This article argues for a reconceptualization of the concept of 'corrective feedback' for the investigation of correction practices in everyday second language (L2) interaction ('in the wild'). Expanding the dataset for L2 research as suggested by Firth and Wagner (1997) to include interactions from the wild has consequences for the traditional concept of corrective feedback, which comes from classroom dyads of native speakers and nonnative speakers and focuses on a native speaker's correction of a linguistic error in an L2 speaker's turn. Correction practices in the wild, however, are co-constructed and predominantly initiated by the L2 learner herself. The study also shows that explanation practices are initiated by the L2 speaker or otherwise occasioned and that they emerge following a lack of understanding on the part of the L2 speaker during a correction episode. The data reveal no examples of L2 teaching in the wild as correction or explanation practices that are not occasioned, that is, they do not come 'out of the blue.' I will argue that L2 teaching practitioners might benefit from more awareness of the circumstances that occasion and sustain correction and explanation practices.Keywords: CA-SLA; repair; corrective feedback; L2 teaching in the wild; L2 learning in the wild THE NOTION OF CORRECTION HAS BEEN studied in detail in second language acquisition (SLA) research as a feedback practice, that is, a practice in which second language (L2) speakers receive feedback on their output by first language (L1) speakers in interactional dyads. These dyads are often referred to as native speaker-nonnative speaker (NS-NNS) talk and staged primarily as information gap tasks for research purposes, or they consist of teacher-student interactions. The focus in this research has been on instances of erroneous language use by an L2 learner and the subsequent reaction of the L1 speaker or the language expert in such dyads. In particular, this reaction to the erroneous turn by the L1 speaker has been targeted as this is where the feedback is located. Designed to provide the L2 learner with feedback on the correctness of her output, this
This study investigates a second language (L2) speaker's use and learning of the Icelandic auxiliary verb aetla (pronounced /aihtla/) in the wild. This analytic focus is motivated by the L2 speaker's (Anna) own orientation to aetla as a learnable. We track Anna's use of aetla in naturally occurring social interaction over time. Anna first learns to use aetla to make requests in service encounters but this does not automatically transfer to other environments, suggesting an intricate relationship between aetla and the social action it is used to accomplish. The study illuminates (a) how this relationship between aetla expressions and the social actions they are used to accomplish develops over time, and (b) how Anna's increasingly diversified and productive varieties of aetla expressions co-emerge with increasingly varied action accomplishment. Together, these two dimensions of L2 learning form the backbone of Anna's L2 grammar as an emergent accumulation of semiotic resources for social action. This serves as the backdrop for the article's implications for L2 education: (a) We promote the idea of exemplar-based and interactionally situated L2 teaching, and (b) we call for increased awareness of situated and developing interactional competence and usage-based processes and practices in the education of L2 teachers.
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