A Socio-Interactional Perspective on Cognition and Learning Gabriele Kasper University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa

Pallotti, G., & Wagner, J. (Eds.) (2011). L2 learning as a social practice: Conversation-analytic perspectives. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i, National Foreign Language Resource Center.

As its methodology stands, CA has weaknesses. It may not be able to provide a full explanation for second language development. Its emic and talk-analysis approach may not take into account the learners' other learning experiences, cognitive processing, or psychological factors that facilitate interactions or shape the changing behavior in a particular context. CFK Lee 2014

Overview 1. Basic CA: the study of the interaction order 2. Applied CA 3. Respecifying the psychological 3.1 Understanding in (inter)action 3.2 Epistemics in (inter)action 4. Learning 4.1 Changing agendas in CA-SLA 4.2 L2 learning as a social practice 5. References

1. Basic CA Explicating the Interaction Order (Goffman 1983) Organization of social interaction from the perspective of the participants how participants achieve the order of social interaction step by step in real time Introductions Hutchby & Wooffitt 2008, Liddicoat 2011, Sidnell 2010, Wong & Waring 2010 Reference Mortensen & Wagner 2012, Stivers & Sidnell 2012

Generic interactional organizations Turn taking Turn design Action formation Sequence organization Preference organization Repair Storytelling Normative orientations and behaviors not statistical regularities Context-free organizations – context-sensitive locally specific use Interactional projects visibly emerge from moment to moment “Social life in the making” (Büscher 2005, p. 1)

CA - a coherent theory with attached research methodology A discipline A theory A methodology Compare discourse analysis, pragmatics, sociolinguistics sociology, anthropology, psychology, linguistics Multiple Ontologies Epistemologies Rival theories Methods for data collection & analysis

CA Basic Applied 2. Applied CA

Six strands of applied CA (1) Foundational: respecifying an intellectual field of study (2) Social problem oriented: macro-societal issues (3) Communicational: talk with limited resources (4) Diagnostic: clinical disorders (5) Institutional: routine institutional work (6) Interventionist: solving pre-existing problems collaboratively Antaki, C. (2011). Six kinds of applied conversation analysis. In C. Antaki (Ed.), Applied conversation analysis (pp. 1‒14). Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

Applied CA and Second Language Acquisition (1) Foundational: Respecifying L2 learning, development, individual difference variables (2) Social problem oriented: Social identities in L2 interaction & learning (3) Communicational: Multicompetencies and multisemiotic practices in L2 interaction & learning (4) Diagnostic: Assessment of oral language proficiency (5) Institutional: L2 interaction & learning in classrooms and workplaces (6) Interventionist: Training, development and evaluation in language education and other multilingual domains

Applied CA and Second Language Acquisition (1)Foundational: Respecifying L2 learning, development, individual difference variables (2) Social problem oriented: Social identities in L2 interaction & learning (3) Communicational: Multicompetencies and multisemiotic practices in L2 interaction & learning (4) Diagnostic: Assessment of oral language proficiency (5) Institutional: L2 interaction & learning in classrooms and workplaces (6) Interventionist: Curriculum development, syllabus design, classroom practices, teacher development, program evaluation, language assessment

3. Respecifying the psychological Cognition, knowledge, affect, attitudes, attribution Methodology: analysis of the “rich surface” of language and social interaction” (Edwards)

Molder & Potter 2005 Stivers, Mondada & Steensig Peräkylä & Sorjonen

The study of cognition “in the splendid isolation of the individual mind or brain” (Schegloff 1991, p. 168) fundamentally problematic Cognition distributed across people, environments and objects Built into the fabric of social interaction

3.1 Understanding in (inter)action Turn-taking system comes with an intrinsic motivation for listening to all utterances in a conversation, independent of other possible motivations, such as interest and politeness (…) it obliges any willing or potentially intending speaker to listen to and analyse each utterance across its delivery. Sacks, Schegloff & Jefferson 1974, p. 727

... each 'next' turn at talk will, in dealing with the previous turn, display its producer's analysis or understanding of the previous turn's content, import and relevancies. Heritage 1986 (unpublished)

The take-away : Interaction built for accomplishing mutual understanding (intersubjectivity) Cognition is hardwired into interaction CA is “actually more cognitive (…) than most of the rival theories of discourse analysis” Levinson 2006, p. 86

3.2. Epistemics in (inter)action (social epistemics) How participants manage knowledge in their talk, their relative rights to know, and their entitlements to description and evaluation. Social epistemics is thus bound up with identities, social relations, and morality.

Earlier work Recipient design (Sacks, Schegloff & Jefferson 1974) Person and place formulations (Sacks & Schegloff 1979, Schegloff 1972) Institutional talk (Drew & Heritage 1992, Heritage & Clayman 2010)

Epistemic access (knowing vs not knowing, strength of knowledge) Epistemic primacy (relative rights and authority to knowledge) Epistemic responsibility (norms of knowing and not-knowing, recipient design) Stivers, Mondada & Steensig 2011 Current research program Epistemic asymmetries as identity and relationship implicative Heritage & Raymond 2005, Raymond & Heritage 2006

Epistemic status relative epistemic access to a domain (information territory) “somewhat enduring”, extrasituational epistemic gradient more knowledgeable [K+] – less knowledgeable [K−] Epistemic stance moment-by-moment expression of epistemic status through turn design Heritage, J. (2012a). Epistemics in action: Action formation and territories of knowledge. Research on Language & Social Interaction, 45, Heritage, J. (2012b). The epistemic engine: Sequence organization and territories of knowledge. Research on Language & Social Interaction, 45,

Epistemic status epistemic gradient more knowledgeable [K+] – less knowledgeable [K−] morphosyntax, prosody  epistemic gradient Polar information question formats Do you surf? You surf? You surf don’t you You don’t surf do you You (don’t) surf. Knowledge asymmetries as epistemic engine

Two formats for probing knowledge X? try-marking do you know what X is knowledge check question Kim 2012

Two formats for probing knowledge through self-initiated other-repair X? try-marking do you know what X is knowledge check question Repair as procedural infrastructure for epistemic management Call taker - K+ Caller - K- Reflexive constitution of institutional identities

Managing understanding Managing knowledge Distinct and interfacing interactional orders Critical competencies for learning and development

4. Learning Acquiring a language is an irremediably social enterprise Zimmerman 1999, p. 198 No separate learning mechanism Same sensemaking procedures and interactional competencies for interaction and learning objective production and objective display of commonsense knowledge of everyday activities as observable and reportable phenomena Garfinkel & Sacks 1970, p. 342 inferential visibility of moral conduct Edwards 1997, p. 298

Understanding displays Sequential knowledge (Wootton 1997) Learning mechanism built into interaction Learning is visible for participants and analysts in the details of real-time interaction

4.1 CA in SLA: changing agendas Mid 1990s Programmatic Firth & Wagner 1997, Markee 1994, Wagner L2 speakers as normal speakers Wagner & Gardner 2004 Speakers’ language status as participant orientations Brouwer 2003, Hosoda 2006, Kasper 2004 Critique of interactionist hypothesis of SLA  repair and correction in talk among L1 and L2 speakers outside of L2 instruction Brouwer 2004, Brouwer et al. 2004, Egbert et al. 2004, Kurhila 2001 in L2 instruction Hauser 2005, Koshik 2002, Markee 2000, Mori 2004, Seedhouse 2004

Research directions from late 2000 Language learning as a social practice Development over time Respecifying standard cognitive and social-psychological SLA topics Learner autobiographies

Learning as a social activity how the participants contingently generate learning opportunities while pursuing the activity at hand Attention to detailed composition of the talk and other conduct Analytical claims grounded in the participants’ visible orientations Increasing attention to multimodal resources Ikeda & Ko 2011, Kääntä 2014, Kim 2012, Koshik & Seo 2012, Markee & Seo 2009, Mori & Hasegawa 2009, Mori & Hayashi 2006, Mortensen 2011, Seo 2011, Seo & Koshik 2010, Theodórsdóttir 2011, Theodórsdóttir & Eskildsen 2011, Waring 2011

Demonstration: Generic interactional practices for doing L2 learning Co-purpose or repurpose interactional competencies for learning Data: Service encounter Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) Conversations-for-learning

Embedded correction (Jefferson 1987) A deviant case

Declarative polar question Uncertain knowledge of word meaning: sneiða:: means to cut Wh-question No knowledge of word meaning: what does sneiða:: mean

AP – adjacency pair FPP – first pair part SPP – second pair part Insertion sequence Schegloff 2007

do you call it triplets? did you say triplets?

Explicit knowledge check (doulas) do you guys know X

Wrapping up: Interactional practices for accomplishing action and learning Sequence organization Insertion sequences (between first and second pair part of adjacency pair Anything else Sliced bread Accommodation Side sequences (launchable from anywhere) Doulas Triplets Hide and seek Moon bounce

Interactional practices for accomplishing action and learning Turn design Indexing epistemic status and stance