We have previously mentioned the `hyper-interactional' aspect of the context of situation for conversations in object-oriented environments which sets these apart from conversations carried on in other types of contemporaneous distributed virtual environments. In the following we shall focus mainly on the conversations themselves and how various technological or mediational constraints contribute to qualitative differences between these and other conversation types.
It seems possible to isolate at least two main areas where mediational constraints on conversations in distributed virtual environments are most marked in terms of their effects on participant behaviours and self-perceptions. Each of these two main areas can further be seen as incorporating a further two nested subsets of issues. We shall briefly examine these four subsets of issues in some more detail below. For the moment, then, we shall select a limited number of issues related to the following:
a) contextual and language modality
i) textuality of the context of situation
ii) language modality and codeb) participant embodiment
i) lack of physical co-presence
ii) lack of mutual eye contact and gaze
i) The textuality of the context of situation
The `material' aspects of the context of situation for conversations in distributed object-oriented environments is, as we have discussed in some detail above, limited to a short textual description of some kind of conceptualizable space, together with any other virtual objects which may have been created and located within, or relative to, this conceptual space. In order for participants to construe this space as a context for communication, it must be possible for them to model a mental represention of the virtual space they are `in' on the basis of the textual description[17] which has been allocated to it by its creator(s). This means that the language used to name and describe this and other object types will be a rather important issue. In order to discuss such matters in more detail we will need to move towards the domains of literary science and text analysis, where classificational notions like `genre', `register' and `style' are already well developed. Elsewhere[18] I have tentatively discussed how various genres of object-oriented environments may be described and categorized, and we shall not pursue this issue in any more depth here. But in any case, it is quite obvious that this general area of study is one which so far has been sadly neglected, and one which represents an important area for future research.
Another important and closely related issue in this connection is the choice of basic language system or code used to write spatial descriptions, as well as for participant-to-participant, participant-to-system and system-to-participant communication, within the virtual environment. So far the majority of distributed object-oriented environments have tended to operate primarily in English since they are designed to encourage international communication, and English seems still to have some kind of lingua franca status in virtual environments, as is it does in the non-virtual environment. There are, however, a growing number of virtual environments which are bi- or multilingual, and which offer choices of one or more (mainly European) language to communicate, and where navigation and other commands may also be selected on the basis of language preferences of individual participants[19].
Clearly, this type of development opens up some interesting potentials for using distributed object-oriented environments in research on foreign and second language teaching and acquisition for children and adults. Virtual environments may offer advantages at certain developmental stages in individual language acquisition and learning processes. There is a degree of existential security inherent in the distancing effect of the technology, as well as a possibility for learners and instructors to read through text logs of conversations after the event in order to find out what actually went on, what mistakes were made and how others reacted to them. Investigating the contribution of such factors in more detail may contribute to increase not only learner, but also instructor awareness, and at a more general level, provide insights into all kinds of language acquisition and learning processes.
Since communication is being carried on in what is essentially an oral modality but at the same time through the technology of writing this offers unique opportunities for learners to relate to, and to compare, these two different modalities of language. One language-specific constraint which may be a restraining issue in this connection is that at present contemporaneous communication in distributed virtual environments relies on network protocols which will only support the restricted ascii character set. This means that those who wish to talk in languages like Norwegian or German which have non-standard ascii characters in their alphabets will (unless they are prepared to redesign the communication software to force it to accept non-standard characters) need to modify their writing norms in order to accomodate this particular set of constraints[20].
Our experiences so far[21] have shown that this type of minor technical complication does not unduly hamper conversation and interactions in distributed virtual environments. Those who find meeting other people in this way enjoyable and interesting seem willing to adapt their communication norms to accomodate to these kinds of constraints, and indeed to do so quite quickly, so long as they are able to perceive communicating with one another at a distance in real time in this way as functionally useful. We have occasionally discovered some short-term `overlapping' effects. Some Norwegian students have for instance reported continuing to use the combination forms /aa/, /ae/ and /oe/ instead of the Norwegian characters /æ/, /å/ and /ø/ when subsequently composing texts in word-processors after prolonged periods of conversations in object-oriented environments. Such effects seem however minimal and do not last long. Other effects, related to what was initially characterized above as `participant embodiment status issues', may turn out to be of a more profound character and possibly have lasting effects on participant norm systems and self-perceptions in the longer term. Some such effects will be presented and discussed briefly later in this chapter.
ii) Language modality and code
One of the most blatently obvious differences between conversations in object-oriented distributed virtual environments and face-to-face conversations is that the former are carried on exclusively in writing and the latter in speech. But since they are contemporaneous the language modality of these conversations distributed virtual environments tends towards the predominantly oral variant. Let us look at this general modality issue in some more detail.
Michael Halliday has pointed out[22] that although the grammars of written and spoken language as actualized in text and discourse differ from one another in several important ways, both are as intricate as one another in their own ways. In terms of production norms for actual usage, spoken language and written language tend to lie towards opposite poles of a continuum which ranges from most spontaneous to most self-monitored. Forms of production which we consider most spontaneous are generally spoken, while forms of production which we consider most self-monitored are generally written.
These two basic lingustic modalities which we use in order to represent meaning do not differ in their basic systematicity: both are highly organized, regular and productive of coherent discourse. Considered in terms of lexicogrammatical organization, spoken language tends to favour greater lexicogrammatical intricacy by accomodating fewer lexical items in the clause, and more clauses per syntagm, while written language tends to favour greater lexical density by accomodating more lexical items in the clause and fewer clauses in the syntagm. Considered in terms of the expression of different modes of meaning, spoken language tends to be spun out, flowing, choreographic, oriented towards events like doing, happening, sensing, being and saying. It is processlike, intricate and with serially ordered meanings. Writing on the other hand is dense, structured, crystalline, oriented towards things like entities and objectified (nominalised) processes, productlike, tight and with meanings related to one another as components.
In our conversations in distributed virtual environments we have found there is a tendency towards a blending of these two different ways of meaning in language, and a more general drift from the written towards the oral modality. This kind of drift is best illustrated by an example. The log excerpt below is taken from a university seminar which I held in a distributed virtual environment a couple of years ago together with some of my students who were in our computer writing lab in Norway while I was in Italy. In this particular interaction strip[23], I ask Alison, one of the students, if she would be willing to take responsibility for a short presentation for the group in a session scheduled for the next day, and to lead a subsequent discussion. Sally and Margaret are two of the other seven students in the group[24]. Hopefully this brief excerpt can serve without too much explanation to illustrate this `hybrid' modality of language blending the two ways of meaning referred to above, and fluctuating as it does so, roughly midway between spontaneous and self-monitored forms of production.
Since conversations in distributed virtual environments are carried on exclusively in writing rather than speech, this tends to make these exchanges slower than those in face-to-face conversations. As we know, writing speed for most people generally tends to lag far behind their speaking speed. In distributed virtual environents this does not seem to hamper communication as much as one might expect, tending rather to evoke a number of compensational strategies, involving amongst other things, innovative forms of abbreviation, spontaneous use of acronyms, ellipsis, and emotes, the latter simulating in textual form combinations of verbal and non-verbal signals in the same utterance[25]. All these strategies seek to optimalise communication by capitalizing on the generally highly contextualised nature of the discourse, as well as presuppositional knowledge known to be shared by all or most participants. Note too, that these general kinds of optimalisation strategies will normally be more characteristic for spoken rather than for written forms of language communication.
In passing it should be remarked here that the strip of conversational log above probably reflects the fact that at the time it was recorded, neither I nor my students were particularly adept at this particular form of communication (and indeed, I am still not). Our language use in this particular example may then still be weighted a bit more towards the written, rather than the spoken modality of language. As time went on, we found as mentioned earlier, that there was a distinct tendency for the oral modality to more and more permeate our discourse, although it is of course inherent in the actual technology of communication that this can never become the only modality in use - we will always have to write to communicate in such an environment. In order to balance any erroneous impressions generated by the log example above, we shall therefore end this section with yest another short strip[26], this time taken from a conversation between group of more experienced interlocutors, and which displays even more of the communicative ergonomy of the oral modality referred to above. Again, we shall leave it up to the reader to examine the log in detail and to make their own hypotheses as to which kinds of strategies are actually being actualized here. One point which may lead to some confusion initially is probably worth mentioning in advance of a first reading: it is clear that the pace of the conversation here is quite high, since CT_PeteH sees fit to divide his question to Donald ("donald do you know if there is a mail list for participants?") into two parts in order to avoid falling too far behind in the general flow of things.