Development of second language interactional competence: agreement and disagreement negotiation by learners of Mandarin

© 2016 Dr. Yang ZhangWith the increasing role of Mandarin on the world stage in areas such as politics, economics and culture, Mandarin has become a critical language in intercultural communication and has attracted increasing numbers of learners. As in the case of other L2 (second language) learning, the primary object of L2 Mandarin learning is not merely the acquisition of linguistic knowledge; of greater importance is the fact that learners draw on linguistic knowledge to engage in interactional practice; that is, they gain interactional competence. Since a lack of interactional competence possibly results in breakdowns and misunderstanding in communication, interactional competence – as a modern reinterpretation of pragmatic competence – is currently receiving increasing amounts of attention in the literature on pragmatic competence acquisition. Using the foundational concepts of Conversation Analysis – sequence, turn taking, turn design and repair – this CA-inspired study continues that focus by investigating and comparing the interactional resources demonstrated by Mandarin native speakers, advanced and intermediate learners of Mandarin engaged in (dis)agreement negotiation with their interlocutors in the course of decision-making activities. Based on the different interactional resources used by the three groups, projections are made with respect to the development of the interactional competence of L2 Mandarin learners. Our data come from 16 Mandarin native speakers, 13 advanced, and 12 intermediate learners of Mandarin interacting with Mandarin interlocutors of the same gender. The Mandarin native speakers were all students at Fudan University of China, and the learners were all enrolled in a Mandarin language course offered by Fudan University. Using discussion tasks, conversations between each dyad were elicited. The data were recorded, transcribed, translated, coded and then analysed qualitatively. The interactional resources used by the three groups when engaging in agreements and disagreements are illustrated separately, then compared with a view to capturing some of the micro-abilities that make up a speaker’s interactional competence. Among the eleven micro-abilities that are captured in this way, seven are found to improve with increased L2 Mandarin proficiency. They are the ability to understand and produce social actions in the sequence, to take turns in an organized fashion, to manage the preference organization of talk, to project the speaker’s utterance, to offer reasons, to construct affective stance and to create cohesion. The remaining four micro-abilities don’t appear to be linked with L2 Mandarin proficiency. They include the ability to repair, to project upcoming actions, to monitor the linguistic details of an interlocutor’s talk and to anticipate the completion of the interlocutor’s utterance