Multilingualism and Applied Comparative Linguistics: Pedagogical Perspectives [Illustrated] 1847183298, 9781847183293

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Multilingualism and Applied Comparative Linguistics

Multilingualism and Applied Comparative Linguistics

Edited by

Frank Boers, Jeroen Darquennes and Rita Temmerman

CAMBRIDGE SCHOLARS PUBLISHING

Multilingualism and Applied Comparative Linguistics, edited by Frank Boers, Jeroen Darquennes and Rita Temmerman This book first published 2007 by Cambridge Scholars Publishing 15 Angerton Gardens, Newcastle, NE5 2JA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2007 by Frank Boers, Jeroen Darquennes and Rita Temmerman and contributors

All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN 1-84718-329-8; ISBN 13: 9781847183293

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface ....................................................................................................... vii Chapter One................................................................................................. 1 Comparative linguistics and language pedagogy: concise history and rationale Michal B. Paradowski Part I: Opportunities for incidental language learning in multilingual settings Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 21 A familiar task in an unfamiliar language: intercomprehension and vocabulary uptake Christian Ollivier and Katja Pelsmaekers Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 41 Negotiated interaction in the study-abroad context: gauging the opportunities for interlanguage development Marisol Fernández García and Asunción Martínez Arbelaiz Part II: Building interdisciplinary bridges Chapter Four.............................................................................................. 69 What can language teachers learn from interpreter trainers? Alessandro Zannirato Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 89 Taking SLA research to interpreter-training: does knowledge of phrases foster fluency? June Eyckmans

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Part III: Charting common ground Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 107 Is English exceptionally idiomatic? Testing the waters for a lexical approach to Spanish Hélène Stengers Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 127 Economic entrepreneurial terms in a foreign language: how transparent are they likely to be for the learner? Lieve Vangehuchten Part IV: Progressing by looking back Chapter Eight........................................................................................... 151 Foreign-language grammar instruction via the mother tongue Michal B. Paradowski Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 169 Experienced language learners’ appreciation of polysemy: sorting out English at and German Martha Gibson and Britta Hufeisen Part V: Incorporating questions of culture Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 193 Mono-cultural or multi-cultural EFL: what do teachers think? Areti-Maria Sougari and Nicos C. Sifakis Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 212 Detecting causes of differential item functioning in multilingual settings Tamara Van Schilt-Mol Contributors............................................................................................. 231 Subject index ........................................................................................... 237

PREFACE

In February 2006 the first international conference on Multilingualism and Applied Comparative Linguistics (MACL) was held in Brussels, Belgium. The present book is the first of two volumes containing a selection from the approximately 120 papers that were presented at that three-day event. The aim of the MACL conference was to bring together scholars from various branches of applied linguistics with a shared interest in crosslinguistic and cross-cultural communication. The conference thus fostered an exchange of knowledge and expertise among researchers from various disciplines, including educational linguistics, cultural linguistics, lexicography, translation studies and studies of domain-specific languages. In the present volume that exchange revolves around issues of language pedagogy. The second volume will feature selected papers on crosscultural communication, translation studies, and multilingual terminology. Apart from the first chapter, in which Michal Paradowski presents a concise history of applied comparative linguistics and a rationale for incorporating cross-linguistic comparisons in second and foreign language pedagogy, all the contributions to the present volume are original empirical studies that report the results of controlled experiments and/or corpus-based investigations. Part I of the book estimates the opportunities for incidental language learning in multilingual settings. In the chapter by Christian Ollivier and Katja Pelsmaekers that setting is the internet. Their study shows that, as long as a communicative event is sufficiently familiar (for example, booking a hotel room) and the required contents predictable, the lack of familiarity with the actual language that is used in that event need not be an impediment to inter-comprehension. This lends credibility to policies (e.g. in Europe) that encourage plurilingualism, i.e. the ability of people who do not share the same language(s) to find sufficient common ground to enable them to communicate. Furthermore, the results of Ollivier and Pelsmaekers’ experiment indicate that, despite the task-induced focus on communication in the experiment (i.e. comprehending and answering questions in an on-line hotel-booking form), the participants tended to retain a fair number of the target-language words they were confronted with. This incidental uptake suggests that tasks set up to foster plurilingualism can help pave the way towards the more ambitious

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objective of multilingualism (i.e. mastery of other languages apart from one’s mother tongue). Opportunities for inter-language development (i.e. improving one’s current mastery of a given target language) are also gauged by Marisol Fernández García and Asunción Martínez Arbelaiz, who examine the study-abroad context. It is well known that in immersion programmes such as the study-abroad context, the native-speaker hosts seldom give explicit language instruction or explicitly correct their guests’ language “mistakes”. Opportunities for learning typically occur when the learners notice gaps or deficiencies in their knowledge of the target language during interactions with native speakers, for example when they do not (fully) comprehend the native-speakers’ input. In the study by Fernández García and Martínes Arbelaiz, eight American exchange students were paired up with Spanish native-speaker students in order for them to get extra-curricular practice in conversational English and Spanish. The recorded Spanish conversations of the pairs were then screened for moments when the exchange students gave evidence of comprehension problems. The analysis reveals considerable variation in the ways such problems are actually signalled (if at all) to the interlocutor and in the ways the latter responds to such a signal. It is understandable that an exchange student may sometimes feel embarrassed about explicitly appealing for help, just as the native-speaker host may feel reluctant to interrupt the flow of conversation by adopting the role of language instructor. However, the study shows that it is when exchange students alert their interlocutors to a comprehension problem in an explicit or unambiguous way, that the native-speaker partners are most likely to provide the linguistic input that is necessary for the learners to push their interlanguage. The chapters that make up Part II of the volume build bridges between the disciplines of foreign language teaching and interpreter training. Alessandro Zannirato reports two experiments that he set up to measure the potential benefits of incorporating interpreter-training techniques (such as memorisation and translation practice) in a foreign-language course. The results show that classroom procedures inspired by interpreter-training techniques can indeed bring about considerable improvements in learners’ proficiency overall, and most significantly so at the level of lexical competence. These findings also give reason to question the ban on translation exercises that has existed in many language-teaching paradigms (e.g. the Direct Method and Communicative Language Teaching) since the demise of the grammar-translation method. In the chapter by June Eyckmans the exchange of expertise is reversed, as in her contribution foreign language teaching research is exported to interpreter training. The

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question at the heart of Eyckmans’ study is whether the significant correlations that have been found between foreign language learners’ knowledge of standardised phrases (i.e. formulaic expressions, strong collocations, etc.) and their fluency in spoken discourse are to be expected also in interpreter-trainees when they translate into a target language. The results suggest that knowledge of phrases can indeed contribute to fluency in the interpreting performance. However, whereas in conversation learners can ‘freely’ insert phrases they feel confident about and thus enhance the impression of being fluent speakers, a translation task obviously requires careful matching between phrases one has mastered and the actual content of the source text. Consequently, for a learner’s repertoire of phrases to really facilitate fluent interpreting into a target language, it needs to contain a very large number of phrases, and these phrases need to be fully mastered so as to be easily retrievable from memory. The idea of phrase-learning is also taken up by Hélène Stengers in Part III of the book, in which the common ground between languages is charted through corpus-based comparisons. Stengers sets out from the popular claim that English might be an exceptionally idiomatic language. It is this assumption that has fuelled doubts over the scope of application and effectiveness of phrase-learning (also known as a Lexical Approach) to languages beyond English. Using Spanish as an example, Stengers shows that there is neither theoretical foundation nor any quantitative evidence to support the claim that languages would differ in their degrees of idiomaticity or ‘phraseomaticity’. Hence, there seems to be no reason why a pedagogical approach which has been shown to be effective when applied to English should not be tried out in the teaching of other languages such as Spanish. Spanish is also the target language in the chapter by Lieve Vangehuchten, but her focus is on teaching language-forspecific-purposes (LSP), more specifically economic entrepreneurial discourse. Vangehuchten’s corpus-based analysis allows her to estimate what proportion of Spanish entrepreneurial lexis is likely to be transparent to learners of Spanish who are familiar with the domain of business and economics. Although the explicit teaching and intentional learning of specialised vocabulary is still indispensable according to the author, the investigation suggests that, given students’ knowledge of universal terms and cognates, they should be capable of figuring out the meaning of a substantial number of technical and sub-technical terms autonomously. Part IV investigates the role of familiarity with previously acquired languages (including, first and foremost, the mother tongue) in foreignlanguage learning. In his second contribution to the book, Michal

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Paradowski reports the results of a controlled experiment which suggest that foreign-language grammar instruction that forges explicit connections with the grammar of the students’ mother tongue aids learning, at least as far as students’ application of discrete-point grammar rules is concerned. While Paradowski’s approach is grounded in Generative Linguistics, Martha Gibson and Britta Hufeisen use Cognitive Linguistics as the theoretical framework for their contribution. It is now widely acknowledged that frequently used lexical items are typically polysemous, i.e. they have various interrelated senses. Spatial prepositions are a case in point. The relevance for language learning is that, although two languages may seem to share words with an equivalent meaning, the equivalence is seldom complete in the sense that it seldom holds for all of the respective usages of the words, and this may obviously cause problems for the language learner. The learner’s appreciation of the principles of polysemy, i.e. how the different senses of a word can be related to each other and to a common core sense, is a kind of language awareness that has been shown to be beneficial for learning. It is quite likely that experienced language learners have had more opportunity than monolingual learners to develop such language awareness and will thus show a heightened appreciation of the principles of polysemy. It is that hypothesis which is put to the test in the psycholinguistic experiment reported by Gibson and Hufeisen. In the last part of the volume, Part V, the cultural dimension is brought to the fore. Areti-Maria Sougari and Nicos Sifakis report the results of a large-scale survey the aim of which was to find out to what extent teachers in Greek state schools are inclined to present English to their pupils as a globally used language, with diverse varieties and with diverse cultural backgrounds. Despite attempts (albeit modest ones) on the part of course book writers and the education authorities to encourage the teaching of English as a medium for cross-cultural communication, it appears from the survey that many teachers still favour the teaching of British English (and RP in particular) and still introduce mostly British cultural elements to their pupils. In the final chapter, Tamara Van SchiltMol scrutinizes Dutch primary-school exams for culture-induced test-item bias. She demonstrates how statistics can help detect test-items that work to the advantage (and sometimes disadvantage) of native-speaker pupils in comparison with immigrant children, and she shows how such bias disappears after simple modifications to the problematic test items. We hope you will enjoy reading this collection of research papers and get a taste of the spirit in which the MACL conference was held.

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Acknowledgements We would like to thank the following members of the MACL advisory board for reviewing papers that were submitted for publication in the present volume: Alex Housen, Seth Lindstromberg, Jeannette Littlemore, Katja Lochtman and Michel Pierrard. We would again like to express our gratitude to all our co-members of the organising team of the MACL Conference and to all the volunteers (including the students of the Erasmus University College Brussels) who helped out so well during the three-day event.

CHAPTER ONE COMPARATIVE LINGUISTICS AND LANGUAGE PEDAGOGY: CONCISE HISTORY AND RATIONALE MICHAL B. PARADOWSKI

Belladonna, n.: In Italian a beautiful lady; in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two tongues. —Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce (1911) The Devil’s Dictionary

History in a nutshell The history of comparative linguistics has had the wheel-of-fortune character (as exhaustively presented in Fisiak 1981, Granger 2003 and Paradowski 2007) and its validity and usefulness for language pedagogy have been the subject of numerous spirited controversies.

Early beginnings The beginnings of systematic theories of the relationships between human languages and at the same time of contrastive linguistics (CL) are marked by Sir William Jones’ famous Anniversary Discourse of Feb. 2 1786 (referenced here as Jones 1788) where he contended that Sanskrit was related to Latin and Greek, and surmised that Germanic and Celtic descended from the same source: The Sanscrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists.

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However, the real surge of interest in the potential usefulness of CL for language pedagogy started only in the wake of World War II. Crosslinguistic comparison became a vital source of information for language teaching methodology and was granted huge funds (especially in the US), following the declaration by Charles C. Fries that: the most efficient materials are those that are based upon a scientific description of the language to be learned, carefully compared with a parallel description of the native language of the learner. (Fries 1945, 9)

In the two decades following World War II, many linguists from the Prague school of linguistics and other scholars across the continent produced numerous theoretical contributions (e.g. Orr 1953; Valtonen 1953; Glinz 1957; Kielski 1957-60; Krušelnickaja 1961; Enkvist 1963; also see Fisiak 1981, 6). Several projects were launched at various centres of active research, with over a thousand papers and monographs written over that period. The rationale for using insights from Contrastive Analysis (CA) in language pedagogy at that time was based on the notions of “transfer” and “interference” (Jackson 1981, 195). This coincided with behaviourist views of learning (e.g. Skinner 1957) as habit formation through analogy rather than deductive analysis. From this perspective, interference from prior knowledge, i.e. proactive inhibition, when old habits get in the way of attempts to form new ones, was taken to constitute the main impediment to learning. Consequently, the degree of difficulty in language learning was believed to reflect the extent to which the target-language patterns differ from the mother tongue. Until the 1970s, the emphasis of applied CA was laid first and foremost on this inhibitive influence of the mother tongue, and more specifically on the way contrastive information can help anticipate foreign language learners’ “errors” when using the target language. As such, CA became strongly associated with error analysis, and there was a tendency to interpret all target-language errors which showed similarity to an L1 feature as evidence of L1 interference.

CA on the defensive In the 1970s, however, CA came under fire because its model for anticipating obstacles to foreign-language learning was considered too simplistic. This coincided with a decline in the popularity of behaviourist views of learning in general.

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In response, SLA researchers reapplied CA as a tool for pinpointing potential areas of difficulty and relocated the notion of transfer within a cognitive framework. In addition, the emphasis started to shift from inhibitive factors (i.e. the contrasts between the mother tongue and the target language) to factors that could promote and facilitate foreign language learning (i.e. the similarities between both languages (Ellis 1994, 315). That is also the reason why the editors of the present book have opted to use the term applied comparative (rather than contrastive) linguistics. While the proponents of Error Analysis (EA) kept incorporating CA in their methodology, implicitly or explicitly (cf. e.g. Schachter 1974; Wode 1978. Sridhar 1980/81, 210, 232), it was stressed that the scope of CA was actually wider than that of EA. For one thing, Sridhar (op. cit., 219) argues that CA can bring to light areas of difficulty that are overlooked by EA (cf. the investigations in Duškova 1969a; Banathy and Madarasz 1969; Richards 1971; Schachter 1974; Celce-Murcia 1978; among others). Corder (1971) also pointed out that not all errors are directly observable. For instance, a learner’s utterance, though superficially well formed, may have been produced correctly “by chance,” by way of a set of rules different from that of the TL owing to holophrastic learning, or with the actual meaning different from the intended one, or through the systematic avoidance of problematic structures (see also Schachter 1974). Then, if anything, the turbulent controversy in the 1970s only seems to have contributed to a clarification of CA’s possibilities and limitations (Sridhar 1980/81, 210). Most of the criticism levelled at CA was in fact already refuted by James (1971). Among the arguments that have been put forward in defence of CA we find the following. CA is useful for error analysis. While it is true that not all of a learner’s problems are attributable to direct interference from the mother tongue, every experienced language teacher will confirm that a substantial number of persistent errors and mistakes are due to the learner carrying over L1 patterns into TL performance, and that the overall patterns of error do tend to be language-specific (Swan and Smith 2001, xi). If certain items are regularly substituted in the TL, then there is a good chance that this is caused by L1 interference, and what is needed is more CA, not less (Sanders 1976/81, 23-24). Moreover, the very knowledge that a target item is nonexistent in the learners’ L1 is useful in identifying a problem area, even if it can go no further (ibid.). The finding that not all CA-based predictions are always borne out does not invalidate the theory. The nonoccurrence of a predicted error may simply be indicative of a learner’s avoidance of structures that are felt too challenging precisely because of

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contrasts with the mother tongue (Corder 1973; Schachter 1974; CelceMurica 1978). The failure of predictions in particular instances (while they were borne out in scores of other empirical studies, e.g. Duškova 1969b; Schachter 1974) only calls for a refinement of the theory rather than its rejection (Sridhar 1980/81, 219). Besides, as Lee (1968) points out, the critics of the lack of a 100% predictive ability forgot that the aim of CA was only to refer to “behavior that is likely to appear with greater than random frequency” (Lado 1968), never claiming that it accounts for all errors. As long as transfer is one of the variables contributing to success or failure in FLL, CA should have a place in FLT methodology (Stockwell 1968). For example, CA is not incompatible with a view of language learning as a process of hypothesis testing (Corder 1967), if the psychological basis of “interference” shifts from the behaviourist conditioning principle to something more akin to transfer of training, where the mother tongue may be selected as one of the learner’s initial hypotheses (or “processing strategies;” Sridhar 1980/81, 220). In the words of Selinker (1992): “one can believe in language transfer without being a behaviourist. One wonders why this was not always clear”. CA is an extremely useful instrument in materials design, able not only to predict areas of potential error (Jackson 1981, 204), but also to explain and remedy many of those problems that actually crop up. Thus, it is able to provide an inventory of useful data for authors of textbooks and pedagogical grammars on at least some areas (Marton 1972/81, 165). CA can help determine the frequency and stylistic distribution of certain structures in both languages (Levenston 1971), which may inform the selection, grading, and presentation of foreign language input (Nickel and Wagner 1968). Furthermore, CA is particularly helpful when the teacher does not have competence in the mother tongue of the learners (or the experience of having learnt a FL)—the basic knowledge necessary to understand and remedy interference errors (Jackson 1981, 199). From the late 1980s onwards, interlingual transfer was re-established as a major factor in SLA/FLL, giving comparative linguistics the green light over again (e.g. Odlin 1989; Selinker 1992; James 1998). The focus, obviously, had to depart from the original one, now moving towards reconciling the phenomenon with the cognitive, developmental perspective (Gass and Selinker 1992).

New momentum In recent years, contrastive linguistic research has gained momentum with

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the emergence and rapid development of corpus linguistics (allowing parallel compilation, cluster computing and complex queries), which is increasingly being used for cross-linguistic comparison. This includes the use of massive bilingual corpora of authentic language material, enabling more objective, reliable, high-quality empirical investigation and quantification of formerly mainly intuition-based judgements (Granger 2003, 17-18). Such corpora can be employed in two ways: as a source of underlying data on the basis of which hypothesis are formulated (the socalled “corpus-driven approach”), and as a tool for the verification of hypotheses (the “corpus-based approach” [Rawoens 2006]). Actually, there is also a third plane on which contrasts should be observed and utilised; namely, those between the native language, the target language, and the learner language. Of invaluable importance are learner corpora, e.g. the PICLE (Polish International Corpus of Learner English) comprising impressive collections of essays and other texts mostly produced by students of English Philology. A comparison of successful learner language and the L1 may serve as the basis for language curriculum planning where the goal, far from aspiring at native-like competence, is effective communication in the target language – be it for leisure, business, or study. Thus, a model of successful communicative competence can be developed without recourse to native-speaker data, and without a doubt constituting more feasible an objective for learners in contexts of classroom-based instruction. On the other hand, where accuracy becomes of importance, examination of frequency distributions of non-native-like forms and deviations from the NS norm (i.e. “errors”) may prove invaluable in identifying areas where remedial or preventative instruction is welcome. In this manner, learner corpora help develop pedagogical tools and methods which better meet the real needs of the learners (cf. also Granger 2006). Events such as the conference on Multilingualism and Applied Comparative Linguistics (Brussels, Feb. 2006), and books such as Learner English, designed “to help teachers anticipate the characteristic difficulties of learners of English who speak particular mother tongues, and to understand how these difficulties arise” (Swan and Smith 2001, ix) provide evidence for the continuing vitality and importance of this field.

The common sense of recognising the mother tongue It is an empirically supported and well-known psychological fact that learning progresses by relating new information to the already familiar, i.e. by relying on prior knowledge to facilitate learning. The very essence

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of learning lies not just in taking in new knowledge, but in linking it with the already known, and subsequently extending it to new situations, refining its range of application, and applying it in appropriate ways. This general truth has been incorporated in Chapter 5.1 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CoE 2001) under the label of “savoir apprendre”, i.e. the ability to learn, knowledge how to learn effectively, which is recognised as part of the general (i.e. not limited to the linguistic domain only) competences of a language learner/user: In its most general sense, savoir-apprendre is the ability to observe and participate in new experiences and to incorporate new knowledge into existing knowledge, modifying the latter where necessary. (CoE 2001, 106)

Part of “savoir apprendre,” of immediate relevance to language pedagogy, is language awareness together with communicative awareness: what languages are, how they work, are used, and can be learnt (Mariani 2004, 32). This transfer of general skills is, of course, no CEF discovery. As we will find in Coe, Rycroft and Ernest (1983), for instance, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, skills and strategies used when performing a listening, speaking, reading or writing activity were frequently taught by encouraging students to recognise that they already possessed these skills and strategies in their L1 and that they should transfer these into the TL (Keddle 2004, 45). Moreover, learners who are already bi-/multilingual are more aware of the learning and communication strategies which they have developed over time, and are able to apply these when learning an additional language. Learners who have had no benefit of having been raised in a multilingual environment, will be deprived of this resource, and the teacher should be all the more obliged to make them at least partially aware of their L1 competence through metalinguistic awareness-raising (see also chapter eight in this volume). Yet this recognition has been surprisingly uncommon among language instructors. Paradoxically, where most teachers are delighted when their students display the ability to transfer skills or extend strategies taught to new contexts, this has seemed not to involve language teachers, with late 20th-century ELT methodology discouraging the use of the L1 in the classroom. This “Apage, Statanas!” practice needs to be redressed, especially with advocates of language awareness highlighting the benefits of this neglected resource (e.g. Franklin 1990; Long 1991; Cook 1997; Macaro 1997; Pratt-Johnson 2006). The general observation that we acquire new knowledge by relating it to the already available is also true

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in the case of FL learners, where the familiar is their L1, which is why they will almost inevitably try to explain a new L2 item to themselves and make sense of it in NL (e.g. by falling back on translation, especially in the earlier stages of proficiency). FL learners almost invariably attempt to incorporate the new language in the framework of the known one; they seek a safe passage from the TL to their mother tongue: Starting with the L1 provides a sense of security and validates the learners’ lived experience, allowing them to express themselves. The learner is then willing to experiment and take risks with English. (Auerbach 1993, 29) Most of us are comfortable with the familiar and cautious about anything we perceive to be new or different – we feel more comfortable with friends than strangers, more relaxed in our own country than abroad… Similarly, faced with what is new our only strategy for making sense of it is to relate it to our previous knowledge and experience. In this way we make the unfamiliar familiar, with a consequent lowering of our anxiety. (Lewis 1993, 66)

Learners tend to compare languages even without being instructed to do so, as shown by experiments from various disciplines (e.g. Williams and Hammarberg 1998; Franceschini, Zappatore and Nitsch 2003; de Bot 2004). Singleton (forthc.) observes that, contrary to popular wisdom, even with the Audiolingual Method, where no occasions were provided for making semantic-associative links between L2 and L1 words, such links were undoubtedly forged by the learners anyway. Similarly, Lambert (1967) found that, in an intensive language course taught along the Direct Method, students who tried to keep their languages separated did not perform as well as those who permitted the interaction of the semantic features of both. Opportunely, the L1 never lost the support of numerous scholars (e.g. Atkinson 1987; Harbord 1992; Lightbown and Spada 1999; Majer 2006; Schweers 1999), all of whom argue that a cross-linguistic approach raises learners’ consciousness of interlingual similarities and emphasise the crucial importance of having students build a foundation in knowledge, not merely habit (Pratt-Johnson 2006).

Multilingual learners In improving language learners’ skills we may not only fall back on the knowledge of the learners’ L1, but we can equally well apply analogy learning with other languages that our learners are familiar with – this

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inclusion of more than just the first language in the FLT classroom, increased promotion of linguistic awareness of more than the TL and NL only, with the connection of languages acquired earlier and later, are being proposed by several researchers (e.g. Meißner 1999; Neuner 2001; Marx 2006). The results of a longitudinal study carried out by Marx (2006) comparing two heterogeneous learner groups from mixed L1 backgrounds revealed higher scores in the target language on various traditional measures of proficiency where learners’ awareness was raised of all the languages in their command; additionally, the learners developed enhanced ability to perceive language as a logical system, and to compare linguistic systems. Actually, it is not even certain whether the role of the L1 is more important than that of other already mastered languages. As House (2004) points out, in the process of learning further languages it may not be the mother tongue, but primarily the knowledge of the languages that are perceived as “foreign” that is drawn upon, whether by means of transfer or the use of learning and communication strategies, with transfer from the L1 relatively avoided and the NL only exploited for surface linguistic phenomena, while L2, L3, and Ln for other strategies (ibid.). House puts forward the highly plausible hypothesis that the awareness of one’s learning processes, strategies, and competence in the L2+ is developed better than of those of the L1, which are typically unconscious and automatic, and the learners are better-trained in monitoring and ameliorating their deficits and expanding their strengths. This is consistent with data collected by GabryĞ-Barker (2005), which showed that multilinguals perform better in their L3 if they transfer their learning experiences from the context of the L2. It is then, in third-language learning, that the mother tongue may become an impediment, inhibiting the activation of the subjects’ L2 reference system. Examining the results of a case study carried out on a group of L3/L4 learners of elementary Portuguese who underwent language instruction via English, GabryĞBarker (2006) proposes that instruction in the L2 allows the subjects to switch off the highly automatic processing mechanisms involved in thinking in their mother tongue, and activate a FL mode with a higher degree of monitoring and, consequently, conscious transfer of the FL learning/processing mechanisms already at their disposal. Moreover, we will be able to find similar constructions and examples of phonological relatedness among all syngenetic languages deriving from the Proto-Indo-European family roots. In syntax, for instance, when referring to age, German and English (which together with Dutch and

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Frisian belong to the West Germanic language group) employ the same formal realisation devices in such equivalent sentences as the following: (1) (2)

Ich bin zwanzig Jahre alt. I am twenty years old.

Thus, when introducing the English structure to learners who already know some German, it is expedient to draw their attention to the parallelism. Along the same lines, the contracted form “J’ai” in French is mirrored by the contracted “I’ve” in English. “Si” + conditional clause in French can be used for hypothesising just as “if” + conditional clause in English. Such congruence is manifest in numerous structures across languages. Lexis is, needless to say, another abundant field; suffice it to remember how many borrowings from Latin, Greek and French owe their introduction to this language to Shakespeare alone … One of the key concepts in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CoE 2001) is that of plurilingualism, closely tied with the aim of developing European citizenship, with an educated European able to get by in several languages. Standing in what we could term “political” contrast to multilingualism, which denotes at least decent fluency in three or more languages, plurilingualism is satisfied by incomplete linguistic competence in these. This seemingly undemanding objective is, again, due to the Framework’s positive emphasis on helping learners communicate with users of another language, “however laboriously and incompletely” (Morrow 2004, 5). As such, it inextricably involves recognition of the role of the mother tongue (or another already mastered language): those who have learnt one language also know a great deal about many other languages without necessarily realising that they do. The learning of further languages generally facilitates the activation of this knowledge and increases awareness of it, which is a factor to be taken into account rather than proceeding as if it did not exist. (CoE 2001, 170)

In the process of language learning, students ought to be made aware of the range of skills and awarenesses which they possess from learning and using their first and other languages. There are rarely “absolute” beginners, as many rules, structures, expressions and lexemes transfer directly from learners’ current knowledge base (where they may exist as common borrowings). The CEF also promotes the view that most learners are not complete tabulae rasa, but already have some degree of competence in the TL (probably having had some contact with it in one

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form or another), making it the teacher’s duty to bring this resource to light and let it expand. Another obvious corollary is that learners who have already had some experience of learning another language will have an advantage embarking upon successive ones, as they will be able to utilise the formerly acquired and well tried-and-tested skills and strategies. Consequently, more emphasis should be placed “on developing strategies and skills for “learning to learn languages” since the learner can apply these skills to learning or acquiring other languages […] Teachers sometimes assume that a beginner starts from scratch, but in fact most have experiences of other languages and skills and knowledge they can apply usefully to learning the new language” (Heyworth 2004, 15).

More reasons for a adopting a comparative approach to language pedagogy A further rationale for a comparative approach is connected with the CEF promoting inter-cultural competence, i.e. not just knowing what language/register is appropriate for use in particular circumstances (sociolinguistic competence), but also how this appropriacy differs between cultures (op. cit., 14). Moreover, language awareness in the L2 may also result in enhanced L1 awareness and increased accuracy: learners of English are more likely to accept (well-formed) passive construction in Polish (Ewert forthc.); Hungarian children who have learnt English use stylistically more complex writing in their L1 (Kecskes and Papp 2000), just to mention two attested examples. Thus, learning another language is not just adding a separate annex to an already existing construct, but it affects different aspects of the user’s mind in subtle ways. Transfer is thus seen as a twoway process in which the L1 in the L2 user's mind is affected by the L2 as well as the reverse (Jarvis 2003). This bidirectionality of interference was already noted in 1953 by Ulrich Weinreich: “deviation from the norms of either language which occur in the speech of bilinguals as a result of their familiarity with more than one language” (Weinreich 1953, 1; emphasis added). A crucial part of expertise in a TL is “pragmatic fluency” (House 2006). The importance of developing pragmatic competence, that is the ability to employ TL resources in an appropriate way for particular contexts, has been ascertained in current models of communicative competence (e.g. Celce-Murcia, Dörnyei and Thurrell 1995; Martínez-Flor and Usó-Juan 2006). Contrastive language instruction should go beyond

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the purely linguistic plane of much mainstream classroom instruction, to extend to the pragmatic sphere of communication as well. House (1997) argues that the notion of TL awareness be extended beyond aspects of the linguistic system to the communicative use of the language in context. She calls forth several enjoyable examples from both authentic interaction and role-plays between native speakers of English and German to demonstrate how not only words and idioms, but also lengthier formally analogical constructions can turn out to be deceptive faux amis, leading to inadvertent misunderstanding and irritation on the part of the interlocutor (House 2003, 129-130). She thus emphasises the necessity of the acquisition of linguistically and culturally contrastive knowledge, of knowledge about the diversity of languages in general, and the worth of multilingualism and multiculturalism, so strongly promoted especially in the CEF ideology. Even though this may be more difficult to implement in linguistically heterogeneous classes, with the increasing importance of intercultural competence, House insists on bringing learners’ awareness of linguistic and cultural similarities and differences, differences in value systems, mentalities, communicative preferences and conventions to the foreground of glottodidactics. Her examples demonstrate that even in so closely related languages as English and German, the communicative styles differ considerably – to what extent would that have to be between typologically distant languages, with totally different cultural traditions to boot (op. cit., 131)? Thus, the awareness of pragmatic and discourse phenomena in FLL should include an understanding of the contrasts and similarities in these areas between the TL and the L1 (L2, Ln…). Crucially, however, that understanding should be the result of comparative research rather than intuition (House 1994, 1995, 1997). Unfortunately, one still finds “model” dialogues in course materials that hardly resemble any authentic L2 communication patterns (e.g. Bardovi-Harlig et al. 1991), for example. In sum, there are many good reasons for embracing comparative considerations in language pedagogy, but it goes without saying that these considerations also need to be fuelled by solid empirical research.

Acknowledgement The final shape and content of this chapter have profited greatly from the comments, suggestions and deft editorial hand of Frank Boers, to whom I would like to extend my deepest words of gratitude also for his sustained support and guidance during the production of this piece and my other chapter in the present volume. In an interview in Writers at Work (George

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Plimpton, Ed. 1988) Elie Wiesel said: “There is a difference between a book of two hundred pages from the very beginning, and a book of two hundred pages which is the result of an original eight hundred pages. The six hundred are there. Only you don’t see them.” I hope my own condensed chapters give their original 64 pages justice.

References Atkinson, David. 1987. The mother tongue in the classroom: A neglected resource? ELT Journal 41: 241-47. Auerbach, Elsa Roberts. 1993. Reexamining English only in the ESL classroom. TESOL Quarterly 27: 9-32. Banathy, Bela H. and Paul H. Madarasz. 1969. Contrastive analysis and error analysis. Journal of English as a Second Language 4: 77-92. Bardovi-Harlig, Kathleen, Beverly A. S. Hartford, Rebecca MahanTaylor, Mary J. Morgan and Dudley W. Reynolds. 1991. Developing pragmatic awareness: closing the conversation. ELT Journal 45: 4-15. Celce-Murcia, Marianne. 1978. The simultaneous acquisition of English and French in a two-year-old child. In Second Language Acquisition, ed. Evelyn M. Hatch, 38-53. Rowley, MA: Newbury House Celce-Murcia, Marianne, Zoltan Dörnyei and Sarah Thurrell. 1995. Communicative competence: A pedagogically motivated model with content specifications. Issues in Applied Linguistics 6: 5-35. Coe, Norman, Robin Rycroft and Pauline Ernest. 1983. Writing Skills. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cook, Vivian J. 1997. The consequences of bilingualism for cognitive processing. In Tutorials in Bilingualism: Psycholinguistic Perspectives, ed. Annette M. B. de Groot and Judith F. Kroll, 279-99. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Corder, Stephen Pit. 1967. The significance of learner’s errors. International Review of Applied Linguistics 5: 161-69. —. 1971. Idiosyncratic dialects and error analysis. International Review of Applied Linguistics 9: 147-59. —. 1973. Introducing Applied Linguistics. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Council of Europe. 2001. Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Also http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/Source/Framework_EN.pdf de Bot, Kees. 2004. The multilingual lexicon: Modelling selection and control. International Journal of Multilingualism 1: 17-32.

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Duškova, Libuse. 1969a. On some functional and stylistic aspects of the passive voice in present-day English. Studies in the English Language 1: 113-49. —. 1969b. On the sources of errors in foreign language learning. International Review of Applied Linguistics 7: 11-36. Ellis, Rod. 1994. The Study of Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Enkvist, Nils Erik. 1963. The English and Finnish vowel systems: a comparison with special reference to the teaching of English to Finns. Via (publ. Engelska språklärarföreningen i Finland) / Suomen Englanninkielen Opettajinen Ydhiste 3: 44-49. Ewert, Anna. Forthcoming. L1 syntactic preferences of Polish teenagers in bilingual and monolingual educational programmes: a dynamic aspect of multi-competence. Proceedings of the XVII International Conference on Foreign/Second Language Acquisition. Katowice: University of Silesia. Fisiak, Jacek. 1981. Some introductory notes concerning contrastive linguistics. In Contrastive Linguistics and the Language Teacher, ed. Jacek Fisiak, 1-11. Oxford: Pergamon. Franceschini, Rita, Daniela Zappatore and Cordula Nitsch. 2003. Lexicon in the brain: what neurobiology has to say about languages. In The Multilingual Lexicon, ed. Jasone Cenoz, Britta Hufeisen & Ulrike Jessner, 153-66. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Franklin, Carole E. M. 1990. Teaching in the target language: problems and prospects. Language Learning Journal 2: 20-24. Fries, Charles Carpenter. 1945. Teaching and Learning English as a Foreign Language. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. GabryĞ-Barker, Danuta. 2005. Aspects of Multilingual Storage, Processing and Retrieval. Katowice: University of Silesia Press. —. 2006. The role of transfer of learning in multilingual instruction and development. paper presented at the XVIIIth International Conference on Foreign/Second Language Acquisition, Szczyrk. Gass, Susan M. and Larry Selinker. 1992. Language Transfer in Language Learning. (rev. ed.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Glinz, Hans. 1957. Wortarten und Satzglieder im Deutschen, Französischen und Lateinischen. Der Deutschunterricht 4: 12-38. Granger, Sylviane. 2003. The corpus approach: a common way forward for Contrastive Linguistics and Translation Studies? In Corpus-Based Approaches to Contrastive Linguistics and Translation Studies, ed. Sylviane Granger, Jacques Lerot & Stephanie Petch-Tyson, 17-29. Amsterdam: Rodopi.

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—. 2006. A plurilingual and multicultural perspective on learner corpus research. Plenary paper presented at the conference on Multilingualism & Applied Comparative Linguistics, Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Harbord, John. 1992. The use of the mother tongue in the classroom. ELT Journal 46: 350-55. Heyworth, Frank. 2004. Why the CEF is important. In Insights from the Common European Framework, ed. Keith Morrow, 12-21. Oxford: Oxford University Press. House, Juliane. 1994. Kontrastive Pragmatik und interkulturelles Lernen: von metapragmatischem Wissen zu kommunikativem Handeln. In Interkulturelles Lernen im Fremdsprachenunterricht, ed. KarlRichard Bausch, et al., 85-94. Tübingen: Narr. —. 1995. Metapragmatische Bewußtheit, sprachliche Routinen und interkulturelles Lernen beim Wortschatzerwerb im Fremdsprachenunterricht. In Erwerb und Vermittlung von Wortschatz im Fremdsprachenunterricht, ed. Karl-Richard Bausch, et al., 92-101. Tübingen: Narr. —. 1997. Kommunikative Bewußtheit und Fremdsprachenlernen. Fremdsprachen Lehren und Lernen 26: 68-87. —. 2003. Übersetzen und Missverständnisse. In Jahrbuch Deutsch als Fremdsprache. Intercultural German Studies 29, ed. Hans Barkowski & Armin Wolff, 107-34. München: iudicium Verlag. —. 2004. Mehrsprachigkeit: Nicht monodisziplinär und nicht nur für Europa! In Mehrsprachigkeit im Fokus. Arbeitspapiere der 24. Frühjahrskonferenz zur Erforschung des Fremdsprachenunterrichts, ed. Karl-Richard Bausch, Frank G. Königs & Hans-Jürgen Krumm, 62-68. Tübingen: Narr. —. 2006. The role of English as a lingua franca in multilingual and crosscultural communication. Plenary paper presented at the conference on Multilingualism & Applied Comparative Linguistics, Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Jackson, Howard. 1981. Contrastive analysis as a predictor of errors, with reference to Punjabi learners of English. In Contrastive Linguistics and the Language Teacher, ed. Jacek Fisiak, 195-205. Oxford: Pergamon Press. James, Carl. 1971. The exculpation of contrastive linguistics. In Papers in Contrastive Analysis, ed. Gerhard Nickel, 53-68. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —. 1998. Errors in Language Learning and Use. Exploring Error Analysis. London: Longman.

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Jarvis, Scott. 2003. Probing the limits of L2 effects in the L1: A case study. In Effects of the L2 on the L1, ed. Vivian Cook, 81-102. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Jones, Sir William. 1788. The third anniversary discourse.” [presented Feb 2 1786: On the Hindus]. Asiatick Researches 1: 415-31. Kecskes, Istvan and Tünde Papp. 2000. Foreign Language and Mother Tongue. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Keddle, Julia Starr. 2004. The CEF and the secondary school syllabus. In Insights from the Common European Framework, ed. Keith Morrow, 43-54. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kielski, Bolesáaw. 1957-60. Struktura jĊzyków francuskiego i polskiego w Ğwietle analizy porównawczej, Vols. 1-2. àódĨ: Zakáady Narodowe im. OssoliĔskich. Krušelnickaja, K. G. 1961. Ɉɱɟɪɤɢ ɩɨ ɫɨɩɨɫɬɨɜɢɬɟɥɧɨɣ ɝɪɚɦɦɚɬɢɤɢ ɧɟɦɟɰɤɨɝɨ ɢ ɪɭɫɫɤɨɝɨ ɹɡɵɤɨɜ. Moscow: ɂɡɞɚɬɟɥɶɫɬɜɨ ɥɢɬɟɪɚɬɭɪɵ ɧɚ ɢɧɨɫɬɪɚɧɧɵɣ ɹɡɵɤ. Lado, Robert. 1968. Contrastive linguistics in a mentalistic theory of language learning. In Contrastive Linguistics and Its Pedagogical Implications. Report of the Nineteenth Annual Round Table Meeting on Linguistics and Language Studies (Monograph Series on Languages and Linguistics 21), ed. James E. Alatis, 123-35. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press. Lambert, Wallace E. 1967. Psychological approaches to the study of language. In Foreign Language Teaching: An Anthology, ed. Joseph Michel, 215-50. London: Macmillan. Lee, W. R. 1968. Thoughts on contrastive linguistics in the context of foreign language teaching. In Contrastive Linguistics and Its Pedagogical Implications. Report of the Nineteenth Annual Round Table Meeting on Linguistics and Language Studies (Monograph Series on Languages and Linguistics 21), ed. James E. Alatis, 185-94. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press. Levenston, Elisabeth A. 1971. Over-indulgence and under-representation: aspects of mother tongue interference. In Papers in Contrastive Analysis, ed. Gerhard Nickel, 115-21. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lewis, Michael 1993. The Lexical Approach: The State of ELT and a Way Forward. Hove: Language Teaching Publications. Lightbown, Patsy M. & Nina Spada. 1999. How Languages Are Learned. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Long, Michael H. 1991. Focus on form: A design feature in language teaching methodology. In Foreign Language Research in Cross-

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Cultural Perspectives, ed. Kees de Bot, Ralph B. Ginsberg & Claire Kramsch, 39-52. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Macaro, Ernesto. 1997. Target Language, Collaborative Learning and Autonomy. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Majer, Jan. 2006. Language choice and language alternation in the bilingual community of a foreign language classroom. Paper presented at the XVIIIth International Conference on Foreign/Second Language Acquisition, Szczyrk. Mariani, Luciano. 2004. Learning to learn with the CEF. In Insights from the Common European Framework, ed. Keith Morrow, 32-42. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Martínez-Flor, Alicia and Esther Usó-Juan. 2006. A comprehensive pedagogical framework to develop pragmatics in the foreign language classroom: the 6Rs approach. Applied Language Learning 16: 39-84. Marton, Waldemar. 1972. Pedagogical implications of contrastive studies. Studia Anglica Posnaniensia: An International Review of English Studies 4: 115-25; reprinted in Contrastive Linguistics and the Language Teacher, ed. Jacek Fisiak, 157-70. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1981. Marx, Nicole. 2006. And how do you say that in your L2? Increasing Learner Awareness of L1, L2 and L3. Paper presented at the conference on Multilingualism & Applied Comparative Linguistics, Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Meißner, Franz-Joseph. 1999. Das mentale Lexikon aus der Sicht der Mehrsprachigkeitsdidaktik. Grenzgänge 6: 62-80. Morrow, Keith (ed.). 2004. Insights from the Common European Framework. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Neuner, Gerhard. 2001. Teil 1:2. Didaktisch-methodische Konzeption. Erprobungsfassung. In Mehrsprachigkeit und Tertiärsprachenlernen. Tertiärsprachen lehren und lernen. Beispiel Deutsch nach Englisch. Vorläufige Arbeitsmaterialien, ed. Gerhard Neuner & Britta Hufeisen (in cooperation with Ute Koithan, Anta Kursiša & Nicole Marx). München: ECML and Goethe Institut InterNationes (Erprobungsfassung). Nickel, Gerhard and Karl Heinz Wagner. 1968. Contrastive linguistics and language teaching. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching 6: 233-55. Odlin, Terence. 1989. Language Transfer. Cross-Linguistic Influence in Language Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Orr, John. 1953. Words and Sounds in English and French. Oxford: Blackwell.

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Palmer, Harold E. 1917. The Scientific Study and Teaching of Languages. London: Harrap. Paradowski, Michaá B. 2007. Exploring the L1/L2 Interface. A Study of Polish Advanced EFL Learners. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Institute of English Studies, University of Warsaw. Pratt-Johnson, Yvonne. 2006. Raising learners’ language awareness via L1-L2 comparisons: L2 grammar instruction in L1. paper presented at the conference on Multilingualism & Applied Comparative Linguistics, Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Rawoens, Gudrun. 2006. Bilingual corpora as a research and educational tool in contrastive language studies. Focus on a practical example: the Dutch-Swedish parallel corpus. paper presented at the conference on Multilingualism & Applied Comparative Linguistics, Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Richards, Jack C. 1971. Error analysis and second language strategies. Language Sciences 17: 12-22. Sanders, Carol. 1981. Recent developments in contrastive analysis and their relevance to language teachers. International Review of Applied Linguistics 14: 67-73; reprinted in Contrastive Linguistics and the Language Teacher, ed. Jacek Fisiak, 21-32. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1981. Schachter, Jacquelyn. 1974. An error in error analysis. Language Learning 27: 205-14. Schweers, C. William Jr. 1999. Using L1 in the L2 classroom. Forum 37: 6-9. Selinker; Larry F. 1992. Rediscovering Interlanguage. London: Longman. Singleton, David. Forthcoming. Conceptions of the Second Language Mental Lexicon and approaches to Second Language vocabulary teaching: a historical perspective. Proceedings of the XVII International Conference on Foreign/Second Language Acquisition. Katowice: University of Silesia. Skinner, Burrhus Frederic. 1957. Verbal Behavior. New York: AppletonCentury-Crofts. Sridhar, S. N. 1980. Contrastive analysis, error analysis and interlanguage. In Readings on English as a Second Language, ed. Kenneth Croft, 91119. Cambridge, MA: Winthrop; reprinted in Contrastive Linguistics and the Language Teacher, ed. Jacek Fisiak, 207-42. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1981. Stockwell, Robert P. 1968. Contrastive linguistics and lapsed time. In Contrastive Linguistics and Its Pedagogical Implications. Report of the Nineteenth Annual Round Table Meeting on Linguistics and

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Language Studies (Monograph Series on Languages and Linguistics 21), ed. James E. Alatis, 11-26. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press. Swan, Michael and Bernard Smith (eds.). 2001. Learner English: A Teacher’s Guide to Interference and Other Problems. (2nd ed.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Valtonen, T. 1953. Some notes on syntactical similarities and parallels between English and Finnish. Suomen Englanninkielen Opettajien Yhdistyksen Vuosikirja 1951-52: 88-96. Weinreich, Uriel. 1953. Languages in Contact: Findings and Problems. New York: Linguistic Circle of New York. Williams, Sarah and Björn Hammarberg. 1998. Language switches in L3 production: implications for a polyglot speaking model. Applied Linguistics 19: 295-333. Wode, Henning. 1978. Developmental sequences in naturalistic L2 acquisition. In Second Language Acquisition, ed. Evelyn M. Hatch, 101-17. Rowley, MA: Newbury House.

PART I OPPORTUNITIES FOR INCIDENTAL LANGUAGE LEARNING IN MULTILINGUAL SETTINGS

CHAPTER TWO A FAMILIAR TASK IN AN UNFAMILIAR LANGUAGE: INTERCOMPREHENSION AND VOCABULARY UPTAKE CHRISTIAN OLLIVIER & KATJA PELSMAEKERS

Introduction In numerous recommendations by the Council of Europe, plurilingualism has been promoted as the aim of European language education policies. Within the framework of the Council’s Guide for the Development of Language Education Policies in Europe: From Linguistic Diversity to Plurilingual Education, which describes the processes and conceptual tools needed for the analysis and organisation of language education, a Reference Study entitled Intercomprehension has appeared (Doyé 2005a). Intercomprehension is broadly defined as “a form of communication in which each person uses his or her own language and understands that of the other” and is seen as a promising tool to realise plurilingualism in Europe, and hence also as a complement or even alternative to the common use of a lingua franca (ibid, 7; see also Doyé forthcoming). Since the origin of this concept in the early 1990s, a number of European projects have been set up to study intercomprehension processes between users of genetically related languages. An overview of these has been presented elsewhere (Ollivier [forthcoming]; see also Doyé 2005a). Additional projects, including the Lingua 1 European Awareness and Intercomprehension (EU+I) project1, have been set up for the promotion of intercomprehension beyond related languages, therefore emphasizing the role of paralinguistic and situational factors in the process. The experiment reported in the present chapter was part of an exploratory study within the latter framework. It assesses groups of language users’ abilities to complete a well-defined everyday task in a language which is not closely related to their own and which they have not (yet) learnt. In

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addition, it examines whether and to what extent these groups acquire any L2 vocabulary through carrying out the intercomprehension task. In the following sections we will first briefly describe the EU+I project and its theoretical framework, after which we will discuss the design of our experiment. Then we will present and discuss the results with regard to task-fulfillment and especially the vocabulary retention ensuing from it. We will conclude with a couple of recommendations for the further development and promotion of instruments that foster intercomprehension.

The EU+I project as a framework for the experiment Institutional frame The EU+I project brings together teachers from 14 schools of secondary and higher education in 11 European countries.2 The aim of the project is to contribute to the improvement of language awareness in Europe through the development of a method for teaching intercomprehension skills. This is to be done through both the creation of learning materials and the dissemination of the notion of intercomprehension and its concrete applicability to the daily life of common citizens. In practice, the interactive learning materials have been designed for a DVD format.3 The design of the educational materials has been the responsibility of different thematic focus groups4, which were in turn aided by the findings of a small research group. Coordinated by the first author of this chapter, the research group set up an experiment to test a prototype educational activity (i.e. a task) on groups of participants in four countries. The aim of the experiment was two-fold. On the one hand, we wanted to assess the suitability of the task for promoting intercomprehension. On the other hand, we were interested in any (short-term) language learning effects that might be brought about “incidentally” during participants’ quests for (inter)comprehension.

Theoretical frame Whereas the majority of work done in the area of intercomprehension has up till now focused on multilingual comprehension between closely related languages, the EU+I project places intercomprehension in a broader framework, emphasizing the extra-linguistic interpretative strategies that underlie all human communicative activity (cf. Capucho 2002). The working definition of intercomprehension adopted in the

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project is as follows: “the competence to co-construct meaning in intercultural/interlingual contexts and to make pragmatic use of this in a concrete communicative situation” (Capucho and Oliveira 2005, 14). In other words, intercomprehension is conceived first and foremost as a person’s ability and willingness to give meaning to discourse in concrete interlingual/intercultural communicative situations, even if it is “foreign” to the person interpreting the message and formally unrelated to the code he/she has learnt. Indeed, the working hypothesis is that, in order to interpret a message in an unfamiliar language, people will rely on nonlinguistic elements in the situation which they may (deem to) recognise from familiar communicative situations in their her own language or culture. The project draws on a model of discursive competence that was further developed by Capucho (2002, 60), Capucho and Ollivier (2005) and Pencheva and Shopov (2003) on the basis of work by the Geneva School (see e.g. Roulet and Fillietaz 2002). In this model, a person’s discursive competence and, for our purposes, receptive competence comprises three dimensions: a textual dimension including all the knowledge a language user has about genre and discourse or text structure; a situational dimension that is largely extra-linguistic as it consists of socio-cultural, interactional and pragmatic knowledge, and finally a purely linguistic dimension in the sense of morpho-syntactic, lexical and phonological knowledge. In this model, the three different dimensions of knowledge are built and activated by general cognitive abilities as well as strategic and affective components such as motivation. In case of a knowledge deficit on the level of one of the three knowledge dimensions, sufficient general cognitive, strategic and affective abilities are believed to activate the other two knowledge dimensions, allowing a person to construct some meaning in a particular situation even if the purely linguistic resources are limited. Other authors have proposed slightly different categories of knowledge that can be activated if people approach a “text” in a language they do not know (see e.g. Doyé 2005b for more references). None of the models would claim, of course, that these other levels of knowledge will entirely compensate for the linguistic deficit. Apart from these theoretical considerations, the project is also founded on the observation that in real everyday communicative situations and perhaps the more so in initial multilingual/intercultural contacts, people are predominantly faced with text that does not stand alone. Whereas comprehension studies and intercomprehension projects have often been concerned with relatively long monologic texts, EU+I has focused on text

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that is strongly embedded in other semiotic layers and has therefore based its work on genres such as songs, television news broadcasts, and standardized internet forms. If people are to be made aware of the reservoirs of knowledge they can mobilize to interpret text in a code they are not at all familiar with, the contextual triggers of that knowledge should also be clearly present. In the experiment that we will discuss in the next section, we tried to discover more about how people actually deal with a communicative task that was developed along those lines. Whereas the possibilities and limits of intercomprehension in a particular simple task are in themselves interesting, language users, policy makers and linguists might be especially interested in the additional question whether and how much “language” people learn from doing such a task. Do participants also pick up linguistic information that they might be able to use to their advantage in future? If the answer is affirmative, and doing a simple task in a new and fairly remote target language enables users to remember some language on the way, chances are that over time they might be able to move on to tasks of increasing complexity, involving increasingly advanced linguistic needs. In effect, they would be learning to understand the language significantly better without formal instruction and also by-pass the necessity of one lingua franca. In other words, if intercomprehension is to become, in time, a realistic alternative or complement to the use of a lingua franca, then we should ask ourselves the question if simple realistic tasks designed with the aim of fostering intercomprehension skills have an incidental language learning effect as well. In fact, the long-term success of intercomprehension as a communicative process may to a considerable degree be dependent on its practitioners’ ability to distil knowledge of the given unfamiliar language through repeated encounters with it, so that the target language deficit becomes smaller over time. The question whether people can effectively learn a second language and, more particularly vocabulary, incidentally, i.e. retain new words without deliberate attempts to commit this new information to memory (Hulstijn 2003, 360), has amply been researched empirically, in cognitive psychology as well as in second language acquisition studies. Seminal work in cognitive psychology, for example by Hyde and Jenkins (1973) and Craik and Tulving (1975), has shown that vocabulary retention is better when tasks require participants to process words semantically and at a so-called deep level. In second language acquisition studies, Laufer and Hulstijn (2001) have shown that retention of a new word is dependent upon the degree of involvement, consisting of a motivational component (the need of the learners to find the meaning of the word in order to fulfill

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the task), and a cognitive component (the participant’s search for the word and evaluation of its meaning) in the task. These findings were also relied on for the design of the task we set participants in the below experiment.

The experiment Research questions and method The research questions behind the experiment that was set up with participants in four institutions were the following. Generally, we wanted to know if the participants would be able to complete a predominantly procedural task making receptive use of a language that was not closely related to their native language or which they had not learnt. Secondly, we wanted to know what the particular difficulties would be for the completion of this task. Of particular interest here is the relative importance of linguistic elements versus other elements in the task. Finally, we wanted to measure whether completing the task would have any (short-term) language learning effects. More specifically, we wanted to know to what extent the participants would retain (the meaning of) any new words from the foreign language input. In order to find answers to these questions, an experiment was devised in which each group of participants of a particular linguistic background would have to carry out an identical task in a target language that was chosen deliberately because it was unfamiliar to the participants. The task we designed consisted in booking hotel rooms via the internet. Prior to carrying out the actual task participants were asked a set of questions about their experience with internet booking forms and their knowledge of languages. After carrying out the actual task, participants were asked to assess the difficulty of the task and to explain what they thought made it difficult or easy. Finally, an unannounced post-test was administered with a view to finding out what new lexical information the participants could remember as a side-effect of carrying out the task.

Task description The task (which was a product of one of the thematic work groups in the EU+I project) that we asked participants to perform in the experiment was to make an on-line reservation for a single and a double hotel room for a fictional character named Mrs Mary Smith and her two children, for a precise set of dates. The information provided for this character included first and last names, telephone number, place of residence, dates of arrival

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and departure and e-mail address. The on-line reservation was to be made on web pages designed by the Sprachenzentrum at the University of Salzburg to look like real (albeit somewhat simplified) on-line hotel booking forms. This hotel booking task seemed a good choice for several reasons. One reason is the assumed familiarity the project target groups (i.e. mostly an adult, general public) have with this activity, irrespective of their geographical or linguistic backgrounds. On-line reservation forms are a common phenomenon in almost all European countries, while they are also rather similar, wherever they appear. Another reason is that linguistic knowledge is clearly only one part of the knowledge that people activate when filling in these forms. Other types of knowledge (derived from experience or simply commonsensical) are likely to facilitate completion of the task. Another set of reasons is more affective: the task is authentic and likely to be associated with positive experience in real life, such as holidays and leisure. These characteristics might well cater for a desirable involvement component of the task (Laufer and Hulstijn 2001, see also supra), and encourage project target groups to try out the activity. Finally, the fact that the task was carried out on-line was advantageous in terms of its dissemination: a large number of people could be asked to participate. Although the task itself was thus not purpose-designed for the experiment reported here, using it in the experiment allowed us to test its workability for different linguistic groups, and simultaneously provide empirical evidence for the possibilities and limits of intercomprehension in situations where the languages involved are not immediately related. Moreover, it enabled us to find out whether completing the task would lead participants in the experiment to remember some of the new words they were presented with during the completion of the task.

Participants Four different groups participated in the experiment. The first was a group of students who did the experiment in a target language related to a foreign language they had learnt, henceforth called the LRF group. The group consisted of 40 Dutch-speaking Belgian students at the University of Antwerp who had been learning French for a fair number of years, but who worked with Portuguese as a target language in the experiment. The second is a group of students who did the experiment in a language not related to any foreign language they had learnt, henceforth called the LNR group. This was a group of 22 German-speaking Austrian students from

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the University of Salzburg who were confronted with Turkish in the experiment. The remaining two groups were control groups. One group of 19 German-speaking Austrian students (henceforth called the LM group) from the University of Salzburg completed the hotel booking form in their mother tongue. Another control group consisted of 15 German-speaking Austrian students, also long-time learners of French, who did not participate in the hotel booking activity itself, but who provided control data for the vocabulary retention post-test. They are called the LC group5. An overview of the different groups and their part in the experiment is given in table 1.

Procedure The experiment was conducted after the materials had been piloted with the help of various people from the institutions participating in the EU+I project, who ensured that the hotel booking forms were adequate in the various target languages used in the experiment. Software was installed to record and process the data provided by the participants working on-line from the two locations. The experiment itself took place in various episodes from March 2005 to January 2006. The data were collected and processed statistically by means of SPSS at the Language Centre of the University of Salzburg6. The experiment itself involved one session of one-line work in four different steps for the participants of the LNR and LRF groups. First, data were collected on the participants themselves, most notably what their mother tongue was, which other languages they had learnt, their age, familiarity with internet use, and previous experience with on-line bookings. Then the participants filled in the on-line hotel booking form in the respective target languages and sent it. In a third step we asked them how certain or confident they were about the effectiveness of their answers and how difficult they thought the task had been and why. Finally, the LNR and LRF groups were presented with a list of 10 target language words that had occurred in the booking form and were asked for a translation, i.e. a rendering of what the words mean. The control groups participated in only some of the steps. The LM group did the booking task, but was not involved in the vocabulary post-test. The LC control group, on the other hand, did not complete the booking form, but was presented with the same vocabulary post-test as the LRF group.

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Table 1: participant groups and their role in the experiment Group

LNR (n=22) LRF (n=40) LM (n=19) LC (n=15)

Geographical and institutional background

Linguistic background

Austria, University of Salzburg

Germanspeaking, learners of French Dutchspeaking, learners of French Germanspeaking

Belgium, University of Antwerp Austria, University of Salzburg Austria, University of Salzburg

Target

Role in the experiment

language

Germanspeaking, learners of French

Turkish

Portuguese

German post-test in Portuguese

task-completion, intercomprehension & vocabulary retention task-completion, intercomprehension & vocabulary retention task-completion & intercomprehension control group vocabulary retention control group

As Hulstijn (2003) remarks, the results of vocabulary-learning experiments whose design includes immediate but no delayed post-tests often meet with scepticism. But in Hulstijn’s view, an immediate post-test enables the researcher at least to measure the effect of cognitive processes during the learning session. Long-term retention would in any case almost always require frequent exposure or frequent rehearsal, anyhow, so that research on vocabulary learning during a learning session in which words are presented for the first time, “requires only an immediate post-test. Inclusion of a delayed post-tests would make no sense” (ibid, 372). The first set of data we obtained through the experiment relate to the relative success with which the task was completed. The software we used recorded whether or not the answers in the forms were corrected by the participants, how long it took participants to successfully finish the task (i.e. to correctly fill in a necessary minimum of information comprising name, email address, rooms needed and arrival and departure dates), which path they followed to complete the form and how long intermediary stages took. In connection with the vocabulary post-test, we logged whether participants filled in a translation, and if they did, whether the proposed translation was adequate.

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Results Task completion The quantitative results of the relative success with which participants completed the intercomprehension task are discussed in detail elsewhere (see, e.g. Ollivier forthcoming). Here we will just mention the highlights. Unsurprisingly, the task was completed more successfully when the target language was related to rather than distant from the participants’ mother tongue. Of the LRF group, i.e. the Dutch speakers with target language Portuguese, no fewer than 83 % of the participants managed to finish the task by filling in the required minimum of data in the correct slots. For the LNR group, i.e. German speakers with target language Turkish, the overall success rate was more moderate, at 59%. The former group evidently benefited from more linguistic recognition. The more distant the target language appeared from their mother tongue, the less confident participants also tended to be, resulting in three people in the LNR group giving up entirely. In addition, the time needed to complete the task tended to be longer if the target language was distant from the participants’ mother tongue, although it appeared from the LNR participants’ feedback that some parts of the task were relatively easy thanks to the presence of Turkish words that were cognates to German speakers: Adres ‘address’, Telefon ‘telephone’, E-mail. Crucially for the purposes of our study, however, the lack of linguistic knowledge was often compensated for by the participants’ familiarity with the text type and their commonsensical analysis of the communicative situation. For some of the items, the format (e.g. a pull-down menu for the ‘country’ slot) and the sequence of the slots (the arrival dates first and the departure dates second) were apparently easy indications of what kind of information was wanted. As a result, for the ‘dates’ slots, for instance, there was no significant difference between the LNR, LRF and LM groups. The Austrian students working in Turkish also mentioned sequence for the ‘first name’ and ‘last name’ slots and format as important factors in their interpretation of the form. Overall, the results thus suggest that intercomprehension beyond next-of-kin languages, and even beyond language-family boundaries, is not a utopian objective, at least as long as there is enough extra-linguistic common ground. This is of course not to say that it is obtained without any difficulty. As already mentioned, three participants in the LNR group gave up entirely, and many others reported having experienced difficulties in completing slots asking for the number of ‘adults’ and ‘children’, while many others found it difficult to distinguish the slots for ‘first name’ and ‘last name’, which may have been

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due to a cultural difference: in Turkish the last name comes first. The group also had problems indicating the correct kind of rooms that were needed.

Vocabulary retention In the fourth step of the experiment, the participants were given ten words in the target language that had featured in the hotel room booking activity two steps earlier. The participants were asked to render these words in their own language, i.e. we tested their receptive knowledge (comprehension) of the words (rather than retention of lexical form). The words were presented in a list, in random order, i.e. different from the order in which they occurred in the form and not in alphabetical order either. We considered the translations adequate if they conveyed one of the possible meanings of the word, even if the meaning of the word was not quite the same as it was used in the booking form. This was done to facilitate comparisons with the results of the control group. The first fact that emerges from the overall results is that for the vocabulary retention test, the LRF group did much better again than the LNR group, but only slightly better than the LC group. Indeed, when we look at the overall figures, we get a highly significant difference between the proportion of correct answers provided by the LRF group and the LNR group, who often failed to give translations altogether. Between the overall scores of the LRF group and those of its control group (LC), there is little difference. Recall that the control group was tested on its recognition of the Portuguese words without having done the hotel booking activity. By subjecting a group of German-speaking learners of French (LC) comparable to the Dutch-speaking LRF group, also learners of French, to the same post-test without them having completed the task, we hoped to find out more about the real effects of the task on the retention of vocabulary. The overall figures for the three groups are shown in table 2.

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Table 2: overall results in the vocabulary test Overall Overall correct incorrect answers in answers in % % LRF group (target 63 14.3 language Portuguese) LNR group (target 5.5 12.3 language Turkish) LC group (control 57.5 23.3 group Portuguese)

31

Overall blanks in % 22.8 82.3 19.2

Generally speaking, then, it would seem that carrying out the task itself did not have a significant influence on the retention of vocabulary for the LRF group. Shared preliminary knowledge of a closely related language (in this case, French) might explain the similar scores by the LRF and LC groups. However, if we look at the scores for individual words, a different picture emerges. Table 3 shows the ten words in English, French, Portuguese and Turkish, and the scores of adequate renderings for the individual words. As mentioned above, the vocabulary scores for the LNR group are pretty poor. In fact, for most words the participants did not even offer any interpretation. However, for the LRF group’s scores we can discern different patterns depending on the type of word concerned. On the one hand, there is a group of Portuguese words that is likely to be transparent for Dutchspeaking learners of French. These are ano ‘year’, dia ‘day’, data ‘date’, nome ‘name’, and número ‘number’, and these were all rendered correctly by at least two thirds of the group. When the LRF results for this set of “transparent” words are compared to those of the LC control group, few differences emerge (see table 3), as the LC group predictably scored well for ano, dia, data, nome and número in a similar way. We may hypothesise that the LRF group would have been able to adequately guess the meaning of these words also without doing the task. In other words, we cannot be sure if the scores on these items are actually due to retention from the task, or rather to associations with known forms, including forms in French and English, the two foreign languages that the LRF and LC groups had comparable levels of proficiency in. Another set of words, by contrast, such as pessoas ‘persons’, mês ‘month’, and enviar ‘send’, are likely to be only mildly transparent for learners of French, and Chegada ‘arrival’ is not likely to be transparent at

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all. It would be difficult (if not impossible) for the LRF participants to accurately guess the meaning of these words “out of the blue”. Interestingly, for these items the scores for the LRF group were superior to those of the LC control group (see table 3). This finding suggests that participants in the LRF group did retain vocabulary from doing the task. Table 3: adequate rendering of individual items in the vocabulary test French (FL for all groups)

Arrival year send number persons day date rooms month name

arrive année envoyer nombre personnes Jour Date chambres Mois Nom

Portuguese (LRF target language)

Portuguese (LC control group)

Turkish (LNR target language)

Items

correct

correct

correct

items

chegada Ano Enviar número pessoas Dia Data quartos Mês Nome

% 15 90 70 100 32.5 67.5 87.5 32.5 35 100

% 4.2 95.8 33.3 100 12.5 75 75 8.3 70.8 100

% 0.0 0.0 31.8 0.0 0.0 4.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 18.2

Geliú Yil Gönder Sayisi Kiúi Gün Tarihi Oda Ay Soyadi

What the above results suggest is that the participants who carried out the hotel booking task did retain at least some vocabulary from doing so. On the one hand, the task in which the vocabulary items occurred was heavily procedural, i.e. it relied on many other than purely linguistic skills. It was not necessary for the participant to actively process or even notice the vocabulary items included in the booking form. For the LNR group, the divergence between the overall task completion rate (59%) and the overall vocabulary retention rate (5.5%) makes this abundantly clear. For the LRF group, the difference is less spectacular (83% for task completion vs. 63% for vocabulary), but, as we mentioned above, comparisons with the LC group suggest that the better scores on the vocabulary test cannot entirely be attributed to the intercomprenension task. It was to be expected that words placed in functionally less vital spots on the form would be retained least. In the LRF group the word chegada ‘arrival’ is a case in point. It is crucial in the sense that it heads a slot that had to be filled in correctly in order for the task to be completed successfully. However, its placement as a modifier in a phrase with a

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transparent word, data de chegada ‘date of arrival’ right above data de partida ‘date of departure’, in a similar format, heading a pull down menu where numbers had to be clicked, ensured that the function of the slot in the context of a hotel booking form was clear and did not necessitate noticing (let alone deep processing) of the word itself. Of the less transparent words, it is indeed the least retained. Still, the higher score in the LRF group compared to the LC control group does point to some effect of the task. In addition to the fact that words sometimes do not really need to be processed deeply for the task to be completed and are thus likely to be overlooked, there is another factor that clearly reduced the chances of some words being interpreted correctly in the vocabulary test. Participants were sometimes misled by the form of the word and their knowledge of similar forms in other languages. For the LRF group a case in point was quartos ‘rooms’. Quartos is an example of a word perhaps easily bypassed because it was functionally less important in the form as the more specific labels individuais ‘single’, duplos ‘double’, triplos ‘triple’ and suites ‘suite’ appeared in the vicinity of the slots where numbers had to be filled in. Most participants ventured a translation, indicating some confidence, but most of them were mistaken. Interestingly, the mistaken renderings nearly all mentioned ‘four’, ‘one fourth’, or ‘a quarter’, which is most probably due to formal similarities with French quart, quatre or English quarter. Participants were evidently not reminded of the slightly obsolete Dutch kwartier, ‘quarters’, which approaches the meaning of quartos. Presumably the more prominent meaning of Dutch kwartier, ‘quarter of an hour’, resonated with similar French and English meanings. This example suggests that if words are not processed actively enough, the preliminary knowledge of related forms and prominent other meanings may block the path to the activation of less prominent meanings that are pragmatically more likely. And yet, in spite of these obstacles, for quartos the LRF group scored much better (32.5%) than the LC control group (8.3%). This again points to an effect of the task on (short-term) vocabulary retention. Conversely, the vocabulary test results also positively suggest that the effect of the task is greater if the word in question occupies a functionally more prominent place, inviting more active, deeper processing. The cases of gönder ‘send’ for the LNR group and enviar ‘send’ for the LRF group illustrate this nicely. For the LNR group, gönder was the only word that was retained by as many as about a third of the participants. The word gönder was placed in relative isolation from the rest of the text on the booking form, on a button near the bottom of the web page. There was just

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one other button, carrying the Turkish equivalent of ‘erase’. Presumably, the participants had to study the buttons and decide which one to click in order to finish the task. Their knowledge of web forms (which they had also indicated in the questionnaire preceding the task) would have made it clear that there was a risk of losing the data they had entered if they clicked the wrong button. If they clicked the right word they would finish the task successfully and get immediate confirmation of their hypothesis about the meaning of the chosen word. For the LRF group, who were working in a similar format with a different target language, enviar was rendered correctly by more than two thirds of the participants, and, while acknowledging it is somewhat transparent for people who know the French envoyer, the fact remains that the LRF group did far better on the vocabulary test than the LC control group, where only a third of the group recognised the word. In addition to functional prominence inviting linguistic processing, familiarity with the form of the word also seems to contribute to a better retention. Negatively this is illustrated by the fact that for the LNR group, with target language Turkish, there was hardly any retention apart from three items one of which was gönder. Even then formal similarities led to a mistaken rendering of the word as ‘gender’. Word-form familiarity emerged positively from the results for the LRF group as shown in the differential retention rates of pessoas (32%) and mês (35%) versus that of chegada ‘arrival’(15%). While none of the three words is functionally very prominent in the booking form, the first two bear more formal similarity to their French (or even English) equivalents personnes ‘persons’ and mois ‘month’. For chegada, again, the mistaken renderings were interesting. One person found a nice combination of form and meaning similarity in inchecken ‘to check in’. For another participant, the form was reminiscent of Dutch cheque ‘cheque’, even though means of payment were not part of the data to be filled in. Nevertheless, ‘check’ as a means of payment is a “possible” element in the frame of hotel booking forms. Even though plenty of participants missed out on the linguistic details of the reservation form, the general frame of the preceding hotel booking seems to have informed participants in their search for meaning in the face of what they thought was a vaguely familiar word form. Very often, the word form of the translation also bore similarity to the target word. This may further be illustrated as follows. Three people from the LRF group thought chegada meant kind or kinderen ‘children’. Apart from some similarity with the English word, the actual Portuguese word for children on the form, crianças, was the only other word starting with “c”. As the

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assignment brief also mentioned 2 children, the combination proved irresistible for some participants. Similarly, pessoas ‘persons’, generated e.g. Dutch plaatsen ‘places’, another possible element in the hotel context, even though it is actually a mistake. Other erroneous guesses were passeren ‘to pass (by)’and peso’s ‘pesos’, which are admittedly more imaginative, but not completely unrelated to the context, and also related in form. In sum, what emerges from the analysis is that if the extra-linguistic elements are very important in a task and if the familiarity with the language is very restricted, the effects of the task on vocabulary retention is low, even if the success rates for the task itself are high. Conversely, if the lexical items in the task necessitate active linguistic processing and the user is pretty confident as to what function the item could serve in the given context, the retention rates are much higher. Moreover, it appears that even vague form similarities between known lexical items and target items greatly encourage interpretation and often also retention. Even though participants do not always remember exactly how words function in the task they completed, they seem to be actively looking for formal similarities with words they know and they often seem to hypothesize a conceptual likeness to be associated with what they perceive as a formal similarity.

Conclusions and perspectives Let us now return to the research questions we set out at the beginning. With regard to the question of intercomprehension, it seems that, provided a communication task relies to a large extent on skills that are not purely linguistic but that draw on textual, situational and socio-cultural common ground, intercomprehension is indeed possible even beyond familiar languages and even if the target language (e.g. Turkish) is quite remote from a person’s mother tongue (e.g. German). In our experiment, nearly two thirds of the German-speaking Austrians who were asked to book a hotel room in Turkish succeeded in doing so. For Dutch-speaking Belgians doing the same in Portuguese, the success rate was over 80%. The kind of activity that the participants in our experiment engaged in may well encourage learners to extend and activate their textual, situational and general socio-cultural skills, and may help them acquire awareness of what Europeans (and people beyond Europe) have in common in their daily practices. In this way they might realize that it is not entirely utopian to be able to fulfill certain communicative tasks in an

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intercultural context without having to formally train either in a particular foreign language or in a lingua franca (e.g. English). On the other hand, it must be acknowledged that many participants in our experiment did feel daunted by the task because they felt that absence of familiarity with the target language was a serious obstacle. Unsurprisingly, scepticism about the feasibility of the task was strongest in participants who were asked to work in a language that was distant from any of the languages they were familiar with. With regard to the question of incidental vocabulary retention ensuing from the intercomprehension task, it turned out that even though the task was primarily procedural, there does seem to be a vocabulary learning effect, at least in the short term and as far as receptive knowledge (retention of meaning) is concerned. The best retention effects were observed for lexical items that were functionally important in the communicative task, i.e. words that absolutely needed to be understood in order for the participant to progress within the task. This is convergent with the literature on incidental language learning. Better post-test results were also obtained for lexical items which are similar in form and meaning to known lexical items in the mother tongue or in another familiar language. Apart from the cognate effect, there may also be a strong motivational component here. People have been shown to be more willing to venture interpretations if they think they can recognise something in the linguistic form (cf. the number of blanks for Turkish vs. those for Portuguese items). The downside of this is that items formally very similar to known items but with a different meaning (so-called “false friends”) are likely to be misunderstood, especially if a correct interpretation of them is not functionally crucial in the task at hand. The pedagogical implications seem to be the following. If we are to promote intercomprehension, we have to ensure growing learner confidence and recognition, which are important factors for progress. Adopting the view that intercomprehension involving languages that are not closely related is best seen as a learning process, we should move on from awareness of cultural and situational common ground and whatever linguistic common ground we can find to gradually increase awareness of linguistic particulars. A gradual move from the more situational to the more linguistic will necessitate repetition, since “long-term retention of new vocabulary normally requires frequent exposures or rehearsal, regardless of the conditions under which new words have initially been encountered” (Hulstijn 2003, 367). More linguistic knowledge should also generate more time efficiency, which is likely to be a requirement if

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intercomprehension is to become a viable alternative or complement to the use of a lingua franca. Target vocabulary items that are most suitable to be presented initially are ideally crucial to the completion of the task, so that deep-processing increases the likelihood of retention. In addition a formal and functional relationship to other items known from the mother tongue or other languages learnt is likely to be helpful cognitively and motivationally. Intercomprehension beyond closely related languages may therefore have the best chance of success if it is first of all encouraged in special interest areas, where experiential common ground is often accompanied by cognate terminology or so-called international vocabulary. A move towards more general areas of experience and communication forms might follow from there, and would require further familiarisation not only with target vocabulary, but also grammar and phonology. A supply of carefully graded tasks and feedback to the learner should help them on their way. On a policy note, it would seem very important that people still formally learn at least a second language, and preferably a European language that is not too closely related to their own. In this way, learners might be able to activate a wider area of previously acquired linguistic knowledge and be more willing to make informed hypotheses about the meaning of language use in multilingual situations.

Notes 1.

2.

3.

The European Commission’s Lingua 1 Action is set up to raise citizens’ awareness of the Union’s multilingual wealth, encourage people to learn languages throughout their lifetime, and improve access to foreign language learning resources across Europe. (http://ec.europa.eu/education/programmes/socrates/lingua/lingua1_en.html) Moreover, it is meant to develop and disseminate innovative techniques and good practices in language teaching. The EU+I project is co-ordinated by Dr. Filomena Capucho of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa at Viseu (Project number:110023-CP-1-2003-1-PT-LINGUA-L1). The partners are Universidade Católica Portuguesa at Viseu, Universität Salzburg, University of Antwerp, Sofia University, IES Vaguada de la Palma (Salamanca), BTS Audiovisuel du Lycée René Cassin (Biarritz), Université de Paris 3 & Télé 3, University of Athens, Giovanni Falcone secondary school (Parlermo), University of Palermo, College of Higher Education Viseu, University of Kalmar, Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart Üniversitesi, University of Strathclyde (Glasgow). The “themes” these groups work on are both experiential (e.g. hotel reservations, news broadcasts, weather report) and related to common communication channels (e.g. PCs and internet, TV, newspapers).

38 4.

5. 6. 7. 8.

Chapter Two The EU+I project has been able to build on the work of previous projects such as EuRom4, EuroCom (e.g. Klein & Stegmann 2001), Galatea and Galanet (see Degache 2003), and the results of work on inferencing by Castagne (2004) and Bougé and Cailliès (2004). The proficiency in French of both the LRF and LC groups was at approximately level B2 in the Common European Framework of Reference. Thanks are due to dr. Margareta Strasser of Universität Salzburg. For the task-completion data, Kolmogorow-Smirnoff and Mann Whitney tests were used. For the vocabulary retention data, means were compared. The experiment web pages used by the Antwerp participants are available at http://www.Sprachenzentrum.com./eui/nl_pt This would also apply to the item número, another word that was not very prominent in the hotel booking form. Whereas número in Portuguese can mean both ‘cardinal number’ and ‘quantity, amount’, in the form it was clearly used in the meaning of ‘quantity’. In the post-test, however, most participants (95 %) translated it as Dutch nummer which does not have a ‘quantity’ meaning. Only 5 % of the participants translated it correctly as aantal.

References Bougé, Patrick and Stéphanie Cailliès. 2004. Compréhension de textes inter-langues et activité inférentielle: approche psychologique. In Intercompréhension et inférences, ed. Eric Castagne, 77-90. Reims: Presses Universitaires de Reims. Capucho, Filomena. 2002. Morangos (fraises, fragile, fresas, strawberries, Erdbeeren) com ou sem chantilly? De la notion d’intercompréhension à l’apprentissage du vocabulaire. In Lernerlexikographie und Wortschatzerwerb im Fremdsprachenunterricht, ed. Christian Ollivier and Bernhard Pöll, 57-70. Wien: Präsenz. Capucho, Filomena and Ana Maria Oliveira. 2005. EU&I – On the Notion of Intercomprehension. In Building Bridges: European Awareness and Intercomprehension, ed. Adriana Martins, 11-18. Viseu: Universidade Católica Portuguesa Centro Regional de las Beiras. Castagne, Eric. 2004. Inférences sémantiques et construction de la compréhension en langues étrangères européennes. In Intercompréhension et inférences, ed. Eric Castagne, 91-116. Reims: Presses Universitaires de Reims. Craik, Fergus I.M. and E. Tulving. 1975. Depth of processing and the retention of words in episodic memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 104: 268-294. Degache, Christian, ed. 2003. Intercompréhension en langues romanes: du développement des compétences de compréhension aux interactions

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plurilingues, de Galatea à Galanet. LIDIL 8. Université Stendhal, Grenoble III: LIDILEM. Doyé, Peter. 2005a. Intercomprehension (Guide for the Development of language education policies in Europe: from linguistic diversity to plurilingual education. Reference Study). Strasbourg: Council of Europe. —. 2005b. Towards a Methodology for the Promotion of Intercomprehension. In Building Bridges: European Awareness and Intercomprehension, ed. Adriana Martins, 23-36. Viseu: Universidade Católica Portuguesa Centro Regional de las Beiras. —. Forthcoming. Der Faktor Sprachverwandtschaft in der Interkomprehension. In Aktuelle Tendenzen in der romanistischen Didaktik, eds. Beatriz Gómez-Pablos & Christian Ollivier. Hamburg: Verlag Dr. Kovaþ. Hulstijn, Jan H. 2003. Incidental and Intentional Learning. In The Handbook of Second Language Acquisition, ed. C. Doughty & M. Long, 349-381. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Hyde, T.S. and J.J. Jenkins. 1973. Recall for words as a function of semantic, graphic and syntactic orienting tasks. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behaviour 12: 471-480. Klein, Horst G. and T.D. Stegmann. 2001. EuroComRom – Die sieben Siebe. Romanische Sprachen sofort lesen können. Aachen: Editiones EuroCom. Laufer, Batia and Jan Hulstijn. 2001. Incidental vocabulary acquisition in a second language: the construct of Task-Induced Involvement. Applied Linguistics 22: 1-26. Martins, Adriana, ed. 2005. Building Bridges: European Awareness and Intercomprehension Viseu: Universidade Católica Portuguesa Centro Regional de las Beiras. Ollivier, Christian. Forthcoming. L’accomplissement d’une tâche en contexte linguistique “inconnu”. La part du linguistique et de l’extralinguistique en intercompréhension. In Actes du Colloque ACEDLE 2005, Recherches en didactique des langues, 16-18 juin 2005, ed. Dominique Macaire. Pencheva, Maya and Todor Shopov. 2003. Understanding Babel: An Essay in Intercomprehension analysis. Sofia: St Kliment Ohridski University Press. Roulet, Eddy and Laurent Fillietaz. 2002. The Geneva Model of Discourse Analysis, An interactionist and modular approach to discourse organization, Discourse Studies 4: 369-393.

CHAPTER THREE NEGOTIATED INTERACTION IN A STUDY ABROAD CONTEXT: GAUGING THE OPPORTUNITIES FOR INTERLANGUAGE DEVELOPEMENT MARISOL FERNÁNDEZ GARCÍA & ASUNCIÓN MARTÍNEZ ARBELAIZ

Introduction According to various recent strands of the Interaction Hypothesis (Gass 1997; Long 1996; Pica 1994), second language (L2) acquisition is promoted by kinds of interactions that help learners comprehend the input they are exposed to and that, additionally, confront them with gaps or deficiencies in their interlanguage. Opportunities for the latter arise, for example, when learners do not understand all of their interlocutors’ input or when learners try to say something for which they still lack the linguistic means. In either case, the interlocutors may engage in so-called ‘negotiation of meaning’ or ‘negotiated interaction’. In the past few decades a wide range of studies have explored how improvements in learners’ L2 production as well as comprehension may come about through negotiated interactions. They include investigations into the role of interactions between child and adult learners with native speakers (NSs) or with other non-native speakers (NNSs) (Varonis and Gass 1985; Pica 1988, 1992, 1994; Oliver 1995, 2000; Polio and Gass 1998; Porter 1986; Mackey, Oliver and Leeman 2003), in the process of carrying out diverse types of tasks (Gass and Varonis 1985; Pica, Kanagy and Falodun 1993; Skehan and Foster 1997, 1999), and in various settings, i.e., in laboratory, classroom and naturalistic settings (Gass, Mackey and Ross-Feldman 2005; Sheen 2004). In the present study, we shall examine negotiated interactions in yet another, quasi-naturalistic, setting, namely

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the interactions in NS-NNS dyads created for extra-classroom practice in a study abroad context. A considerable number of studies have looked first and foremost into the role that negotiated interaction plays in facilitating comprehension. It is commonly accepted in the second language acquisition (SLA) field that, albeit insufficient, exposure to comprehensible input is a necessary condition for acquisition to take place. The early versions of the Interaction Hypothesis (Krashen 1985; Long 1983a, 1983b) actually postulated that comprehensible input was the driving force behind the acquisition process. It was claimed that learners need to understand the meaning of messages before they can internalize any new L2 forms and structures that are used to convey those messages. It is therefore not surprising that a lot of early interaction research examined how negotiation of meaning helped learners to comprehend input (e.g. Gass and Varonis 1984, 1985; Hatch 1978; Long 1983a, 1983b; Pica 1985, 1988, 1992; Pica et al. 1989; Pica, Young and Doughty 1987; Varonis and Gass 1985). For example, Pica, Young and Doughty (1987) compared the effectiveness of unmodified input, pre-modified input (i.e. input that had been simplified and supplemented with redundancies), and interactionally modified input (i.e. the participants listened to unmodified instructions but were given the opportunity to seek clarification from their interlocutors). The results showed that input modified through interaction was the one that resulted in the highest levels of comprehension. If it is true that comprehensible input is a prerequisite for acquisition, and if interactional modifications facilitate comprehension, then it follows that such interactional modifications generally must at least provide good opportunities for acquisition to take place. Recent research has examined aspects of negotiated interaction that may indeed lead to improvements in learners’ subsequent L2 production, i.e., aspects that may help learners push their interlanguage towards native-speaker norms. For example, Gass and Varonis (1994) reported that interactionally modified input was more effective than premodified input not just for learners’ comprehension but also for their subsequent L2 production. Recasts (i.e. the corrected repetition of one’s interlocutor’s ill-formed utterances) have also been found to promote interlanguage development (e.g. Iwashita 2003; Leeman 2003; Long, Inagaki and Ortega 1998; Mackey 1999; Mackey and Philip 1998). Pica (1992) found that interactional adjustments facilitated comprehension precisely by making certain features of the input more salient, which in turn increases the likelihood of noticing (Schmidt 1995; Sharwood Smith 1993). In other words, Pica noted that through negotiated interaction not only was input made comprehensible but learners were also

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offered L2 structural and semantic information. The scope of investigation of the Interaction Hypothesis was thus broadened from its role in promoting comprehension to its role in making L2 data available for learning, for example, by segmenting L2 units and highlighting relationships among them. Moreover, in her review of second language interactional research, Pica (1994, 493) suggests that it is through the negotiation of meaning that interlocutors engage in interactional modifications that facilitate “learners’ comprehension and structural segmentation of L2 input, access to lexical form and meaning, and production of modified output”. Evidently, Pica’s suggestion that through participation in negotiated interaction learners are presented with opportunities for noticing ‘form’ is perfectly compatible with the growing conviction within the SLA field that comprehensible input alone is not sufficient for acquisition to proceed. While previous SLA thinking seemed to hold that comprehension was a necessary and sufficient condition for acquisition to occur (e.g. Krashen 1980, 1985), subsequently a crucial role in SLA was posited for learners’ awareness of and attention to linguistic form (e.g. Long 1990; Schmidt 1995; Sharwood Smith 1987). White (1987, 95) actually states that “the driving force for grammar change is that input is incomprehensible, rather than comprehensible […]”. In other words, failure to understand the input may force the learner to pay closer attention to its morpho-syntactic and semantic properties. Also Pica (1994, 507-8) suggests that “learners’ comprehension of meaning can be the result of their access to L2 form rather than its precursor”. That is, learners are able to process the message and to comprehend its meaning because they are provided with opportunities to notice forms while they hear a message repeated, segmented, and reworded during negotiation. Long (1996, 451), quoting Braidi (1992), adds that both comprehensibility and complexity are necessary for acquisition. Crucially, when comprehensibility is achieved by interactional modifications, the input remains relatively complex and thus it gives learners the opportunity to notice new target forms. By contrast, linguistic modifications that simplify the input without interaction (as in premodified input) make the input comprehensible precisely by reducing its level of complexity and thus the likelihood of confronting the learner with unfamiliar target forms. In other words, the advantage of linguistic modifications made through negotiation of meaning is that they not only make input comprehensible, but they make complex input comprehensible. Summing up so far, the literature reviewed above suggests that through negotiated interactions non-native speakers can be provided with

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opportunities to obtain input that could serve their needs not only for comprehension but also for interlanguage development. The question remains, however, how often and in what ways these opportunities for interlanguage development actually present themselves in interactions between native speakers and L2 learners. In this chapter we report a descriptive study the aim of which was to find preliminary answers to that question in connection with one particular setting, namely a study-abroad context in which visiting students were paired up with native-speaker students of the host university. From different research paradigms and cultural contexts, a number of studies have shown that the study abroad or the residence abroad experience enhances second language proficiency. Fluency (Freed 1995; Segalowitz and Freed 2004), repertoire of conversational tools (Lafford 1995), vocabulary (Milton and Meara 1995), and particular grammatical features, such as the Spanish subjunctive (Isabelli and Nishida 2005), have been reported to improve as a consequence of daily contacts with the target language that the study abroad experience entails. Presumably, when learners are immersed in the target language, they can benefit from a very rich linguistic environment. The study abroad context offers learners a variety of opportunities to interact with NSs of the language, something that is not readily available when learners study a foreign language at school in their home country. And yet, not much research has examined the precise nature of second language learners’ out-of-class exchanges with NSs in the study abroad context. In the present study, we examine how and to what extent learners’ interactions with NSs (of the same age group) provide opportunities for learners to enhance their comprehension processes, and to obtain modified input that addresses their needs for interlanguage development.

Research questions The following questions were addressed in this study: x How often (if at all) and in what ways do NNSs indicate that they do not understand (parts of) their NS interlocutor’s input? x What types of responses (if any) to these indicators do NS interlocutors provide? x How effective are NSs’ responses in solving the NNSs’ comprehension problems? x How effective are NSs’ responses in providing linguistic material that presents the NNSs with an opportunity for noticing (and possibly acquiring) new linguistic elements?

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Method Participants Eight learners of Spanish and eight NSs of Spanish participated in this study. All learners had English as their L1. They came from different North American universities, and were spending a semester abroad in San Sebastián, in the Basque Country, Spain. They all were enrolled in thirdor fourth-year Spanish language and culture courses for foreigners at the University of the Basque Country, but they did not take regular classes with Spanish students. The NSs were Spanish students at the University of the Basque Country who volunteered to establish a language exchange with the North American students. The North American students who expressed an interest in meeting people of their age and practise the language were randomly given the phone number of one of the NSs. At the orientation meeting that the study abroad students attend during their first day in town, the importance of developing relationships outside their group of North American friends is emphasized. In addition, in the language courses they take, instructors stress the advantages of getting together with students their age to practise the target language in informal environments outside the classroom. Still, it is up to the North American students to go to the Study Abroad Office, ask for an exchange partner, make the phone call, and get together with the Spanish peer periodically. Although the format of the language exchange sessions is not preestablished by the staff in the Study Abroad Office, it is recommended that the dyads practise Spanish and English in alternate days, so that both languages are practised equally often, but there is no standard way of organizing the exchanges. The dyads that participated in this study had been getting together for a month approximately, which meant that they knew each other fairly well. It is usually the case that the dyads meet once or twice but rather soon their interest starts to fade away and they drop the whole enterprise. The out-of-class purely voluntary nature of the exchange gives the learners the opportunity for an easy way out. If they do not have a high motivation they simply discontinue the experience. Thus, an affective engagement with the person they periodically meet is crucial for the continuation of the experience. The fact that these dyads had continued with the experience for a month implies that they felt quite comfortable getting together, and that they had been successful in establishing a relationship with each other.

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Procedure One of the language exchange sessions of each dyad was taped, and considered a representative sample of the interactions that were typical between these North American-Spanish dyads. The dyads were asked for their consent to tape one of their language exchange sessions. To avoid interfering with the regular conditions of the conversations, the recordings were made in the following way. One of the researchers agreed to meet with each dyad at their usual meeting place (e.g., cafeterias, plazas, libraries). She asked the participants to speak as they normally did during their meetings but, for this session, they were asked to interact exclusively in Spanish. Then, they were left with a portable recorder of the type TPVS500 on. After thirty minutes, the researcher returned to the meeting point and turned the recorder off.

Coding of the data The recordings were first transcribed and all the moves in which the NS responded to a comprehension difficulty expressed by the NNS were identified. We coded these negotiation moves following the coding procedures in Varonis and Gass (1985) and Pica (1988) that distinguish three main parts in a negotiation routine, i.e., Trigger, Indicator, and Response. The Trigger (T) is a speaker’s turn that, for some reason, was not completely understood by the other speaker, who signals this problem in a subsequent turn that acts as Indicator (I). The Response (R) is the turn in which the first speaker attempts to address the difficulty experienced by her interlocutor. There may also be an optional turn, the Reaction to Response (RR), which closes the negotiation move. As shown in Example 1 below, sometimes it takes more than an Indicator-Response sequence to resolve the communication impasse. The first Response may not be sufficient for the NNS to clarify the misunderstanding, which she signs with a second Indicator. Following the distinction made in previous research on NS-NNS interaction (Braidi 2002; Pica 1988; Varonis and Gass 1985), we will refer to those exchanges that involve more than one Indicator-Response sequence with the term ‘extended negotiations’ to distinguish them from those that involve only one Indicator and one Response.

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Example 1 Trigger (NS): Indicator 1 (NNS): Response 1 (NS): Indicator 2 (NNS): Response 2 (NS): NNS:

-¿y qué hacen ellas? -and what do they (feminine) do? -¿ellos? -they (masculine)? -ellas -they (feminine)? -¿ellas? -they (feminine)? -las chicas -the girls -no sé I don’t know

To determine the nature of the communication problem and the manner in which the interlocutors attempted to resolve it, first the NNSs’ indicators were classified according to type following a set of coding guidelines adapted form Varonis and Gass (1985) and Fernández-García and Martínez-Arbelaiz (2003). The following types of Indicators were identified in the data of this study. Types of NNSs’ Indicators: (a) Explicit Statement of Non-understanding. The NNS expresses explicitly and in a general way that the utterance in the Trigger has not been completely understood Example 2

Æ

T (NS): -[bueno no sé] es que no sé si cogeréis tren de alta velocidad o así -[well I don’t know] is that I don’t know if you will take a high speed train or something like that I (NNS): -¿qué? -what? R (NS): -cogeréis el tren de alta velocidad, un tren que va rápido -you will take a high speed train, a train that goes fast RR (NNS):-ah sí, sí -ah yes, yes

(b) Inappropriate Response. The NNS’s response neither answers nor is a logical follow-up to the NS’s question.

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Example 3

Æ

T (NS): -¿no te la quitaste? ¿querías ir tú sola no? -you were not able to get rid of her? you wanted to go on your own, didn’t you? I (NNS): -no, no fui sola. -no, I did not go on my own R (NS): -pero querías ir tú sola con... -but you wanted to go on your own with… NNS: -ha, ha, ha ¿con X? -ha, ha, ha, with X? NS: -sí -yes

(c) No Verbal Response (Silence). There is a silence after the NS’s turn, and subsequent turns show that it was due to the NNS not understanding the NS. Example 4

Æ

T (NS): -hace una semana que no nos vemos. -we haven’t seen each other for a week I (NNS):- mmm... -mmm… R (NS): -que hace una semana . que no nos vemos . el jueves pasado. -that we haven’t seen each other . for a week . last Thursday

(d) Echo. The NNS repeats part of the NS’s turn, most often with rising intonation, to indicate that she did not understand that specific part of the Trigger. Example 5

Æ

T (NS): -¿no han sido malas? -they haven’t been bad? I (NNS): -¿malas? -bad? R (NS): -yeah NNS: -sí -yes

(e) Rephrasing with Rising Intonation. The NNS paraphrases the NS’s preceding turn/s to check whether she understood correctly, as in the second Indicator of Example 6 below.

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Example 6

Æ

T (NS): -no sé a ver en que queda lo que pasa es que amojor Joseba tiene que trabajar entoes suele dejarme el coche por la tarde -I don’t know let’s see what happens what happens is that maybe Joseba has to work and then he usually lends me his car in the afternoon NNS: -sus padre en -your father in T (NS): -en la tienda -in the store I (NNS): -¿en la tienda? -in the store? R (NS): -sí -yes I (NNS):-¿que debe trabajar . allí? -that he has to work there? R (NS): -sí, pone las cosas que faltan y eso que se han gastado las compra -yes, he replaces what is missing and things like that, that they run out of he orders them

(f) Direct Appeal for assistance. The NNS asks explicitly for more details or for help with something in particular in the NS’s previous utterance. Example 7

Æ

T (NS): -¿y desde dónde saliste en Estados Unidos? -and from where in the United States did you depart? I (NNS): -[silence] R (NS): -de Madrid, ¿de dónde venías? -from Madrid, where did you come from? I (NNS): -¿mis padres? -my parents? R (NS): -no tú -no, you NNS: -me? uh L Los Angeles -me? uh L Los Angeles

The types of responses found in our data conform to those described by Varonis and Gass (1985). Very frequently, though, the turn of the NS included a combination of Response types.

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Types of NSs’ Responses: (a) Repetition. The NS’s response repeats (an) element/s in the Trigger or in the Indicator. In example 8, the NS repeats the segment of the Trigger that the NNS tries to negotiate Example 8

Æ

T (NS): -¿y qué hacen ellas? -and what do they (feminine) do? I (NNS): -¿ellos? -they (masculine)? R (NS): -ellas -they (feminine)? I (NNS): -¿ellas? -they (feminine)? R (NS): -las chicas -the girls NNS: -no sé I don’t know

(b) Expansion. The NS explains adding information that serves to clarify the trigger utterance, as illustrated in the second response of Example 6 above. Sometimes there is a topic continuation that adds new information that helps the NS to make clear the intended meaning in the trigger utterance. Example 9

Æ

I (NNS): -¿que debe trabajar . allí? -that he has to work there? R (NS): -sí pone las cosas que faltan y eso que se han gastado las compra -yes he replaces what is missing and things like that, that they run out of he orders them

(c) Rephrasing. The NS’s responses that include a Rephrasing, reformulate the trigger’s utterance without adding new information by using a synonym, a description, or expressing the same idea in a different way, as in the second response of Example 8 above.

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Example 10

Æ

I (NNS): -¿ellas? -they (feminine)? R (NS): -las chicas -the girls NNS: -no sé I don’t know

(d) Acknowledgment. The NS’s response confirms that what the NNS understood from the Trigger is accurate. Example 11

Æ

T (NS): -¿no han sido malas? -they haven’t been bad? I (NNS): -¿malas? -bad? R (NS): -yeah NNS: -sí

(e) Reduction. The NS segments and repeats a fragment in the Trigger or in the NNS’s Indicator. Example 12

Æ

T (NS): -¿qué hicisteis salisteis por allí o? -what did you do, did you go out there or? I (NNS): -ss -ss R (NS): -¿salisteis? -did you go out? I (NNS): -sí, ¿este fin? ¿este? -yes, this weekend (incomplete word)? this one? R (NS): -este fin de semana -this weekend

Importantly, the NSs’ responses were also classified as providing or not providing modifications of previous utterances. Those responses that did not include any modification, maybe because the NS did not perceive a need for it (for instance when the NS just confirms the Indicator because she interprets that the NNS did not hear well that specific part of the utterance that she echoes) or because she chose not to modify the utterance in the Trigger or Indicator even though a modification was possible (for

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instance as an alternative to a simple acknowledgement) or needed to make the input unambiguously comprehensible, were classified as No Modification. Here are some examples: No Modification, when the Indicator is target-like. Example 13

Æ

T (NS): -¿no han sido malas? -they haven’t been bad? I (NNS): -¿malas? -bad? R (NS): -yeah NNS: -sí

-yes No modification even though the NNS’s Indicator in not target-like. Example 14

Æ

T (NS): -ya . ¿y y no te van a traer a a la rubia contigo? -ok, and aren’t they going to bring the blonde one with you? I (NNS: -¿yo? -I? R (NS): -sí -yes NNS: -no -no

We may hypothesise, however, that it is by modifying previous utterances that the NS is most likely to help the NNS solve a comprehension problem. It is also by providing modified input that the NS presents the learner with the opportunity to notice (and possibly acquire) additional linguistic elements or forms. The following types of modifications were found in the data, following the framework for coding data on negotiated interaction in Pica (1992). (a) Simple Segmentation. The NS segments, extracts and repeats part of the Trigger or the Indicator without incorporating it in a more complex syntactic frame, as in the first response in Example 15.

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Example 15

Æ

T (NS): -¿qué hicisteis salisteis por allí o? -what did you do, did you go out there or? I (NNS): -ss R (NS): -¿salisteis? -did you go out?

(b) Morphological. The NS adds or changes one or several morphemes in the Trigger or the Indicator, as in Example 16. Although in this case, the NS repeats part of the Trigger, by doing so, she offers the NNS a morphologically modified version (no salir “not going out”) of the verb that the NNS reproduces in the Indicator (no salgas “not to go out-present subjunctive”). Example 16

Æ

T (NS): -porque Bea ha trabajado, me ha tocado estar, no salir, X con mis amigos pero poco. He estado pues tranquilito -because Bea has been working, I had no option but staying, not going out, X with my friends but just a little. It has been then quiet (a quiet weekend) for me I (NNS): -¿no salgas? -not (present subjunctive form of to go out) R (NS): -no salir -not going out I (NNS): -no salir -not going out R (NS): -no salir de marcha, de bares, la noche. -not going out for fun, to the bars, the night

(c) Semantic. The NS paraphrases, uses a synonym, a description, an example, an analogy or an interpretation of the problematic part in the Trigger or the Indicator to make it clear, as in the second Response in Example 17. Example 17 T (NS): -¿y qué hacen ellas? -and what do they (feminine) do? I (NNS): -¿ellos? -they (masculine)? R (NS): -ellas -they (feminine)?

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Æ

I (NNS): -¿ellas? -they (feminine)? R (NS): -las chicas -the girls NNS: -no sé -I don’t know

In Example 18, the NS tries to explain the meaning of “tiene mucha jeta” he has a lot of nerve, throughout several turns, which constitutes a Semantic Modification of the word/expression that is the focus of this exchange. Example 18

Æ Æ

T (NS): -y el protagonista, que es Bardem, ese es uno de los que está en paro y ese tiene mucha jeta -and the main character,who is Bardem, that’s one of those that are unemployed and that one has a lot of nerve I (NNS): -¿mucha qué? -a lot of what? R (NS): -jeta. -nerve I (NNS): -¡oh! No sé qué es -oh! I don’t know what that is R (NS): -que, por ejemplo cuando, bueno, nunca paga nada -that, for example when, well, he never pays for anything NNS: -ok R (NS): -habla mucho ¿no?, convence a los otros diciéndoles “si ya pagaré” o que “ya he pagado” o tal y nunca paga -he talks a lot, right?, he fools the others telling them “of course I will pay” or “I have already paid” or things like that and he never pays for anything NNS: -oh, bueno -oh, okay

(d) Syntactic. The NS paraphrases the Trigger or the Indicator and, by doing so, provides evidence that shows how to segment and extract phrases and how to move them to other allowable positions in a sentence or how to incorporate them into other syntactic frames.

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Example 19

Æ

T (NS): -pues íbamos ir a Arcachón y ya no vamos -and we were going to Arcachón and we are no longer going I (NNS): -¿Arcachón? -Arcachón? R (NS): -ya no vamos a Arcachón -we are no longer going to Arcachón NNS: -¿por qué? -why?

The second phase of the codification procedures involved determining the types of indicator and response in one-indicator negotiations and how they combined in extended negotiations for each dyad. In addition, the context of each negotiation routine was examined to determine whether comprehension had been achieved or not.

Results and discussion Our 30-minute recordings of the eight dyad’s conversations contained a total of 92 indicators (i.e., moments when the NNS signals a comprehension problem). This amounts to an average of an indicator occurring about every 2.6 minutes of conversation. The majority of these (60) belonged to one-indicator negotiations. We shall discuss the results for one-indicator negotiations and extended negotiations (i.e., those containing more than one indicator) separately, given that previous research suggests that the latter occur normally when interaction becomes more difficult, and may thus result in different negotiation patterns (see, for example, the discussion in Braidi 2002).

One-Indicator Negotiations Table 1 shows that the majority (55) of the NNSs’ signals of comprehension problems in one-indicator negotiations were of the types Explicit Statement of Non-understanding (51%), Echo (33%), and Direct Appeal for Assistance (16%). The more specific types of indicator, Echo and Direct Appeal, represent together 49% of the indicators, which means that when the NNSs signaled a comprehension problem, they managed to refer to the specific source of the problem in the Trigger in about half of the occasions. The other types of indicators (Inappropriate Response, Silence and English) were so uncommon (5 instances altogether) that we will not consider them any further in our quantitative analysis. 1

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Table 1. Numbers of NNS types of Indicator in One-Indicator Negotiations __________________________________________________________________ Dyad 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Total __________________________________________________________________ Echo

7

2

2

4

0

2

1

0

18

Direct Appeal

1

2

2

0

0

1

2

1

9

Explicit Statement 2 10 3 6 0 2 5 0 28 __________________________________________________________________ Total

10

14

7

10

0

5

8

1

55

It should be noted that there is considerable variation among the NNSs in their tendency to indicate any comprehension problems in the first place. The NNS members of dyads five and eight hardly indicated any problems at all. On the one hand, the Spanish of the NNS in dyad 8 appeared to be more fluent than that of the other NNSs. She was able to participate in the conversation on an equal footing with the NS. In the case of dyad 5, however, the roles that each dyad member adopted during the conversation seem to account in part for the lack of noncomprehension signals. The NS was a rather passive interlocutor, and her conversation turns usually short, and limited to agreeing, disagreeing, and briefly showing involvement on the conversation. The NNS, on the other hand, led the conversation, and when faced with language gaps used cooperative strategies that successfully engaged the NS in providing help (e.g., asking how to say something, accompanying a given word with rising intonation or pausing to invite the NS to complete her sentence). That is, the NNS member of dyad 5 confronted mainly problems to express her ideas but not to understand the NS’s speech because the NS did not produce much language. Surely, other variables, including personality traits, may play a part in an individual’s inclination to interrupt the flow of conversation and to come clean about not having understood what one’s partner has been saying. The overall frequency of occurrence of indicators thus gives a mixed picture across the eight dyads.

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The second research question of this study concerned the types of responses that NSs provide to address NNSs’ comprehension difficulties. The frequency data of particular NNS Indicator Æ NS Response sequences point to the most common ways in which NSs try to solve the comprehension problem based on the information that the NNS provides in the Indicator. Table 2 gives the totals of frequency of use of a particular type of response following a particular type of indicator for all dyads. In some cases an indicator is followed by only one type of response while in other cases the response combines two of the types described in the previous section. Table 2. Frequency of types of Response in One-Indicator Negotiations in % __________________________________________________________________ to Echo to Direct Appeal to Exp. Stat. __________________________________________________________________ A C A C A C __________________________________________________________________ Acknowledgement 39 44.6 11 22 3.5 0 Rephrasing

22

Repetition

0

44

77

32

57.2

16.6 22.2

0

33

18

32.1

Expansion

5.6 22.4

11

0

7.1

21.6

Reduction

0

0

0

7.1

14.2

0

L1 0 5.6 0 0 0 3.5 __________________________________________________________________

Note: A = used alone; C = combined with other types of response With respect to the three most frequent types of Indicators, Table 2 shows that when the NNS signals non-understanding with an Echo, the most frequent Response is (mere) Acknowledgement. The dominant type of response to Direct Appeal and Explicit Statement of non-understanding is Rephrasing. This suggests that it is the least ambiguous types of Indicators that tend to yield Responses that include modified input.

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The data that are relevant for the third research question, i.e., regarding how effective the NS’s responses are in facilitating comprehension, are summarized in Table 3. Table 3. Likelihood that the Indicator elicits a response that aids comprehension _______________________________________________________________ Response resulting in comprehension? Yes No Unknown __________________________________________________________________ Response to Echo N 18 (33%) 14 0 4 Response to Direct Appeal N 9 (16%)

9

0

0

Response to Explicit Statem. N 28 (51%) 25 2 1 __________________________________________________________________ Total N 55 (100%) 48 2 5

Overall, the NNS Indicator – NS Response sequences in one-indicator negotiations were quite effective in terms of solving the comprehension problem: 87% of them served to effectively address the comprehension needs of the NNS. When looking at the responses to each of the types of indicator, different patterns seem to emerge. Sequences initiated by an Echo led to comprehension in ‘only’ 78% of the cases. This is not surprising since Echoing is an ambiguous type of indicator in the sense that it might merely signal that the NNS is not sure whether she has correctly heard a specific part of the Trigger rather than signalling that she did not understand it. Given such ambiguity, echoing may fail to provide enough information for the NS to be able to unequivocally direct the response to the specific source of the problem. By contrast, when the NNSs resorted to a Direct Appeal for help (which happened only nine times), they located the problematic element/s in the Trigger in a nonambiguous way, and this prompted responses that helped the NNS to understand the trigger utterance in all nine instances. Explicit Statements of Non-Understanding were followed by responses that in 89% of the cases were effective in making the NS’s input comprehensible.

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The fourth research question in our study concerned the occurrence and nature of linguistic modifications in the NSs’ responses, as these may present the NNSs with opportunities for noticing new linguistic elements in the input. Table 4 summarizes the distribution of types of linguistic modification in responses to the three types of indicator under investigation.2 Table 4. Linguistic Modifications in Responses and their effect on comprehension __________________________________________________________________ No modif. Syntactic Semantic Morpho __________________________________________________________________ Resulting in comprehension? ?/ ?/ ?/ ?/ Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No __________________________________________________________________ Echo N 18 (25%) 8 3 3 1 3 0 0 0 D. Appeal N 12 (14%)

1

0

5

0

6

0

0

0

Expl. State. N 37 (52%) 3 3 15 1 9 1 3 2 __________________________________________________________________ Total 12 6 23 2 18 1 3 2 __________________________________________________________________

Note: Some responses include more than one type of modification A pattern seems to emerge in which Echoes turn out the least fruitful type of indicator when it comes to eliciting modified input. The majority of responses to an Echo (61%) did not involve any type of modification, whereas most responses to a Direct Appeal or an Explicit Statement of Non-understanding included either Syntactic or Semantic modifications. As was to be expected, there was a strong correlation (.90) between the presence of modified input in the responses and the NNSs’ comprehension problems being solved. In the absence of modified input, this correlation was much weaker (.67). Modifications we classified as Syntactic and as Semantic were far more frequent than those we classified as Morphological (the latter elicited only by Explicit Statement of Non-

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understanding).Summing up the results obtained for one-indicator moves, the data suggest that when an utterance as a whole was problematic in terms of understanding its meaning and, most likely, of being able to perceive and reproduce its linguistic elements, a general type of indicator, i.e., the Explicit Statement of Non-understanding, was used. Still, the NNSs in this study seemed to be able to perceive and segment linguistic elements in the NSs’ speech in at least half of the negotiation moves, mainly through the use of indicators such as the Echo and the Direct Appeal. Compared to a previous study in which we examined the interactions between NSs and learners studying Spanish at school in their home country (Fernández-García and Martínez-Arbelaiz 2003), the NNSs in the present study seemed to be better equipped to process NSs’ speech, presumably due to their familiarity with such speech in the immersion situation in which they were living. The analysis of the indicator-response sequences suggests that lack of ambiguity is a desirable feature of an indicator: the most helpful responses in terms of comprehension followed indicators that were unambiguous calls for help (i.e., Direct Appeal for Assistance and Explicit Statement of Non-understanding). Overall, NSs’ responses were quite effective in facilitating comprehension, especially if the responses contained modified input. Such modified input occurred in about 65.5% of the responses altogether, but especially often in responses to Direct Appeals for Assistance and Explicit Statements of Non-understanding. So, also with regard to eliciting responses that contain new linguistic material from which learners could possibly benefit for acquisition purposes, Echoes appear to be a comparatively unfruitful type of indicator.

Multiple-Indicator Negotiations As Table 5 shows, only 32 of the negotiations in our sample were extended ones, and the majority (21) of those were two-indicators negotiations. The longest negotiations found contained five indicators. Because of the small size of the sample, we can make only tentative claims about any discernable patterns. The most frequent first indicators in two- and three-indicator negotiations were again Echo, Direct Appeal and Explicit Statement. In four- and five-indicator negotiations, Echo was the most common initiator.

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Table 5. One-Indicator and Extended Negotiations per Dyad __________________________________________________________________ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 __________________________________________________________________ 1 Ind. 10 15 9 10 2 5 8 1 N 60 2 Inds. 2 5 4 0 0 3 6 1 N 21 3 Inds. 1 1 2 0 0 2 0 0 N6 4 Inds. 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 N2 5 Inds. 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 N3 __________________________________________________________________ Total 14 23 15 10 2 11 15 2

Interestingly, many NNSs tended to reiterate their first indicator before resorting to an alternative type of indicator. The NSs, on the other hand, often used Repetition as a first (but often unsuccessful) response before resorting to (usually more successful) Rephrasing or Expansion. In other words, in extended negotiations it often seems to take several unsuccessful turns before the interlocutors recur to unambiguous signalling and clarification. With respect to the relative effectiveness of the NSs’ responses in promoting comprehension, the results show that two- and three-indicator negotiations usually lead to comprehension (at rates close to one-indicator negotiations). By contrast, in only about half of the four- and fiveindicator negotiations the comprehension problem was eventually solved. In one four-indicator negotiation and in one five-indicator negotiation, the NS in the end gave up on the negotiation move altogether. In general, extended negotiations also provided some new linguistic material that might potentially be useful for acquisition purposes, but fewer linguistic modifications seemed to occur in the comparatively long negotiations. This is not surprising given the probability that it is precisely the absence of such linguistic modifications that caused a fair number of the long negotiations to fail.

Conclusions and perspectives Our recordings of conversations by NS-NNS dyads in a study abroad context showed a number of negotiation moves that not only helped make

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the NS´s input comprehensible to the NNS, but also offered a number of syntactic, semantic and, more rarely, morphological modifications that provided L2 information on how the target language is codified and decodified. This suggests that setting up extra-classroom NS-NNS dyads in the study-abroad context can be beneficial for the NNS’s interlanguage development, apart from other benefits, such as social and cultural integration. However, the data suggest that not all NNSs’ signals of comprehension difficulties are equally likely to trigger such potentially beneficial responses from NS partners. NNSs’ recourse to ambiguous indicators, such as echoing, is less effective in prompting modified input that is both helpful for comprehension and rich in linguistic modifications than their recourse to indicators that are more explicit, such as directly appealing for assistance. Crucially, some learners appear not to be much inclined to signal comprehension problems in the first place. In our own sample, 2 of the 8 NNSs hardly initiated any negotiation move at all. Further research should involve a bigger sample to provide additional evidence concerning such variability as well as to confirm/disconfirm the findings and observations reported here. Apart from the small size of the sample, other limitations to this study clearly need to be acknowledged. One pertains to the characteristics of the participants who took part in this study and to the specific context in which the data was collected. The students whose conversations we recorded were language learners who were consciously and deliberately engaging in extra-curricular language learning practice. As a result the members of the dyads may have been more empathic toward each other’s needs for inter-language development than some other interlocutors might have been. The NS was also a language learner herself (of English), very much aware of the purpose of the exchanges, and conscious of the particulars of the language learning process. In that respect, the data of this study represents just one particular study-abroad context and the results may not be generalized to ‘spontaneous’ interactions while abroad with other types of NSs who are not involved in language learning/teaching (such as a shop keeper, the local bartender, the landlady, etc.). In addition, the present study focused on interactions that involved participants from two specific cultural backgrounds (American and Spanish). A different pattern of interaction may emerge when other cultures are involved. For example, participants from some other cultural backgrounds may tend to be more inhibited about interrupting the flow of conversation or about ‘admitting’ having comprehension problems.

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It is also important to remember that our study looked only at the opportunities for noticing that were presented to the NNSs through modified input by their NS partners. We cannot tell on the basis of our data to what extent the NNSs actually did notice the relevant linguistic elements or forms, let alone whether that also resulted in ‘uptake’ in longterm memory. It would be interesting to investigate in a follow-up study if any noticing occurs as a result of these particular types of negotiated interaction in a study abroad context. In this chapter we have focused on negotiation of meaning moves that show how NSs and NNSs collaborated to make input comprehensible to the NNSs. The recordings of the conversations by the dyads also contain exchanges that focused on NNSs’ output. In these exchanges the NSs offer feedback (e.g., recasts) and/or models on which the NNSs can draw to express their intended messages. The next phase of the data analyses will focus on those exchanges, and will explore when and why the interactants focus on learners’ output, and the type of linguistic evidence that is made available to learners through those exchanges.

Notes 1. 2.

Data about these uncommon moves which have not been included in the present report can be obtained from the authors. For clarity’s sake we present a synopsis of the quantitative analyses. Breakdowns of the data at a more detailed level can be obtained from the authors.

References Braidi, S. M. 1992. Issues in input: An integrative framework for analyzing second language input. In Proceedings of the Twelfth Second Language Research Forum, edited by D. Staub & C. Delk, 335-336. East Lansing: Michigan State University, Department of English. —. 2002. Reexamining the role of recasts in native-speaker/nonnativespeaker interactions. Language Learning 52: 1-42. Fernández-García, M., and A. Martínez-Arbelaiz. 2003. Learners´ interactions: A comparison of oral and computer-assisted written conversations. ReCall 151: 113-136. Freed, B. F. 1995. What makes us think that students who study abroad become fluent? In Second Language Acquisition in a Study Abroad Context, edited by B. F. Freed, 123-148. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

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Gass, S. M. 1997. Input, interaction, and the second language learner. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Gass, S.M., and E. Varonis. 1984. The effect of familiarity on the comprehensibility of nonnative speech. Language Learning 34: 6589. —. 1985. Task variation and nonnative-nonnative negotiation of meaning. In Input in Second Language Acquisition edited by S. M. Gass and C. G. Madden, 149-161. Rowley, MA: Newbury House. —. 1994. Input, interaction, and second language production. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 16: 283-302. Gass, S. M., A. Mackey, and L. Ross-Feldman. 2005. Task-based interactions in classroom and laboratory settings. Language Learning 55 (4): 575-611. Hatch, E. 1978. Discourse analysis and second language acquisition. In Second language acquisition: A book of readings, edited by E. Hatch, 401-435. Rowley, MA: Newbury House. Isabelli, C., and C. Nishida. 2005. Development of the Spanish subjunctive in a nine-month study-abroad setting. In Selected proceedings of the 6th conference on the acquisition of Spanish and Portuguese as first and second languages, edited by D. Eddington, 78-91. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project. [Available at http://www.lingref.com/cpp/casp/6/index.html] Iwashita, N. 2003. Negative feedback and positive evidence in task-based interaction. Differential effects on L2 development. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 25: 1-36. Krashen, S. D. 1980. Second language acquisition and second language learning. Oxford: Pergamon. —. 1985. The Input Hypothesis: Issues and implications. London: Longman. Lafford, B. A. 1995. Getting into, through and out of a survival situation: A comparison of communicative strategies used by students studying Spanish abroad and “at home”. In Second Language Acquisition in a Study Abroad Context, edited by Freed, 97-122. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Leeman, J. 2003. Recasts and second language development. Beyond negative evidence. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 26: 37-63. Long, M. 1983a. Native speaker/non-native speaker conversation and the negotiation of comprehensible input. Applied Linguistics 4:126-141. —. 1983b. Linguistic and conversational adjustment to non-native speakers. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 52: 177-193.

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—. 1990. The least a second language acquisition theory needs to explain. TESOL Quarterly 24: 649-666. —. 1996. The role of the linguistic environment in second language acquisition. In Handbook of second language Acquisition, edited by W. C. Ritchie & T.K. Bhatia, 413-468. San Diego: Academic Press. Long, M., S. Inagaki. & L. Ortega. 1998. The role of implicit feedback in SLA: Models and recasts in Japanese and Spanish. The Modern Language Journal 82: 357-371. Mackey, A. 1999. Input, interaction, and second language development: An empirical study of question formation in ESL. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 21: 557-587. Mackey, A., and J. Philp. 1998. Conversational interaction and second language development: Recasts, responses, and red herrings? Modern Language Journal 82: 338-356. Mackey, A., R. Oliver, and J. Leeman. 2003. Interactional input and the incorporation of feedback: An exploration of NS-NNS and NNS-NNS adult and child dyads. Language Learning 53 (1): 35-66. Milton, J., and P. Meara. 1995. How periods abroad affect vocabulary growth in a foreign language. ITL Review of Applied Linguistics 107108:17-34. Oliver, R. 1995. Negative feedback in child NS-NNS conversation. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 17: 459-81. —. 2000. Age differences in negotiation and feedback in classroom and pairwork. Language Learning 50, 119-151. Pica, T. 1985. The selective impact of classroom instruction on second language acquisition. Applied Linguistics 6: 214-222. —. 1988. Interlanguage adjustments as outcome of NS-NNS negotiated interaction. Language Learning 38, 45-73. —. 1992. The textual outcomes of NS-NNS negotiations. In Text and context: Cross-disciplinary perspectives on language study, edited by C. Kramsch & S. McConnell-Ginet, 198-237. Lexington, Mass.: D.C. Heath & Co. —. 1994. Research on negotiation: What does it reveal about secondlanguage learning conditions, processes, and outcomes? Language Learning 443: 493-527. Pica, T., L. Holliday, N. Lewis, and L. Morgenthaler. 1989. Comprehensible output as an outcome of linguistic demands on the learner. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 11: 63-90. Pica, T., R. Kanagy, and J. Falodun. 1993. Choosing and using communication tasks for second language instruction. In Tasks and

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language learning, edited by G. Crookes & S. Gass, 9-33. Clevedon, Avon: Multilingual Matters. Pica, T., R. Young, and C. Doughty. 1987. The impact of interaction on comprehension. TESOL Quarterly 21: 737-758. Polio, C., and S. M. Gass. 1998. The role of interaction in native speaker comprehension of non-native speaker speech. The Modern Language Journal 82: 308-319. Porter, P. 1986. How learners talk to each other: input and interaction in task- centred discussions. In Talking to learn: Conversation in second language acquisition, edited by R. Day, 200-222. Rowley, Mass: Newbury House. Schmidt. R. 1995. Conciousness and foreign language learning: A tutorial on the role of attention and awareness in learning. In Attention, awareness in foreign language learning, edited by R. Schmidt, 1-63. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Segalowitz, N., and B. A. Freed. 2004. Context, contact, and cognition in oral fluency acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 262: 173-199. Sharwood Smith, M. 1987. Comprehension vs. acquisition: Two ways of processing input. Applied Linguistics 8: 237-255. —. 1993. Input enhacement in instructured SLA: Theoretical bases. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 15: 165-179. Sheen, Y. H. 2004. Corrective feedback and learner uptake in communicative classrooms across instructional settings. Language Teaching Research 83: 263-300. Skehan, P., and P. Foster. 1997. Task type and task processing conditions as influences on foreign language performance. Language Teaching Research 1: 185-211. —. 1999. The influence of task structure and processing conditions on narrative retellings. Language Learning 491: 93-120. Varonis, E.M., and S.M. Gass. 1985. Non-native/non-native conversations: A model for negotiation of meaning. Applied Linguistics 61: 71-90. White, L. 1987. Against comprehensible input: The input hypothesis and the development of second language competence. Applied Linguistics 8: 95-110.

PART II BUILDING INTERDISCIPLINARY BRIDGES

CHAPTER FOUR WHAT CAN LANGUAGE TEACHERS LEARN FROM INTERPRETER TRAINERS? (AND THE OTHER WAY ROUND) ALESSANDRO ZANNIRATO

Introduction Schools offering programmes in interpreter training are usually not primarily concerned with the development of their students’ linguistic skills. For historical and perhaps even dogmatic reasons, the assumption that language training is fundamentally different from interpreter training has very often been voiced in a defensive tone (Bowen 1989). Several academic papers published in the last 40 years have highlighted the fact that interpreter trainers have seldom wanted to have anything to do with language teaching (e.g. Keiser 1978; Gentile 1991). However widespread this stance may be, it is nevertheless a problematic one. Unlike decades ago, when the majority of interpreter students were early bilingual, there are now fewer bilingual individuals who enrol in interpreting or translation courses, or to put it in another way, there are many more non-bilingual students interested in translation or interpreting studies (Gile 2001). Even though there are no official statistics, it is safe to say that most interpreting and translation students are now native speakers of just one language. This means that they are required to learn one or more foreign languages before and/or during their training as, for example, conference interpreters. Sometimes the complexity involved in the advanced acquisition of one or more foreign languages has negative repercussions on the acquisition of interpreting skills. For instance, it is very difficult to acquire the ability to translate finer shades of meaning if the interpreter does not have native or quasi-native comprehension skills. The main reason why many students fail interpreting exams is because they need to improve their knowledge of their second/foreign languages (Gile 2001). Especially

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at the beginning of the training programme, interpreting students display problems manipulating languages and going between one language to another. Despite this fact, some interpreting departments and schools are not concerned with the problems faced by those students whose linguistic proficiency is not sufficient to pass interpreting exams. While it may be agreed that the main objective of an interpreting course is to provide students with strong technical and task-specific skills, finding out whether second language acquisition (SLA) can occur alongside the acquisition of interpreting skills may be of some interest. As Sawyer (2004, 3) notes, “leaving the assumption unquestioned that teaching interpreting is an activity fundamentally different from teaching foreign languages, interpreter trainers have been perhaps too quick to dismiss the gains made in the fields of second language teaching and in particular language testing”.

This attitude may easily create tensions between students and interpreter trainers. A recent survey (Zannirato 2006) shows that some interpreting students feel abandoned when dealing with their linguistic weaknesses. The results of the survey suggested that students would like their trainers to recognise that second language enhancement occurs through interpreter training techniques, and that though they are not expecting their trainers to offer direct second language instruction, they should occasionally cater for their linguistic needs through interpreter training techniques themselves. This chapter reports on a study which aimed to assess whether the use of interpreter-training techniques in the second/foreign language classroom (i.e. with students not specialising in conference interpreting) can foster language learning. A subsidiary question concerned the implications for second/foreign language teaching (and for interpreter training) if empirical evidence of beneficial effects on SLA through interpreter-training techniques were produced. The study consisted of two trials. In the first trial, some interpreter training techniques were used in an upper-intermediate to advanced (B2/C1) group of students of French, with the objective to verify whether their use would result in improvements in students’ written and oral language production, both at the syntactic and the semantic level. The second trial was set up to assess whether the results of the first trial could be replicated with a population of low intermediate to intermediate students (A2 to early B1).

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The first trial Participants and design Participants in the first trial were third-year students enrolled in an undergraduate programme in French at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, in 2003-2004. Altogether 24 students participated in this study, including 18 females and 6 males. The mean age of the participants was 22.48. Among them, 43% were majoring in Foreign Languages, 19% in Psychology, 15% in Economics and/or Law, 14% in Information Technology, 9% in Sociology and the remaining 1% in other subjects. The group was culturally diverse, as many students came from overseas or from other African countries. Coming from Mauritius and the Democratic Republic Congo, 7 students had French as a strong second language. Those students displayed higher oral skills in French, while their written skills seemed comparable to those of the best English native students. Overall, the group of participants were proficient in French at levels ranging from B1 to C1 according to the descriptors of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (Council of Europe 1997). The first trial investigated the potential use of memorisation, paraphrasing and note taking as aids for language learning. The study followed a 'repeated-measures' design (Selinger and Shohamy 1990), and subjects were used as their own control benchmark, i.e. every participant’s performance was checked against his/her previous performance. This design was felt to be appropriate because participants had such varying linguistic abilities.

The treatment Given the fact that the group was quite diverse, and that participants displayed varying levels of proficiency, a thorough linguistic assessment of each student was made before the beginning of the course. During the design of the course it was evident that a diversification of the treatment would be necessary, according to the students' individual linguistic skills. This is why, for the purpose of diagnosis, students' levels of linguistic competence were first measured. For this assessment several devices were used:

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1) A language learning audit tool developed by Blanc and WarrenMartin (1994) to collect the following data: - Bio: student gender, age, and country of origin - Linguistic background: total language experience - Proficiency in the target language, methods followed in learning the target language - Attitudes, motivations and aptitude for learning the target language 2) A computer-aided grammar and vocabulary level test: www.campuselectronique.tm.fr/TestFle, developed by the French Centre National d’Enseignement à Distance, and based on the Council of Europe's Framework for Languages. 3) A one-on-one interview with students in which the accuracy of the data collected under (1) and (2) were verified. After the initial assessment, the group was trained using interpreter training techniques (mainly memorisation, note taking and paraphrasing exercises) for approximately 10 months. The researcher worked with the students once a week in the first semester, and about three times a week in the second semester. Every lesson lasted about 45 minutes. Students participated in one other course within the French Department. For the purpose of this study, it is important to highlight that, despite the fact students had other contacts with the language during the course, they received no formal grammar instruction during the year: about 40% of them attended a literature course, while the others participated in a Business French course. Given the varying levels of proficiency of the students, texts of different degrees of difficulty were selected, and students were progressively exposed to: x Texts they had already analysed in other courses x Texts the subject of which was communicated beforehand in order for them to prepare x Texts they had never seen before, and of which they did not know the subject. Texts were chosen according to their estimated difficulty in terms of syntactic and semantic complexity. Text selection was carried out based on texts that had been used by experienced authors of foreign language manuals, who had carefully calibrated the difficulty of the reading material. Texts were also chosen according to their relevance to the functional criteria of linguistic competence envisaged by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. During the lessons,

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weaker students were asked to volunteer when B1-B2 texts were used, while stronger students were requested to work on more complex texts. Memorisation classes usually had the following pattern. Firstly, a new subject was introduced. A common 10-minute brainstorming session was bound to introduce the topic and help students to activate their prior knowledge of the subject. Students were asked to provide definitions of words and concepts concerning the particular subject, to further encourage an active use of their passive vocabulary on the subject. Secondly, students were given 2 minutes to reach the highest state of attention possible. Some of them would relax on their chairs, closing their eyes or covering them with their hands. Some others would focus on a particular corner of the classroom, while others would firmly look at the instructor and read his lips. Once the group had reached a good state of concentration, texts on the subject were read aloud to the students in the source language. Students were requested to memorise as much as possible of the texts. The texts were usually repeated only once. Finally, a volunteer would "reproduce" the memorised text first in the source language (French) and then in the target language (English), i.e. the volunteer would practise consecutive interpreting. At the beginning, the texts had a length of no more than 30 seconds, while the texts proposed towards the end of the year were about 3-3.5 minutes long. After the memorisation exercise, the rest of the group was asked to interact and add aspects of the text which had been omitted by the volunteer, to correct any imprecision, mistakes or discrepancies with the source text, and to try and remember the most technical or low-frequency words which might have occurred in the text. The interaction was particularly useful, as stronger students could help weaker students acquire new vocabulary or to correct grammar mistakes or non-idiomatic language use. The last 5-10 minutes of the lesson were usually dedicated to a metacognitive discussion where students could comment on the difficulties they had had to face while memorising the text, how they had managed to memorise it effectively, or the reasons why they had not managed to concentrate, reproduce the text, etc. Finally, students were given a paper copy of the text used in the lesson, and were requested to work on it at home. As memorisation classes concentrated mainly on the development of listening comprehension and oral production, students were asked to paraphrase the text at-sight or in a written form. The most advanced students were also asked to change the register of the text, making it either very formal or very informal. In the second semester, memorisation exercises became longer and dealt with more complex texts, and it was felt that students would benefit from an introduction to note taking as an aid for the consecutive-

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interpreting task. The objective was not for the students to become experts in note-taking techniques. The technique in itself was instead used as a means to process the verbal information of the text. It was also a useful tool after the exercise, as it would give students the opportunity to compare notes and to discuss which ideas or concepts were the most relevant ones, and which of them should have been written down in order not to be forgotten.

Data collection In order to collect data on the students' written skills, three written paraphrase tests, roughly one every three months, were administered. It was decided to choose texts of the same length and difficulty and dealing with general world news. The students were asked to paraphrase a text they had memorised in class, and knew they would be evaluated on the following parameters: x Accuracy x Semantic appropriateness x Ability to paraphrase without changing the meaning of the original text x Ability to change the register of the text without altering the original meaning (for the most advanced students) Several SLA authors have acknowledged the validity of paraphrase tasks to assess linguistic competence. For example, Kühn and Pienaar (1994) claim that paraphrase exercises are suitable for the testing of active and passive voice, as well as for testing the use of tenses. All four parameters were taken into consideration for the end-of-term marks of the students, but for the purpose of this study we concentrated mostly on the first two parameters. We were interested in finding out whether the use of interpreter-training techniques would have any effect on the students’ syntactic and semantic competence. We acknowledge that both syntactic and semantic competences involve several dimensions, including grammatical complexity and lexical richness, respectively. For practical reasons, however, we decided to focus on the dimension of accuracy, as this seemed easiest to measure. We kept a record of the number of students' grammatical and vocabulary mistakes made during the three paraphrase tests, with the aim of seeing whether error numbers would decrease towards the end of the year, i.e. as the potential effect of the interpreter-training techniques set in. The third and final test was administered at the very end of the course. In some cases, it was not easy to determine whether a given mistake would need to be classified as

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‘semantic’ or ‘syntactic’. In such cases of doubt, the opinion of two other researchers was asked for to decide which category the mistake would better belong to. In case of disagreement, the same mistake was counted twice, i.e. both as a semantic and a syntactic inaccuracy. In order to collect data on students' oral skills, we gave the students a memorisation test at the end of each semester. The students were asked to memorise a text in French, 2 minutes in length, at the end of the first semester, and another text in French, 3 minutes in length, at the end of the year, and reproduce it orally. We acknowledge that some direct recycling of language from the original text was possible, and that the students’ oral language production in this task would therefore not be evidence exclusively of “their own” French resources. However, the texts were far too long for a substantial amount of linguistic information to be directly recycled from the source text. As a result, students tended to reformulate the passage entirely “in their own words”. Students were assessed by two examiners, who evaluated them holistically and independently from each other according to the following criteria: grammatical precision, lexical precision, quantity of memorised concepts, ability to activate a selective attention, and ability to (re)create a logical discourse. For the purpose of this study, only the first two criteria were taken into consideration (i.e. grammatical and lexical precision). The scores from the two examiners were on a 50-point scale and for the purpose of the experiment were averaged. This was felt to be an appropriate simplification of the data, as there was a strong correlation between the two examiners’ judgements.

Results of the writing tasks One student dropped out after the first term and some others could not take all tests. As a result, the below results pertain to the writing tasks of 21 participants. As shown in Table 1, there is statistical evidence at the p