Open AccessDeveloping ‘Third Space’ Interculturality Using Computer‐Mediated Communication
Author(s) -
Bretag Tracey
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
journal of computer‐mediated communication
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.15
H-Index - 119
ISSN - 1083-6101
DOI - 10.1111/j.1083-6101.2006.00304.x
Subject(s) - interculturality , politeness , space (punctuation) , pragmatics , intercultural communication , virtual space , linguistics , sociology , computer mediated communication , sociolinguistics , psychology , social psychology , communication , pedagogy , computer science , world wide web , artificial intelligence , philosophy , the internet
The ‘third space’ ( Bhabha, 1994 ) is a way of re‐imagining the traditional teacher‐student hierarchical relationship. This practitioner research study uses computer‐mediated discourse analysis ( Herring, 1996) to investigate the potential of email to facilitate such ‘third space’ communication. It is based on 279 emails exchanged between 10 international ESL students and their lecturer at an Australian university in 2002. The framework for the analysis is the sociolinguistics/pragmatics model of ‘positive politeness’ ( Brown & Levinson, 1987 ). The study examines the linguistic features of positive politeness evident in the two‐way email exchanges and posits that ‘claim common ground’ and ‘share intimate information’ are characteristics that indicate movement towards a transcendent third space relationship.