Sequential organization of hinting in online task-oriented L2 interaction

Abstract

This study aims to explore the sequential organization of hinting in an online task-oriented L2 interactional setting. Although hinting has been studied within conversation analysis literature, it has not yet been treated as a distinct type of social action. With this in mind, the study sets out to describe the sequential environment of hinting through the unfolding of the action with pre-hinting sequences initiated through the deployment of interrogatives, knowledge checks, and past references; maintained with base hinting sequences initiated through blah blah replacements, designedly incomplete utterances, and metalinguistic clues; and finally progressively resolved with screen-based hinting. Based on the examination of screen-recorded video-mediated interactions (14 hours) of geographically dispersed participants using multimodal conversation analysis, this study provides insights for an overall understanding of the interactional trajectory of hinting as a context-specific social action and contributes to research on L2 interaction in online settings.

The Routinization of Grammar as a Social Action Format: A Longitudinal Study of Video-Mediated Interactions

“…In the transcripts, numbers in boldface combined with a hashtag such as 1#, 2#, etc., signal the start of SIN's screen-based activities as described and illustrated in a separate line, and #1, #2, etc., signal the end of such activities (cf. Balaman, 2019). These activities are not accessible to coparticipants.…”

“…The present study sets out to address these two gaps: It investigates how, over the course of four years, a participant-L2 speaker and initially novice to task-oriented VMI-goes about navigating the interface between her social interaction with the remote coparticipants and her own screen-based activity, which typically disrupts the progressivity of talk-in-interaction (Balaman, 2018(Balaman, , 2019Balaman & Sert, 2017a). We show how she shifts between multiple activities (Haddington et al, 2014) in methodic ways, deploying a range of practices through which she preemptively accounts for the suspension of her own talk and bids for a temporary halt of others' talk, thereby successfully initiating suspension of the turn-taking machinery so as to fully focus on her screen-based searches.…”

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

“…In parallel, an understanding of IC drawing on Garfinkel's () notion of “members' methods” (i.e., systematic procedures for action) has been put forth and is today perhaps the most widely used conceptualization: IC consists of members' methods to accomplish intersubjectivity in social interaction (Hellermann, ; Koschmann, ; Mondada & Pekarek Doehler, ; Nguyen, ; Pekarek Doehler & Pochon‐Berger, , ). Such methods include the ability to draw on various verbal and non‐verbal interactional resources (including formal linguistic elements, such as grammar and lexis) and “routinized yet context‐sensitive” procedures (Balaman, ; Hall & Pekarek Doehler, ; Pekarek Doehler, ; Pekarek Doehler & Berger, ) for managing, for example, turn‐taking and conversational repair, to achieve mutual understanding in a way that is appropriate for the local contingencies of the interaction. The development of L2 IC, in turn, is conceptualized as the progressive diversification of speakers' methods and an increased ability to tailor the use of these methods to the recipient and the interactional context (Pekarek Doehler & Pochon‐Berger, , ).…”

“…González‐Lloret, , ; Tudini & Liddicoat, , for reviews of CA research on computer‐mediated communication and computer‐assisted language learning). However, video‐based online interaction (Balaman & Sert, ; Nguyen, ; Nguyen & Langevin, ) has only recently been investigated with reference to the development of L2 ICs (Balaman, ; ; Balaman & Sert, , ; Sert & Balaman, ). Balaman and Sert's research has unpacked the interactional mechanisms of a rather under‐studied setting (i.e., an online task‐oriented L2 interactional setting), paved the way for further investigations of context‐specific differences in L2 IC and opened new avenues for the conceptualization of online L2 IC.…”

Mediated learning materials: visibility checks in telepresence robot mediated classroom interaction

“…Partly separate from this literature, there is by now a substantial body of conversation analytic (CA) studies investigating how participants use and interact around various material and technological artefacts in educational settings. These may include blackboards (Greiffenhagen 2014;Matsumoto 2019), print text and task sheets (Jakonen 2015;Majlesi 2015;Karvonen, Tainio, and Routarinne 2017), desktop computers and laptops (Cekaite 2009;Gardner and Levy 2010;Greiffenhagen and Watson 2009;Juvonen et al 2019;Musk 2016), smartphones and tablets (Sahlström, Tanner, and Valasmo 2019;Asplund, Olin-Scheller, and Tanner 2018;Hellermann, Thorne, and Fodor 2017;Jakonen and Niemi 2020) and online environments (Balaman 2019;Hjulstad 2016). In brief, these studies show that learning materials constitute important resources for constructing and making sense of situated actions, which makes the co-ordination of mutual orientation on the materials a key task for the participants.…”