This study is situated in prior work on online fan practices and computer-assisted language learning (Sauro, 2017) and reports on a case study of the informal language and digital literacy development of a Sherlock Holmes fan who engaged in the fan practice of spoiling. Presented as part of the invited colloquium on Fan Practices for Language and Literacy Development at AAAL on March 11, 2019 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

1. The Digital Literacy Development &
Online Language Learning of a Sherlock Fan
Shannon Sauro
Malmö University

2. “A fan is a person
with a relatively deep
positive emotional
conviction about
someone or
something famous...”
(Duffet, 2013, p. 18)

3. CALL in the Digital
Wilds
“informal language learning
that takes place in digital
spaces, communities, and
networks that are
independent of formal
instructional contexts”
(Sauro & Zourou, 2019, p.1).

4. “Online fan networks
and communities
represent one type of
affinity space found in
the digital wilds, where
learners have engaged
in language and literacy
learning through their
involvement in a wide
range of fan practices.”
(Sauro, in preparation)
Art: Foxestacado

5. Fan Practices
• Fan translation (Vazquez-
Calvo, Zhang, Pascual & Cassany,
2019)
• Restorying through fan
works and fanart (Thomas
& Stornaiolou, 2016)
• Fanfiction (Curwood, Magnifico
& Lammers, 2013; Thorne & Black,
2011)
• Spoiling
(see Sauro, 2017 for an overview)
Art: Foxestacado

6. Spoiling
“…the purposeful discovery
of crucial developments in
the plot of a fictional story
of a film or TV series
before the relevant
material has been
broadcast or released.”
(Duffett, 2013, p. 168)

7. Art: Foxestacado
Case Study of Steevee
To explore the informal L2
language learning and
digital literacy development
of a Sherlock fan who was
engaged in the fan practice
of spoiling.

8. Steevee’s Fan History
1990s
• A fan without a fandom
2009
• Joined Supernatural Fandom
• Joined Twitter; Created a fan FB
page
2010
• Joined Torchwood and Doctor Who
fandoms
• Created a fan Tumblr
2012
• Joined the (BBC) Sherlock fandom
2013
• Spoiling Sherlock (#setlock)
Art: Foxestacado

9. Language Learner
Autonomy
Foregrounds the agency of
an individual language
learner in “identifying their
own needs, devising an
appropriate programme of
learning, and following it
through to a conclusion.”
(Little, 2014, p. 15)
Art: Foxestacado

10. I’m going to get online and I’m going
to talk to people and learn English.
And I’m going to learn new words.
And I used to sit there with a
notepad next to Twitter and write
down words I’d never seen before,
look them up, learn them. Because
that’s how I acquired language
because I was in a German country
going to university where even the
English classes were held in German.
I was not learning anything and I
wanted to learn.
(Interview, 14 December 2015)
Art: Foxestacado

11. Setlock
A portmanteau of set and
Sherlock used by fans to
refer to those who went
to the outdoor film sets
for Sherlock and also as
a hashtag to help share
spoilers across online
international fan
networks.

12. Symbolic Competence
“the ability not only to
approximate or appropriate
for oneself someone else’s
language, but to shape the
very context in which the
language is learned and
used”
(Kramsch & Whiteside, 2008, p. 664)
Art: Foxestacado

13. The non-native speakers
are really the lose canon
because they might
understand something
incorrectly because of their
own lack of knowledge of
the English language or
sarcasm or whatever is
being used as a metaphor
for example.
(Interview, 14 December 2015)
Art: Foxestacado

14. Due to the massive increase
of hits and followers due to
setlock, I somehow became
someone who was consulted
on various things and I
realized that if I wanted to
help/give answers etc., I’d
have to make myself
understood in the way I
wanted to be – that’s when
my answers got longer and
more in-depth, as I wanted to
make sure my arse was
covered XD
(Email, 7 January 2016)
Art: Foxestacado

15. Digital Literacy
“…a vast amount of
information is now available in
written form and this writing
varies tremendously in terms
of quality and trustworthiness.
When learning to read,
language learners need to
develop a host of information
management strategies: how
to find texts online, evaluate
those texts, distinguish
genuine from fake websites,
and so on.”
(Hafner, Chik & Jones, 2015, p. 1)
Art: Foxestacado

16. The first thing for interviews that I
usually look for is who’s the author,
what else have they written and
how have they written it. Are they
trying to create some panic or some
sort of media attention…. What is
the paper trying to reach, the writer
trying to reach with it? Did they
have their own agenda because
they always do....Trying to take a
step back and for me not
immediately joining the gossip and
rumour fun but rather waiting for a
minute or two and trying to critically
approach everything, especially
where it’s from, what is the agenda
behind it, what is their usual
reputation regarding fandom.
(Published Podcast Interview, 6 January 2015)
Art: Foxestacado

17. Critical Digital Literacy
“As a convergence of both digital
and critical literacies, critical
digital literacy examines how the
operation of power within digital
contexts shapes knowledge,
identities, social relations, and
formations in ways that privilege
some and marginalize others. It
equips learners with the tools to
examine the linguistic and
nonlinguistic features of digital
media, to identify their
embedded biases and
assumptions, in order to access
the truth.”
(Darvin, 2017, p. 2)
Art: Foxestacado

18. Being in fandom and being in that
kind of diverse group and
experiencing all that has helped a
lot to prepare for here
[London]…And that’s a life lesson.
Especially now seeing all the
Syrian refugees coming and
seeing my uncle being almost like
a Neonazi on Facebook… And he
has no tool, neither via
communication or critical thinking
to deal with it, to work with it, to
learn from it, to profit from it…. To
think differently. To think critically.
Especially to try to see it from a
different point of view. And
fandom has provided me with so
many tools regarding my own
everyday life and also accepting
the other lives around me as part
of the whole.
(Interview, 14 December 2015)
Art: Foxestacado

19. Case studies such as
this one make explicit
the sophisticated
language and digital
literacy practices
developed by
autonomous learners
in online international
affinity spaces when
engaged in different
fan practices.
Art: Foxestacado

20. Sherlock Graphics
Fox Estacado of The Art of Fox
Estacado: Fine Fan Art and
Geekery (artbyfox.storenvy.com).
All rights reserved and used in this
presentation with permission.
Photographs of #setlock
Shannon Sauro.
Art: Foxestacado

21. References
Curwood, J. S., Magnifico, A.M., &, Lammers, J.C. (2013). Writing in the wild:
Writers’ motivation in fan-based affinity spaces.” Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy,
56(8), 677-685. doi:10.1002/JAAL.192
Duffett, M. (2013). Understanding fandom: An introduction to the study of media fan
culture. New York/London: Bloomsbury.
Darvin, R. (2017). Language, ideology, and critical digital literacy. In S. L. Thorne & S.
May (Eds.), Language, education and technology, encyclopedia of language and
education, vol. 9, 17–30. Switzerland: Springer.
Hafner, C.A., Chik, A., & Jones, R.H. (2015). Digital literacies and language learning.
Language Learning & Technology, 19(3), 1-7.
Kramsch, C. & Whiteside, A. (2008). Language ecology in multilingual settings.
Towards a theory of symbolic competence. Applied Linguistics, 29(4), 645-671.
Little, D. (2014). Learner autonomy as discourse: The role of the target language. In A.
Burkert, L. Dam, & C. Ludwig (Eds.), The answer is learner autonomy: Issues in language
teaching and learning (pp. 15-28). Faversham: IATEFL.
Sauro, S. (2017). Online fan practices and CALL. CALICO Journal, 34(2), 131-146. doi:
10.1558/CJ.33077
Sauro, S., & Zourou, K. (2019). What are the digital wilds? Language Learning &
Technology, 23, 1, 1-7. https://doi.org/10125/44666
Thomas, E. E., & Stornaiuolo, A. (2016). Restorying the self: Bending toward textual
justice. Harvard Educational Review, 86(3), 313–338. https://doi.org/10.17763/1943-
5045- 86.3.313
Thorne, S. L., & Black, R. (2011). Identity and Interaction in Internet-Mediated
Contexts. In C. Higgins (Ed.), Identity Formation in Globalizing Contexts (pp. 257-278).
New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Vazquez-Calvo, B., Zhang, L. T., Pascual, M., & Cassany, D. (2019). Fan translation
of games, anime, and fanfiction. Language Learning & Technology, 23(1), 49–71.
https://doi.org/10125/44672
@shansauro l ssauro.info l shannon.sauro@mau.se
Art: Foxestacado