‘Repair and Relevance of Differential Language Expertise in Second Language Conversations’
From Applied Linguistics:
Repair and Relevance of Differential Language Expertise in Second Language Conversations
YURI HOSODA
Kanagawa University
Applied Linguistics 27/1: 25–50 Oxford University Press 2006This paper examines the relevance of differential language expertise in ordinary
conversation between speakers of Japanese as a first and second language.
Adopting a conversation analytic perspective, the study focuses on other-repair
as one sequential environment in which the participants recurrently orient
to their differential linguistic knowledge. Specifically, it will be shown that
language expertise was made relevant (a) when one participant invited the
other party’s repair and (b) when the participants encountered a problem in
achieving mutual understanding. On such occasions, the interlocutors oriented
to the differences in their linguistic knowledge through their talk and other
interactional conduct. The study thus provides evidence for differential language
expertise as a participant category that emerges on occasion but bears no
relevance for the participants during most of their talk.