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‘ O que diriam sobre os portugueses????? ’ [What would you say about Portuguese people?]: intercultural curiosity in multilingual chat-rooms

2010; Routledge; Volume: 10; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14708471003611257

1747-759X

Maria Helena Araújo e Sá, Maddalena De Carlo, Sílvia Melo–Pfeifer,

Linguistics and Discourse Analysis

Abstract In this study, we intend to discuss questioning as a sign of Intercultural Communicative Competence in plurilingual environments, stressing the relationship between questioning and the process of developing discovery skills in Romance chat-rooms. Focusing specifically on episodes beginning with intercultural questioning, we will analyse: (1) typical situations leading to these kinds of questions and; (2) recurrent discursive topics of the corpus. These two subjects will allow us to reflect on how plurilingual/intercultural on-line communication ‘re-socializes’ individuals, creating new images/representations about others and their (inter)cultural identities and by promoting a greater awareness of what it means to participate in intercultural discussions. Procuraremos, neste estudo, analisar o processo de questionamento como sinal de Competência de Comunicação Intercultural, evidenciando a relação entre o acto de questionar e o processo de desenvolvimento da competência de descoberta em chats romanófonos. Debruçando-nos sobre episódios iniciados com questionamento de teor intercultural, analisaremos: (1) as situações que despoletam este tipo de questões; (2) os tópicos de discussão recorrentes nestes episódios. Estes dois focus de análise permitir-nos-ão reflectir acerca de como a comunicação plurilingue/intercultural ‘re-socializa’ os sujeitos, criando novas imagens/representações acerca dos outros e das suas identidades (inter)culturais e promovendo uma maior consciencialização do que significa participar em discussões interculturais. Keywords: intercultural communicative competencemultilingual telecollaborationchatsquestioning Notes 1. GALANET (plateforme pour le développement de l'intercompréhension en Langues Romanes) was a Socrates/Lingua Project, coordinated by Christian Degache of Université Stendhal, Grenoble 3 (France), which included six other institutions: Universidade de Aveiro (Portugal), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Spain), Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain), Università de Cassino (Italy), Université Lumière Lyon 2 (France), and Université de Mons-Hainault (Belgium). For further information and access to team publications please visit http://www.galanet.eu 2. IC is a pluralistic approach to foreign language teaching and learning and teaching training (see Section 2.1 for further details). 3. However, the effects of e-mail interaction and discussion forums in the development of ICC have attracted considerable interest as witnessed by a number of recent studies: Belz (Citation2005, 2007) and O'Dowd (2007b) on e-mail interaction; Degache, López Alonso, and Séré (Citation2007) on discussion forums. 4. For instance, problems raised by global warming and the consequent migration of populations. 5. In the scope of an ongoing project on IC (GALAPRO – Formation de Formateurs à l'Intercompréhension en Langues Romanes, coordinated by Maria Helena de Araújo e Sá, in http://www.galapro.eu), 37 other projects concerning this subject were identified. 6. To facilitate better understanding of our chat examples, we have translated them, but also kept the original production in order to illustrate the plurilingual nature of the interaction. We have also kept the original orthography of each sample. 7. Other episodes of conflict are related to Franco's dictatorship ([MiguelL] viva franco?????????????/Long life to Franco) and images of Jews ([MiguelL] los judios son malos/Jews are bad (...) [AvataraA] eso es una tonteria, miguelito/That's insane, miguelito). 8. The author presents three more stages: ‘The second stage – culture-shock – emerges as the individuals feels the intrusion of more and more cultural differences into his own image of self and security. […] The third stage is one of gradual, and at first, tentative and vacillating, recovery. […] The fourth stage represents near or full recovery, either assimilation or adaptation, acceptance of the new culture and self-confidence in the ‘new’ person that has developed in this culture’ (Brown, 1980, p. 132).