Re: Discourse structures

Greg Ball (g.ball who-is-at fsw.ruu.nl)
Sun, 11 Jan 1998 17:11:19 +0100

Charles and Carol,
Thanks for your feedback. I think I will be able to find what I need in
your lists. In order to make the translation to electronic discourse I
probably need to examine both the f2f and written discourse literature.

The genres and activity structures in electronic communities seem very
variable and sometimes incoherent, seemingly integrating activity
structures from different areas of users' personal experience. This
includes both writing and speaking in working, learning, or informal
settings.
Our experience is that that students are very insecure when they first
start participating in an electronic learning community, because they are
not familiar with activity structures and discourse genres which are
appropriate in this medium. We first have to spend a number of weeks
dealing with these issues before we can begin learning about other things.