Keynote talk for InnoConf17, Innovative Language Teaching and Learning at University (16 June 2017) at the Open University, Milton Keynes, UK.

1. Shannon Sauro
Malmö University
@shansauro | ssauro.info| shannon.sauro@mah.se
THE INNOVATIVE AND CREATIVE INFORMAL
LANGUAGE LEARNING OF FANS

2. “A fan is a person with a relatively deep positive emotional conviction
about someone or something famous...”
(Duffet, 2013, p. 18)

3. “…’fan’ is actually a much wider social category, referring to a mode
of participation with a long history in a variety of cultural activities,
including literature, sports, theater, film, and television.”
(Cavicchi, 1998 p. 3)

4. Online Fandom
“the local and international networks of fans that develop around
a particular program, text or other media product” (Sauro, 2014,
p. 239)

5. CALL (computer assisted
language learning) in the Digital
Wilds
“informal language learning that
takes places in digital spaces,
communities, and networks that
are independent of formal
instructional contexts”
(Sauro & Zourou, 2017, p. 186)

6. A Few Fan Practices
• Anime and manga consumption
• Fan site web design
• Debating and modding
• Amateur translation
• Spoiling
• Fanfiction
(Sauro, 2017)

7. Anime and Manga
Consumption
Anime consumption inspired
and enhanced Japanese
learning which inspired further
engagement with Japanese
anime (Fukunaga, 2006).

8. Website Design
One learner developed a new
textual identity through regular
correspondence in English
around the design of a fan
website. (Lam, 2000).

9. Debating and Moderating
Advanced leadership and
literacy skill development by a
13-year-old engaged in debate
and moderating discussions in
online discussion boards and
fan sites.
(Curwood, 2013).

10. Fansubbing
The multimodal and plurilingual
nature of a Spanish to Chinese
fansubbing community (Zhang &
Cassany, 2016)

11. Scanlation
The development and use of
intercultural and language skills
of a 26-year-old Spanish manga
fan who engaged in amateur
translations (scanlation) of
Japanese manga into Spanish
(Valero-Porras & Cassany, 2015).

12. Spoiling
“…the purposeful discovery of crucial developments in the plot of a
fictional story of a film or TV series before the relevant material has
been broadcast or released.”
(Duffett, 2013, p. 168)

13. Case Study of a Sherlock Fan
To explore the informal L2
language learning and digital
literacy development of a
Sherlock fan.

14. Steevee’s Fan History
2009
• Joined Supernatural Fandom
• Joined Twitter; Created a fan FB page
2010
• Joined Torchwood and Doctor Who
fandoms
• Created a fan Tumblr
2012
• Joined Sherlock fandom
• First read and wrote fanfiction
2013
• Began reporting on filming of Sherlock
#setlock

15. Extramural English
“…English-related activities that
learners come in contact with or
are engaged in outside the walls
of the English classroom,
generally on a voluntary basis.”
(Sundqvist & Sylvén, 2014, p. 4)

16. “As we have noted, motivation
is never simply in the hands of
the motivated individual learner
but is constructed and
constrained through social
relations with others”
(Ushioda, 2008, p. 157)

17. I tried to shift my accent
from American English to
British English. I tried to
learn to write colour with
‘ou’ and so on. And I
started to watch Doctor
Who and Torchwood.
Those were my next two
big fandoms.
(Interview, 14 December 2015)
…it was the opportunity
to completely immerse
myself in the English
language. That was it for
me. I was so stoked. I’m
going to get online and
I’m going to talk to
people and learn English.
And I’m going to learn
new words. And I used to
sit there with a notepad
next to Twitter and write
down words I’d never
seen before, look them
up, learn them.
(Interview, 14 December 2015)

18. “The non-native speakers are really the lose canon
because they might understand something
incorrectly because of their own lack of
knowledge of the English language or sarcasm or
whatever is being used as a metaphor for
example.”
(Interview, 14 December 2015)

19. Due to the massive increase of hits and followers due to setlock, I somehow
became someone who was consulted on various things and I realized that if I
wanted to help/give answers etc, I’d have to make myself understood in the
way I wanted to be – that’s when my answers got longer and more in-depth,
as I wanted to make sure my arse was covered XD
(Email, 7 January 2016)

20. Fanfiction
"writing that continues,
interrupts, reimagines, or just
riffs on stories and characters
other people have already
written about."
(Jamison, 2013 p. 17)

21. “Fanfiction is a story written by
a person in the fandom because
breaking into the creators [sic]
office and telling them that
everything that they did is
wrong and rewriting it is
considered ´rude´ and ´illegal´”
(Fan definition reported in Klink, 2017)

22. Fanfiction and Language Learning
• Case studies of teen learners’ use of fanfiction in anime fandoms to
transition from novice writer in English to successful writer (Black, 2006)
• Bilingual fanfiction writing practices of young Finnish fans of American
television shows to index multilingualism and global citizenship (Lepännen,
et al, 2009)

23. The Blogging Hobbit
Blog-Based Collaborative Role-play

24. Inspiration from the Harry Potter
role play fanfic community,
Darkness Rising, on LiveJournal.
• Communal Blog
• Individual players/writers
participated using blogs made for
their character
• Stories begin with a prompt or
background in a post.
• The story evolves in nested
comments
(Sauro, 2014)

25. A collaborative story of a missing moment from Tolkien’s
The Hobbit:
Task 1: Story outline and map
Task 2: Collaborative roleplay fanfiction - each group member to
write from the perspective of one character from The Hobbit
Task 3: Reflective paper
Detailed instructions available as a PDF here.

26. “this writing activity has
influenced my language
skills…. During this project I
have been able to expand
my repertoar [sic] of
English words which are
not so commonly used in
everyday English anymore.”
(Student 14, Cohort 2013)

27. It is lying still, yet it spins around
It tries to move but its body is bound
All because of the precious it stole
Fool us again and they eats it whole.
(from The Mirkwood Mysteries;
Sauro & Sundmark, 2016, p. 418)

28. Learner Fanfiction (172,911)
• N=31 stories produced by
Cohorts 2013 & 2014
• 2000-16000 words each
• Rated Teen
• Gen
• Canon compliant
Ao3 Fanfiction (92,760)
• N=18 stories posted Dec 1
2013 – Jan 31, 2015
• 2000-16000 words each
• Rated Teen
• Gen (no het or slash)
• Not alternate universe or
other sub-genres

29. Top 10 Content
Lexemes in Classroom
Fanfiction
Top 10 Content Lexemes
in Online Fanfiction
Thorin
Bilbo
Gandalf
Dwarves
Say
Kili
Time
Fili
Think
Bombur
Thorin
Kili
Bilbo
Say
Thranduil
Eyes
Time
Head
Fili
Brother

30. Keywords
Third Person Plural Pronouns: we, our, us
Character Names: Gandalf, Beorn, Balin, Elrond,
Gollum, Dori, Bombur, Bilbo
Species: dwarves, goblins, wizard, elves

31. Negative Keywords
Third person singular pronouns: she, her, his, him
Kinship terms: son, sister, mother, brother, uncle
Character names: Thranduil, Legolas, Tauriel, Bifur
Contracted forms: d, s, re, t

32. “…fanfics that get really popular, they
kind of answer to some kind of
fantasy that people have about the
characters. Or something they really
want to explore or they create an
alternate universe … We didn’t have
anything like that, really. I mean, I
think ours was very, kind of, very
much like the book it a way, so
maybe it wasn’t as exciting as some
other fanfiction because it wasn’t
innovating in that way…”
B, Dream Team Interview
(Cohort 2014)

33. “…I would choose another book. I
felt it unfair to work with The
Hobbit on such a project since a
big part was to connect with a
character from the book and write
from that perspective. To choose a
book with absolutely no women at
all made me not wanting to take
neither Tolkien nor this
assignment to heart.”
(Nonfan, Cohort 2014)

34. A Study in Sherlock
CollaborativeCasefic

35. Casefic
Collaborative mystery writing
1. Retell a Sherlock Holmes
mystery or tell an original
mystery but in an alternate
universe.
2. Tell an original Sherlock
Holmes mystery in the
original context (Victorian
London) OR an alternate
universe.
Instructions available in PDF here

36. Training on Alternate Universe
• Swapping & Bending
• Example casefic
• Writing workshops provided by fans

38. “A graffiti?... well… what does
‘Rache’ mean? somebody
certainly tried to write Rachel
and could not finish the
writing?” [...] To this she
laughed loudly, “‘Rache’
means, of course, revenge in
German; regardless of this, this
graffiti is just a distraction.”
(from A Study in Graffiti)

39. “Well, now I bother. Now and again a case turns up
which is a little more complex. Then I have to bustle
about and see things with my own eyes. Because
obviously, Oswald was not the murderer,” he said as
if it was the most blatant fact in the world.
(from The Missing Case)

40. “…my interest in Doyle and the
Sherlock Holmes world is still at
an intermediate level…. On the
other hand, my knowledge of
the Scooby Doo universe is far
greater and I could enter that
verse much easier than the
universe of Sherlock Holmes. As
a child I loved the characters of
the Mystery Gang and therefore
I really enjoyed this task.”
(Student 18, Cohort 2015)

41. “…instead of saying “he said”, we and Doyle instead used “said he”. Second, we
and Doyle often, from Watson’s perspective, referred to Sherlock Holmes as “my
colleague”, and from Sherlock’s perspective referring to Watson as “my friend”.
Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes often said “pray” instead of “please”, and “I fancy”
instead of “I believe”, which we also used in our fanfiction. “
(Student 16, Cohort 2015)

42. “First off, I am highly Americanized in
my English use, and I blame
Hollywood. It has been a welcomed
challenge to write in British. My
biggest inspiration has once again
been the BBC show.…I truly enjoyed
using the word ‘foggiest’ in a text,
and it is now a part of my vocabulary.
My American is being invaded, ‘the
British are coming!’”
(Student 54, Cohort 2015)

43. References
Black, R.W. (2006). Language, culture, and identity in online fanfiction. E-learning, 3, 180–184.
Cavicchi, D. (1998). Tramps like us: Music and meaning among Springsteen fans. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Curwood, J.S. (2013). Fan fiction, remix culture, and The Potter Games. In V.E. Frankel (Ed.), Teaching with Harry Potter (pp. 81-92). Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
Duffett, M. (2013). Understanding fandom: An introduction to the study of media fan culture. New York/London: Bloomsbury.
Fukunaga, N. (2006). “Those anime students”: Foreign language literacy development through Japanese popular culture. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 50(3), 206-
222.
Jamison, A. (2013). ‘Why Fic?’ in A. Jamison (ed.). Fic: Why fanfiction is taking over the world. Dallas, TX: Smart Pop Books.
Klink, F. (2017). Towards a definition of “fanfiction”. Retrieved from https://medium.com/fansplaining/towards-a-definition-of-fanfiction-178d4c681289
Lam, W. S. E. (2000). Literacy and the design of the self: A case study of a teenager writing on the Internet. TESOL Quarterly, 34, 457-484.
Lepännen, S., Pitkänen-Huhta, A., Piirainen-Marsch, A., Nikula, T., & Peuronen, S. (2009). Young people’s translocal new media uses: A multiperspective analysis of language
choice and hetero-glossia. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 14, 1080–1107.
Sauro, S. (2017). Online fan practices and CALL. CALICO Journal, 34(2), 131-146. doi: 10.1558/CJ.33077
Sauro, S. (2014). Lessons from the fandom: Task models for technology-enhanced language learning. In M. González-Lloret & L. Ortega (Eds). Technology-mediated TBLT:
Researching technology and tasks, (pp. 239-262). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Sauro, S., & Sundmark, B. (2016,) Report from Middle Earth: Fanfiction tasks in the EFL classroom. ELT Journal, 70(4), 414-423 . doi: 10.1093/elt/ccv075
Sauro, S., & Zourou, K. (2017). CALL for papers for CALL in the Digital Wilds special issue. Language Learning & Technology, 21(1), 186.
Sundqvist, P., & Sylvén, L.K., (2014). Language-related computer use: Focus on young L2 English learners in Sweden. ReCALL, 26(1), 3-20.
Ushioda, E. (2008). Language motivation in a reconfigured Europe: Access, identity, autonomy. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 27(2), 148-161.
Zhang, L. T., & Cassany, D. (2016). Fansubbing del español al chino: Organización, roles y normas en las escritura colaborativa. BiD: Textos Universitaris de Biblioteconomia i
Documentació, 37.

44. Acknowledgements
Graphics
Fox Estacado of The Art of Fox Estacado: Fine Fan Art and Geekery
(artbyfox.storenvy.com). All rights reserved and used in this presentation with
permission.
Photographs of #setlock
Shannon Sauro.
Presentation available at https://www.slideshare.net/Shansauro