Role Construction and Language Characteristics in Group Cooperative Learning

【Abstract】Group members tend to use more casual and relaxed language in group discussions, and provide plenty of hints and help without refuting or critical discourse to maintain their “friendly and supportive” role character. This may mean that group members may be influenced by individual social roles in group cooperative learning, which may lead to low efficiency of group communication, and reduce the effect of group cooperative learning for shielding and avoiding conflict of opinions.

【Key words】role construction; language characteristics; group cooperative learning

【作者簡介】乐哲瑜，澳门科技大学国际学院英语专业16级学生。

Most of people’s daily activities are playing a role defined by society, each role is a set of rights, obligations, expectations, norms and behaviors that one must face and implement. In people’s lives, sometimes they have to play and face different roles in different social situations. Driven by the motivation of communicative intentions, language users will continue to make choices in terms of language strategy and structure. There are many scholars to study and analyze the identity construction of various groups(Bryson, 1997, Rockquemore, 2002). However, it is often neglected that students’ group cooperative learning is also a common social communication occasion.

In order to exclude the influence of different cultures and individual differences, a research group of the University of Adelaide in English-speaking Australia was selected to investigate the role construction and language phenomena in cooperative group learning. The team consists of four members: Dlek (25 years old, male, Thai), Cong (23 years old, male, Chinese), Sally (30 years old, female, Chinese), and Zoe (19 years old, female, Japanese). By observing 10 research group meetings via a network, we recorded the topics, background, participation of each group member, conversation content, wording, and the points of interest of each research group discussion. In the follow-up interview, we also transcribed, translated and analyzed the content of the interview to learn about the expectation and behavior of team members on their own identity, as well as the consideration of using statement in the group discussion.

As the multi-role bearers of group members and social individuals, the group members provided an example of thinking in the situation of role conflict in the social occasion of group cooperative learning, which is characterized by overlap(Katz, 1978). According to the role theory, the society will expect the behavior of a person in a specific position, which is usually reflected in his rights, obligations, codes of conduct and other aspects. Under the condition of group cooperative learning, on the one hand, driven by the learning goal, the individual’s role as a group member brings him the behavior expectation of “fully expressing his own opinions to promote the effectiveness of communication and discussion” and “offering help to the group members”(Piaget, 1964). On the other hand, as independent social individuals, they need to play the role of “respecting others’ opinions, maintaining politeness and harmonious relationship and defend their own interests”(Biddle, 1986). Therefore, it can be concluded from the analysis that in the process of group cooperation and discussion, team members not only hope to maintain politeness and harmony in social relations, but also hope to achieve their best learning results. For example, when faced with the behavior of shirking responsibility or delaying progress, all four team members first choose to be inclusive and offer help to maintain their expectation of the role of team members. Cong mentioned in the interview, “in the group cooperative learning, if a group member has a problem, what we should do is not to blame him for the problem, but to find a way to help him solve the problem, which is the responsibility I hope a good team member can assume, which is also conducive to the completion of the task.”Another panelist, Dlek, said, “First, I will ask him what the problem is and whether he needs help,” but he also mentioned, “If he does this again, I will take drastic measures, such as taking the situation to tell the teacher that this may make him punished because I think it is unfair to me.”

Due to role conflict, group members may make some choices based on the idea of “balancing the roles of group members and social individuals” (Cota, 1995). These choices often mix the expectations of the two roles, but can lead to incomplete roles because they are not fully compatible. Based on data collection and interviews, the cooperative learning group chose social individual roles that were more inclined to their base when the two roles clashed. According to Zoe, a member of the group, “when I have opinions contrary to those of other members, I will fully evaluate the reliability and correctness of my own opinions. If I don’t think it has an overwhelming advantage, then I wouldn’t choose to raise my objection.” At the same time, she also mentioned that the tit-for-tat group discussion may not affect the harmonious atmosphere of the group, but it will create a negative impression on the personal relationship. Another panelist, Dlek, has similar views and choices. “Although I know that as a team member I should raise different points of view in the discussion, in reality I almost just sit in silence and say nothing.” he said, “I can’t say that arguments in a group discussion are necessarily bad for relationships, but they certainly aren’t positive.”

In the process of group study and discussion, the group members will try to use lighthearted words and avoid direct rebuttal and criticism to cater to their friendly roles. In addition, tips and help are given in abundance to cater to their role as supporters. For example, the following dialogue took place during the five panel discussions:

C: I think implicit means indirectly and explicit means directly and clearly.

D: How about you (to Zoe while seeing Zoe didn’t finish the vocabulary prepare, laugh)? What do you think (Zoe laughed)? Yeah, Cong mentioned that explicit means the argument directly. How about No.5? Generalisation?

C: It’s a noun.

D: Yeah it’s a noun. How are you (to Sally while seeing Sally didn’t finish the vocabulary prepare, laugh)? What’s the meaning? (C&S laugh, C: Use your own words?)

S: I didn’t check the meaning of these words.

D: You remember I have brief before, I have summarise before? And, note taking. It’s like a general organisation, isn’t it? ( C: Yeah)

In this discussion, Zoe and Sally did not prepare in advance, so the discussion became inefficient and lost its original effect. Instead of expressing their displeasure, the other two members relaxed the atmosphere by smiling and offered to help them answer questions, which relieved their guilt and embarrassment. In another panel discussion, Sally and Cong had some contrary opinions:

S: In my opinion, based on the theme of simulation, it is most appropriate to start with simulation games.

C: I think that’s great, but should we think about another the perspective of technology in this process? such as VR and UR, it may be timelier to discuss.

D&Z: Agree.

S: I think you have a great idea, but I think games have irreplaceable value among young people. If so, I think maybe we could consider combining gaming and technology.

In this dialogue, both sides expressed their own opinions and reached a compromise on the premise of respecting each other’s ideas, which also showed the friendliness and respect of the team members in terms of wording.

In this study, a compound survey form was used to transcribe the recording data of 10 group discussions into a corpus, which was combined with the individual interviews of the group members to conduct data analysis through integration and inductive method. It has been shown that group members tend to use more casual and relaxed language in group discussions, and provide plenty of hints and help without refuting or critical discourse to maintain their “friendly and supportive” role character. This may mean that group members may be influenced by individual social roles in group cooperative learning, which may lead to low efficiency of group communication, and reduce the effect of group cooperative learning for shielding and avoiding conflict of opinions.

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