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Lost in second life: virtual embodiment and language learning via multimodal communication

Educational Technology Research and Development volume 63, pages 709–726 (2015)Cite this article

Abstract

Increased recognition of the role of the body and environment in cognition has taken place in recent decades in the form of new theories of embodied and extended cognition. The growing use of ever more sophisticated computer-generated 3D virtual worlds and avatars has added a new dimension to these theories of cognition. Both developments provide new opportunities for exploring new ways of facilitating language acquisition in the foreign language classroom environment. In this article, through two case studies we examine student interaction in a virtual environment customised for foreign language learning to examine “virtually” embodied and extended cognition. Our examination identifies two particular features of this combination of mind, (virtual) body and (virtual) environment that further underline the potential of 3D virtual worlds as sites for embodied and extended cognition: students often do not distinguish between themselves and their avatars; the boundaries between the real and virtual environments are highly (cognitively) permeable.

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Fig. 1

Notes

  1. Although McNerney (2011) notes that even reason can be said to be based in grounded, bodily experience rather than abstract laws, as demonstrated by the abundance of metaphorical references involving our bodies and the physical world in the language used to express abstract concepts, as will be explored later.

  2. Black also notes that more recent research questions whether babies really have no sense of themselves as integrated corporeal entities (2014: 26 f.n.9).

  3. As a relatively recent discovery, caution is warranted in relation to evaluating these claims, as no widely accepted model currently describes mirror neuron support of cognition, and empirical research, especially in humans, is still underway. However, the phenomenon of rehearsal is comparatively uncontroversial.

  4. ‘Betty’, or Guo Laoshi, was one of the native speaker (NS) teachers located in Taiwan who participated in the session. Orlando, among other students, referred to her in the focus group by her first name.

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  1. Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

    Sarah Pasfield-Neofitou, Hui Huang & Scott Grant

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  1. Sarah Pasfield-Neofitou
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Pasfield-Neofitou, S., Huang, H. & Grant, S. Lost in second life: virtual embodiment and language learning via multimodal communication. Education Tech Research Dev 63, 709–726 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-015-9384-7

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