Denis Samburskiy SUNY at Albany Projection of Identity in Introductory Posts: a Critical Discourse Analysis of Strategies of Online Self-Presentation Denis Samburskiy SUNY at Albany

Background and Data Collection Teaching English Well Online SUNY Ph.D. candidates – Dwight, Simon, Jack - NS, Jasmine, Daniel – NNS. Introductory posts This study is a part of larger project involving SUNY at Albany and EHU in Lithuania. The project is called TEWO and aims at facilitating a transition into online teaching environment for 6 Lithuanian teachers who are mainly used to face-to-face instruction. In one of the phases of TEWO, the Lithuanian teachers were to observe a two-week course conducted by 5 SUNY PhD candidates in the open-source online course management platform MOODLE. The goal of the course was to improve the teachers’ understanding of MOODLE’s potentials and show a wide range of strategies and methods of teaching English in an online setting. The introductory posts of those 5 PhD students who were the teachers of the MOODLE course are of interest in this paper.

Research Questions: How do online educators introduce themselves to their virtual students? What do texts of such introductions reveal about online teacher identity expression online from a critical discourse perspective? Which themes from teachers’ introductory texts students more readily associate with in their responses?

Theoretical Framework Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) – language is a form of social practice (Fairclough, 1989). CDA facilitates a view of language as having meaning in a particular historical, political, and social condition. Wodak (2002, p. 6): ‘the notions of ideology, power, hierarchy and gender together with sociological variables [are] all seen as relevant for an interpretation or explanation of text’. The text is comprehended in a particular manner because of its enclosure in a discursive and sociocultural practice of reader/writer. Any text in CDA is more than a number of words – it discloses how words are used in a particular social context Therefore, ideology, power, and hierarchy are inherent in any text.

3 dimensions of CDA (Fairclough) Analysis of Text – Description Analysis of Discursive Practices – Interpretation Analysis of Sociocultural Context - Explanation According to Fairclough, who is regarded as one of the pioneers in CDA, analysis should take place in three dimensions: Analysis of text (description) Analysis of discursive practices (interpretation) Analysis of Sociocultural Context (explanation) This structure is usually presented this way – one analysis is nested in another one.

Textual Analysis - Egocentrism The initial analysis of teachers’ posts showed an interesting pattern that I described as the continuum of egocentrism. Both ends of the continuum represent manifestations of power and egocentrism in their extreme states. By calculating the amount of text that the teachers dedicated to depictions of their own achievements, academic accomplishments, lifemanship, and superiority of other sort determined where each teacher was located on the continuum. The location on the continuum line is, of course, hypothetical.

Textual Analysis - Pronouns As CDA closely looks at discourse strategies of constructing power in text, use of personal pronouns is often cited as an effective maneuver. I examined the number of 1st and 2nd person pronouns in the teachers’ introductory posts. ‘I’ and ‘you’ also included their paradigmatic derivatives, e.g., ‘I’ll’ or ‘you’ve’. 1st person pronouns are self-directed, 2nd person pronouns – other-directed

Textual Analysis - Pronouns The frequency of self-directed pronouns in Jack and Simon’s texts clearly indicates a self-promoting trajectory. According to the ratio, Dwight and Jack’s self-directed pronouns outnumber other-directed ones by far. We can also see the percentage of self and other directed pronouns in relation to the entire texts of the teachers. These data support the placement of the teachers on the continuum of egocentrism with Dwight and Jack on one end and Daniel on the other.

Textual Analysis - Daniel “Hello, friends” Solidarity-promoting ‘WE” (Tapper, 1994; Rowland 1999): ‘let’s introduce ourselves’ ‘help us get to know each other better’ One seemingly insignificant but nonetheless interesting aspect is that Daniel greeted his students by ‘hello, friends’, whereas the other teachers used ‘hello/hi everyone’ or nothing at all. The distinction between ‘friends’ and ‘everyone’ is that the former assumes affinity and the latter assumes uniformity. Furthermore, only in Daniel’s text I could find instances of ‘inclusive’ or ‘solidarity-promoting we’ By saying ‘let’s introduce ourselves’ or ‘help us all to get to know each other better’, Daniel fosters an idea that he is not the categorical center of his post. That post is the first in a chain of other introductions in which all students should take a leading role.

Discursive Analysis - Themes Professionalism Awareness of Audience Affinity Multifaceted Self-Image Erudition For the discursive analysis, the introductory posts were coded according to 5 emergent themes: professionalism, awareness of the audience, affinity, multifaceted self-image, and erudition. In a nutshell: The Professionalism theme revolves around personal and professional achievements, social and institutional statuses, ambitions, etc The Awareness of the Audience comprises discourse in which the teachers addressed students as the audience of the posts and outlined possible topics for further discussion. The Affinity theme comprises different discourse strategies that helped the teachers to project themselves as personable, amusing, and approachable The Multifaceted Self-Image theme refers to the discourse in which teachers strove to show themselves as well-rounded individuals who lead active lives beyond their classrooms Lastly, the Erudition theme was ascribed to an overt display of encyclopeadic knowledge or unnecessarily detailed description of a concept.

Discursive Analysis - Themes This chart demonstrates the percentile distribution of themes in the texts. The Awareness of the Audience theme was the one contrasted with the other 4 themes and determined the balance of I- and Other-centeredness. We can see three themes giving way to Affinity and Awareness of the Audience in the chart, which agrees with the continuum of egocentrism. Some teachers may have thought that foregrounding their positive images as professionals was an expected technique of effective introduction. Daniel’s post was almost entirely dedicated to the students. His text clearly ascertained his role as an instructor but did not foreground his accomplishments or competencies. His focus was primarily on his audience and the course objectives. Also, Jasmine and Daniel are the only teachers who incorporated an outline of possible topics for discussion into their posts. Thus, they gave their students a choice – a voice; they gave their students power.

Discursive Analysis - Themes The following table shows teachers’ general themes and which of them the students could or could not relate to. The discourse in which teachers asserted their roles as leaders and experts did not provoke any reaction in student responses. Moreover, the more I-Centered teachers did not shape their texts as stories requiring any evaluation, nor did they ask specifically for their students’ opinions. Therefore, the exhibition of the teachers’ powerful positions may not have been necessary, as the arrangement of the course puts them into a more dominant role per se. Students discussed the information not related to the teachers academic statuses with more enthusiasm. Also, all of Jasmine and Daniel’s students responded favorably to the proposed list of topics. Your likes and dislikes Your interests Your happiest memory The most difficult thing you have ever done The most difficult decision you have had to make Something other people might not know about you - Something you are proud of about yourself - Some place you think is worth seeing in your city and why - Something you can teach others to do - Something you are perpetually scared of and cannot overcome - Something you aspire to be in the future and why

Sociocultural analysis Imaginary Recipient vs. Producer – ‘ideal subject’ Culture Capital (Bourdieu) – ‘the haves’ and ‘the havenots’ Native vs. Nonnative Hegemony (I-Centeredness) Recent studies demonstrated that individuals can perceive themselves as being public online, even if there is no direct interaction with people. Teachers have to constantly negotiate who they are and whom they want to be and after creating a desired public image, they adhere to it. This process is known as ‘public commitment’. The teachers’ public image may be challenged by what CDA calls ‘the ideal subject’ – when producers of texts create an ideal image of their imaginary audience due to their indirect interaction. Since the teachers in this study had a vague idea about their audience, they unconsciously created a subjective understanding of what their students might or might not be like based on the teachers’ prior experience. However, by generating an image of ‘ideal’ students, the teachers strove to match it with the image of themselves as ‘ideal’ instructors. Bourdieu’s (1977) concept of cultural capital, which metaphorically refers to economic capital, can be accumulated through the access to and the possession of certain ‘cultural goods’: education, use of language, access to exclusive social institutions, their practices, and high job positions, etc. the social structure of teacher-student relationship reflects their unequal status in terms of academic accomplishments, social rank, belonging to a more privileged social group, etc. The interaction of both sides is often perceived as that of ‘the haves’ and ‘the havenots’, as teachers possess a kind of cultural goods that students pursue. i.e., expertise. The inequality is also manifested in cultural affiliation among the teachers. Firstly, two of the teachers are nonnative speakers who have high language proficiency, years of living in an English-speaking environment, and a wide-ranging experience related to language instruction. The other three teachers are native speakers of English, which places them in a more privileged position by default - a view that has been criticized in ESL/EFL research. On the other hand, our students all reside in Lithuania or neighboring Belarus, where English usage is strictly limited (mainly to classrooms) and near-native proficiency is hard to come by. Needless to say, our teachers make up a community of experts that possess the skills their students badly need to develop, hence the unavoidable power imbalance that leads to a disadvantaged role of the ‘havenots’ Finally, the power imbalance was reinforced by some teachers who had significantly more text dedicated to their own achievements and academic interests, putting relatively little emphasis on acknowledging their students presence in the course. Based on these findings, it could be concluded that I-centered teachers employed the discourse of hegemony (albeit unintentionally) because their introductions excluded the opportunity for the students to be equitable contributors to the course.

Implications: I recommend that online instructors endow their students with more authority by following these: remember about your audience and validate their presence continuously dedicate more of your message to your students by addressing them directly encourage your students to be active readers by asking them to react to your text share more information that has the potential of being relevant to your students’ lives (e.g., your personal interests, leisure activities, favorite books, movies, music)

Implications: I recommend that online instructors endow their students with more authority by following these: make your students believe they have something that you have an acute interest in knowing provide your students with a number of possible topics to discuss put less emphasis on your power – empower your students learn more about your students’ culture and language minimize detachment from your students, as online environment may seem impersonal already add an amicable picture to your post

ACTFL 21-century skills and Teacher Power Could we promote communicative competence in our students in its entirety and developing their critical thinking while utilizing traditional teacher-centered philosophy both online and f2f? Is teacher discourse foregrounding an unequal hegemonic relationship between learners and instructors consistent with a view of the teacher as a facilitator/collaborator? Language teaching, as any other pedagogical practice, is not carried out in a social vacuum. Social psychologists and critical researchers have encouraged scrutinizing the social tensions that underlie educational language usage. The 21-century skills focus on 5 C’s (Communication, Cultures, Connections, Comparisons, Communities) that develop language proficiency by enhancing communicative competence reflecting real life communication. Could we promote communicative competence in our students in its entirety and developing their critical thinking while utilizing traditional teacher-centered philosophy? Is teacher discourse foregrounding an unequal hegemonic relationship between learners and instructors consistent with a view of the teacher as a facilitator/collaborator?

Thank you! Questions: denisalbany@gmail.com I sincerely thank Pr. Carla Meskill for her insightful feedback.