A Conversation Analytic Study on Question-Response Sequences in Nonnative Interaction: Focusing on the Use of Alternative Questions

Abstract

The present study adds to the conversation analytic literature with the findings on question-response sequences found in nonnative interaction. Drawing on around 4-hour long conversation data between Korean learners of English and American English native speakers, this research firstly compared the incidence of three primary question types, polar (yes/no) questions, alternative questions, and content word (WH) questions in nonnative interaction with that of American English native interaction. Also, the use of alternative questions in particular was probed from the perspective of sequential environment and action formation using the techniques of conversation analysis. Finally, a questioners turn design with trail-off or in turn final position was scrutinized for its unique function as an interactional effort to mark the utterers disadvantageous epistemic position. This new angle provides counterevidence against the oversimplified interpretation on its use as a routine practice for asking a polar question. Quantitative investigation on question-response sequences shows that there is a noticeable difference in the frequency of alternative questions in nonnative interaction (8.2%) compared to their use in native interaction (2.4%), which numerically coincides with the lower use of yes/no questions in nonnative interaction. Next, conversation analyses on the use of alternative questions show that there are at least three more distinctive sequential environments in which alternative questions are deployed in nonnative interaction compared to their use in native interaction. In the current data, other than in the adjacency pair of information request, which was the only interactional site for alternative questions in American English, interlocutors used alternative questions in three different types of repair sequences: other-initiation of repair, self-initiation of repair (question reformulation), and word-search. Alternative questions in these environments are proposed to be doing various types of actions such as clarifying, offering a candidate answer, and defying preference structure on top of the primary action of information seeking. Lastly, turn-by-turn analyses on the use of trail-off or turn ending show that questioners utilize it in a situation where they offer their best guess on the proposed alternative(s) while purposedly constructing an incomplete turn construction unit (TCU) with a dragging or:: in turn final position. This practice can be interpreted as an effort on the part of the questioner to yield epistemic rights to the recipient who actually possesses superior access to the knowledge domain and in so doing to prompt the addressee to complete the turn with the information being sought. Findings from this research provide further evidence for the conversation analysis (CA) concept of recipient design in that interlocutors make use of characteristics of different question types according to the demands of on-going conversation, in this case, more needs for clarification and elaboration present in nonnative interaction. Furthermore, dynamic use of alternative questions shown in this study can hopefully be applied in in-class interaction as a way to promote students learning as well as in extra-class interaction to improve intersubjectivity between interlocutors.