Understanding 'Stuckness'
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UNDERSTANDING ‘STUCKNESS’: DESCRIPTIONS AND INTERPRETATIONS OF HOW EFL SPEAKERS AND A NATIVE SPEAKER CO-MANAGE TALK-IN-INTERACTION Ian Nakamura B.A. (University of California at Santa Barbara) M.A. (School for International Training, Brattleboro, Vermont) This thesis is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 2006 Lancaster University DECLARATION This thesis is my own work, and has not been submitted in substantially the same form for the award of a higher degree elsewhere. Ian Nakamura December 2006 Acknowledgments It is impossible to give due credit to all the people who have helped me in one or another along the way to the completion of this thesis. The people who encouraged me to move forward after completion of my MA include Donald Freeman, Nancy Clair, Julian Edge, Karen Johnson, and Kathleen Graves. Whenever I saw them at conferences, they simply assumed that I would someday join a doctoral program. Their belief in me strengthened my own belief in myself. I would like to give special thanks to Jane Sunderland who introduced me to the ‘Thesis and Coursework’ Program which was just starting at Lancaster and who never failed to give me much needed support and advice. Dick Allwright has been a special friend who has graciously shared his ideas with me as well as listened to mine. Elaine Heron has been a steady source of information and support who always answered my questions both on campus and abroad. Then there are the three student-participants who made time in their busy lives to regularly meet to talk. Here is a precious example of students helping out their teacher. I would like to thank Keith Richards and Martin Bygate for agreeing to read my thesis. I feel deeply honored to have their attention and comments. Then I must give special recognition to Eiko Nakamura and Scott Gardner who patiently read through all my chapter drafts and pointed out some of the mistakes that I had overlooked. Then I could not imagine a more suitable supervisor than Greg Myers. This thesis was completed due to his insightful comments at every stage of its development. He always seemed to know what kind of feedback I needed to keep moving in the right i direction. Personally and professionally, he is the model supervisor that I aspire to be for others someday. Most importantly, much of whatever I have been able to accomplish has been due to the help and presence of my wife, Eiko, every step of the way. Without her support the completion of this project would have remained some distant dream, not the reality it is today. Ian Nakamura December 2006 ii UNDERSTANDING ‘STUCKNESS’: DESCRIPTIONS AND INTERPRETATIONS OF HOW EFL SPEAKERS AND A NATIVE SPEAKER CO-MANAGE TALK-IN-INTERACTION Ian Nakamura This thesis is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 2006 Lancaster University ABSTRACT Taking turns in keeping the talk going is a co-managed accomplishment. When the talk does not flow, the moment is noticeable and accountable. I am proposing the use of a new term, ‘stuckness’, as an organizational concept which describes certain moments in NS- NNS talk when participants temporarily lose a shared orientation as to who will take the next turn and what to say. Two related concepts are also introduced: Flow is the sequential moment where the talk proceeds smoothly to the next turn. Getting unstuck demonstrates the interactional work done by participants to address any uncertainties. The talk examined belongs to a hybrid genre which has elements of both ordinary conversation and institutional talk. The data come from a series of talks between three Japanese EFL students and me over a span of ten years. The collection of recorded talks includes over 30 sessions of dyadic talk ranging in length from 20 to 60 minutes per session. Three rules were followed: (1) English is the language of use. (2) Each session would last for a certain length of time. (3) The NNS would tell the NS about daily activities and special events. iii By tracing how one turn leads into another, three basic questions emerged: (1) When does talk flow in dyadic talk? (2) When do participants get stuck? (3) How do participants get unstuck? The findings highlight participants’ resourcefulness in using topic shift, storytelling, repair, and formulation to maintain the flow of talk. The contribution of this thesis may ultimately rest in encouraging people (e.g., researchers, teachers, students, and in fact anyone who is engaged in extended talk in any situation) to take a closer look at what participants are able to do (regardless of being a NS or a NNS) to keep the conversation going despite occasional mistiming. iv Table of Contents Acknowledgments ⅰ Abstract ⅲ Table of Contents ⅴ Transcription Conventions xiii Chapter 1 Introduction: In search of my story 1 Introduction 2 1.1 Overview of this project 2 1.1.1 The data 3 1.1.2 The method 4 1.1.3 The genre 5 1.1.4 ‘Applied’ CA 6 1.2 How my research has evolved 8 1.2.1 Teacher re-search 8 1.2.2 Data to analysis 10 1.2.3 Silence 11 1.2.4 Getting unstuck 13 1.3 Research questions and my concept of ‘stuckness’ 15 1.4 Conclusion: Looking ahead 18 1.5 Outline of the thesis 19 ⅴ Chapter 2 Literature review of analyzing spoken interaction 23 Introduction 23 2.1 Approaches to analyzing spoken interaction 24 2.1.1 Cross-cultural communication 24 2.1.2 Spoken discourse analysis in ‘mixed’ social, culture, and gender contexts 27 2.1.3 English language teaching and learning 31 2.2 CA: Understanding spoken interaction through sequential analysis 36 2.2.1 Turn-taking organization 37 2.2.2 Adjacency pairs 38 2.2.3 Preference organization 40 2.2.4 The relevance of CA to my research interest 42 2.3 NNS talk in transition 44 2.3.1 Applying CA to SLA 44 2.3.2 English in cross-cultural interactions 45 2.4 Conclusion 47 Chapter 3 Methodology 49 Introduction: More about the concept of ‘stuckness’ 49 3.1 Procedure 52 3.1.1 Overview of implementation 53 3.1.2 Review of the research questions 54 3.1.3 Selection of passages to analyze 56 3.2 Data 58 3.2.1 What data and why 58 ⅵ 3.2.2 Data collection method and why 60 3.2.3 Hybrid genre of discourse practices: Interview, classroom talk, and conversation 61 3.3 Participants and their participation 63 3.3.1 Participants 63 3.3.2 Participation 65 3.4 Transcription 66 3.4.1 Method and conventions used in this project 67 3.4.2 Critical considerations in transcribing features of talk 67 3.5 Data analytical method: Approach in this study 68 3.5.1 Analyzing NNS data 69 3.5.2 Relevance of the NS-NNS model 72 3.5.3 Next turn proof 73 3.6 Conclusion 76 Chapter 4 Talk Flows 79 Introduction: How talk flows 79 4.1 Resources available to participants 81 4.1.1 Receipt tokens for acknowledging and continuing 81 4.1.2 Formulation as an understanding response 82 4.1.3 Preferred assessments 83 4.1.4 Co-completed assessments 86 4.2 Topic as a resource 88 4.2.1 Aspects of topics 88 4.2.2 Co-management of topics 92 4.3 Features of flow 97 ⅶ 4.3.1 It looks like 'flow', but is it? 98 4.3.2 Flow as a process of navigation 102 4.4 Summary: Organization of flow 104 4.4.1 Resources available to participants 104 4.4.2 Collaborative work through topic 105 4.5 Flow and the subsequent chapters 106 Chapter 5 Getting stuck 109 Introduction: How we get stuck 109 5.1 Some ‘symptoms’ of getting stuck: A pre-analytic view 110 5.2 Indications of stuckness 112 5.2.1 Silence 113 5.2.2 Code switching 115 5.2.3 Overlap 118 5.2.4 Change of topic 123 5.3 Exceptions to the rule: When indications do not mean stuckness 125 5.3.1 Silence as ritual communicative device 125 5.3.2 Code switching as supplementary information 127 5.3.3 Repetition as receipt 128 5.3.4 Overlap as enhancement of affiliation 128 5.4 Conclusion: Further thoughts on ‘stuckness’ 130 ⅷ Chapter 6 Topic 133 Introduction: Getting unstuck 133 6.1 Topic organization 134 6.1.1 Whose turn is next? 135 6.1.2 What will the next speaker talk about? 135 6.1.3 Is there confirmation of getting unstuck? 136 6.2 Patterns around topic shift 137 6.2.1 After overlap 138 6.2.2 After silence 141 6.2.3 After an overlap and silence 146 6.3 Constraints on topic in these talk sessions 149 6.3.1 A certain routine with certain steps 150 6.3.2 A certain topic with certain roles 150 6.3.3 Other constraints 152 6.4 Issues 153 6.4.1 When a change of topic does not work to get unstuck 153 6.4.2 Does the topic really change? 156 6.4.3 Topic and turn-taking as different perspectives 158 6.5 Summary 158 Chapter 7 Story 161 Introduction: Storytelling as a way to keep the talk flowing 161 7.1 Background: What’s in a story? 166 7.2 Three components to getting a story told 169 ⅸ 7.2.1 Prefaces 170 7.2.2 Tying devices 170 7.2.3 Receipts 171 7.3 Storytelling in my data: Ways to get around stuckness 172 7.3.1 Story preface by the teller 173 7.3.2 Story preface by the recipient 176 7.3.3 A story gets started and continues 181 7.3.4 When Ian tells a story 185 7.4 Conclusion 187 Chapter 8 Repair 190 Introduction 190 8.1 Repair as a way out of ‘stuckness’ 192 8.2 Types of other-initiated repair 194 8.2.1 Error correction 194 8.2.2 Delayed uptake 196 8.2.3 Repair insertions 201 8.2.4 Embedded repair 202 8.2.5 ‘Sidestepping’ errors 203 8.3 Other ways to repair 206 8.3.1 Extended other-initiated repair 207 8.3.2 Self-initiated, other-repaired 208 8.4 Some uses of ‘oh’ 209 8.5 Summary 214 ⅹ Chapter 9 Formulation 219 Introduction: Definition 219 9.1 Formulation in an extended sequence: An introductory example 222 9.2