Orientations to negotiated language and task rules in online L2 interaction

Abstract

Recent research shows that negotiation of meaning in online task-oriented interactions can be a catalyst for L2 (second/foreign/additional language) development. However, how learners undertake such negotiation work and what kind of an impact it has on interactional development in an L2 are still largely unknown mainly due to a lack of focus on task engagement processes. A conversation analytic investigation into negotiation of meaning (NoM) in task-oriented interactions can bring evidence to such development, as conversation analysis (CA), given its analytic tools, allows us to see how participant orientations in interaction evolve over time. Based on an examination of screen-recorded multiparty online task-oriented interactions, this study aimed to describe how users (n = 8) of an L2 (1) negotiate and co-construct language and task rules and (2) later show orientations to these rules both in the short term (50 minutes) and in the long term (8 weeks). The findings showed that in addition to negotiating existing rules, the learners co-constructed new rules around an action called policing, which occurred when the learners attended to the breach of language and task rules. Furthermore, even after the negotiation work was completed, they oriented to negotiated rules through policing their own utterances (i.e. self-policing). Overall, this interactional continuum (from other-repairs to self-repairs) brought longitudinal evidence to bear on the role of NoM in the development of L2 interactional competence. These findings bring new insights into NoM, technologymediated task-based language teaching (TBLT), and CA for second language acquisition (SLA).

Doing English-Only Instructions: A Multimodal Account of Bilingual Bangladeshi Classrooms

“…Interestingly, language policing practices may be self-initiated, where a speaker will self-correct the choice of language, or other-initiated, as participants may hold each other accountable for violating the language policy (cf. embedded and implicit language policing in Hazel, 2015; rule and language policing in Sert & Balaman, 2018). Reporting from a complementary Chinese classroom in the U.K., Wei and Wu (2009) have found that the students challenge the teacher's traditional authority as well as the monolingual norm.…”

Second language interactional competence and its development: An overview of conversation analytic research on interactional change over time

“…Starting from the notion that development means change over time, most studies use a longitudinal research design that follows the interactional practices of one or a small number of target participants over a longer or shorter time span (days, months, or years). These studies often focus on a defined social action or activity, such as the opening of a task or a storytelling (Hellermann, , ; Pekarek Doehler & Berger, ), self‐repair (Hellermann, ; Sert & Balaman, ), or practices for managing transitions between topics and activities (Kim, ; Nguyen, ; Nguyen, ). Based on longitudinal recordings of naturally occurring conversations and related micro‐level transcriptions, they track how the target participants change their practices for accomplishing the particular actions or activities over time.…”

Category-Bound Rights and Obligations of Young EFL Learners in Denmark: The Case of (Extreme) Differentiation

“…Already during this introduction, both Parina and Amalie share that they have seen the researcher, Parina in Danish (line 02), and Amalie in English (line 04), demonstrating her ability to communicate in English outside of regular classroom interaction (despite the non-standard grammatical form used). By not only saying that she has seen the researcher already, but also translating or recycling Parina's previous comment, Amalie is positioning herself as a 'translator' of the other children, and maybe even policing Parina's language choice (Amir & Musk, 2013;Balaman, 2016;Sert & Balaman, 2018). After the researcher states that she is filming (line 06), Amalie engages in a content-oriented parallel activity (Koole, 2007) as she turns to Frederikke and whispers "she is filming us" to her (line 10).…”