ABSTRACT
Discussions in MOOCs are where learners from all over the world communicate with each other, exchanging information and ideas. Although most researchers and educators have paid attention to the content of what learners have written in the online discussions, the old saying “it’s not what you say, it's how you say it” reminds us of the need to also pay attention to how learners write in the online discussions. To examine the language and discourse of learners’ discussions in MOOC, a mixed methodology, corpus linguistic approach, was employed to analyse the learners’ textual contributions in twelve FutureLearn MOOC discussions. The analysis found that some language strategies were more useful for attracting replies from others and responding to others. Chapter 6 will be informative for both educators and learners who aim to improve their communication skills and discourse practices in the MOOC discussions.
