Learning in Interaction-Incidental Learning

While some research on CA for online SLA focuses explicitly on SLA (e.g., Negretti, 1999) trying to find patterns and conversational strategies, research on CA for CMC between L1 and L2 speakers also reveals informal and incidental learning with respect to linguistic and cultural knowledge (e.g., this study). For instance. Jenks (2009b) indicates that “speakers of English as a S/FL now have an international, readily

accessible medium in which to use English (Crystal, 2001). The upshot is that there are more opportunities for informal language learning” (p. 31). In other words, in the setting of computer-mediated conversation-in-interaction, informal and incidental learning take place frequently. Marsick and Watkins (1990) provide a clear definition of these two learning phenomena by their contrast with formal learning:

Formal learning is typically institutionally sponsored, classroom-based, and highly structured. Informal learning, a category that includes incidental learning, may occur in institutions, but it is not typically classroom-based or highly structured, and control of learning rests primarily in the hands of the learner. Incidental learning is defined as a byproduct of some other activity, such as task accomplishment, interpersonal interaction, sensing the organizational culture, trial-and-error experimentation, or even formal learning. Informal learning can be deliberately encouraged by an organization or it can take place despite an

environment not highly conducive to learning. Incidental learning, on the other hand, almost always takes place although people are not always conscious of it. (p. 12)

Apart from the definition, based on their research, Marsick and Watkins (2001) further describe the distinction of the nature between the information and incidental learning:

Informal learning is usually intentional but not highly structured. Examples include self-directed learning, networking, coaching, mentoring, and performance planning that includes opportunities to review learning needs. When people learn incidentally, their learning may be taken for granted, tacit, or unconscious. However, a passing insight can then be probed and intentionally explored.

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Examples are the hidden agenda of an organization’s culture or a teacher’s class, learning from mistakes, or the unsystematic process of trial and error. (p. 25-26)

Research on the occurrence of learning indicates that learning is not necessarily

constrained to the four walls of a traditional classroom (McFerrin, 1999), which is even more veritable when learning is in relation to the employment of modern technologies. The issues of learning, language learning in particular, are numerously addressed in the prior sections. In this section, the phenomenon of incidental learning is explored. In contrast to the stereotypical notion that learning occurring outside some institution is seen as lower quality or not learning at all (Holzinger, Pichler, Almer, & Maurer, 2001), learning, especially incidental learning, increases particular knowledge, skills as well as understanding. Lankard (1995) regards incidental learning as unexamined and

unintentional and embedded in the learner’s action-in-progress. Therefore, learning by doing, learning from errors or mistakes, learning via networking are engaged in the nature of incidental learning. For example, Holzinger et al. (2001) prove that

participants can memorize additional factual knowledge offered by hyperlinks, which indicates the success of incidental learning. Ebner and Holzinger (2007) use an online game for exploring learning in higher education and find that participants discover their mistakes in the process of playing online games and feel motivated to repeat the game, which is featured as incidental learning as well. McFerrin (1999) also defines incidental learning as “unplanned and unanticipated learning outcomes not identified as part of the formal curriculum that students obtain while participating in the classes” (p. 5). In her study of a group of graduate-level students in asynchronous online distance course, two types of incidental learning are found. The first type is involved in participants’ learning to use the technology itself (e.g., some skills and knowledge of using technology) and the second concerning about participants’ personal development (e.g., the improvement in self-determination and self-confidence). According to Jones (1982), the unexpected results of a learning condition may be more important to learners than the primary objectives. Therefore, incidental learning itself reveals its value in academic research to enrich the knowledge in SLA.

Online voice-based chat rooms also provide opportunities for language learning.

Though CA methodology does not orient to any learning theory (Hall, 2004; He, 2004), Jenks (2010) adopts a pure CA perspective to observe language learning with an attempt to unfold the interactional and sequential organisation producing by participants in online chat rooms. Language, under CA’s emic participant perspective, is regarded as a

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social interactional resource. By employing the notion of ‘let the data speak for itself’ (data-driven) and looking at the data unmotivatedly, Jenks finds instances where interactants reveal learning through the talk in online chat rooms. He claims that “language learning is an observable set of practices and actions deployed in social interaction” (ibid. p. 149) and “online voice-based chat rooms provide opportunities for multi-directional language learning” (ibid. p. 153). His participants demonstrate the self-identification sequences and reveal their sociolinguistic and strategic competence (Canale, 1983) to adapt themselves to various contexts where evidence of language learning emerges through the changes in social interaction. Jenks (2010) also claims that “language learning involves adapting one’s behaviour in a way that is conducive to established norms or standards. The change in behaviour, or language learning, was situated in the practice of self-identification” (p. 161). Therefore, Jenks concludes that “language learning can also be incidental, interactional, and multi-directional” (ibid. p. 161).

Adopting the emic perspective in CA starting with unmotivated looking at the collected data in this study, the researcher finds the most salient feature of the online chatting between L1 and L2 speakers lies in repair sequences. Participants’ repair sequences for mutual understanding or intersubjectivity thereafter promote their incidental learning in terms of either linguistic items or cultural knowledge and therefore, form the theoretical framework of this study, which will be discussed along with other findings in detail in chapter six.