This article discusses formal and informal foreign language learning before university level. The focus is on beginning university students' perceptions of their earlier learning experiences, especially in digital contexts. Language learners' digital competence is a part of their everyday lives, but its relationship to learning in and outside educational settings is still relatively seldom studied. The article discusses learning in formal and informal (i.e., hybrid) contexts and digital learning profiles −that is, a learner's own personalized style in acquiring language competence by creating affordances in personalized digital or mobile learning environments− in primary and secondary education identified in a language learning survey. The results are based on an online survey sent to all beginning university students majoring in languages at a Finnish university (N= 87/192), which was complemented by a short narrative task (N=47) a few months later focusing on earlier education and the use of language learning technologies. The results suggest that the use of technologies seems to differ between extramural and in-school language learning. The learners were well aware of various possibilities to create affordances for learning, and their own involvement increased with age. Most participants had positive attitudes towards the use of technologies to enhance language learning, but critical views emphasized the importance of inspiring contact teaching. Three different digital learning profiles were identified: a digiage learner, a hybrid learner, and an in-school learner. These can be useful when planning differentiated foreign language instruction.

This case study discusses audiences’ emotional reactions and convergent alignment in YouTube comment threads observed on four videos of Spanish YouTubers with affective narratives on sensitive topics. The analysis reveals that most single-comment threads are generally positive and that utterances are fairly equally divided in their focus on YouTubers or narratives. The act of taking a stance follow consists of a versatile process in which the convergent alignment or agreement with the YouTubers’ stance lead occurs not just by positively evaluating YouTubers or the story, but also by revealing something highly private concerning the stance topic. The four affective narratives evoke not only compliments, but also the convergent alignment the YouTubers presumably seek with their stories.

This case study explores how Spanish YouTubers construct affective narratives in terms of self-disclosure in the context of sensitive topics. In addition, it sheds light on how YouTubers take up a stance within the stories, and the components of this stance-taking. Stories and stance-taking will be evaluated through multimodal analysis, observing both the verbal and non-verbal cues used. According to the results, YouTubers’ affective narratives are characterized by emphasis on explicitly named feelings and by non-verbal cues that reinforce the transmission of mediated emotion, as well as functioning to boost self-disclosure. The narratives reveal a kind of stance-continuum that underlines the dynamic nature of phenomena, where YouTubers gradually construct, in conjunction with self-disclosure, the act of stance-taking, starting from self-oriented positioning, then moving toward a more instructive and self-to-others perspective, and finally acting as stance-influencers of the community in which they are involved.

Este artículo estudia los saludos, las despedidas y las formas nominales de tratamiento de los youtubers españoles para conocer mejor estos factores intervinientes en la creación de los vínculos interpersonales en la plataforma digital de YouTube. En el análisis multimodal se toman en consideración los recursos verbales y no verbales (gestos, movimientos de las manos, expresiones faciales) vinculados con estos rituales. El corpus principal consiste en 44 vídeos analizados, uno por cada youtuber, participante de Tubecon Madrid en 2017. La elección de Tubecon como marco referencial permite explorar el fenómeno con una variedad mayor que da a conocer mejor a la generación de los youtubers en su conjunto. Según los resultados, los saludos resultan más neutrales que las despedidas. Estas se caracterizan por el mayor peso afectivo, por la ampliación temporal del ritual y por la provechosa diversificación de los recursos usados. Asimismo, en los resultados se acentúan la simetría y la cercanía de las relaciones interpersonales de la comunidad virtual. A pesar de la variación, los youtubers parecen recurrir en su producción a los mismos recursos tanto verbales como no verbales en sus saludos y despedidas, según desvela el corpus complementario del estudio.