| This study is an investigation into the conversational processes that lie at the basis of second language learning, and an attempt to identify some of the social forces that shape the input that adult learners receive.; It is only recently, with the decline in influence of innatist theories of language learning, that the attention of researchers has shifted from the talk of the learner to the talk of the native speaker. And it is only recently that their attention has shifted from analysis at the sentence level to analysis at the level of discourse. At the same time, converging lines of inquiry in the fields of linguistic pragmatics, ethnomethodology, and the ethnography of speaking have placed at their disposal new perspectives on conversation and new tools for the investigation of the acquisition process.; This study is an analysis of two extended tape-recorded conversations. The participants are newly-acquainted adults--three beginning learners of English and three native speakers--and their talk is typical of the casual social conversation that forms one of the recurrent linguistic environments of adult learners. The native speakers are neither researchers nor English teachers; it is their speech in particular that is examined.; An adequate account of such conversation and of its departures from conversation among native speakers cannot be given on the basis of simplification alone. Given certain uniformities of situation, it is possible to make a few broad assumptions about the social factors that affect adults engaged in talking to foreigners. It is proposed that making such assumptions will facilitate the description and explication of the processes of foreigner talk that have been identified and discussed in second language acquisition research--the organization of repair, paraphrase, questioning, altered rate of speech, and imitativeness. In approaching the data, some significant ideas are brought to bear which have not previously been applied to foreigner talk, principally from the work of John Gumperz on conversational inference and contexualization, the work of Robin Lakoff on rapport and style, and the work of Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson on threats to face.; In the conversations examined here and in others I've observed between newly-acquainted adults, certain threats to face are operable. The learners are concerned about the adequacy of their English and about whether they are imposing on the native speakers. The native speakers are sensitive to these concerns and want to reassure the learners, but at the same time do wish to avoid being imposed upon. Differences emerge here with respect to preferred rapport strategies and conversational styles. Both native speakers and learners frequently pretend to understand one another when they don't; almost any contribution that serves to keep the conversation going is accepted as an appropriate next turn. Native speakers, in their efforts to slow and simplify their speech, often experience some discomfort from what might be termed a "loss of style."; We are still a long way from saying precisely how it is that the modifications made in speech addressed to foreigners enhance or inhibit learning. We are even further from accounting for the role that specifically social factors play in the learning process. However, I think it is clear that indirect negotiations about linguistic adequacy, imposition, and what minimum level of mutual understanding is tolerable are crucially important to this process. Moreover, these conversational negotiations, from the learner's point of view, are not just preliminaries to his receiving the input necessary for language learning, but in themselves constitute that input. |
