Claves

2.6.1.1 Some communicative features in ELF

House (2002) analysed the communicative features of ELF as they were evident in authentic ELF interaction, namely in a semi-structured, face-to-face interaction between four participants of different nationalities (German, Korean, Chinese, Indonesian). A research group was asked to read an article and then discuss it during a meeting of approximately 30 minutes. The conversational interaction was recorded, transcribed, and analysed with special attention to communicative phenomena.

Two weeks after the discussion, the participants were called back to listen to the recording and to read the transcriptions. They were then asked to comment on their handling of the discussion and specifically to discuss the parts of the interaction where there had been miscommunications. They were encouraged to give a critical assessment of their own and their conversational partners‟ interactional behaviours.

In the analysis, it was found that there was an overwhelming presence of the “let it pass” phenomenon (House 2002: 251). This occurs when a speaker produces an utterance which causes difficulty in understanding for the hearer. The hearer, however, will not try to sort out the misunderstanding but rather let the utterance pass in the hope that, as the conversation progresses, the misunderstanding will become clear (Seidlhofer 2001: 143). House suggests that this phenomenon indicates the “mutual dis-attention” of ELF interlocutors to mismatches in their English proficiency, and shows that, besides indicating

3 _{Note that the literature reviews in chapters 2 and 3 are descriptive and do not include comparisons which}

to their conversational partners that they are listening, they do not necessarily make the effort to indicate their understanding as well.

House reports that some of the interlocutors were focused on their own communicative agendas throughout the conversation. The Asian participants seemed to have their own monologues and, as a result, unintentionally excluded the German participant from the conversation, even though she tried to enter into it. Such linguistic behaviour was found to show “a lack of demonstrated responsibility for the ongoing talk as a collective achievement” (House 2002: 251). In accordance with this finding, House notes that the interlocutors did not think it essential to adjust their utterances to fit their conversational partners‟ needs and expectations (i.e. there was limited evidence of „accommodation‟). She refers to the interlocutors‟ personal ways of managing turn-taking which indicates their lack of communicative behaviour adjustment to fit the needs and expectations of their conversational counterparts. Participants often just began to talk rather than waiting for the appropriate moment in which to begin their turn in the conversation and then present their argument. Once they were properly established in the conversation, each would make full use of his/her turn to pursue his/her own communicative agenda. House provides the example in (1) where one of the participants, Mauri, directs a question at another participant, Joy, which she does not answer.

(1) Mauri: But you don‟t agree then that all the people of the world that they should speak English?

Joy: I would like to know erm what is English so important for the people in the globe.4

The author found that the participants hardly make any use of discourse markers or discourse particles typically used to facilitate oral communication. However, she found that her participants often used, what she calls, “represents”, i.e. they would repeat a large part or all of the utterance produced by the previous speaker. The reasons for this are apparently

4 _{Examples quoted from transcriptions in the VOICE literature conform to the VOICE transcription}

conventions (see http://www.univie.ac.at/voice/page/documents/VOICE_mark-up_conventions_v2-1.pdf). My own examples taken from the data of this study do not conform to one specific set of transcription conventions. See the transcription key on page (xii) for a guide to the transcription symbols.

to facilitate understanding and production, to provide textual coherence, to make it clear to the participant that the present speaker is hearing and understanding what is being said, to request confirmation and to make it clear that the present speaker has no intention of stealing the other participant‟s turn (House 2002: 253). Similar examples were found in the data collected for this study, as will be illustrated in Section 4.3.3.1.

House found that ELF interlocutors often used conjunctions at the beginning of their utterances. Conjunctions such as and and but were used utterance-initially to supply a connection between the various participants‟ utterances. She suggests that the interlocutors use these conjunctions “in an attempt to make up for their failure to use more interpersonal devices for lubricating turn changes such as hmmm, yes, well, I see, and so on” (House 2002: 254).

House also found that her participants often attempted to change the topic of conversation by producing completely irrelevant utterances. These sudden topic changes involved no “discourse-lubricating gambits or preparatory supportive moves” (House 2002: 255). What follows in (2) is an example of a sudden topic change in House‟s data, as demonstrated by Wei‟s utterance.

(2) Joy: I think England had influenced erm the most part of the world (2 sec) there is one reason of why English should be erm [should be erm]

Brit: [but it also is] France France had colonies that‟s not it why isn‟t French then today (2 sec) or Spanish.

Mauri: Spanish yeah South America speak almost @ Spanish. Brit: @ And they very often refuse to speak English.

Mauri: Yes.

Wei: I have been to Canada erm two weeks ago. Joy: Oh yeah.

Another of House‟s findings was that the Asian participants seemed to show a significant bond (possibly because they all come from the Far East). This is reflected in their speech

when, in House‟s example in (3), Brit provides suggestions to help Joy find the right words to complete her utterance.

(3) Joy: I recently read an article in a Korean erm (2 sec) moment (3 sec). Brit: Newspaper, Internet?

Joy: Yes thank you @ erm the article is about new foreign language education in Japan.

House concluded that even though ELF speakers‟ English language competence leaves much to be desired, their strategic competence (which enables them to take part in negotiations) must be seen as “fully intact” (House 2002: 259). Furthermore, House believes that ELF speakers should not be seen as inept speakers who, as soon as they diverge from the E-L1 speaker norms, are regarded as deficient in their English linguistic abilities.

2.6.1.2 You know in ELF

In another study, House (2009) investigated the use of the phrase you know. This time, 13 semi-structured ELF conversations were analysed. The participants were students from the University of Hamburg ranging in age from 20 to 35 years with various language backgrounds and levels of competence in English. These ELF conversations were then transcribed and analysed for any communicative phenomena related to the phrase you

know. Finally, some of the participants were interviewed again a while after the recordings

had been made. They listened to the recordings and were asked to comment on their uses of

you know to assist with the interpretation of results.

This analysis revealed that approximately 80 percent of you know instances occurred in the middle of utterances and that speakers do indeed make use of you know in various individual ways. She found that if an ELF speaker knows the phrase, he/she will use it consistently; if he/she does not know it and therefore does not use it, the speaker will be consistent in his/her non-usage.

House‟s data revealed that you know co-occurs with the conjunctions but, because and and. In these instances, you know serves “as a highlighting, focusing device, making more

explicit the adversative, causal and additive relations set up by the conjunctions but,

because and and respectively” (House 2009: 181). She interprets this use of you know as

evidently speaker-orientated because the speaker is only concerned with accenting the adversative, causal and additive relations within his/her own speech and not that of the hearer.

It was found that ELF speakers often make use of you know as a speaker strategy when they “want to make salient coherence relations and focus on, or boost connections as a prefab, an idiomatic chunk or conventionalized routine” (House 2009: 190). House also believes that you know is not a non-functioning, futile filler used by ELF speakers to allow themselves more time to find the correct words and formulate their utterances properly to contribute meaningfully to a conversation. House says that, when used as a formulaic expression, you know is fully functional and is mainly used for the benefit of the speaker. An analysis and discussion of the presence of this discourse marker in the data for this thesis is given in Section 4.4.3.2.