Emergent L2 Grammars in and for Social Interaction: Introduction to the Special Issue

Abstract

Setting the stage for the central themes and the articles in this special issue, this introduction delineates the epistemological confluences, complementarities, and differences among conversation analysis (CA), on the one hand, and 2 strands of usage-based linguistics, on the other-namely, usage-based secondlanguage acquisition (SLA) and interactional linguistics. This implies depicting how an increased interest in actual usage within the field of linguistics, including usage-based SLA, has converged with the basic assumptions in CA and interactional linguistics: (a) Language use is primordially and primarily situated in social interaction, and (b) language emerges out of social interaction. We scrutinize the grounds for combining the 3 frameworks for investigating second language development, illustrate such combination through the discussion of some of the rare existing studies that integrate these frameworks, and argue for the need to develop the methodological combinations further in order to move toward an ecologically more valid understanding of how language develops out of language use. On that basis, and additionally drawing on the individual contributions to the special issue, we then outline some implications for L2 education.

L2 grammar‐for‐interaction: Functions of “and”‐prefaced turns in L2 students’ collaborative talk

“…It is also situation‐based, context‐sensitive, and recipient‐designed in ways that it is “‘publicly’ observable within participants’ practices” and “brought about by the social interaction at hand” (Pekarek Doehler, 2019, p. 30). When investigating IC, the focus is on participants’ ways of constructing social actions collaboratively in the here and now, and increasingly also on how they do this by drawing on different multimodal resources, not only language (see, e.g., Pekarek Doehler & Eskildsen, 2022). When it comes to L2 IC, learners are viewed as interactionally competent participants with existing interactional competencies that they need to recalibrate and refine, although the relationship between IC and the development of one's linguistic skills is not straightforward (Pekarek Doehler, 2019, p. 46).…”

“…Along with the embodied turn, studies on grammar have also started to investigate how different multimodal resources are used to design TCUs and interactional turns, and social actions more broadly (e.g., Pekarek Doehler & Eskildsen, 2022; Pekarek Doehler et al., 2022). In terms of turn beginnings, Deppermann (2013) has argued that participants have four tasks to consider when designing turns that are fitted to the sequential and temporal contingencies of interaction: “to achieve joint attention to the upcoming turn, to display uptake of prior turn(s), to deal with projections emanating from them, and to project properties of the upcoming turn” (p. 91).…”

Learning Grammar for Social Action: Implications for Research and Language Teaching

“…The studies are firmly rooted in the functional and usage‐based tradition that argues for the social nature of language and learning. In the introduction, Pekarek Doehler & Eskildsen (2022, this issue) situate the studies within an integrated framework building on usage‐based models of language and L2 learning (e.g., Ellis, 2002, 2015; Hopper, 1987; Tomasello, 2003) interactional linguistics (Couper–Kuhlen & Selting, 2018; Hall, 2019; Mushin & Pekarek Doehler, 2021; Ochs et al., 1996; Thompson et al., 2015) and ethnomethodological conversation analysis (for recent overviews, see Hellermann et al., 2019, and Kunitz et al., 2021, for CA‐SLA in the wild and in the classroom, respectively). As Pekarek Doehler and Eskildsen argue, these fields converge in their conceptualization of linguistic patterns as tied to communicative and interactional functions.…”