Language, Interaction and Acquisition - Volume 16, Issue 1, 2025

Abstract

This conversation analytic study draws on a longitudinal corpus of landline phone calls. The material under examination comprises seven calls in English made between 1987 and 1991 between J (English L2 speaker), a European spare part provider, and T, a representative of a British company. Over the years in the course of these conversations, the character of the calls changes: J and T not only conduct business but also build a strong personal relationship. Through changing practices for (1) opening the calls and transitioning to the reason for the calls, (2) producing and responding to laughter tokens, and (3) using personal address terms to accomplish closings, the calls become more personal, knowledge is shared, and the two participants maintain conversational topics other than routine business. Unlike in other recent studies in the field, the changes cannot be traced back to trouble in the talk and its solutions but emerge in the slow building of shared experiences and personal knowledge over time.

Abstract

This article explores the connections between the development of L2 interactional competence and language socialization by analyzing interactions between a novice hotel staff member and various international guests in Vietnam. Using longitudinal conversation analysis, we trace changes in the novice’s informings about the hotel’s spa services over the course of ten months. The analysis reveals gradual changes in her interactional practices toward more effective task accomplishment. Specifically, she changed (a) the pronunciation of the word massage and (b) the listing of the spa services. These modifications are shown to be linked to the guests’ initiations of repair targeting the word massage and the guests’ expressed interest in the massage service over the other spa services. We discuss how these findings suggest a form of agentive, task-oriented language socialization in which the novice incorporates co-participants’ resources and perspectives for more effective task accomplishment.

Résumé

La présente étude vise à contribuer à une meilleure compréhension de la relation entre l’acquisition d’une langue seconde (L2) et l’évolution des rapports sociaux que l’apprenant·e entretient avec autrui. Ancrée dans l’Analyse Conversationnelle, l’investigation porte sur la manière dont Julie, fille au pair et apprenante de français L2, répond aux évaluations produites par Marie, ‘mère’ d’accueil, au cours d’une période de neuf mois. Nous observons un changement dans les pratiques et ressources de Julie qui ne peut être interprété comme un simple reflet du développement de sa L2, mais est indissociablement lié à l’évolution du rapport social entre Julie et Marie sur les plans affectif et épistémique. Les résultats montrent comment l’usage langagier et les potentiels d’acquisition qui y sont associés sont affectés par l’histoire interactionnelle partagée entre l’apprenante et son interlocutrice et mettent en relief la nature coconstruite des occasions d’utilisation et, par extension, de développement de la L2.

Abstract

This study uses multimodal conversation analysis to explore “re-occasionings” in multilingual interaction recorded at a cooking school in Okinawa, Japan. We first examine the initial occurrence of a phrase that is treated as learnable by the recipients. We then consider how successive (re)orientations to shared interactional history with this phrase shape the trajectory of the activity across a period of 15 minutes. L1 contributions make the learners’ online (mis)understandings amenable to repair and occasion other formulations as requiring clarification. By embedding learnables within complex multimodal gestalts, the instructor provides the learners with further opportunities to hear the target phrase and understand it beyond its base definition. The learners display their evolving understanding of the learnables, which contributes to their socialization in terms of language use, cooking proficiency, and familiarity with the classroom pedagogical approach.

Abstract

In this paper, I develop a critical appreciation of how conversation analytic research on second language acquisition (CA-SLA) sheds light on the ways participants’ shared interactional histories shape second language learning behavior. I do this by: (1) examining whether this special issue has achieved its stated editorial goals, and (2) evaluating how this collection expands our emerging understanding of this topic. Specifically, I develop a critical but constructive respecification of the themes developed in this collection, inspired by the work of C. Goodwin (2009), in which I show how the groundbreaking research agenda outlined in this publication could be further expanded to develop an even more sophisticated research program on these exciting new ideas.

This article reviews Developing interactional competence at the workplace: Learning English as a foreign language on the shop floor