The Overuse of the Copula “Be” in Talk-in-Interaction by Novice Korean Learners of English

Abstract

The additional use of the copula be has been found in the oral and written data of novice Korean English learners. Several studies attributed the phenomenon to cross-linguistic influence; the transfer of topic and subject marker of the L1. This study examines the additional be and be-involving expressions found in the spoken data made by five low and low-intermediate level Korean English learners’ talk-in-interaction: one dyadic and the other quaternary. Additional be occurrences are thoroughly examined with the emic perspective of Conversation Analysis. Firstly, according to this study’s findings, an overgenerated be shows the developmental aspect of the L2 speakers, with regard to their interlanguage stage and the capacity of tense and negation inflection. Secondly, overgenerated be and be-involving expressions are deployed as an international resource in doing repair by novice speakers, as a way of enacting a turn-holding strategy to complete their turn successfully, with the aim of making time for thinking and planning their next utterances.