Architecture Students’ Appropriation of Avatars — Relationships between Avatar Identity and L2 Verbal Participation and Interaction

Abstract

The synthetic (virtual) world Second Life (SL) can be defined as a social networking (SN) environment: it allows users to network informally by initiating relationships with other users, often strangers, with whom they share no previous offline connections. Users can also connect with people with whom they have previously established offline relationships. In SL, networking can occur by interacting and later friending, other users whose avatars are proxemically close inworld. This is facilitated by a feature allowing public audio and textchat channels to be heard/read by other nearby users. Users can also initiate relationships through interest groups and create a public profile, albeit relating this profile to that of their avatar or their physical world (first world) identity. Users who friend each other can view the newsfeed and interest groups as well as the list of connections of one another and can navigate the latter.