Learner Language, Discourse and Interaction

How do language learners interact with those who already speak the language they are learning? It is more than just a question of learning vocabulary and grammars – learners also need to learn how to put together conversations in their new language and to vary the way they interact across different contexts. This book shows, using millions of words of data, how this happens. It is the first large scale, corpus-based exploration of the discourse macro-structures in conversational interaction between L1 and L2 speakers, and explores three corpora to show, in spoken interaction with L1 speakers across a range of tasks, the dynamics of discourse construction. Considering factors including cultural background, task and proficiency, it characterises the repertoire of discourse functions used in these interactions and shows how they vary according to a range of variables. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.

• Carefully explores a series of corpora to show where and how the organization of learner discourse in conversation with L1 speakers varies from interactions between L1 speakers
• Provides an extended series of tests of an approach to Multi-Dimensional Analysis that works well on short texts
• Shows how key concepts from pragmatics, such as face, and Gricean principles and maxims, provide explanations of features of spoken interaction at the discourse level in interactions between L1 and L2 speakers
• This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core