original in footnotes

4. • … without doubt, this can be both a positive and a negative factor.
Negative because of the language, obviously, but positive because
somehow you don’t feel completely lost [spaesata], you feel relaxed,
because you’re at…you feel at home, in any case… you feel that
you’re surrounded by a more familiar environment, you don’t feel the
separation that you might feel if you were on your own, or with very
few Italians, right?[1]
•
[1] … sicuramente questa cosa può essere un fattore sia positivo
che negativo. Negativo per la lingua, è ovvio, però positivo perché
in qualche modo non ti senti completamente spaesata, ti senti
comunque tranquilla, perché sei comunque a… ti senti comunque a
casa, in ogni caso… Senti che intorno a te c'è in qualche modo un
ambiente più familiare, non senti tanto lo stacco che forse potresti
sentire se fossi tu da sola o comunque con pochissime persone
italiane, no?

5. The problem is that when I arrived in London I discovered after the
enrolment I had a clash between the … my timetable. So they
automatically… they changed me an exam, and gave me another
one. So now I’m dealing with this problem. And the problem is that
now in Bologna there is no-one who is following me in any way. I’m
really, you know, upset about this. When I come back… I go back in
Italy I will speak with the teacher who is in charge of this Erasmus
exchange, because it’s not the behaviour to have with a person who is
going to study for an year abroad, because, you know, not even an e-
mail just to know if everything is going all right, nothing at all, but at
the same time he’s earning more because he is in charge of this
Erasmus exchange. […] It’s not acceptable behaviour, even though
also the other people who attended the Erasmus last year told me the
same thing, you know – that this teacher is not a good one. And you
know, this is the kind of thing… this stuff make me really embarrassed
in a kind of way because, you know, when I speak here with the
teacher everything is so clear, they are really friendly, they try to solve
every kind of problem, this is the most… the bigger difference that I
realise between the Italian and the UK universities…

6. At first I could not tear myself away from the group of
Italians, but in the beginning it is normal. After a month, I
said: “I am not speaking in English, I need to get my act
together and stop worrying.” Otherwise, you keep
procrastinating and you don’t get anywhere, you only
postpone the problem.[1]
All’inizio non riuscivo a staccarmi dal gruppo di italiani,
[1]
ma all’inizio è normale. Dopo un mese, ho detto: “non sto
parlando in inglese, vediamo di darci una scrollata e
fregarcene.” Se no si tende a procrastinare e non risolvi
niente, sposti solo il problema più avanti.

7. I think of adaptation as a way of being able to fit within a "new"
situation. In general, it should be a good thing, since fitting in also
means being able to take part in all those processes we may not be
familiar with, but in which we can still take part and feel good. As far
as my experience is concerned, for me adaptation was, at least to
begin with, a question of reaching a condition of whatever was the
"least bad", i.e. trying to feel good even though there was very little to
be positive about. But if you then consider the second part of my
Erasmus, I think I didn’t just adapt, in a sense I integrated into the
new situation I was living. So I would distinguish between the concept
of adaptation and integration, as I believe that the former is inevitably
also the first chronologically. It’s the first strategy you adopt in a
strange situation. I’d say the only viable strategy if you want to get
something positive from the experience that you are living. Not fitting
in, or at least not trying to fit in, is likely to lead to a great emptiness, a
feeling of loneliness that I don’t think you can sustain. If I hadn’t
adapted to the situation I was facing, even to the worst situation,
probably the only alternative would have been to go home.

8. •Lifestream: a time-ordered stream of documents
that functions as a diary of your electronic life.
• Status updates, comments, photos of cities,
university campus, friends, trips, parties, videos,
links to youtube…
•Lifestream as a multimodal, semi-public,
interactive diary

9. “…neither casual conversation nor small talk should
be taken as lacking in any purpose whatsoever or
as peripheral; rather, they are a foundation […] for
‘phatic communication’, the basic function of which
is the establishment, maintenance and
strengthening of social ties of companionship.”
D. Block (2003) The Social Turn in Second
Language Acquisition

10. “keeping connected with a select group […] through a shared
space. [posts] offer information about a person—likes, dislikes,
frustrations — that might never make it into [other types of
conversations]. Some of the information is trivial, some boring,
and some perhaps better kept private, but the sum of all this
information can be getting to know someone quite well, warts
and all.”
“a ‘virtual water cooler’ where people talk about work, the weather,
sports, or anything else that comes up.”
“[Twitter] creates a new channel of communication, but it also
facilitates a new way of seeing and understanding people: although
most individual [posts] say very little, […the difference comes from]
following people over time, developing a sense of who they really
are and knowing […] what they are doing and how they feel about
it.”
7 things you should know about... Twitter
2007
www.educause.edu/eli

11. More generally, the current literature suggests
that these sites offer students a useful way to
visualise their social connections (Donath and
Boyd 2004), acquire social capital (Ellison et al
2007), develop social networking skills (Selwyn
et al 2007), keep a written record of discussions
and dialogues, and maintain flexible and mobile
contact with their peers (Mason and Rennie
2008).
Rhianne Jones (2009)

20. Issues
• negotiating cultural meanings
• making explicit the dual role of the
bilingual researcher as researcher and
translator of his/her research
• acknowledging that translation cannot be
limited to its technicalities
• allowing the individual voices of
participants to be heard

21. Thank you