1. Grammar as a Joint Achievement: Co-Constructions in L2 Interactions
- Author
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Family, Neiloufar, Durus, Natalia, and Ziegler, Gudrun
- Abstract
In this study, we present and analyze co-constructions from L2 English data collected at the European School in Luxembourg. Co-constructions are morpho-syntactic structures split across two speakers, in which a second speaker completes a grammatical structure initiated by the first speaker in conversation. The corpus features multilingual 13-14 year old language learners interacting in an English classroom as they work on a collaborative group-writing task. Five types of co-constructions emerge in our data: "locative phrases," "want/let," "copulas," "transitives," and "nominal compounds." The analysis centers on the morpho-syntactic structures involved, with consideration of the sequential environment where co-constructions occur. The featured examples complement and expand what we know about co-constructions in two ways. First, the data suggest that L2 language learners engage in co-constructions just as native speakers (NS) do, irrespective of their L2 learner status. Second, L2 co-constructions, similar to previously reported NS examples, appear to orient to both a) the morpho-syntactic constraints of the language used, as well as to b) the social-interactional context surrounding and structuring the task-in-progress such as the back and forth of talk during a collaborative writing task.
- Published
- 2015