The coordination of online L2 interaction and orientations to task interface for epistemic progression

Abstract

The role of knowledge in social interaction has been a recent research concern across several fields and the emergence of epistemics as a concept to understand information exchanges has been facilitated mainly through conservation analytic investigations (Heritage, 2012a,b). Relative epistemic status of speakers (Heritage, 2012a) has appeared to be a layer in the multidimensional body of action and knowledge co-construction (Goodwin, 2013). Although the nature of knowledge exchange processes in mundane talk and learning settings has been described in a number of studies, such an understanding has been explored to a lesser extent in technology-mediated and online interactional environments. With this in mind, we draw on multimodal conversation analysis to describe online video-based interactions based on a single case analysis that represents a larger corpus of 70h of screen recordings. The findings reveal the incorporation of online interaction, screen orientations, and knowledge co-construction for task accomplishment purposes. The participants coordinate their interactions with their orientations to the task interface to enact epistemic progression, which consequently turns the interface into a layer, a semiotic field, and a screen-based resource in the course of knowledge co-construction. The results have important implications for research on online interaction and epistemics as well as for an understanding of coordination of multiple actions in geographically dispersed settings.