Second Language Conversations (Advances in Applied Linguistics)

303 Pages·2004·10.87 MB·English

by  Rod Gardner

Second Language
Conversations
Advances in Applied Linguistics
General Editors: Christopher N. Candlin and Srikant Sarangi
Editorial Board: Charles Goodwin (UCLA),Jim Martin (University ofSydney),
Yoshihiko Ikegami (University of Tokyo), Kari Sajavaara (University of
Jyvaskyla), Gabriele Kasper (University ofHawaii), Ron Scollon (Georgetown
University), Giinther Kress (Institute of Education, London), Merrill Swain
(orSE, University ofToronto)
This series offers a number of innovative points of focus. It seeks to
represent diversity in applied linguistics but within that diversity to identify
ways in which distinct research fields can be coherently related. Such
coherence canbeachievedbysharedsubjectmatteramong fields, paralleland
shared methodologies of research, mutualities of purposes and goals of
research, and collaborative and cooperative work among researchers from
different disciplines.
Although interdisciplinarity among established disciplines is now
common, this series has in mind to open up new and distinctive research
areas which lie at the boundaries of such disciplines. Such areas will be
distinguished in part by their novel data sets and in part by the innovative
combination of research methodologies. The series hopes thereby both to
consolidate already well-tried methodologies, data and contexts of research,
and to extendtherange ofapplied linguisticsresearch andscholarship to new
and under-represented cultural, institutional and socialcontexts.
The philosophy underpinning the series mirrors that of applied
linguisticsmoregenerally: aproblem-based,historicallyandsociallygrounded
discipline concerned with the reflexive interrogation of research by practice,
and practice by research, oriented towards issues of social relevance and
concern, and multi-disciplinary in nature.
The structure ofthe series encompasses books ofseveral distinct types:
research monographs which address specific areas of concern; reports from
well-evidencedresearchprojects;coherentcollectionsofpapersfromprecisely
defined colloquia; volumes which provide a thorough historical and
conceptual engagement with key applied linguistics research and scholarship
from specific areas ofthe world.
Other titles in the series:
Multimodal Teaching andLearning: The Rhetorics ofthe Science Classroom,
Giinther Kress, CareyJewitt, Jon Ogborn and Charalampos Tsatsarelis
Metaphor in Educational Discourse, Lynne Cameron
LanguageAcquisition andLanguage Socialization:EcologicalPerspec
tives, edited by Claire Kramsch
Language, Structure, Agency: Realism in Applied Linguistics, Alison
Sealey and Bob Carter
Worlds ofDiscourse: A Genre-Based View, Vijay K. Bhatia
Second Language
Conversations
Edited by Rod Gardner and
Johannes Wagner
Continuum
The Tower Building 15 East 26th Street
11 YorkRoad New York
London SEl 7NX NY 10010
© Rod Gardner, Johannes Wagner and contributors 2004
Reprinted 2004
All rights reserved. No part ofthis publication maybe reproduced or
transmitted in any form orby any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system,
without prior permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this bookis available from the British Library.
ISBN: 0-8264-6908-6
Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this bookis available from the Library ofCongress
Typeset by YHT Ltd, London
Printed andbound in Great Britainby Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wilts
Contents
General Editors' Foreword vii
Introduction 1
Johannes Wagner and Rod Gardner
Ways of 'Doing Being Plurilingual' in International Work
Meetings 18
Lorenza Mondada
Brokering and Membership in a Multilingual Community of
Practice 40
Terkel Skarup
Clients or Language Learners - Being a Second Language Speaker
in Institutional Interaction 58
Salla Kurhila
Embedded Corrections in Second Language Talk 75
Catherine E. Brouwer, Gitte Rasmussen and Johannes Wagner
Doing Pronunciation: A Specific Type ofRepair Sequence 93
Catherine E. Brouwer
Some Preliminary Thoughts on Delay as an Interactional
Resource 114
Jean Wong
The Logic ofClarification: Some Observations about Word
Clarification Repairs in Finnish-as-a-Lingua-Franca
Interactions 132
Harrie Mazeland and Minna Zaman-Zadeh
Pursuit of Understanding: Rethinking 'Negotiation ofMeaning'
in View ofProjected Action 157
Junko MoTi
v
Contents
Inside First and Second Language Speakers' Trouble in
Understanding 178
Maria Egbert, Lila Niebecker and Sabrina Rezzara
Restarts in Novice Turn Beginnings: Disfluencies or
Interactional Achievements? 201
Donald Carroll
Talk and Gesture: The Embodied Completion of Sequential
Actions in Spoken Interaction 221
David Olsher
On Delaying the Answer: Question Sequences Extended
after the Question 246
Rod Gardner
References 267
Transcription Conventions 284
Index 287
vi
General Editors' Foreword
Rod Gardner and Johannes Wagner (eds)
This is the second edited volume in the Advances in Applied
Linguistics Series - following from the one edited by Claire Kramsch
(2002b). The book brings together invited papers from a wide range of
scholars working in different linguistic and sociocultural contexts, all
of whom have a focus on conversation analysis (CA) in second
language encounters. Thematically, it echoes the Kramsch volume in
its concern with both 'socialization' and 'acquisition', but focuses
more on the kind of close data analysis necessary as methodological
support for a sociocultural account of language use. Such a need has
already been foreshadowed in the work on learning strategies and
communication strategies whether in face-to-face or in computer
mediated contexts (see, for example, Cohen 1998; Kasper and Keller
man 1997).
The title - Second Language Conversations - is broadly
conceptualized to take account of a range of naturalistic settings and
participant structures, thus extending the established paradigms of
NS-NNS interactional studies (e.g., Varonis and Gass 1985) and
naturalistic second language acquisition (e.g., Perdue 1984). Indeed,
the focus on the social contexts of language acquisition characteristic
ofthis bookhas alreadyengendered considerable critical discussion in
the mainstream SLA literature (see Firth and Wagner 1997 and
responses to their arguments, Kasper 1997). The challenge is taken
forward here, and in doing so thebookunderscores the commitmentof
the Advances in Applied Linguistics Series to innovative cross
disciplinary research.
Traditionally, second language learning research has approached
learner language data from the perspective of interlanguage, seeing
occurrences of surface errors as potentially significant indices of
learners' developingcompetence. Suchresearchhas focused, however,
more on examining occurrences of language form rather than on
exploring the interactional behaviours of second language learners,
with a consequent tendency among some to see such learner
performance from the perspective of inadequacy or deficiency. In
contrast, by adopting a conversation analytical framework, the authors
vii
General Editors' Foreword
ofthe papers inthis volumeare ableto highlightlearners' interactional
competence, in particular their strategic ability to collaboratively
constructutterances with native speakers. Here we see an emphasis on
interactional competence as lying at a deeper level than linguistic
competence and acting as a 'crucible' for forging linguistic compe
tence. One particular instance oflearners' display ofadequacy is their
mastery of sel£- and co-constructed repair. In identifying such
displays, the authors are not making claims about acquisition. They
are simply drawing attention to the ways in which L2 users employ
particular conversational strategies in their performance of a second
language. A close understanding of how L2 users perform in
communicative settings must inform the collection and analysis of
base data for acquisition studies.
The book is a novel project in applied linguistics in more than
one sense: firstly, in its systematic application of the research
methodology ofconversation analysis to the second language context,
and secondly, in the way that it focuses on sites of untutored
acquisition outside the classroom context as a means of deepening
insights into L2 users' interactional performance.
Where studies of second language learner performance have
focused on learner conversation, particularly driven by concerns for
documenting the developing of learners' pragmatic ability, the
tendency has been to base such studies on speech act analysis, with
researchers seeking to match particular instances oflanguage use with
particular functional and pragmatic values. Typical among these have
been studies ofapologies, requests and refusals (see Kasper and Blum
Kulka 1993). Taking a conversational analytical framework as its base
allows this bookto move away from such a focus on linking form with
value, while implicitly acknowledging the difficulty associated with
speech act analysis in real-life interactional settings. Instead, it
concentrates more on the links to be made between communicative
purpose and communication strategy, especiallythe ways in which L2
users take an active role in co-constructing largerunits ofdiscourse, as
they explore with their interlocutors the meaning potential of
utterances. As several papers in this collection identify, such an
interactional focus sits neatly with current concerns for highlighting
sociocultural perspectives on language acquisition, as in the book
edited by Kramsch in the Advances series to which we refer earlier.
One issuethatsuch a focus raises ofcourse is the extentto which
L2 users' conversational strategies match those of L1 users, and the
degree to which the exercise ofsuch strategic language competence in
particular settings can overcome for L2 users deficits in form. This is a
greatly under-researched area in second language acquisition studies.
viii
General Editors' Foreword
The editors' claim about the normality of second language conversa
tion is both methodologically and conceptually interesting. The CA
framework allows us not to impose a deficit model in the analysis of
interaction by making it an imperative that analysts pay attention to
the emergent properties of talk-in-interaction. Conceptually, such a
framework draws on notions of membershipping and communities of
practicebyrecognising interactional features ofrepairs, delays, restarts
etc. as characteristic of everyday conversation. The idea of collabora
tion between L1 and L2 users is developed to create the identity of a
conversationally competent member, where the interplay of world
knowledge and language knowledge assumes central significance. The
book thus echoes the seminal work of Bremer et aI, (1996) on the
central issue of achieving shared meaning and understanding in a
second language. But the question of relativity and universality in
conversational strategy suggests some new themes for further empiri
cal research, in particular exploringthe repertoire ofsuch strategies in
L1 and L2 users ofa given language.
We feel that the book will appeal to various constituencies in
applied linguistics. First of all, it has indirect methodological
consequences for SLA: for SLA researchers to take notice ofCA-based
micro-analysis whichmightleadto areinterpretation oftheirraw data,
especially in relation to bothverbal and non-verbal performance. More
specific concerns may relate to how to reconcile interpretation of, say,
delay from CA and SLA perspectives. The book offers many small
scale findings which are ofgeneral interest. The close analytical focus,
for instance, helps to show how repair ofform is typically introduced
by the L2 speaker while repair of troubles with meaning/under
standing seems to be a matter for the L1 speaker. Or, consider how
restarts are a strategically deployed practice designed to safeguard
potentially important turn beginning from overlap. Such insights
signal the importance ofthe book for stimulating new research in the
analysis ofL2 spoken data (Cohen and Boxer 2004).
For scholars working outside of the CA tradition, the rich and
detailed analysis of data undertaken in the individual chapters will
provide a valuable means oflearning this particular methodology, not
justinrelation toEnglishbutalsoto otherlanguages, for examplethose
drawn on here: German, French, Japanese, Finnish and Danish. In
their introduction, the editors provide a systematic overview of CA
methodology which will be particularlywelcome to the wider applied
linguistics audience.
The book, we think, will also be of interest to researchers in
language education much more generally, and to professionals in
languagetesting andassessment, in particular(d. Fulcher2003). Much
ix