Presented at Second International Conference On Multicultural Discourses

1. Intercultural Cibercommunicator: representations of languages and cultures in plurilingual chats Escola Superior de Educação Paula Frassinetti, Portugal EscolaSecundáriaArtísticaSoares dos Reis, Portugal 话语与多元文化国际会议 Second International Conference onMulticultural Discourses Mário Cruz mariocruz@live.com

2. 1. Aimsofthispresentation observe the emergence and negotiation of images about languages and cultures in chat interaction to show how that images can promote the online mobility of the intercultural cibercommunicator.

3. 2. KeyConcepts Cibercommunicator Online mobility Plurilingual Competence DialogicImaginary

4. 3. EU linguistic policies, plurilingualism and citizens' mobility EU Linguistic policy: regulatory and legislative role (rules and recommendations) application/materialization of those laws in terms of mobility programs (Erasmus, …) and international research teams (LINGUA, …) * promotion of plurilingualism * defense of minority languages Citizens’ mobility

5. 4. Conceptsemergingfrom EU linguistic policies New concepts: intercomprehension Plurilingualism New competences: plurilingual competence intercultural competence intercultural communicative competence

6. Diagram 1: Model for the Intercultural Communicative Competence (Byram, 1997)

7. A particular scope: the rise of Internet access the rise of its communicative tools use. Mobility?  "online mobility" 2. Intercultural communicator? "intercultural cibercommunicator"

8. 5. Online mobility and Intercultural Cibercommunicator: a role for dialogic imaginary Online mobility: the result of the ability of recognize and use technological resources and enrich knowledge which can increase its forthcoming usage. the correct usage of the technological means, the communicative instruments, the linguistic and communicative codes, the mobilization of social and affective predispositions towards the interaction.

9. Intercultural Cibercommunicator: The intercultural cibercommunicator is the one who is capable of developing his/her own ICC, using the virtual world. Therefore, he is able: i) to demonstrate knowledge about self and others and positive attitudes towards the Otherness. ii) to acquire a deeper understanding about how language works and what is it for iii) to negotiate representations of their own language and culture and of the other’s languages and cultures by means of language and electronic discourse What role for dialogic imaginary ??

10. dialogic imaginary: dialogical construction and negotiation - in the context of online plurilingual chat conversation -of students’ perceptions (stereotypes, images, representations) about languages, cultures and speakers. This concept implies two others: “places discursives” - the roles played by each participant within the interaction, which are characterized by their dynamic “mouvement de places” - the places (re)built within the interaction

11. 6. Cibercommunicator's "imaginary folklore" corpus – two plurilingualand intercultural printed chat sessions we selected some segments of the conversations, which we consider as more relevant and expressive, and we reconstructed the conversational sequences Because of chats’ characteristics: multi-user environment, textual overlaps, destruction of conversational adjacency pairing, unpredictability of subject-matter, “topic migration” and metacommunicative minimalism (CRYSTAL: 2001; HERRING, 1999; ARAÚJO e SÁ & MELO, 2003a and 2003b)

12. Online MobilityinAction Chatters use resourcesin a creativewaywith a strategicaim: a. Expressiveresourcesofthekeyboard 1. smileys “caty (Porto)--(caty)>>és muito brincalhão palaço :9” (You are veryfunnypalaço :9) 2. capital letters “didinha (Porto)--(didinha)>>EURO É A EUROPA? JOÃO” (EURO IS EUROPE? JOÃO) 3. repetitionofgraphemes “palhaco (New--York)--(palhaco)>>nao fale pra ela shhhh” (Do nottalk to her, shhhh) 4. phoneticwriting “smile (Porto)--(smile)>>io gostava mutcho de apranderchines” (Ai wudlaike to learnChainise) 5. interjections “palhaco (New--York)--(palhaco)>>ahhhhhh entendi” (Ahhhhh I understandit)

13. b. Languages 1. MotherTongueLanguage “(…) bebedomar)>>o que é BROMA/ (…)mari (New--York)--(mari)>>joke” 2. ForeignLanguages “ana (New--York)--(ana)>>porque brasil e um pais muito grande--entaomuits pessoas falam português (…) (BecauseBrazilis a verybigcountry—Therefore a lotofpeoplespeakPortuguese) wakatanka (Porto)--(wakatanka)>>are you reading any book at this moment K? (…)” 3. MixtureofLanguages k (New--York)--(k)>>sim, eu e lido o livro o cor roxo. me gusto muito. tu o as lido (…)? 4. Codeswitching mari (New--York)--(mari)>>Yo soy chicana mari (New--York)--(mari)>>voubem (…) tete (Porto)--(tete)>>are you chicana? mari (New--York)--(mari)>>how old are you? (…)

14. 6.1. Talkingabout cultural diversity Talking about: Chatters’ self images:‘bete (Porto)--(bete)>>portugal é muitogiro’ (Portugal is very cute), ‘palhaco (New--York)--(palhaco)>>our cities a dump’, ‘mari (New--York)--(mari)>>Unachicanaesalguienquetieneinteres en los problemassociales, politicos, etc queafectan a la comunidadlatina’. Curiosity towards other’s customs and traditions: ‘Garfield (Porto)--(Garfield)>>SOU FASCINADO PELA CULTURA CHICANA’ (I am fascinated by the Chicana culture); ‘palhaco (New--York)--(palhaco)>>we listened to fado the other day’.

15. 6.2. Talking about plurilingualism Talking about: Chatters’ own and others’ linguistic repertoires:‘beatriz(Porto)--(beatriz)>> falas muito bem português’ (YouspeakverygoodPortuguese); ‘didinha(Porto)--(didinha)>>ESCREVES MT BEM PORTUGUES’ (YouwritePortuguesein a verygoodway”); linguistic projects: ‘tschinhaALG(Porto)--(tschinhaALG)>>k eutambemqueroaprenderitaliano e tambemalemão’. (K, I want to learn Italian and German as well”)

16. Talking about languages as observable “objects” in action: importance– ‘tschinhaALG(Porto)--(tschinhaALG)>>o frances é tão importante como o inglesportugues ou italiano’ (Frenchis as important as English, PortugueseorItalian”). difficulties and facilities: language learning– ‘alam (Porto)--(alam)>>iglês é facil de aprender’ (Englishiseasy to learn) language use - ’teca (Porto)--(teca)>>ainda bem que falas português e... muito bem! Também acho que o inglês é dificil mas.... é a nossa linguaunoversal certo?’ (ItisverygoodthatyouspeakPortugueseand… verywellindeed! I thinkthatEnglishisdifficulttoobut… itisour universal language, right?)

17. similarities and differences - “alam (Porto)--(alam)>>espanhol é parecido com o português, por isso português também é facil” (Spanish does looklikePortuguese, soPortugueseiseasytoo) aesthetic preferences - palhaco (New--York)--(palhaco)>>o portugues eh o mais lindo kkkkk” (Portugueseisthemostbeautifulkkkkk); “, nós também gostamos muito de português”; "palhaco (New--York)--(palhaco)>>englishisugly”; “smile (Porto)--(smile)>>eu adoro inglês” (I loveEnglish) linguistic particularities - “sunlight (Porto)--(sunlight)>>teça e raquel, i think portuguese language is very difficult to be universal because have to many "sintaxes", its not a simple language”.

19. “tete (Porto)--(tete)>>achas que o frances não e assim taõ significativo na nossa aprendizagem?” (Do youreallythinkthatFrenchisnotsoimportant to learn?)

20. “tschinhaALG (Porto)--(tschinhaALG)>>Ctrem porque tens essas ideias aboutthelinguage?” (Ctrem, why do youhavesuchassumptionsaboutthislanguage?)

21. Thesequestionsrepresent a strongaffirmationofidentitywhichcanbefeltinthefollowingexpressiontoo:

24. Theresultofthisinteractionistheredefinitionofthechatter’simageryaboutlanguages, culturesandpeoples:‘Joao(New--York)--(Joao)>>THE EURO IS THEN TELLING OF WHAT THE EC IS DOING WITH LANG. EMPHASIZING THE DIFFERENCES’

25. Conclusion we focused our attention in the appearance of images of languages, cultures and people in the online conversation and their co-construction. these images as signs of affective predispositions and of communicative well-being can help chatters: to get engaged in the interaction, to solve communicative clashes and to co-construct plurilingualintercomprehension we think that it's the domain of the affect that through the online mobility is mostly observed and explored, since we can find chatting “virtual movements” towards otherness

26. Intercultural Cibercommunicator: representations of languages and cultures in plurilingual chats Escola Superior de Educação Paula Frassinetti, Portugal EscolaSecundáriaArtísticaSoares dos Reis, Portugal 话语与多元文化国际会议 Second International Conference onMulticultural Discourses Mário Cruz mariocruz@live.com