Simona Pekarek Doehler (Université de Neuchâtel)

Developing an L2 grammar-for-interaction: from multi-word expression to discourse marker

Research in SLA has uncovered multiple facets of how speakers develop and use discourse markers in their L2 talk. One empirically and theoretically important aspect of such development is that it may involve grammaticization within the L2. In this paper, I explore the grammaticization of multi-word expressions into discourse markers – and specifically discourse markers that fulfill interaction-organizational purposes. This is what I refer to as ‘grammar-for-interaction’.
Drawing on interactional linguistics and CA-SLA, I see grammar as an inventory of emergent, usage-driven and interactionally contingent patterns of language use that serve as resources for coordinating social interaction. I am interested in exploring change over time in the social-interactional purposes L2 speakers get accomplished by means of such grammatical resources.
In this paper I report on findings from two longitudinal studies tracking the development of the two multi-word expressions je sais pas ‘I don’t know’ and comment on dit ‘how do you say’, respectively, in French L2. The studies are based on 30h of mundane conversations, involving speakers of different levels of proficiency, that have been audio and video recorded over a period of 6 to 9 months, allowing for longitudinal analysis of single speaker’s practices as well as cross-speaker comparison. Results show, for each of the two target expressions, that L2 speakers move from a ‘literal’ use of the constructions to a diversified range of interaction-organizational uses: je sais pas progressively routinizes as a marker of dispreferred responses and as a turn-exit device; comment on dit progressively routinizes as a marker of cognitive search and a device for floor-holding. In these interaction-organizational uses, the expressions bare features such as prosodic backgrounding, morphophonological reduction, and semantic bleaching that suggest their grammaticization into marker-like interaction-organizational devices. I consider this progressive routinization of an L2 grammar-for-interaction as an integral part of speakers’ developing L2 interactional competence.

Biodata

Simona Pekarek Doehler is professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland. In her research she seeks to understand the development of interactional competence in a second language. A second line of her research is dedicated to exploring how participants to talk-in-interaction use grammar as a resource to accomplish social actions and how, in turn, linguistic and communicative resources emerge from the process of social interaction.