Positioning Students of English Communication as “Knowers" in Research Interviews

Abstract

This article describes connections between positioning theory and willingness to communicate in the context of English language learning. The author analyses the cues in research interviews, adopting the perspective of positioning theory. Interviews were carried out with 8 students during 2020 and 21, for the purpose of researching EFL students' willingness to communicate (MacIntyre, Clement, Dornyei, & Noels, 1998). In this study the interviews are reviewed to explore the patterns of communication between the interviewer and the students in the light of positioning theory. The originators of positioning theory, Van Lagenhove and Harré (1999), identify the following components in any interaction: position, speech and other acts, and storyline. Coding the teacher's cues as “structural", “contextual" or “social" reveals that students are empowered by the use of contextual cues, which build on the students' responses to questions, and social cues, which create friendly feeling (Hazari, Lock, Cass and Beattie, 2015). When the interview transcripts were analyzed according to these cues, the facilitating purpose of “researcher talk", which appeared to dominate the interviews, emerged clearly. This research study shows how positioning theory can help us to understand the dynamics of interaction between a teacher-researcher and students outside class. The author suggests that positioning analysis yields insights which are also helpful for understanding interactions in the classroom. The article concludes with suggestions as to how teachers can leverage this knowledge to understand classroom interaction as well as 1:1 interactions between teacher/researchers and students.