Cho Hye-jin. 2016. “Negotiation of Meaning in Computer-Mediated Communication in Relation to Task Types”. The Sociolinguistic Journal of Korea 24(1). 271~309. The present study aims to explore how negotiation of meaning occurs in a task-based CMC among ESL students. Paired with one another, 18 ESL students were asked to engage in online discussion once a week for 3 weeks in order to complete 3 types of language task: jigsaw, information-gap, and decision-making tasks. The finding shows that only a few examples (11%) contributed to negotiation routines. Twenty-one percent of the negotiation routines were identified as modified interactions. The information-gap task elicited the most negotiation routines. However, what the students perceived was different from the numerical results regarding task types. They reported that the jigsaw was the most intriguing and beneficial task rather than the information-gap. Relatively little negotiation routine can be attributed to learner perceptions of tasks. Learner behaviors such as not asking questions, their eagerness to proceed with the task, and face-saving action were observed as efforts to maintain social communication. Sending segmented messages instead of complete sentences was found as a face-saving action as well.

This study is designed to help to understand the Korean EFL teachers` experiences of computer-mediated communication(CMC) focused on the topics of collaborative computer-mediated interaction. With respect to one of the major conditions for collaborative learning, we should recognize that it occurs when the communicators actively and willingly cooperate based on strong motivation. Moreover, we should understand how the both sides help each other to achieve collaborative communication in the target language. Therefore, this study explores what the participants` motivation for collaborative experiences is like, how native/nonnative speakers perceive these motivation, what the main factors interfering with nonnative speakers` collaborative learning are, and how the both sides endeavor to enhance more desirable environment for collaborative interaction.