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How a deaf boy gamed his way to second-language acquisition: Tales of intersubjectivity

Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, tanias.salies{at}gmail.com.br

Priscila Starosky

Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, priscilastarosky{at}yahoo.com.br

Taking an experiential approach to language development, this article links gaming to the language development of a 10-year-old deaf child under speech therapy. Specifically, it examines face-to-face interactions between mediators and the child, during 1 year of gaming in clinical encounters. To do so, it codes data by means of interactional variables (intentionality and subjectivity/intersubjectivity) and textual variables (function versus content words). Results show that gaming yielded affordances in the use of strategic behavior and syntax by the child. They also reveal that repetition is a recurrent communicative strategy that contributes to meaning making, culture learning, and discursive involvement. Furthermore, role reversals by the child and the mediators suggest that gaming played a constitutive part in the development of the boy's subjectivity/intersubjectivity—ultimately, in his development of Portuguese as a second language.

Key Words: affordances • deaf education • gaming • intentionality • intersubjectivity • language socialization • second-language acquisition • subjectivity

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