This presentation builds upon work in media and fandom studies to explore the use of fanfiction as a pedagogical tool in a technology-enhanced university foreign language class. It examines the linguistic complexity and sociolinguistic choices of advanced learners of English who engaged in blog-based collaborative fanfiction to write a missing moment from Tolkien’s The Hobbit. Presented as part of the Bedömning, Dokumentation och Kvalitetsarbete (BeDoK) series on 15 October 2014.

1. Report from Middle Earth
The Quality of Writing in Blog-Based
Fanfiction for Language Learning
Shannon Sauro

2. Fanfiction
Source: drimaues.tumblr.com

3. Tasks, TBLT &Language Play
“an activity in which a person engages in order
to attain an objective, and which necessitates
the use of language”
(Van den Branden, 2006, p. 4)
“A rich source of inspiration for the
development of such technology-mediated
tasks can be found in the language play and
language use of online media fandoms…”
(Sauro, 2014, p. 242)

4. Fanfiction &Language Learning
• An L2 English learner’s development of a textual identity
by creating a fan page and through interaction in fan spaces (Lam, 2000)
• Writing development of L2 English writers of fanfiction in anime
fandoms (Black, 2006; 2009)
• Bilingual fanfiction writing practices of young Finnish
fans of American television shows (Leppänen, et al, 2009)

7. Swedish National Curriculum
Secondary (Grades 7-9)
Develop English skills for reading/listening to
– “Literature and other fiction in spoken, dramatised and
filmed forms” (Skolverket, 2011, p. 34);
Producing
– “Oral and written narratives, descriptions and instructions”
(Skolverket, 2011, p. 35)
Upper Secondary (Grades 10-12)
• “can use fiction, non-fiction and other forms of culture
as a source of knowledge, insight and pleasure”
(Skolverket, 2013, p. 6)

8. Tasks & Timeline
1. Story Outline & Map of a Section of Middle Earth (6 Dec)
2. Collaborative Story of a Missing Moment from The Hobbit (19 Dec)
3. Reflective Paper (8 Jan)
4. Oral Presentation (17 Jan)

9. Part I: Outline & Map
• develop an outline of
major plot points of a
collaborative story that
consists of a missing
moment from The Hobbit
&
• create a map of an
unchartered section of
Middle Earth in which this
story takes place.

10. Part II: Collaborative Story
Extension
Alternate Universe
Addition
• Build upon the outline and
map generate in Part I to
write a blog-based
collaborative story (role-play
story) based on a missing
moment from The Hobbit.
• Each writer will select one
character and contribute to
the story from that character’s
voice and perspective.
• Each writer will generate at
least 6 paragraph-length
contributions to the
collaborative story.

11. Parts III & IV:
Reflective Paper &Presentation
1. What did the collaborative role-play writing
process require you to pay careful attention to?
2. Describe at least two linguistic features of your
character’s style of speaking or thinking that you
were careful to include.
3. In what way can creative writing like this
influence the development of reading, writing,
listening and conversation skills in English?

12. 11 Tales (49,445words)

14. Communicative Competence
• Linguistic competence
• Grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation
• Sociolinguistic competence
• What is appropriate in which situation and with which
speakers
• Discourse competence
• Being able to speak or write for longer periods
• Strategic competence
• What to do when you don’t know how to say
something or you are having communication
difficulties.
(Canale & Swain, 1980)

15. Sociolinguistic Competence
Considering contextual
factors
– Status of participants
– Purpose of interaction
– Norms and conventions
of interaction

16. Hobbit-Like Style
"By all the good apricot
marmalade I've ever
eaten! How insolent!" Bilbo
had to take hold of his own
collar to keep himself from
yelping his thoughts out loud.
"Here I am, despite my own
dearest wish, on a dangerous
route to find that coarse mutt
of a dwarf riches, and how am
I estimated? This journey is a
miserable thing altogether!"
– (from Secrets of the Last
Homely House)

17. Status and Legacy
Thorin turned his lifeless head
towards Beorn while lying in his
arms and said:
-”Bury me with my ancestors
under The Lonely Mountain”
This was the end of the king. The
end of Thorin Oakenshield,
Son of Thrain, Son of Thror,
King under the Mountain.
(from The Battle of Five Armies)

18. Voicing The Author
“Bombur, it’s time for you to start
hauling or you will receive a one
way ticket down the waterfall!”
Kili yelled. That got Bombur
moving faster than ever, except
the time they ran from the skin
changer, but that comes
later in the story.
(from The Wooden Bridge)

19. Attention to Form & Structure
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)

20. Comparing the Vocabulary to Other
Genres
“450 million words of text
and is equally divided
among spoken, fiction,
popular magazines,
newspapers, and academic
texts. It includes 20 million
words each year from 1990-
2012 and the corpus is also
updated regularly (the most
recent texts are from
Summer 2012).” http://corpus.byu.edu/coca/

21. Types of Words Used

22. Prying

23. http://archiveofourown.org/works/692992

24. Types of Words in Actual Fanfiction

25. What About the Grammar?
Linguistic competence
Grammar, vocabulary,
pronunciation

26. Measuring Linguistic Competence: CAF
• Complexity - the use of more advanced or
more varied target language features
• Accuracy – the reduction of errors during
language production
• Fluency - real-time rapid language production
(Skehan & Foster, 1999)

27. A Few Measures of Complexity
1. Syntactic Complexity:
• Mean word length of syntactic unit
– T-Unit - "one main clause with all subordinate clauses attached to it" (Hunt,
1965, p- 20).
– C-Unit – (Communication unit) – an independent clause and its modifiers; “a
word, phrase or sentence that in some way contributes pragmatic or semantic
meaning to a conversation” (Duff, 1985, p. 153).
• Complexity of subordination
– Mean number of clauses per syntactic unit
– Subordination index - ratio of total number of clauses (main and subordinate) to
the total number of c-units.
2. Lexical Complexity:
• Lexical Diversity: Measures of vocabulary size
– Index of Guiraud - Unique words/√all words
• Lexical Density – density of information
– Proportion of content or lexical words (verbs, nouns, adjectives) to total words

28. cs

29. Finding the Average Length of C-Unit
• Main clause – contains both a subject and predicate.
Subordinate clause – dependent clauses. They cannot stand
alone from a main clause.
• C-Unit – a main clause with its subordinating clauses. Below are
c-units with the main clause bolded and the subordinate clauses
underlined.
– /The dwarf was sitting on the chair when Bilbo entered the room./
– /When Bilbo looked under the leaf he saw that the ring was missing./
• Dialog Examples
– /And Gollum said, “Where’s my precious?”/ (1 c-unit)
– /And Golum said, “Where’s my precious?/ They tooks it!”/ (2 c-units)

30. Further Measures
From Lu’s Syntactic
Complexity Analyzer
• http://aihaiyang.com/software
/synlex/
• Lexical Diversity
• Lexical Density
• Keyword Analysis
– comparison with academic
essays,
– other fanfiction,
– Tolkien’s own words

31. Next Steps
• How can literary
competence be
promoted through
fiction writing?
• What kind of language
development did this
project support
(sociolinguistic &
discourse
competence?)