Building community in online discussion: A case study of moderator strategies

•Moderator strategies support online learning communities.•Such interpersonal strategies are implicit and muted rather than explicit.•Instructions are downplayed, opportunities for divergent views maximised.•Findings suggest community building and learning may be inherently contradictory.

Asynchronous online discussions, commonly used in higher education contexts, are predicated on the collaborative construction of knowledge in a supportive community of learners. Despite early positive evaluations, researchers have more recently identified amongst students a failure to learn and dissatisfaction with participation in these environments. To better understand and address these failures, this study explores the linguistic enactment of community in online interaction, specifically moderator strategies, using a discourse analytical approach informed by systemic functional linguistics. The analysis identifies a range of strategies which confirm, bring into question and go beyond those commonly described in the literature. Significantly, much attitudinal meaning is invoked (implicit) rather than inscribed (explicit), interpersonal grammatical metaphor is widely used and engagement: expand is common, opening the discussion to other views and voices. This raises issues of clarity and certainty, suggesting there may be an inherent contradiction between community maintenance and the development of ideational meaning.