The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School College of the Liberal Arts GRAMMAR AND LEXIS IN INTERACTION: A CONVERSATION ANALYSIS OF TALK IN SMALL GROUP WORK IN ESL CLASSES A Dissertation in Applied Linguistics by Houxiang Li 2013 Houxiang Li Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 2013 ii The dissertation of Houxiang Li was reviewed and approved* by the following: Joan Kelly Hall Professor of Applied Linguistics Dissertation Advisor Chair of Committee Celeste Kinginger Professor of Applied Linguistics and French Suresh Canagarajah Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Applied Linguistics Youb Kim Associate Professor of Reading University of Northern Colorado Karen E. Johnson Kirby Professor in Language Learning and Applied Linguistics Interim Head of the Department of Applied Linguistics *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School iii Abstract This dissertation investigates how adult L2 speakers deploy grammatical and lexical resources in organizing their conjoined participation in text-based, task-oriented small group work. Nine hours and seventeen minutes of video recordings of twenty reading circle activities from three college-level ESL classes constitute the data for the study. Using conversation analysis as an analytical framework, the study addresses two research foci: grammar-in-interaction and lexis-in-interaction. When perturbations or disfluencies occur as the first speaker is in the midst of producing her turn-construction unit (TCU), which is not uncommon in L2 talk, an opportunity space is available for the second speaker to make a mid-TCU entry. Five actions that can occur in such an opportunity space are described: collaborative completion, handover, turn-terminating yeah, takeover, and curtailment. In collaborative completion, the second speaker brings the first speaker’s TCU to grammatical or pragmatic completion to achieve various interactional functions. Handover, turn- terminating yeah, takeover, and curtailment, on the other hand, are actions deployed to indicate that speaker transfer is relevant or is effected so that the first speaker can abandon a perturbation-filled TCU that she has much trouble in constructing. What emerges from such grammatical and turn-taking practices is an image of the participants as L2 learners who, with emerging interactional competence, and through collaborative efforts, are able to resolve grammatical difficulties in TCU construction on some occasions while on other occasions having to resort to circumvention strategies due to a lack of grammatical or linguistic resources. This study thus presents a more complete iv picture of L2 speakers’ grammatical and interactional competences than previous CA studies. In lexis-in-interaction, analytic attention is turned to how epistemics impacts lexis- focused interactions. Specifically, three practices are described: uncertainty-marking, letting-it-pass, and understanding check questions. Uncertainty-marking is deployed by the speaker to initiate repair on a lexical item, whose pronunciation, form, meaning, or use she is uncertain about, and to elicit other-repair. Letting-it-pass and understanding check questions are practices deployed by the discussion leader to conceal her unknowing status or to uphold a dissembled knowing status with regard to the definition of a particular lexical item. The analysis of these practices demonstrates that opportunities for vocabulary learning is intimately bound up with the participants’ practical concerns of their epistemic status in relation to the target word and to each other as members or leaders of a discussion group. v TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures ................................................................................................................................ .ix List of Tables .................................................................................................................................. .x Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................ .xi Chapter 1 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Delineating the scope and the aims of the study ............................................................. 1 1.2 The organization of the dissertation ................................................................................ 2 Chapter 2 Literature Review ....................................................................................................... 4 2.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 4 2.2 Grammar in interaction ................................................................................................... 6 2.2.1 An overview and some illustrative studies............................................................ 6 2.2.2 TCUs, turns-at-talk, and grammar ...................................................................... 10 2.2.3 Collaborative completion in L1 interaction ........................................................ 12 2.3 Lexis in Interaction ....................................................................................................... 17 2.3.1 An overview ........................................................................................................ 17 2.3.2 Repair and word search ....................................................................................... 19 2.3.2.1 Repair ..................................................................................................... 19 2.3.2.2 Word search ........................................................................................... 21 2.3.3 Reference recognition and achieving reference .................................................. 25 2.3.4 Epistemics in interaction ..................................................................................... 27 2.4 L2 interaction ................................................................................................................ 32 2.4.1 An overview ........................................................................................................ 32 2.4.2 NS and NNS identities in L2 talk ........................................................................ 34 2.4.3 L2 interaction and language learning .................................................................. 36 2.4.3.1 L2 interaction and learning as change over time.................................... 36 2.4.3.2 L2 interaction, participation, and learning opportunities ....................... 39 2.5 Research questions ........................................................................................................ 42 Chapter 3 Data and Method ...................................................................................................... 44 3.1 Data ............................................................................................................................... 44 vi 3.1.1 Data for this study ............................................................................................... 44 3.1.2 My role as teacher and researcher ....................................................................... 46 3.1.3 The overall structural organization of the reading circle activity ....................... 49 3.1.4 Transcription ....................................................................................................... 50 3.2 Method of analysis ........................................................................................................ 51 3.2.1 CA as a theory and method ................................................................................. 51 3.2.2 Analysis of data ................................................................................................... 54 Chaper4 When Opportunities Arise for Joint Construction of an Utterance: Collaborative Completion ......................................................................................... 56 4.1. Introduction .................................................................................................................. 56 4.2 Defining L2 collaborative completion .......................................................................... 56 4.3 Facilitating the progressivity of talk ............................................................................. 62 4.3.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................... 62 4.3.2 Analysis ............................................................................................................... 62 4.3.3 Discussion ........................................................................................................... 74 4.4 Hampering the progressivity of talk .............................................................................. 77 4.4.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................... 77 4.4.2 Analysis ............................................................................................................... 79 4.4.3 Discussion ........................................................................................................... 98 4.5 Co-opting agreement and affiliation and asserting one’s stance ................................. 101 4.5.1 Introduction