Developing Interactional Competence in a Japanese Study Abroad Context (Second Language Acquisition, 88) - Softcover

Taguchi, Naoko

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1783093714 ISBN 13: 9781783093717

Verlag: Multilingual Matters, 2015

Inhaltsangabe

In the process of second language acquisition, the ability to interact effectively is critical. But what does it mean to be interactively competent? This book addresses this question by presenting research on the development of interactional competence among learners of Japanese as a second language. Qualitative data collected on learners studying abroad in Japan is evaluated to explain changes in their interactional competence and provides specific insights into the learning of Japanese. The situated analysis of multiple data sets generates meaningful interpretations of the development of interactional competence in the development of interactional competence and the learner-specific factors that shape developmental trajectories. Moreover, the context of the research provides insights into the types of learning resources and experiences that study abroad provides to assist learners' in their progress towards becoming a competent speaker in the target community.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Naoko Taguchi is Associate Professor in the Modern Languages Department at Carnegie Mellon University. Her research interests include second language pragmatics, classroom-based research, English-medium education and Japanese SLA. Her recent publications include Context, Individual Differences and Pragmatic Competence (Multilingual Matters, 2014) and Technology in Interlanguage Pragmatics Research and Teaching (coedited with Julie Sykes, John Benjamins, 2013).

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Developing Interactional Competence in a Japanese Study Abroad Context

By Naoko Taguchi

Multilingual Matters

Copyright © 2015 Naoko Taguchi
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-78309-371-7

Contents

Acknowledgements, 
1 Interactional Competence in a Japanese Study Abroad Context: An Introduction, 
2 Linguistic and Interactional Resources in Japanese Conversation: Speech Styles and Incomplete Sentence Endings, 
3 Context of the Study: Study Abroad as a Site for Language Learning, 
4 Methods, 
5 Speech Styles, 
6 Style-Shifting Across Discourse Boundaries, 
7 Incomplete Sentences in Joint Turn Construction, 
8 Case Histories of Interactional Development and Study Abroad Experience, 
9 Conclusion, 
Appendix A: Transcription Conventions, 
Appendix B: Conversation Task, 
Appendix C: Motivation Survey, 
Appendix D: Japanese Contact Survey, 
Appendix E: Proportion of the Utterance-Ending Forms by Individuals: Polite Forms, Plain Forms and Incomplete Endings, 
References, 
Index, 

CHAPTER 1

Interactional Competence in a Japanese Study Abroad Context: An Introduction

The ability to interact appropriately and effectively in a second language is critical to both the product and process of second language acquisition. Being able to create and sustain cooperation in conversation, as well as to understand others' views and build on shared knowledge, are some of the most fundamental goals and outcomes of second language (L2) learning. This conversational interaction serves a prominent role in assisting L2 learning. When learners are engaged in meaningful, spontaneous, and active dialogues, they use whatever resources they have – linguistic, semiotic, and dialogic – in collaboration with their peers to communicate meaning, and the byproduct of this process is the development of their interactional competence.

This book reports on a study that investigates the development of interactional competence in a Japanese study abroad context. Traditional models of communicative competence consider language ability to exist within individuals as a stable trait (Bachman & Palmer, 1996, 2010; Canale & Swain, 1980). In contrast, interactional competence views language ability as a dialogic construct, locally situated and jointly constructed by participants in discourse (Hall et al., 2011; Young, 2011; Young & He, 1998). Interactional competence considers participants' skillful use of a variety of linguistic and interactional resources at the task of joint meaning creation. Adapting this theoretical framework, this book illustrates the development of interactional competence as it manifests in peer-to-peer dialogues.

By adopting the framework of interactional competence, this study distances from the cognitivist approaches to SLA that view L2 learning as a individual matter. Instead, it takes a socio-cognitive approach, which suggests that L2 learning occurs through participation in social practices. Social practices here refer to recurring incidents of social interaction that structure our social realities. For example, greeting and leave-taking, ordering meals, discussing homework, and making plans for the weekend are all mundane social activities that occur in an everyday school context. Successful interaction in these contexts depends on participants' knowledge of conventions of the practices – what courses of action are expected in a specific practice, and what linguistic and non-linguistic resources are employed to construct the practice.

However, successful interaction does not result solely from individual participants' knowledge of conventions or their ability to format their linguistic and non-linguistic actions according to the conventions. It is a matter of collaborative efforts of all participants working toward the construction of shared understanding. During interaction, participants constantly monitor and regulate their contributions to the talk. When their knowledge of conventions does not align with the course of discourse, their interactional competence helps readapt their linguistic actions corresponding to the ongoing discourse. Other participants respond to this shift through acknowledgement and alignment, which is also a reflection of interactional competence. Hence, learning L2 means learning to act collaboratively with others to accomplish social actions in talk.

Following this framework, my study takes the view of language competence as a dialogical construct. I present a micro-level analysis of L2 Japanese learners' interaction with their peers. Moving away from traditional analysis of linguistic forms in isolation, my study focuses on how learners use linguistic resources in interaction to accomplish mutual understanding. A casual conversation with peers is a routine social practice, yet it presupposes intricate layers of linguistic and interactional conventions. In a Japanese conversation, learners need to know which speech style to use (plain or polite) to index social meaning of solidarity or distance. At the same time, they must understand how to mark boundaries of talk by shifting between different speech styles. They also need to know how to skilfully use incomplete sentence endings (a common feature of spoken Japanese) to involve their interlocutors to talk-in-progress and promote reciprocity. These are all critical linguistic and interactional resources that learners have to attain in order to become expert conversationalists in Japanese. By analysing these resources in peer-to-peer conversations, I will document features of interactional competence specific to Japanese language. In addition to the conversation analysis, interview data will be analyzed to reveal the nature of learners' social practices in their study abroad program. Because interactional competence develops through participation in recurring social practices, analysis of interview data will define connection among language use, language development, and context of learning.

Participants included 18 learners of Japanese enrolled in a Japanese language program at a private university in Tokyo. Learners' conversations were recorded twice during a 15-week semester. They were paired randomly and instructed to have an informal conversation for 20 minutes. The conversations were transcribed and analyzed based on Young's (2008a) interactional resources. Interviews were conducted individually with a subset of eight participants three times during the semester. The interview data were cross-examined with the conversation data to reveal different patterns of development corresponding to individuals' different social experiences.

This book has three unique features. First, the study provides a configuration of linguistic and interactional resources as they are found in Japanese. The book effectively describes what it means to be interactionally competent in Japanese by explicating what linguistic and interactional resources enable participants to construct and orient to social actions in Japanese. Second, the book not only describes changes in learners' interactional competence but also interprets these changes by complementing conversation data with interview data. A triangulated analysis of multiple data sets generates meaningful interpretations of individual variations in interactional development, and the learner-specific and contextual factors that shaped developmental trajectories. Finally, this book contributes to our understanding of contextualized SLA and study abroad learning. Study abroad programs have been claimed as a site for L2...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Multilingual Matters
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2015
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1783093714
• ISBN 13: 9781783093717
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 186
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland