Transcripts of twenty-nine Spanish-English teletandem spoken conversations were scrutinized for aligned language (lexical and morphosyntactic overlap) taking into account task-effects (free conversation vs. Spot-the-Difference tasks). Results are discussed in light of instructed SLA perspectives on L2 learning in teletandem contexts.
First language (L1) interactants quickly develop a coordinated form of communication, reusing each other's linguistic choices and aligning to their partner (Pickering & Garrod, 2021). More recently, research became interested in second language (L2) alignment (cf., Kim & Michel, forthcoming). Earlier work has shown that both lexical and morphosyntactic alignment can be found in L2 dialogues - be it that task type and context might mediate effects (e.g., Dao et al., 2018). This study adds to the existing work by exploring task effects in English-Spanish teletandem conversations. Twenty-nine English-Spanish tandem pairs completed video-based free conversation and Spot-the-Difference tasks, alternating the language of communication: both participants acted as L2 learner and as L1 expert in turns. The 174 task performances were scrutinized for alignment by identifying the number of overlapping lexical and morphosyntactic n-grams (Michel & Smith, 2018). We compared alignment between paired students (i.e., real pairs) to 'coincidental overlap' in created conversations of randomly combined speakers. Results showed significantly more alignment by real than random pairs, and more morphosyntactic than lexical alignment, while task effects were mixed. We discuss our findings in light of telecollaborative task-based interaction as support for L2 development.
