Uncooperativeness and Second Language Acquisition: Conversation analytic perspectives

• Applicant: Dr. Alexandra Gubina
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Linguistics, Experimental Linguistics, Typology, Non-European Languages
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 567663943

While L2 speakers and their co-interactants generally orient to the cooperativeness driving social interaction, uncooperative moments are unavoidable. Both L1 and L2 speakers can be actively uncooperative by displaying resistance or unwillingness to participate in an ongoing course of action (e.g., by not answering a question or, in classroom settings, refusing to contribute to group work). Uncooperativeness in L2 interactions may also be unintentional in that it stems from a lack of linguistic or interactional abilities, resulting in misunderstandings, misalignment, or breakdowns of cooperation. However, our knowledge of uncooperative behavior in interactions with L2 speakers, i.e., actions that fail to go along with the projected or expected conduct, project, or activity (including both misaligned and dis-affiliative actions), is still limited. In particular, we still know little about what actions L1 and L2 speakers treat as uncooperative, how L1 and L2 participants deal with uncooperative conduct from each other, and how practices for accomplishing and dealing with uncooperative conduct by L1 and L2 speakers change over time. The scientific network "Uncooperativeness and Second Language Acquisition: Conversation analytic perspectives" will investigate uncooperative behavior in interactions with L2 speakers, at different proficiency levels. It will study diverse interactional contexts (i.e., classroom interaction, language tutoring, conversations-for-learning, workplace interaction) and interacting in different modalities (e.g., physical co-presence, with video-mediation), involving speakers with different L1s and L2s. All members invited to the network have access to cross-sectional or longitudinal audio- or video-recorded and (partially) transcribed interactions involving L2 speakers. Methodologically, members of the network will approach L2 uncooperativeness from a conversation analytic (CA) and interactional linguistic (IL) perspective, i.e., emic, data-driven approaches that use recordings and transcripts of interaction to describe participants’ verbal and non-verbal conduct as it emerges in the interactional here-and-now. Our network will contribute to the emerging subfield of conversation-analysis-for-second-language-acquisition (or CA-SLA). By adopting an emic perspective (i.e., focusing on the participants’ own understandings), the network pursues three main goals: (i) identifying which practices and actions L1 speakers (including teachers) and L2 speakers treat as uncooperative, and how they respond to different forms of uncooperative behavior; (ii) exploring how L2 speakers develop the interactional competence to avoid, to produce and to manage uncooperative or dispreferred actions over time; and (iii) translating the network’s findings into practical applications for language learning, teacher education, and workplace communication.

• DFG Programme: Scientific Networks
• Co-Investigator: Ronald Schirm, Ph.D.