Limitations and boundaries in language learning and technology

Technology is often thought of in utopian terms, as something that eliminates or minimises limitations and boundaries. In this chapter we argue that, on the contrary, the use of any given technology often introduces new boundaries and limitations. These may be inherent in the technological medium, but they also may emerge from the interaction of that medium with particular purposes, tasks, settings, and participants in a cultural context. This chapter begins with definitions and examples of limitations and boundaries in everyday contexts of classroom instruction, remote/distance teaching, and use of artificial intelligence platforms; this overview is deepened by a discussion of how limitations and boundaries are relative concepts tied to people’s perspectives as much as they are to the actual technologies themselves. We then turn to examples of how limitations and boundaries relate to a range of different media, and how those relations may vary across languages and cultures. Our point here is that the potential benefits and limitations of technologies should not be viewed in static, absolute terms but rather need to be understood in a dynamic, context-specific way – that technological features assumed to be advantageous may sometimes impede communication and learning, whereas ostensible technological limitations may sometimes produce positive outcomes by spurring creative innovation and learning. We then discuss how limitations and possibilities can be configured differently across different languages, and end with a prospective view, discussing productive ways of thinking about boundaries and limitations in relation to new technologies such as machine translation, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence.