Social networking sites for language learning: Examining learning theories in nested semiotic spaces

Abstract

Social media has given rise to a new generation of participatory online environments, namely, social networking sites for language learning (SNSLL). SNSLLS have created new patterns of learning languages, social interaction, and learning experiences. This study focuses on Busuu, a well-known SNSLL, and examines the views of learning that underlie the semiotic design of this virtual environment. I depart from the premise that the semiotic composition of any medium of communication positions and enacts certain ways in which contents must be treated, acquired, or learned. I draw on methodological and theoretical foundations of ethnographic research and multimodal social semiotics to analyze the website. One of the main findings of the study indicates that Busuu constitutes an ecological system of nested semiotic spaces where pedagogical elements and principles from different theories of language learning (behavioristic, cognitive, constructivist) interweave in conflicting but at the same time complementary ways.