Article Review

Title: THE DEVELOPMENT OF E-MAIL LITERACY: FROM WRITING TO PEERS TO WRITING TO AUTHORITY FIGURES

(http://llt.msu.edu/vol10num2/chen/default.html)

Journal: Language Learning and Technology,Vol.10, No.2, May 2006, pp. 35-55

Author's/Researcher's Name & Background: Chi-Fen Emily Chen is an Associate Professor in the Department of English in the National Kaohsiung First University of Science and Technology, Taiwan. Her areas of specialization are second language acquisition, discourse analysis, pragmatics, computer assisted language learning and TESOL methodology. She is also the moderator of her own ESL website named 'Emily's English Learning Web'.

Summary of the Article:

The research entitled 'The Development of E-mail Literacy: From Writing to Peers to Writing to Authority Figures' is aimed to uncover the complexity of a second language (L2) learner developing e-mail practice and to explore sociocognitive and sociopsychological factors affecting the L2 learner's language use via this medium in relation to power relations, identity construction, and culture-specific ideologies. In order to achieve her aim, the researcher had chosen Ling, a Taiwanese graduate student who majored in education in her master's studies who later did linguistics for her PhD studies in a university in the United States to be her research subject. The research was a longitudinal study conducted on the subject for two and a half years and it was conducted that way to provide a deeper understanding of how an L2 learner develops e-mail literacy in the target language environment. There are two kinds of data collection in this study (i) 266 e-mails that Ling wrote during her graduate studies in the US over two and a half years(from August, 1999 to December, 2001), including 168 e-mails sent to friends/classmates and 98 sent to professors; and (ii) three face-to-face in-depth interviews conducted at the beginning, middle, and end of the data collection process, along with several online interviews via e-mail and online chat when immediate clarification or elaboration was needed. At the end of the research, there were three important findings found which is first, an L2 learner’s frequent use of e-mail to communicate with peers does not indicate that she is able to use the medium appropriately and effectively for institutional status-unequal communication. Second, the development of L2 learners’ language use in composing status-unequal e-mails is neither an easy nor a simple process and the third finding is appropriateness is not a one-dimensional notion in status-unequal e-mail communication. The development of the subject's e-mail literacy is measured through her general e-mail discourse features, discourse style, message length, message structure and request strategies.


I find this research very interesting because it was conducted to provide a deeper understanding of how an L2 learner develops e-mail literacy in the target language environment and this is much related to my personal experience as an L2 learner as well. From this research also I learn that e-mail writing can be done in two ways which are through deductive and inductive way. Inductive way of writing is like a story-telling in which the purpose of writing is not straightforward and it is ineffective to be used in an institutional context such as to send an e-mail to a lecturer. Deductive way of writing on the other hand is straightforward and the purpose of writing is placed at the beginning. I have a pen-pal named Jay who happens to be an English teacher teaching in Japan and I develop my e-mail literacy through him. We have started using e-mail as a tool to communicate for the past 6 years and I realize that using e-mail is a very relaxing way to polish up my English language and most of our exchanged e-mails were written inductively because we share stories. He corrects my grammar in a very subtle way and he never uses any abbreviations, so the contents of his e-mails are written using proper English and this benefits me in many ways. I do the same with him because it would be embarrassing for me to use abbreviations when he does not. I consider him as much superior than me because he is the native speaker of English and that is his language that I use to communicate, therefore I pay respect to him through my proper writing. I admit that it is much difficult for me to write an appropriate e-mail to a native speaker and higher authority people than writing e-mail to my peers because the discourse styles are different. Apart from discourse style, the difference can be measured from message length,message structure and request strategies. That is why I like the research because I can see different styles of writing convention between e-mails sent to the subject's peers and professors and the reasons for the differences are also stated in the findings. I can also identify my flaws in e-mail writing to different people based on the research findings. Due to that, I think this research was well conducted. Moreover, it was a longitudinal study which allowed the researcher to monitor the progress of the research subject for two and a half years. As a result, it was found that the subject had difficulties with language use for appropriateness. If most L2 learners in Malaysia and generally experience the same problem like the subject, then it will affect the learner's e-mail writing style in the workplace which usually requires them to communicate effectively with important people. Hence, it is important to be aware of the recipient's power, identity and culture-specific ideology in writing e-mails because appropriate discourse forms and strategies could shape and reflect the power relations and situated identities of the sender. L2 learners need to be taught in the L2 classroom on how to communicate appropriately through e-mail with higher authority people as one of the ways to deal with this problem.

(864 words)