Agency and interaction order in American Finnish language learners' independent target language use
Keywords:
agency, affordance, discourse analysis, foreign language learning, interaction order, nexus analysis, social mediaAbstract
This paper focuses on Finnish learners’ independent target language use outside of class in
an American university-level Finnish program that is geographically distant from any native
speaker communities. Earlier research has demonstrated a mismatch between classroom
and outside of class learning and use. In the global postmodern world foreign language
students can use the target language in authentic situations already at the beginning of their
studies in their learning environment, as this paper demonstrates. The study follows a nexus
analytical method and an ecological approach to language learning to explore and analyze
how four American learners of Finnish report and reflect on their language use. The data is
excerpted from a portfolio assignment in which students have documented and reflected on
their independent language use and it is analyzed using discourse analysis. Students’ active
agency and initiative had a significant role in the interactions. The interactions reported in
the portfolios were hierarchically constructed following the different perceived roles of a
language learner and an expert speaker. Students utilized their interlocutor to get maximal
relevant exposure in the target language and the interaction event was often constructed
around the learner’s questions and expert speaker’s answers. The results can be used to develop
foreign language pedagogy to better correspond with learners’ actual needs in the target
language.
