You are here:

(In)formality in Social Media Discourse: The Case of Instructors and Students in Saudi Higher Education
PROCEEDINGS

, University of Nottingham, United Kingdom

Global Learn, in Berlin, Germany Publisher: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE)

Full Text

Abstract

The potential impact of social media as it transfers to higher education practice globally is significant and therefore cannot be overlooked as a research topic. A formal higher education system such as that of Saudi is a convenient case study for exploring social media influence on the tendency towards informality in educational discourse. Using quantitative and qualitative methods, this paper attempts to explore the presence and forms of informality in instructors’ online discourse with their students via the social networking application WhatsApp. Quantitative findings reveal a gradually increasing trend towards informality over time. Discourse analysis identifies how informal features are distributed across instructors’ discourse moves as participants achieve reassurance, praise, and communion. Future research can address the potential of social media in revitalizing “friendship” within educational ecologies such as that of Saudi Arabia.

Citation

Alamri, J. (2015). (In)formality in Social Media Discourse: The Case of Instructors and Students in Saudi Higher Education. In Proceedings of Global Learn Berlin 2015: Global Conference on Learning and Technology (pp. 101-108). Berlin, Germany: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). Retrieved December 5, 2019 from .

© 2015 Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE)

Keywords

References

View References & Citations Map
  1. Alebaikan, R. & Troudi, S. (2010). Blended learning in Saudi universities: challenges and perspectives. Research in Learning Technology, 18(1), pp. 49-59.
  2. Al-Essa, A. (2009). Education Reform in Saudi Arabia between Absence of Political Vision, Apprehension of the Religious Culture and Disability of Educational Management. 1st edn. Beirut: Dar Al Saqi.
  3. Allamnakhrah, A. (2013). Learning Critical Thinking in Saudi Arabia: Student Perceptions of Secondary Pre-Service Teacher Education Programs, Journal of Education and Learning, 2(1), pp.197-210.
  4. Alsereihy, H. & Al Youbi, A. (2014). Towards Applying Social Networking in Higher Education: Case Study of Saudi Universities. MAGNT Research Report, 2(4). Pp. 217-231. Available from: http://brisjast.com/wpcontent/uploads/2014/08/July-29-14.pdf (Accessed: September 20, 2014).
  5. Baron, N. (2000). Alphabet to Email: How Written English Evolved and Where it’s Heading. London: Routledge
  6. Biber, D., & Finegan, E. (1989). Drift and the evolution of English style: A history of three genres. Language, 65(3), 487-517.
  7. Billson, J.M., & Tiberius, R.G. (1991). Effective social arrangements for teaching and learning. In R.J.. Menges & M. Svinicki (Eds.), College teaching: From theory to practice (pp. 87-105). San Francsisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
  8. Breeding, M. (2010). Taking the Social Web to the next level. Computers in Libraries, 30(7), pp. 34-37. Available from:
  9. Dewey, J. (1897). My Pedagogic Creed. School Journal, 54, 77-80.
  10. Dickinson, A. & Holley, R. (2010). Social networking in academic libraries: the possibilities and the concerns. New Library World. 111(11/12), pp. 468-479.
  11. Færch, C., & Kasper, G (1989). Internal and external modification in interlanguage request realization. Cross-cultural pragmatics: Requests and apologies, ed. By Shoshana Blum-Kulka, Juliane House, and Gabriel Kasper, 221-247. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
  12. Fairclough, N. (1995). Critical discourse analysis. London: Longman.
  13. Gumperz, J. (1982). Discourse Strategies. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University
  14. Herring, S. & Nix, C. (1997). Is “serious chat" an oxymoron? Academic vs. Social uses of Internet Relay Chat. The American Association of Applied Linguistics, 1997, Orlando, FL.
  15. Gordon, C. (2011). From Speech to Screen: The Orthography of Colloquial Arabic in Electronically-Mediated Communication. Unpublished PhD thesis.
  16. Hobsbawn, E. (1994). Ages of Extremes: the Short Twentieth Century 1914-1991. Abacus, St Ives.
  17. Leech, G.N. (1966). English in advertising. London: Longman.
  18. Mejdell, G. (1996). Some sociolinguistic concepts of style and stylistic variation in spoken Arabic, with reference to Naguib Mahfuz talking about his life, in J.R. Smart (ed.), Tradition and modernity in Arabic language and literature, Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, pp. 316–26.
  19. Rowe, C. (2008). Hyper-formality and Ultra-casualness: Native and Non-native English Style on the Ask-A-Linguist Web-based Bulletin Board. Bulletin Suisse de Linguistique Appliquée 87: pp. 27–54.
  20. Schiffrin, D. (1995). Approaches to discourse. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers
  21. Searle, J. (1975). Indirect speech acts.In P.Cole & J. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and semantics: Speech acts (3). New York: Academic Press.
  22. Selwyn, N. (2012). Social Media in Higher education. The Europe World of Learning. Available from: http://www.educationarena.com/pdf/sample/sample-essay-selwyn.pdf (Accessed: September 19,
  23. 2014).Shen, K. & Khalifa, M. (2010). Facebook usage among Arabic college students: preliminary findings on gender differences, International Journal of e-Business Management, 4(1), pp. 53-65.
  24. Solis, B. (2008). The State of Social Media. Defining the Impact of Technology, Culture, and Business, September 29, Available from: http://www.briansolis.com/2008/09/state-of-social-media-2008/ (Accessed October 12, 2014).
  25. Pearce, M. (2005). Informalization in UK Party Election Broadcasts 1966-1997. Language and Literature 14: pp. 65–90.
  26. Perez Sabater, C. (2012). “The linguistics of social networking: a study of writing conventions on Facebook”, Linguistik Online.
  27. Perez-Sabater, C., Pena-Martinez, G., Montero-Fleta, B., & Turney, E. (2007). A developing CMC genre: On-line sports broadcast. In M. Kuteeva (Ed.), Proceedings of the 6th international AELFE conference. Teaching and learning LSP: Blurring boundaries, pp. 190-196. Lisbon, Portugal: AELFE.
  28. Waks, L. (2011). John Dewey on listening and friendship in school and society. Educational Theory 61(2).pp.191-205.
  29. Wubbels, T., Brekelmans, M., den Brok, P., Levy, J., Mainhard, T., & Van Tartwijk, J. (2012). Let’s make things better. In T. Wubbels, P. Den Brok, J. Van Tartwijk & J. Levy (Eds.), Interpersonal relationships in education (pp. 225-250). The

These references have been extracted automatically and may have some errors. Signed in users can suggest corrections to these mistakes.

Suggest Corrections to References

Cited By

View References & Citations Map

These links are based on references which have been extracted automatically and may have some errors. If you see a mistake, please contact info@learntechlib.org.

Slides

Also Read

Related Collections