Page 114 - Beyond Methods

102 Facilitating negotiated interaction Types of Interactional Activity
In the current literature on L2 interactional studies, one comes across terms such as talk, dialogue, conversation, conversational interac- tion, negotiation and negotiated interaction. These terms are used sometimes interchangeably and sometimes differentially. It seems to me that one way of gaining a clear and coherent understanding of the role of interaction in language learning is by looking at it in terms of the three macrofunctions of language proposed by Michael Halliday (e.g., 1985): textual, interpersonal, and ideational. I attempt below an operational definition of these terms in the specific con- text of input, interaction, and L2 development.
Interaction as a textual activity refers mainly to the use of lin- guistic and metalinguistic features of language necessary for under- standing language input. The linguistic dimension deals with pho- nological, syntactic, and semantic signals that enable learners and their interlocutors to understand input and transmit messages as intended. The metalinguistic dimension deals with the language awareness necessary to talk about language structures and me- chanics.
Interaction as an interpersonal activity refers to the use of lan- guage to promote communication between participants. It thus in- volves sociolinguistic features of language required to establish roles, relationships, and responsibilities. It focuses on the nuances of interpersonal understanding, especially those necessary to open and maintain conversational channels and to identify and repair communication breakdowns.
Interaction as an ideational activity refers to an expression of the participants’ own experience of the processes, persons, objects, and events of the real or imaginary world in, around, and outside the situated learning and teaching context. Specifically, it focuses on ideas and emotions participants bring with them based on their lived experiences, past and present. It also involves a cognitive awareness of, and a sociocultural sensitivity to, the external world and its impact on the formation of individual identities.
By introducing such a tripartite division of an interactional ac- tivity, I am not suggesting that these three types are equal or sepa- rate. Clearly, the three components overlap; I separate them only for the ease of analysis and understanding. As we will see below, L2 in- teractional studies conducted so far have been concerned more