Resistance against being formulated as cultural other

Rural Partnership: An Approach to Achieve Development and Poverty Reduction (Case Study: Saravan Dehestan of Rasht County)

The extended use of IT devices has raised scholars’ awareness to its impact on the organization of classroom interactions. Studies claim that the intensive use of IT in the classroom has the potential of revolutionizing education in a way that it increases students’ ownership and control over their learning processes (Ryberg 2013). Others claim that devices such as interactive whiteboards contribute to the emergence of an “effective style” of teaching (Gillen et al. 2007: 254). Further, Lotherington & Ronda (2014) emphasize the role of IT, multimedia, multimodality, collaborative communication, agentive participation and multitasking for a contemporary understanding of what they call “communicative competence 2.0” (p. 19). However, as both Gillen et al. (2007) and Ryberg (2013) establish, it is not the technology in itself but the ”role of teachers” (Ryberg et al. 2013: 102) and the transformation of ”underlying pedagogy” (Gillen et al. 2007: 254) what count in pedagogical revolutions. Based on the above considerations, I investigate how IT-based classroom scenes are discursively reconstructed in teacher training videos. These videos explicitly aim at influencing current practices, so their investigation illuminates (sometimes hidden) policies in teacher education as well as in curriculum planning and implementation.

Although a preference for self-repair over other-repair has been observed in both native speaker (NS) discourse (e.g., Schegloff, Jefferson, & Sacks, 1977) and nonnative speaker (NNS) discourse (e.g., Firth, 1996), researchers note that other-repair still often occurs, especially in interactions with NNSs (e.g., Varonis & Gass, 1983). The present study examines conditions under which other-repair occurs and the response to other-repair in natural NS/NNS conversations in Japanese. Analysis of the data reveals the importance of interlocutors' mutual orientation to each other's verbal and non-verbal behavior in the shaping of other-repair and responses to the repair, particularly in NS/NNS conversation.

Purpose of the study: This study is to describe an experiment in which native Arabic listeners identified phonemic vowels in Arabic words. Native Arabic speakers from a variety of dialects and non-native Arabic speakers spoke the words. The main objective of the present study is to understand the neglected role of the native listeners in making communication successful or impeded when native listeners lack adequate information about the non-native speaker and when the top-down processing is absent. Methodology: The present study examined real Arabic minimal pairs (short versus long vowels) uttered at a regular speaking rate by both native speakers of Arabic (NSA) as a control group and non-native speakers of Arabic (NNSA) as a test group. First, we told the listeners that they would hear speakers from various countries, and we did not tell them that the stimuli had non-native words. In the subsequent part of the experiment, we told native listeners that they would hear both native speakers and non-native intermediate speakers. Main Findings: The major outcome of the present study is that listeners made slower and less correct identifications when they knew that some of the speakers were non-native. The finding of the experiment confirms the hypothesis that the processing of non-native productions is influenced by native listeners' negative expectations about non-native speakers with the absence of adequate facilitating details. Applications of this study: The study contributes to the psycholinguistic understanding of the role of the native listeners' expectations and attitudes towards non-native speakers and contributes to the understanding of the interaction between native listeners and non-native speakers. The study can help linguists in understanding the role of listeners in communication impediments within the top-down approach. Novelty/Originality of this study: This work adopts a new approach where we tested the same listeners twice, first with no information about non-native speakers and second with information that they will hear non-native speakers in the stimuli. Such an approach intends to improve our perception towards language communication within listeners' attitudes as associated with foreign speakers when information about the context of stimuli is inadequate.

Research on humour in second language classrooms has widely focused on the roles, social functions and markers of humour in interaction; however, little attention has been paid to the sequential mechanisms of humour and the relationship between repair and humour. Therefore, drawing on a conversation analytic approach, this study investigates teacher-initiated humour as a repair initiator in naturally occurring interaction and the pedagogical outcomes created. Sixteen hours of data from English as a second language classroom contexts have been analysed using Conversation Analysis. Conversation Analysis provides valuable opportunities for humour studies with meticulous attention given to sequentiality, and its repair mechanism is a tool for understanding how interlocutors deal with troubles. The findings suggest that teachers accomplish various pedagogical goals by initiating repair on prior student turns in the form of confirmation checks, which they mark as humorous through extreme case formulations and candidate hearing produced in smiley voice. In doing so, they make students’ turns disaffiliating and an elaboration relevant next, through which they elicit extended responses and create space for learning. Thus, via producing repair sequences as humorous, teachers progress their pedagogical agenda and also open up space for further language practice by encouraging elaboration and discussion.

Understanding antibiotic overprescribing in China: A conversation analysis approach.

The cognitive interview is a widely recommended forensic interviewing strategy which elicits more details than comparison interviews. However, little research has attended to which of its component mnemonics drive the overall effect. Furthermore, some mnemonics—like asking witnesses to recall in reverse order—are cognitively demanding. Responding to cognitively demanding interview mnemonics may be challenging for witnesses who are already under heavy cognitive load, such as non-native English speakers. Speaking a second language is a cognitively difficult task that may leave non-native English speakers with limited cognitive resources to devote to complex interviewing mnemonics. Other mnemonics, though, may be particularly beneficial for non-native English speakers. For example, a transfer of control instruction, emphasizing that the witness has critical knowledge the interviewer needs to know, may help non-native English speakers overcome social barriers to reporting details in forensic interviews. The present study tests the effectiveness of the reverse order mnemonic and the transfer of control instruction compared to control interviews among native and non-native English speakers. Native speakers (N = 64) and non-native English speakers (N = vii 34) watched a mock crime video, completed a language history questionnaire, and were interviewed about the crime video using either a control (free recall + second recall attempt), reverse order (free recall + reverse order recall attempt), or transfer of control (instruction + free recall) protocol. Native English speakers provided more correct units than non-native English speakers, especially in the control condition’s second recall attempt (compared to the reverse order recall attempt). The transfer of control instruction had no effect on number of correct units provided in the first recall attempt of each condition. Accuracy rates were unaffected by language or interview condition, but non-native English speakers, particularly in the transfer of control condition, provided somewhat higher proportions of subjective details than native English speakers. These results suggest that non-native English speakers provide fewer details than native English speakers when interviewed in English, and the two mnemonics tested have little influence on speakers’ output. Future research should develop an interviewing protocol that is sensitive to the challenges faced by non-native speakers.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to explore how critical aspects can be defined in a learning study on welding without conducting any pre-tests.Design/methodology/approachIn this study, the authors focus on empirical examples from a learning study on welding conducted in six iterative cycles, with conversation analysis and variation theory approach (CAVTA) as a theoretical basis. The welding lessons have been video-recorded, and in the study, the authors analyze examples where the teachers try to identify critical aspects of a vocational practical object of learning in interaction. CAVTA permeates the complete process, where the analysis has been part of the iterative cycles and further developed when the six cycles were completed.FindingsThe results show how critical aspects can be made visible in the interaction between teacher(s) and student(s) in the enacted learning situation. In the process, the authors work with the three concepts expected critical aspects, displayed critical aspects and targeted critical features in relation to a vocational practical object of learning where conducting a pre-test to define critical aspects is not educationally possible.Originality/valueTeaching vocational practical objects of learning could be seen as something different from teaching other kinds of objects of learning and the use of the traditional pre-tests in learning studies may be problematic. From that follows, that other ways of finding the critical aspects for the students regarding a vocational practical object of learning might be needed. In this study, such a way is presented.

Drawing on Conversation Analysis, this paper investigates free occurring conversational data in French as a second language. Its focus of attention is a debated concept within the conversation analytic approach, i.e., topic management. After an overview of the existing literature on topic management and the conceptualisation of learning and L2 interactional competence, the main part of the article will be concerned with data analysis. The data show an au-pair girl speaking French with her host-family at different points in time. The longitudinal design allows for describing in detail and conceptualising L2 interactional competence and its development. In fact, taking into consideration interactional aspects, such as sequential and action organisation, it contributes to a better understanding of L2 learning. The results show how topic management is not only the object of, but also the means for, learning an L2, whilst being socialised into the very same L2. This article contributes to an ongoing debate in the field of CA and, especially, CA-SLA about conceptualising L2 learning and tracking the development of L2 interactional competence.

ABSTRACTThis article introduces the methodological approach of conversation analysis (CA) and demonstrates its usefulness in presenting more authentic documentation and analysis of children’s voices. Grounded in ethnomethodology, CA has recently gained interest in the area of early childhood studies due to the affordances it holds for gaining access to children’s social interactions that would otherwise be unnoticed. It differs from psychological methods for the study of children’s social worlds in that it avoids using predefined categories of behaviour, and instead uses an inductive approach, allowing children’s voices to be understood in ways that are meaningful to children themselves.A discussion around how CA has demonstrated its usefulness in the endeavour to hear children’s voices in early childhood education research and pedagogy will be given, including studies on children’s trauma talk and children’s cross-culture interactions in educational contexts. Transcriptions from a corpus of international data involving children aged 2½ – 4 years will be presented to show how CA supports researchers and teachers to fully realise the contribution children make to their own everyday lives as competent and capable citizens.

Qualitative research focused on autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is important, as it can refine understandings of particular issues related to ASD and be practically relevant provided that quality criteria are applied (Bolte 2014). Employing qualitative methods for the study of ASD is an important way of giving a ‘voice’ to participants and can be particularly useful for empowering vulnerable or disadvantaged people groups (Peters 2010). The field of mental health and disability generally is one that is mediated through language (Brown et al. 1996) and qualitative methods tend to focus on language use, specifically those using discourse or conversation analysis approaches. Quantitative evidence, whatever its form, provides important and valuable evidence about ASD. However, it is crucial that the field does not solely rely on a relatively narrow range of methodologies and forms of knowledge to inform us about such a complex and diverse condition. Qualitative methods are able to go beyond establishing the likelihood of associations between variables, towards understanding the nature of such associations and the complex processes that they may be interpreted to represent. More specifically, qualitative methods are able to go beyond what works to show how and why a particular practice is effective (Rhodes 2011), particularly when taking into account established quality criteria. In this special section, we focus specifically on discourse analysis and conversation analysis, which are languageoriented qualitative approaches that analyse what people actually do and say, as opposed to what they report that they do or say (McCabe 2006). The five included articles use discourse or conversation analysis in varying ways, and highlight how these analytic methods pursue robust validation procedures and focus on identifying systematic patterns of interaction grounded in natural data (McCabe et al. 2002) with built in quality criteria. Typically researchers applying discourse or conversation analysis use extensive corpora of audioor video-recordings of social interactions collected in natural settings (e.g., clinic, therapy session). Analysis then involves a close, inductive examination of the interactions of all the participants in that setting. Although discourse analysis and conversation analysis are similar approaches, and both fall broadly within the landscape of qualitative research in that they treat language as their central focus (Bryman 2008), there are some important practical and epistemological differences which dictate the nature of the questions asked and the specific analytic methods used. Conversation analysis (CA) is a qualitative approach that focuses on the study of interaction. The core aim of this approach is to examine the social organisation of activities that are produced in interaction through talk (Hutchby and Wooffitt 2008). In other words, CA aims to interrogate how people use language to perform certain social actions, such as excusing, inviting, complaining, & Michelle O’Reilly mjo14@leicester.ac.uk; mjo14@le.ac.uk

In this chapter, the focus lies on language practices on virtual learning sites. A questionnaire sent to students on net-based courses in English demonstrated that the informants still had a conservative view of norms in the English language, in that they aimed to have native speaker-like proficiency. They reported that English as a lingua franca was relevant for communication with other non-native speakers in informal situations; however, education in particular was seen as a preserve of native-speaker norms. The informants saw English as a lingua franca as a performance variety that they wanted to learn alongside native varieties. However, textchat data of actual language practices demonstrated that users of English can develop their own norms through interaction with other non-native speakers. The conclusion of these studies is that, even though they may still report that they want to be like native speakers, they do develop their own language practices in the process of interacting with others. This entails that they have a much freer practical view of what is authentic language than their reported attitudes suggest, and I propose that this is due to them using the language on a virtual learning site. Thus, virtual learning sites are environments where, consciously or unconsciously, new non-standard linguistic practices can be developed.

Is language simply a medium for the expression of intentions, motives, or interests, or is it also a site for uncovering the method through which ordered activity is generated? This question has wide-ranging implications for the study of bilingual interaction in particular, and for sociolinguistics generally. This article attempts to explicate the principles behind the Conversation Analysis (CA) approach to bilingual interaction. It addresses some of the criticisms that have been leveled against the CA approach, using both new data and new analyses of previously published examples. (Keywords: Conversation Analysis, bilingual interaction, code-switching).*

Alternative modes of publication for novice researchers

Conversation is an interactional achievement which involves speaker and listener collaboration. The present study was designed to examine the role of the listener in conversation and point out the fact that in conversational interaction, both the speaker and listener play an important role, because conversation is a cooperative effort. To carry out research on listener behavior could help raise the awareness of the importance and complexity of conversation phenomenon. In any conversation the interlocutors reach a point where one speaker will take the floor and the other will focus on listening. Through verbal and nonverbal listener responses those listening to another’s speaking indicate that they are listening, they acknowledge that the other speaker has the floor and they want the interaction to continue in this vein. The main aim of this paper is to investigate the listener verbal responses mechanisms engaged in Taiwanese non-advanced Spanish foreign language learners in natural dyadic Spanish conversations. Empirical methodology based on the theoretical framework of Conversation Analysis will carry out. It is noteworthy that many studies have been conduced to understand the listener responses strategies in American English and Japanese conversations, but few studies have been carried out to analyze the listener responses in Spanish. Besides, no study has been carried out to determine the mechanism involving Taiwanese Spanish foreign language learners. In this regard our project has some important features that make it especially relevant: (1) The corpus data and results of this project should become a valuable linguistics resource and tool of understanding for some caveats in Conversation Analysis. (2) Researchers underline the knowledge of listener responses as pedagogical resource and its application in the foreign language classroom. Our interest is in enhancing teaching and learning by applying CA and listener responses to the foreign language classroom.