Page 119 - Beyond Methods

Facilitating negotiated interaction 107
“Do you follow me?”). A confirmation check is the speaker’s way of verifying whether his or her understanding of the hearer’s meaning is correct (“Is this what you mean?” or “Are you saying you did go to Disneyland?”). A clarification request is a request for further in- formation or help in understanding something that has been said (“Can you say that again?” or “Huh?”).
Although interactional modifications do occur in day-to-day conversations among native speakers of a language, studies show (see Gass, 1997) that they occur to a greater degree in conversations involving speakers with unequal language competence, such as between native speakers and non–native speakers, or non–native speakers-non–native speakers (NNS-NNS) of different proficiency levels. The following conversation between a native speaker (NS) and a non–native speaker (NNS) shows how the participants nego- tiate meaning using conversational adjustments. For the immediate purpose of focusing on interactional modifications, I have simpli- fied the transcription convention (not the content of the conversa- tion), removing diacritic features pertaining to overlap and the time between pauses, etc.
1. NS:
2. NNS:
3. NS:
4. NNS:
5. NS:
6. NNS:
7. NS:
8. NNS:
9. NS:
10. NNS:
11. NS:
12. NNS:
13. NS:
14. NNS:
Episode 5.1
Well what do you think about, um, mothers, um, have their baby and they—
Uh-huh.
—leave them in garbage cans.
Huh? What do you s—.
They have . . . they have their baby?
My mom?
No, no (laughs). Not your (laughs) m— Mothers.
Uh-huh—mothers—uh-huh.
They have their baby?
Uh-huh.
And then—they leave it in garbage cans.
Garbage?
Garbage cans. Like big garbage cans. Outside of busi- ness—
Uh-huh.