Learning the Pragmatics of Solidarity in the Networked Foreign Language Classroom

Computer-mediated communication has significant potential to broaden classroom discourse options (Kramsch, 1985) by introducing learners to social contexts and relationships heretofore uncommon in classroom interaction. This study examines one such radical change, as college-age learners of French as a foreign language establish relationships, via e-mail, videoconferencing, and collaborative work, with native-speaking French peers. A new kind of social relationship, involving both the experience and the expression of solidarity, may be expected to engender changes in the learners’ sociolinguistic competence, which had previously been constrained in its development by the limitations on social variation in foreign language classrooms (Hall, 1995; Kasper, 1982; Ohta, 1994).