Drawing on usage-based understandings of language, and specifically on research from conversation analysis and interactional linguistics, I will present data from an ongoing research project that examines the sequential and linguistic connections between two types of information-seeking questions - specifying questions and telling questions - and the student responses they engender. I will conclude with a discussion of the insights on SLA and L2 pedagogy such research affords.
"A usage-based understanding of language is based on robust evidence from child language development (e.g., Tomasello, 2006) and various branches of cognitive, functional, and interactional linguistics (e.g., Bybee, 2006; Couper-Kuhlen & Selting, 2018; Ellis, 2016; Goldberg, 2006; Lee et al., 2009; MacWhinney, 2015) revealing the fundamental role that social interactions play in shaping language knowledge. Key aspects of interactions contributing to the development of language are their regular occurrence, and the frequency and distribution of the linguistic resources comprising their sequentially-related actions. Arising from individuals' engagement in their interactions is not an abstract system of grammar but rather pragmatically-driven, variable repertoires of linguistic constructions that include ""those usage patterns themselves, situated in the interaction itself"" (Laury et al., 2014, p. 441). These findings suggest that recurring instructional interactions in L2 classrooms are pivotal sources of L2 learners' developing interactional repertoires. The linguistic choices teachers make in designing their instructional actions significantly shape both the linguistic resources that are available to learners and the ways in which learners orient to and use them. Drawing on these understandings, and specifically on research from conversation analysis and interactional linguistics on information-seeking question sequences, I will present data from an ongoing research project that examines the sequential and linguistic connections between two types of information-seeking questions - specifying questions and telling questions - and the student responses they engender. I will conclude with a discussion of the insights on SLA and L2 pedagogy such research affords, with a particular focus on the power of the concept of design for supporting the development of innovative research agendas and transformative pedagogical opportunities."
