The data

The following discussions are based on tape-recorded, naturally occurring, face-to-face group conversations. The data was collected in a student hall of residence for overseas students in Great Britain and comprise 23 conversations of a total of 13.5 hours. The speakers participating in the conversations are aged roughly between 20 and 30. They are of both sexes, speak 17 different mother tongues and include both less competent and more competent speakers. The corpus, thus, is very heterogeneous, but is, nevertheless, representative of the situations which involve lingua franca communication.

Data analysis in lingua franca communication research

Lingua franca communication implies the mingling of different cultures and the associated communicative norms that apply within these cultures. Discourse produced in lingua franca English has its specific characteristics, and these make it difficult to apply existing categories proposed by Discourse and Conversation Analysis (CA), which both had originally been developed for interactions between native English and American speakers.

Below a short account of the most central unit of analysis in CA, the turn, will be given. This unit requires an investigation into the applicability of the model to lingua franca talk-in-interaction and to a discussion of necessary modifications.

The concept of turn

Conversation Analysis developed from approaches by a number of American sociologists in reaction to the quantitative methodology applied in their field. Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson (1974) applied ethnomethodological methods to spoken conversation. Analysing a corpus of informal spoken discourse they arrived at the conclusion that turn-taking is the essential characteristic that distinguishes conversations from monologic speech. Rules which seem to govern the turn-taking process were identified together with transition-relevance-places at which speaker change was found to occur, but the central concept, that of the 'turn', has remained only vaguely defined. It is the way simultaneous speech and pauses have been included in these definitions, that is of interest when we are dealing with lingua franca discourse, because both occur in a specific way in lingua franca discourse, as will be explained below.

Schegloff (1968) claimed that participants orient themselves towards the rule 'one party at a time'. Any violations of this rule would be classified as 'noticed events' by the participants of a conversation, and that these violations would result in the application of repair mechanisms. Similarly, overlap was characterised by Sacks et al. (1974) as a turn-taking error and hence as being a violation of turn taking requiring repair. Oreström (1983) admits that "speaker-shift is seldom, if ever, an entirely smooth process and the interactants generally try to see to it that the transitions from one speaker to another take place in a non-abrupt manner and they therefore try to avoid simultaneous speech and interruption."

What is central to these early statements is the fact that overlapping speech is regarded as being erroneous and a violation of some rule. Even though this argument is still prevalent in many recent discussions of the term 'turn', the existence of unproblematic overlap has also been considered. McCarthy (1991), for example, states that "speakers predict one another's utterances and often complete them for them, or overlap with them as they complete", and Langford (1994) interprets this kind of overlap as displaying "close attention and support". Yule (1996) adds a further aspect – the collaborative use of overlap:

For many (often younger) speakers, overlapped talk appears to function like an expression of solidarity or closeness in expressing similar opinions or values. [...], the effect of the overlapping talk creates a feeling of two voices collaborating as one, in harmony.

Even though the authors acknowledge cooperative overlap, they do not refer to it as being used to jointly build up a collaborative turn. Immediately related to the concept of turn is the distinction of participants' roles into speaker and hearer, which assigns to the hearer only those passive activities which support the speaker. Schegloff, however, has recently (1996) claimed that participants jointly create talk-in-interaction, and as a result he labels them co-participants. As I shall demonstrate further below, this must necessarily lead towards a re-definition of turn as a jointly completed unit of conversation, which will also have to include a discussion of the term back-channel, i.e. those utterances that are usually being considered to be the hearer's contributions.

Co-participation and the floor

A series of problems have been encountered by researchers who tried to use the turn concept for analyses of non-dyadic interactions. Edelsky (1981) found the category of turn and its definition difficult to apply to multi-party informal talk. In her corpus, two or more participants often "either took part in an apparent free-for-all or jointly built one idea, operating on the 'same wavelength'" (1981). She therefore suggests to concentrate on the floor, "the acknowledged what's-going-on within a psychological time/space. What's going on can be the development of a topic or a function (teasing, soliciting a response, etc.) or an interaction of the two. It can be developed or controlled by one person at a time or by several simultaneously or in quick succession." (1981) In case several participants jointly hold the floor, this can be done in two different ways. In case of what Edelsky calls a 'free-for-all', there is "much simultaneity, joint building of an answer to a question, collaboration on developing ideas [...], and laughter." (1981) In less 'unorderly' stretches of talk, she found that participants, though speaking sequentially, shared "in the creation of an idea or a function (joking, suggesting, etc.)." (1981)

Though the concept of 'floor' provides important insights into what actually happens when speakers talk simultaneously and identifies overlapping speech as being a kind of speech that is in no way erroneous, the concept of the 'turn' is an unquestionably valuable one for any analysis of intercultural communication, but it still needs to be modified. Edelsky (1981) proposes what she calls a non-technical definition and defines turn as "an on-record 'speaking' (which may include nonverbal activities) behind which lies an intention to convey a message that is both referential and functional." (To be continued in Unit 2-23)

EXPLICATION OF KEY FACTS AND IDEAS GIVEN IN THE TEXT, PRESENTATION OF A RESEARCH PAPER

Instruction: Not all non-native speakers have trouble communicating in English. Many speak at a native level, but many do not. The ability to communicate with people who speak a limited amount of English is actually a skill that can be developed over time with practice. Whether you deal with non-native English speakers often or rarely, this advice will help you to communicate more effectively and smoothly. Graduate students who are non-native speakers of English should focus on developing a variety of oral presentation skills used in the non-native EL academic community, in particular, and in any other non-native EL environment, in general. You will address different aspects of spoken English, including higher level issues such as linguistics, sociolinguistics, organizational and strategic competence, as well as more detail-oriented issues, such as accuracy in pronunciation, stress patterns, intonation and rhythm. Mastering these skills will be especially useful to students who wish to prepare for teaching responsibilities, and to those graduate students who need to prepare for giving lectures, leading discussion/lab sections, interacting with non-native speakers, presenting graduation papers, reporting on current research, and engaging in job interviews. Below are some useful tips on skills for writing and presenting a graduation paper.

Tips for writing a graduation paper

Writing a graduation paper in your field is similar to writing a scientific report, in which the main goal is the demonstration of acquired knowledge in a selected field. The research in graduation papers is a difficult aspect as your field of science has many diverse directions.

Despite the diversity of subjects, there are accepted methodological approaches in writing graduation papers. These tips will provide a guide on the important elements of graduation papers, and the way they can be approached.

The steps in graduation paper writing

The common steps that can be identified through the process of writing a graduation paper are as follows:

• Identifying a research problem – such step in graduation papers implies asking questions regarding an identified problem, considering the feasibility of them being answered.

• A literature review - A review of literature will indicate the gaps in specific knowledge in the selected field. It should be highlighted that in terms of division to sections, it can be stated that the literature review is one of the largest sections in graduation papers, serving two purposes, i.e. demonstrating the accumulated knowledge and identifying the gaps in it. 

• Formulating a hypothesis – basically, hypotheses are the assumptions made through the preliminary investigation. One or more are selected as the basis of the graduation paper, and which are tested in the study.

• Data collection – according to the established hypothesis, the type of data to be collected will be determined. At the same time, the nature of the requested data will require assessing the most effective methods of its collection, e.g. quantitative or qualitative data. Accordingly, several aspects should be determined in graduation papers such as the samples, the body of data, and the appropriate method of data measurement.

The "thinking about it stage" is when you are finally faced with the reality of completing your MA degree. Usually the early phases of a graduate program proceed in clear and very structured ways. The beginning phases of a graduate program proceed in much the same manner as an undergraduate degree program. There are clear requirements and expectations, and the graduate student moves along, step by step, getting ever closer to the completion of the program.

One day, however, the clear structure begins to diminish and now you're approaching the graduation paper stage. This is a new and different time. These next steps are more and more defined by you and not your adviser, the program, or the department.

Be realistic about the time that you're willing to commit to your research project. If it's a 1 year project that you're thinking about admit it at the beginning and then decide whether or not you have 1 year to give to it. If the project you'd like to do is going to demand more time than you're willing to commit then you have a problem.

Research proposal. Assuming you've done a good job of "thinking about" your research project, you're ready to actually prepare the proposal. A word of caution - those students who tend to have a problem in coming up with a viable proposal often are the ones that have tried to rush through the "thinking about it" part and move too quickly to trying to write the proposal. Here's a final check. Do each of these statements describe you? If they do you're ready to prepare your research proposal.

I am familiar with other research that has been conducted in areas related to my research project.

(___Yes, it's me)

(___No, not me)

I have a clear understanding of the steps that I will use in conducting my research.

(___Yes, it's me)

(___No, not me)

I feel that I have the ability to get through each of the steps necessary to complete my research project.

(___Yes, it's me)

(___No, not me)

I know that I am motivated and have the drive to get through all of the steps in the research project.

(___Yes, it's me)

(___No, not me)

Section 2. Grammar workout

Missing or incomplete comparisons

Many sentences contain comparisons, some of these involve the comparative forms of adjectives.

Examples:

Sea bass__________ freshwater bass.

1. are larger than (correct)

1. are larger the

2. are as large

(D) are larger

On the average, the Pacific Ocean is deeper than the Atlantic.

Rhonda is a more experienced performer than Theresa.

This show is less interesting than the one we watched last night.

Be sure that the sentence compares similar things or concepts.

The ears of African elephants are bigger than Indian elephants. (INCORRECT) The ears of African elephants are bigger than those of Indian elephants. (CORRECT)

The first sentence above is incorrect because it compares two dissimilar things: an African elephant's ears and an Indian elephant. In the second, the word those refers to ears, so the comparison is between similar things.

Another type of comparison involves the phrase as...as; not so…as.

Examples:

The lab lasted as long as the class did.

There weren't as many people at the meeting as I had thought there would be.

Wild strawberries are ___________as cultivated strawberries.

1. not so sweet (correct)

1. not as sweet

2. less sweeter

3. not as sweeter

The words like/alike and unlike/not alike can also be used to express comparison:

Like A, B, …; A, like B, …; A is like B; A and В are alike.

Unlike X, Y, …; X, unlike Y…;. X is unlike Y; X and Y are not alike

Other phrases can be used in making comparisons:

A is the same as В; A and В are the same; A is similar to В.

X is different from Y; X and Y are different; X differs from Y.

A special kind of comparison is called a proportional statement. A proportional statement follows this pattern: The more A.., the more B.

Example:

The higher the humidity, the more uncomfortable people feel.