Composición florística, IVI’s y diversidad

Carroll (2004) and Olsher (2004) argued that research on face-to-face

interaction involving L2 speakers should pay careful attention to the embodied aspects of the interaction. Furthermore, Carroll argued that “lack of attention to body

behaviours represents not only a gap in the research but a serious methodological blind spot which future research must address” (Carroll, 2004, p. 219). Observing the

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importance of the interplay between embodied actions and language and how CA studies has developed with this incorporated information about the embodiment (e.g., see Stivers and Sidnell, 2005), studies in second language have also started to expand their research parameters to explore the coordination of these multiple semiotic resources in various contexts of face-to-face interaction (see, e.g., Carroll, 2004; Lazaraton, 2004; Olsher, 2004; Ikeda, 2007; Belhiah, 2009; Mortensen, 2009; Seo, 2011; Koshik and Seo, 2012; Eskildsen and Wagner, 2013; Sert and Walsh, 2013; Eskildsen and Wagner, 2015; Hazel and Mortensen, 2017).

With the growing tendency to explore embodied actions through the emic perspective in L2 studies, this has led to recognition that embodied actions and other multimodal resources have contributed to the documentation of the micro-moment of the L2 learning process, L2 use, and in understanding interactional practices in L2 (Seo, 2011). As such, it is noteworthy to review the CA approach in L2 studies to date, including analyses on embodied actions, in order to understand the role of gaze, gestures, embodiment surrounding artefacts and other non-verbal conduct in L2 interaction.

Advocating the importance of embodied action, a study by Lazaraton (2004) showed that an L2 teacher demonstrates embodied actions to assist explanation of new vocabulary to L2 learners in the language classroom. For example, she described that the L2 teacher uses her hand gestures in coordination with her talk in giving vocabulary explanation. In her study, Lazaraton (ibid.), through the analysis of videotapes of ESL classrooms, found that when studying vocabulary explanation through teacher talk is insufficient and noted how the teacher’s non-verbal behaviour was a fundamental means of communication. The L2 teacher’s hand movements managed to facilitate L2 learners to grasp the meaning of vocabulary. Although Lazaraton (ibid) claimed that her study “nonverbal is a fundamental aspect of [teacher’s] pedagogical repertoire that must be taken into account” (p. 107).

In another study, Sert and Walsh (2013) showed a similar implication to Lazaraton’s (2004) study on how teachers use embodied actions in vocabulary

explanation. In their study on investigating the interactional management for students’ ‘claims of insufficient knowledge’, Sert and Walsh (2013) found that a teacher’s

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embodied actions in teaching can lead to student engagement. For example, they described how a teacher making use of hand gestures stimulated students’ involvement when providing vocabulary explanation. These findings from Lazaraton (2004) and Sert and Walsh (2013) suggest that embodied vocabulary explanation are found to be significant interactional resources in facilitating teaching-learning in the L2 classroom.

In a study of L2 tutorial interaction, Belhiah (2009) showed that tutors and students demonstrated extensive use of embodied actions, comprising gaze direction and body orientation. In his study, Belhiah (2009) focused on how both tutor and student coordinate their talk, gaze and body orientation when engaging in a tutorial session (e.g., opening phase) and when disengaging from the tutorial session (e.g., closing phase). He found that in the opening phase the tutor shifted his gaze and positioned his body towards reading material, which could indicate an invitation for the student to display an orientation towards the reading material. In the closing phase, both participants shifted their gaze away from each other, and the tutor would stand up and then be followed by the student. Therefore, the study revealed that talk and embodied action of tutor and student are coordinated in meaningful ways as a

collaborative activity for opening and closing sequences in L2 tutorials (Belhiah, 2009). Eskildsen and Wagner (2015) also put forward the importance of multimodal resources of L2 new vocabulary learning. In their 2015 study, they investigated the combination of gestures and talk that are displayed by the teacher in explaining the words ‘under’ and ‘across’. It found that the student can build an understanding of new vocabulary introduced in the classroom through observing the teacher’s embodied vocabulary explanation and also by repeating the performed gestures to demonstrate student understanding. An interesting finding in this study, which was conducted over a period of time, is that it can be observed that the student organises and recycles similar combination of gestures and talk when conversing with other participants. Thus, Eskildsen and Wagner (2015) revealed the significant use of gestures in L2 learning over time, in which not only learning processes are facilitated but also achieve and maintain intersubjectivity.

In another L2 tutorial interaction study, Seo (2011) focused on the role of multimodal resources in repair sequences in the tutorial session. In her study, Seo

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showed that talk, gaze, gestures, body orientation, and material objects that are coordinated between tutor and the tutee are significant resources in facilitating L2 learning and demonstrating intersubjective understanding. In this study, for example, the tutor used her hand gestures to describe an unknown vocabulary to the tutee. However, it is also revealed the tutee displayed a non-understanding of the description, and thus the tutor made another attempt by adding or changing the gestures and also using material objects (e.g., paper and pen) in explaining to the tutee. Therefore, Seo (2011) pointed out, the various multimodal resources displayed by participants in L2 tutorials are coordinated interactional resources to resolve mutual understanding and to facilitate language learning. Both Seo’s (2011) and Eskildsen and Wagner’s (2015) studies suggested that there is a strong relationship between gestures and L2 learning that can resolve and maintain intersubjectivity.

In addition to these studies, Ikeda (2007) and Mortensen (2009) included participants’ embodied actions in their analyses of how participation is organised in L2 interaction. For example, Ikeda’s unpublished dissertation showed how talk and

embodied action deployed in interaction can serve as valuable resources for L1 speakers to facilitate L2 speakers’ participation in Japanese language interaction. Ikeda analysed features such as vocal perturbation features (e.g. uhm), gaze and gestures in the current speaker’s turn and found that the embodied resources demonstrated by the participants provided a recognition and opportunities for the recipient to offer co-participant completion.

Mortensen (2009) similarly showed how students’ participation in the language classroom is facilitated through teacher’s instruction. He described how the teacher’s instruction does not precisely select a student to take the role to be the next speaker. Instead, students deployed multimodal resources, including in-breaths and changes of body positioning, to claim speakership and establish recipiency (Mortensen, 2009). Thus, it is noteworthy that studies in L2 interaction should attend to various aspects of multimodal resources as they can be important signs in understanding the sequential organisation of L2 classroom interaction (Mortensen 2009; Eskildsen and Wagner, 2015), L2 tutorials (Seo 2011; Belhiah, 2009) and L2 group interaction (Mori and Hayashi, 2006; Ikeda, 2007).

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In this section, a broad array of work has been discussed and reviewed to exhibit the significance of examining various multimodal resources for different actions and phenomena of L2 interaction. Much of the research has explored the roles of embodied actions or multimodal resources to unpack the complexity of L2 interaction in formal L2 educational contexts such as classrooms, group discussions and tutorial sessions (e.g., Belhiah, 2009; Lazaraton, 2004; Olsher, 2004; Carroll, 2004; Seo and Koshik, 2010; Seo, 2011; Eskildsen and Wagner, 2013; Mortensen, 2009; Sert and Walsh, 2013; Ikeda, 2007).

By contrast, only a small number of CA studies of L2 users socialising outside formal educational settings have been conducted (Gardner and Wagner, 2004; Firth and Wagner). When L2 users socialise outside the formal educational setting, we are able to explicate the character of L2 use (Firth, 2009), such as understanding how L2 users engage in a complex multimodal interaction that includes the use of vocal and non- vocal actions in a particular context (Egbert et al., 2004). Consequently, this study aims to investigate L2 interaction outside formal educational settings, specifically to

investigate word search phenomenon, including the roles of embodied actions in L2 interaction. Considering the upsurge interest in embodied actions in L2 interaction as reviewed in this section, the following next section will review research that include examining multimodal resources in word search practices using the CA approach.