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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2010
Introduction
The term on-line communication refers to reading, writing and communication via networked computers. It encompasses:
synchronous computer-mediated communication, whereby people communicate in real time via chat or discussion software, with all participants at their computers at the same time;
asynchronous computer-mediated communication, whereby people communicate in a delayed fashion by computer, e.g. by email; and
the reading and writing of on-line documents via the internet.
Second language (L2) researchers are interested in two overlapping issues related to on-line communication:
How do the processes which occur in on-line communication assist language learning in a general sense (i.e. on-line communication for language learning)?; and
What kinds of language learning need to occur so that people can communicate effectively in the on-line realm (i.e. language learning for on-line communication)?
Background
On-line communication dates back to the late 1960s, when US researchers first developed protocols that allowed the sending and receiving of messages via computer (Hafner and Lyon 1996). The ARPANET, launched in 1969 by a handful of research scientists, eventually evolved into the internet, bringing together some 200 million people around the world at the start of the twenty-first century. On-line communication first became possible in educational realms in the 1980s, following the development and spread of personal computers. The background to on-line communication in language teaching and research can be divided into two distinct periods, marked by the introduction of computer-mediated communication in education in the mid-1980s and the emergence of the world wide web in the mid-1990s.
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