ALIS Newsletter - Volume 31 Number 1 (Plain Text Version)

For many years I have been interested in small-group discussion in the EFL classroom. One of the reasons was that when I circulated around the classroom while students were discussing, I sensed a change in the type of talk as I approached. My mere presence could make the speakers change their language, register, body language, and topic. I wanted to know what they were doing when I was not within earshot. Thus, I made it a routine practice to videotape group discussions as a part of my communication classes.

I generally made groups of five to six members and the videotaping lasted 8 to 10 minutes. The topic was given 1 week ahead of time so they had time to prepare. Currently, I have many hours of videotape, so I have chosen in my research to focus on novice language learners and to look closely at how they express agreement and disagreement. Not surprisingly, a large percentage of interaction shows students expressing agreement or acknowledgement, whereas a smaller percentage shows disagreement.

To provide an example, I focus on a case in which students disagreed with each other. The small group consisted of four students arranged in a half-circle facing the camera: Saya, Miho, Teru, and Yu (all pseudonyms). The topic was international marriage, and Teru and Yu felt there were too many disadvantages while Saya and Miho disagreed. What was notable was that the students aligned themselves into two opposing teams. In the conversation analysis (CA) research literature, Kangasharju (1996, 2002) found that in multiparty interaction, subgroups may form, resulting in two opposing teams-team alliances.

Kangasharju's study of committee meetings revealed several factors that affect the alignment of members into teams: (a) the topic on the floor; (b) the strategic goals of the individuals; and (c) the individual's membership in the institutional group. Team alliances often occur in environments where there is conflict and/or competition, and the type of talk when team alliances are operating is qualitatively different from dyadic interaction and also quite different from talk when no team alliances are operating. The differences are in the participant structure, turntaking, sequence types, and nonverbal behavior.

Here is a typical sequence when a team alliance is operating:

 

This contrasts with a dyadic interaction:

 

In the first case, there are multiple interactants and several possible recipients, whereas in the second there are only two interactants. Note that the recipient of line 3 in the first case is not Speaker B. In usual interactions, when a speaker takes a turn, the recipient is the next speaker; however, line 3 is directed to Speaker A and others in the group―not to the previous speaker. In the analysis of videotapes, the nonverbal behavior also supports this observation: C's eye gaze is directed to A and others in the group and sometimes the whole body is turned toward A (or others in the group)-not to B.

In the display of alignment within teams, the most obvious is verbal agreement responses, such as "I agree," "yes," "that's right," and "mhm." Then there are nonverbal responses, such as nods, smiles, and eye gaze. In addition, there are linguistic devices, such as the use of pronouns-we, you, us. Simple repetition of all or portions of what the previous speaker has said shows agreement. Then there is an interesting group action called the collaborative turn completion, which occurs frequently in team talk. According to Lerner (2004), there are four basic characteristics: (a) it anticipates a version of the current speaker's projected talk; (b) it is designed to be contiguous with the TCU in progress. (In CA terminology, a TCU is defined as the smallest interactionally relevant and interactionally complete linguistic unit.); (c) it is produced to bring the turn to completion at the next possible point; (d) and it is treated by the original speaker as a turn-completing action.

THE STUDY

In light of this past research, I examine a student discussion group. Yu begins the discussion saying that he thought international marriage was not easy.

 

(The colons indicate that the sound has been stretched; the numbers in parentheses show the length of pauses to the tenth of a second; the capitalization shows higher volume; and the downward arrow ↓ before the word shows it was delivered in a downward intonation.)

There is a rather long gap of 2.1 seconds. Miho responds by repeating part of what Yu has just said using a rising intonation. This exchange is delivered quickly, as shown by the equal symbol (=), which indicates latching-meaning no gap between turns.

 

Yu gives reasons―differences in religion and values―while Miho and Saya respond with receipt tokens, such as "ah" and nods. Then in line 23, Teru enters the discussion clearly agreeing with Yu.

 

Up to this time, neither Miho nor Saya has shown any alignment of agreement with Yu's stance. Instead, they display laughter, giving eye contact to Yu and Teru but also glancing at each other. Teru adds to the argument explaining that the difference in language causes communication difficulty.

 

Here the team alliances are clearly displayed. Already well before line 54, Miho and Saya have been showing with their eye gaze, laughter, and body language that they are affiliating with each other. In line 54, Miho turns to Saya and says, "doshiyo?" (in Japanese, "what should we/I do?") Asking for assistance signals to the other person that she is clearly an ally, so with this utterance it is a definite marker that Miho considers Saya as part of her team. In line 56, Yu says, "we think so," aligning himself on the other team with Teru, and "we think" is repeated in line 58. As mentioned earlier, the lexical item "we" is a clear indicator of a team alliance in operation. Teru then challenges Saya and Miho with the question, "do you think so?" in line 60. After a gap of 1.2 seconds, Miho responds with "I don't think so:" to which Saya responds with a soft "e:" accompanied by a nod. The two team alliances are now clearly squared off against each other.

Thus, this group discussion displays the characteristics of team alliances as given above. In lines 23-26 above, we see that Teru is not directing his turn to Yu but rather is directing it to Saya and Miho. And in line 60, Teru is again clearly directing his turn to Saya and Miho and not to Yu. The nonverbal behavior also shows that Saya and Miho have aligned themselves together as seen by the direction of their eye gaze, the body movement of Miho toward Saya, and their shared laughter. The lexical items also indicate membership in a team alliance, with the use of "we" and, in the case of Miho, the use of Japanese with "doshiyo?"

In addition to the above, there is evidence of a collaborated turn sequence made by Saya and Miho later in the discussion.

 

 This sequence of turns is easier to understand when the gestures and intonation are seen in the videotape. Saya has great difficulty constructing grammatical TCUs. In lines 101 through 104 she is trying to say the couple should try to be more understanding and in lines 107 through 109, she brings up the problem of religion but leaves her point unstated in line 108. She completes her next TCU with "so$:::" (meaning "therefore" ) "↓marriage" given in a downward intonation, indicating finality. After a rather long gap of 2.9 seconds, Miho says, "they should (0.1) make a ↓effort" and after a 0.8-second gap, Saya nods and laughs showing she has accepted Miho's paraphrase.

Although this is not technically a collaborated turn completion, Miho is collaboratively trying to make Saya's point clearer and in essence completing her turn for her in a more understandable way. It is important that Saya accepts this rephrasing, showing that the two have collaborated successfully. In fact, there is evidence that Miho has understood Saya's point earlier. In line 106, Miho says "AH:" at a greater volume, and the way it is delivered indicates a change-of-state token (Heritage, 1984), which means that the speaker has made a new realization. It is likely that Miho has rephrased Saya's lines 101 and 104 and not lines 107 and 109. At any rate, Miho's turn has helped the other team members understand Saya's point, and the discussion can continue to move forward. Despite the fact that the students had difficulty with the language, they were able to display clear team alliances and they supported their arguments.

CONCLUSION

To be quite frank, when I first saw this particular videotape years ago, I was exasperated because I could not understand what the students were saying and there were so few grammatically correct sentences. That was before I started using conversation analysis. Now, after having transcribed the discussion at a much higher level of detail and after analyzing and reanalyzing, I have a totally new perspective.

• I no longer focus on the learner's limitations. Instead, I look at the learner's use of the available resources.
• I am not irritated at the lack of grammatical sentences because it is clear that highly proficient speakers frequently make errors and use ungrammatical speech.
• I recognize that these students were fully engaged.
• I see that these students showed an awareness of how to carry out a "debate" through the team alliance, despite lexical and grammatical limitations.

I believe that conversation analysis is a powerful tool that is good for both researchers and teachers. To language teachers who want to improve their pedagogical skills and to raise their awareness of what is actually happening in the classroom, I highly recommend using CA, and I hope you will join us in furthering this type of research.

REFERENCES

Heritage, J. (1984). A change-of-state token and aspects of its sequential placement. In J. M. Atkinson & J. Heritage (Eds.), Structures of social action (pp. 299-345). Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.

Kangasharju, H. (1996). Aligning as a team in multiparty conversation. Journal of Pragmatics, 26, 291-319.

Kangasharju, H. (2002). Alignment in disagreement: Forming oppositional alliances in committee meetings. Journal of Pragmatics, 34, 1447-1471.

Lerner, G. (2004). Conversation analysis: Studies from the first generation. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: John Benjamins.