Abstract

The paper examines the emotions of 15 learners of Japanese across seven weekly online text chats in Japanese with native Japanese speakers, and the factors that caused their emotions. The data came from questionnaires about the learners’ biodata and previous experiences of text chats, weekly reports about their chats, transcripts of the chats, and occasional questions in e-mail exchanges between the researcher and the learners to clarify certain statements in the weekly reports. The learners’ positive and negative emotions and the causes of those emotions were coded and counted for descriptive quantitative analysis. The learners reported both positive and negative emotions within each individual chat as well as across the seven weeks. Enjoyment was the most frequently occurring of the positive emotions, while a sense of difficulty was most often reported among the negative emotions. Both positive and negative emotions changed over the seven weeks. The chat process and issues with the Japanese language tended to be triggers for negative emotions, with positive emotions likely to be triggered by the chat partners, and also by discussions of hobbies, similar interests and culture. It would appear to be important for learners to develop a rapport with their partner through chat communications and to avoid focusing too much on their own limited foreign language proficiency in order to increase their positive emotions in online text chats, thus improving the experience and leading to greater learning.

摘要

这篇论文通过与母语为日语的人进行的七次每周日语在线文本聊天，调查了 15 名日语学习者的情绪，以及导致他们情绪的因素。数据来自关于学习者的生物数据和以前的文字聊天经历的问卷、关于他们的聊天的每周报告、聊天记录，以及研究人员和学习者之间的电子邮件交流中偶尔提出的问题，以澄清每周报告中的某些陈述. 对学习者的正面和负面情绪以及产生这些情绪的原因进行编码和计数，以进行描述性定量分析。学习者在每次聊天以及七周内都报告了积极和消极的情绪。享受是最常出现的积极情绪，而在负面情绪中最常报告的是困难感。在七周内，积极和消极的情绪都发生了变化。聊天过程和日语问题往往是消极情绪的触发因素，积极情绪可能由聊天伙伴引发，也可能由兴趣爱好、相似兴趣和文化的讨论引发。对于学习者来说，通过聊天交流与伴侣建立融洽关系似乎很重要，避免过分关注自己有限的外语能力，以增加在线文本聊天中的积极情绪，从而改善体验并导致更大的学习。聊天过程和日语问题往往是消极情绪的触发因素，积极情绪可能由聊天伙伴引发，也可能由兴趣爱好、相似兴趣和文化的讨论引发。对于学习者来说，通过聊天交流与伴侣建立融洽关系似乎很重要，避免过分关注自己有限的外语能力，以增加在线文本聊天中的积极情绪，从而改善体验并导致更大的学习。聊天过程和日语问题往往是消极情绪的触发因素，积极情绪可能由聊天伙伴引发，也可能由兴趣爱好、相似兴趣和文化的讨论引发。对于学习者来说，通过聊天交流与伴侣建立融洽关系似乎很重要，避免过分关注自己有限的外语能力，以增加在线文本聊天中的积极情绪，从而改善体验并导致更大的学习。