Descriptions of second language interaction: Toward descriptive adequacy

Abstract

The distinction between language acquisition and language use has been a source of contention among those who study L2 interaction. However, as featured in The Modern Language Journal (in 1997–1998, 2004, and 2007), debates have essentially been limited to confirming the presence of discrepancies among different paradigms regarding theoretical content. As a result, where methodological practices are at all discussed they are judged only by the extent to which they realize underlying theoretical positions. By contrast, this article argues that there is a need to evaluate methodological practices on their own terms and to specify what is gained and lost in the respective approaches. It does so by examining and comparing descriptive analyses of L2 conversational interactions in the interactionist paradigm and in conversation analysis (CA). The article concludes that, if both approaches were held to a minimum level of descriptive adequacy regarding the respective parties' L2 use, analysts could gain a workable space regarding what can be said and what should be said about actual L2 interactions, including where to end description, that is created independent of theoretical positions.

Orientations to negotiated language and task rules in online L2 interaction

“…Hauser (2005) problematizes coding and its subsequent transformation process inherent in interactionist SLA, claiming that such a process may "obscure what is happening in the interaction and what participants take to be the action or actions achieved by any particular turn" (310). This is not to say that all interactionist SLA studies have inherent methodological problems, but more transparent and holistic criteria are required that satisfy a descriptive adequacy (Lee, 2013). An approach sensitive to sequential context (drawing on next-turn-proof-procedure rather than researcher-attributed functions of individual turns) and participants' analyses of each other's turns (emic perspective rather than an exogenous, etic one) seem to be advantages of a CA approach to task-based online interaction data.…”

“…CA enables ways for looking into how L2 users show their understanding of a previous utterance in interaction, and how their turn shapes the understanding of listeners. This is a level of descriptive adequacy (Lee, 2013) required to make analytic claims, and the sequential approach inherent in CA can thus be conducive to revealing social actions in online L2 task-oriented interaction. A micro-analytic investigation can also reveal learning opportunities in these settings by explicating the interactional and multimodal resources (e.g.…”

The Role of Teachers’ Future Self Guides in Creating L2 Development Opportunities in Teacher‐Led Classroom Discourse: Reclaiming the Relevance of Language Teacher Cognition

“…I examined a range of interactional features in Tamara's classroom discourse, such as IRF patterns, display versus referential questions, extended teacher turns, feedback, clarification requests, and confirmation checks, and sought to establish the extent to which these adhered to the pedagogic goals of a given mode and thus, as is assumed by Walsh, contributed to the construction of learning opportunities. Extending Walsh's () approach and drawing on elements of CA, which, as Kasper () maintains, has the “capacity to examine in detail how opportunities for L2 learning arise in interactional activities” (p. 83), I was further interested in establishing how participants, and the teacher in particular, oriented to these interactional situations and what they themselves came to treat as learning opportunities (Kasper, ; Lee, ; Waring, ). To this end, I subjected sample excerpts of Tamara's TLD data across interactional modes to a fine‐grained analysis of how each turn was produced and received by all discourse participants by paying attention to turn construction, word choice, pause, and the like (cf.…”

An Ecological View of Whole‐Class Discussions in a Second Language Literature Classroom: Teacher Reformulations as Affordances for Learning

“…While a handful of studies have begun to look at the facilitative role of gestures in L2 learning and teaching (e.g., Belhiah, ; Smotrova & Lantolf, ), few have considered participants' points of view when analyzing aspects of the language learning and teaching processes in a classroom context. Such an exclusion of participants' perceptions of specific moments of L2 learning and teaching may well be the result of the methodological approach and/or theoretical framework used (Lee, ). From an ecological perspective, however, participants' insights are central to the unfolding discourse.…”