Unpacking Strong versus Weak Presence in Second Life Enactive Role Play
This chapter focuses on investigating participants’ presence in Second Life among students in enactive role play. The interest in the study is on the nature of participant interaction and construction of discourse moves which reflect the nature and extent of their presence (identified as ‘strong’ or ‘weak’) in the virtual world. The chapter examines the key concept of presence and its association with related concepts of engagement and identity against the sociocultural approach to learning and functional linguistic theory which provide the theoretical underpinnings and frame the research focus of this study. A review of related studies in the field follows after which background information on the context of the study is provided. The method of analysis is explained after which an analysis and a discussion of findings are presented. The chapter closes with highlighting the pertinent pedagogical implications of virtual enactive role play in 3D immersive spaces for learning.