'Authenticity 2.0': Reconceptualising 'authenticity' in the digital era

As language use today moves increasingly into digital fora - social media, social networking and so on, accompanied by an internationalisation of English, the language most associated with the Internet, the concept of 'authenticity' becomes ever more evasive. In this chapter, it will be suggested that one route for achieving authenticity in today’s language learning environment can be found, ironically perhaps, in the work of pre-digital theorists such as Van Lier (e.g. 1996). Van Lier maintained that authenticity was not intrinsic to learning materials themselves but was a factor of the learners' engagement with them and of the tasks enacted with them. In this chapter, I will demonstrate that this conception of authenticity is a perfect fit for the digital era, where more and more of the language use is in interaction on a plethora of different media and applications. I will argue therefore that it is to interaction – and its pedagogical realization ‘task’ - that we turn, for our 'authenticity 2.0'.