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The contributions to this Special Issue employ conversation analysis to illustrate how detailed analysis of language use can lead to the identification of assessable features of second/foreign language Interactional Competence (L2 IC) and the development of institutional testing instruments and practices. L2 IC has been the focus of much research at the intersection of social interaction and second language acquisition. It has also been treated as a construct in the field of language assessment. However, scholars in each research branch have just begun to collaborate systematically. This Special Issue furthers this collaboration, connecting research on L2 IC in diverse learning contexts with practical questions regarding the assessment of individual learners. It adopts a dialogic ‘full paper–commenting paper’ structure: Four empirical papers are each paired with invited commentaries that provide critical discussion and a complementary view of the topics the full papers address. The final discussion papers take a broader perspective on the complex nature of L2 IC and assessment and propose ways to productively move forward. Besides introducing the notion of L2 IC and each individual contribution, this introductory article explains the rationale behind the Special Issue in relation to current research.

This conversation analytic study examines responsive echt (“really”), which is commonly associated with “newsmarks,” in co-present German interaction. Across uses, echt-turns are a practice for top...

Okay is used in different sequential environments for a variety of interactional functions across languages, but the range of context-specific uses of the particle is not yet fully explored. This conversation analytic study focuses on turn-initial okay in English, specifically in responses to questions where okay does not itself constitute the answer. We argue that okay in responsive position combines the semantics of acceptance and transition for a sequentially particularized use: Okay looks backward to accept the question and mark the speaker's readiness to respond while also looking forward to project talk that is not the conditionally relevant answer. This talk temporarily postpones, but does not move away from, the conditionally relevant answer, and the resulting multi-unit turn architecture that we observe is: Question – Okay + UNIT 1 (not the answer) + UNIT 2 (the answer). Okay projects a ‘detour’ from the asked-for answer in favor of managing aspects of the question or addressing the need for additional work in answering. Data are in English and include varieties spoken in Canada, Singapore, and the United States.

The goal of this paper is to enhance the quality of language teaching and improve language teacher training by making spoken interaction research accessible to practitioners. Research on teacher cognition has shown that basic beliefs and assumptions about language affect language teacher training programs and language teachers’ priorities in the classroom. Such beliefs tend to reflect teachers’ own socialization and orient to current administrative guidelines in L2 teaching, often resulting in a focus on language production of individual speakers. In contrast, a social-interactionist perspective emphasizes the co-constructed nature of language and interaction. Unpacking teachers’ beliefs and their consequences for what is taught is necessary for implementing interactional competence-based instruction. This paper suggests concrete steps to facilitate teacher training, preparing language teachers for Conversation Analysis-based Interactional Competence instruction. Such training includes, (1) sustai...

Response particles manage intersubjectivity. This conversation analytic study describes German eben (“exactly”). With eben, speaker A locally agrees with the immediately prior turn of B (the “confi...

This chapter focuses on practical testing formats for specific learning targets in Interactional Competence (IC) that are consistent with the pedagogy and teaching materials that are available. It discusses written testing formats rather than oral testing. Written test tasks are rarely used in IC testing. The chapter also discusses the consequences in order to contextualize the testing formats for IC learning targets. The IC of competent speakers includes knowledge and abilities that are situated in, and negotiate, the sequentiality of interaction. Language teachers and teacher educators have started to incorporate the results from Conversation Analysis (CA) research into second language (L2) teaching by turning CA findings into tangible classroom learning targets. Research shows that such learning targets in IC can indeed be taught and learned successfully in L2 classrooms. As an indirect measure of L2 learner knowledge and ability, written formats impose some constraints compared to oral testing.

Researchers have observed that in spoken German, the conjunctions weil and obwohl commonly occur with verb-second (V2) instead of verb-final (Vf) word order (Gaumann, 1983; Ganthner, 1993, 1996; Uhmann, 1998). Current findings document that this syntactic variant of weil/obwohl-structures has an alternative interactional meaning and function, namely expressing different causalities (Vandergriff, 2005). Based on the results of interactional linguistic research, we will outline why it is important for foreign language learners of German to be aware of the weil/obwohl+V2 structure. This background provides the basis for step-by-step teaching units on variant weil/obwohl-clauses in the beginning and intermediate German language classroom. The suggested teaching units employ the five phases for teaching and learning pragmatics suggested by Barraja-Rohan (1997). The aim is to raise learners’ awareness and understanding for this syntactic phenomenon and its interactional use in spoken German.

Responses are central to managing understanding in interaction. Response formats and tokens make reference to prior talk, index epistemic rights, and align or agree with previous actions. Lexical choice and grammatical alternatives are important for understanding responding actions. This conversation analytic study describes two formats of responsive stimmt in German : lexical stimmt (‘right’/‘true’/‘exactly’) and clausal das stimmt (‘that's right/true’). Both formats are used to index independent access to a position or knowledge explicit or implied in the previous turn, but both confirm from a position of local subordination. Both either mark agreement or index a change in epistemic stance. With clausal uses, speakers lexically foreground sequential secondness through explicit anaphoric reference ( das ). With lexical uses, speakers foreground a realization process. Lexical stimmt allows for a broader range of functions. While das stimmt always refers to information accessed explicitly through the prior turn, stimmt may refer to implicit background information. One common use is to mark the actuation of information implicit in the previous turn and thus bring to the surface and manage momentary misalignment. This paper enhances our understanding of the social-interactional work of responsive turns and illustrates the centrality of epistemics in interaction.

This entry introduces Levinson's notion of activity type and its usefulness in connecting micro- and macrolevel descriptions of discourse. Research in this area views language forms as embedded in discourse and activity contexts. Grammar is connected to activity types because communicative activity types are enacted as well as constituted through the use of language. Examples are drawn from research on the formation of questions and answers in different contexts (classroom teaching, medical consultation), on situated requests, and on storytelling sequences. Keywords: Discourse Types; Grammar; Language and Social Interaction; Pragmatics; Syntax

This conversation analytic study investigates pivot constructions used as frames for quotation in German. Specifically, it describes the use of a systematic lexical final boundary for reported speech (an ‘unquote’). German has various resources to mark boundaries of quotes but is said to lack overt grammaticalized ways of ‘unquoting’ (e.g., enclitics, final particles). The present study documents a lexico-syntactic unquote and outlines two distinct interactional functions. It focuses on the use of syntactic pivots in Siebenburger Sachsisch, a settlement variety of German that developed in Romania. In Siebenburger Sachsisch, mirror-image frames delimit short, direct self- or other-quotes. A (past) form of san (‘to say’) is used in the frame. Most occur in storytelling sequences. Two functions of the quote–unquote construction are identified: (1) marking or projecting the upcoming story climax by framing the first unit of the climax and (2) dealing with problems in uptake in different action environments by recompleting a turn. These two functions correspond to two distinct constructional patterns of the pivot: interactionally embedded (for marking story peaks) vs. interactionally exposed (for response pursuit). These findings further our understanding of the structuring of storytelling, the negotiation of problems in recipiency, and the importance of prosody for action formation.

Using conversation analytic methodology, this article examines the use of the German tokensach‘oh’ andachso‘oh I see’ in the uptake of repair. Whileachsohas been studied from a functional-pragmatic perspective, no contrastive study ofachandachsoexists. We investigate two questions: Do different forms ofachoccur in the same sequential position? Are they associated with different interactional functions?The paper shows that in sequentially third position, repairs are receipted withachorachso. The different tokens have different interactional import. While ach receipts new informational content (claiming a change-of-state, similar to Englishoh; Heritage 1984), it does not mark understanding.Achso, by contrast, serves as a receipt for informationandprior action, claiming that speakers now share the same epistemic level and thus marking a successful repair resolution.Achsomakes sequence closure relevant and is followed by a shift in action and/or topic while anach-turn makes more talk relevant, specifically next turn confirmation.The paper concludes by discussing the component tokensachandsoseparately and outlining implications for the study of epistemics through ‘little words.’