Distance education mediated by computers provides several forms of interaction. The courses offered in this modality differ both conceptually and methodologically in what regards its design, implementation and improvement. However, apparently, these issues are not the Achilles heel of DE, since much has been studied and debated about the process of learning how to learn, the development of learner’s autonomy, collaborative work and the teachers’ role in this new environment. The technology available for studying online kind of imposed this paradigm shift in teaching and learning at a distance, since it would not be viable to adapt the traditional model of knowledge transmission to a type of education that privilege autonomy and collaboration. However, the actual meaningful change after the introduction of the information and communication technologies in the educational scenario occurred in the way people interact, since it was the increasing ease of Internet access, along with the development of different applications and online learning environments that allowed new and diverse forms of interaction, expanding the range of communication possibilities. Therefore, it is based on questionings about how the interactional processes occur in institutional environments online and how people, in the case of this research, the students, negotiate meanings and constitute their social positions that a new perspective to the understanding of computer mediated learning will arise. Thus, based on Goffman’s concepts of facework and impression management, along with those of interactional sociolinguistics, as for example, the contextualization cues and the footing of the interactors, I proceed to the analysis of the content of the e-mails exchanged between the students and the mediator, taking into account that such interactions must be understood within the limitations imposed by technology. Therefore, through two different types of analysis, a formal and a discursive one, this study aimed at contributing to a broader understanding of the use of the e-mail not only as a way that provides the possibility to attest the dynamics of the interactions throughout a course but also as a means to understand how issues related to face emerge and may play a crucial role in distance teaching and learning.