Mauranen (2006) studied the ways in which speakers signal and prevent misunderstanding in ELF. She selected and analysed data from the English as Lingua Franca in Academic settings (ELFA) corpus. This corpus is situated in the English Department of the University of Tampere in Helsinki and was started with the aim of investigating all aspects of ELF in academic settings. Mauranen used data from an early phase of the corpus in which four different seminars and one conference discussion were recorded and transcribed. In the seminar recordings, senior undergraduate students of both sexes, different ages and with various language backgrounds were recorded, with a senior member of the faculty present during each seminar. For the conference recording, less information of the speakers was available. However, 29 speakers of both sexes, with various language backgrounds, and ranging in age from 17 to 51, were recorded.
Mauranen found that the participants made use of three different ways to signal misunderstanding. The first was to ask the speaker direct and specific questions in order to understand the meaning of (part of) an utterance. This is an obvious indication of misunderstanding to the speaker, and it requires the speaker to repair it to enable the discourse to continue (see (97), (98) and (99) in Section 4.3.1.1).
The second way of signalling misunderstanding, according to Mauranen, is repetition of the problematic item by the hearer. This is a less obvious, less bold, more indirect indication of misunderstanding to the speaker because the hearer does not explicitly ask for help (see (101) in Section 4.3.1.2). Mauranen warns of a possible risk with this strategy: “sometimes simple repetition leaves too much space for alternative interpretations, and what gets offered as clarification may not match the need” (Mauranen 2006: 133).
The third way of signalling misunderstanding is even more indirect. Although some signalling is presented by the hearer, it is not specific and does not aid the speaker in
pinpointing where the hearer‟s confusion lies. A result of this is that the speaker may be unable to give the required clarification. Mauranen (2006: 135) provides the example in (13).
(13) Speaker 1: maybe that‟s why Speaker 2: [yeah]
Speaker 3: [maybe] there‟s barriers S2: what?
S3: [they] are language barriers S2: [yeah]
S1: yes
S2: yeah yeah okay
In this example, S2‟s signal of misunderstanding (i.e. what?) does not show what he/she is unclear about. Mauranen points out that S2 may not have heard the previous utterance or may not have been concentrating while the conversation was taking place, and is asking for a repetition in order to hear the utterance once more. S3 would not have known this and, as is evident in the example, interprets S2‟s what? as relating to the issues of clarity or relevance.
Mauranen notes that it is not always possible to determine the functions of, amongst other things, repetition. She states that the main aims when using these strategies could be to make meanings clearer, make interaction smoother, or to gain extra utterance-planning time. Interestingly, the “let it pass” principle identified by House (see Section 2.6.1 above) did not feature in her data. Mauranen reasons that it may not be a feature of academic discussions or that it does not occur in multi-party discussions.
Mauranen‟s next finding concerns the numerous occurrences of the prevention of misunderstanding. The speakers in her recordings often requested clarifications or confirmations, reformulated their utterances and provided additional explanations. Sudden additional checks, explanations or clarifications were the only strategies that occurred in this data set and there were no overt signals of misunderstanding.
The participants in Mauranen‟s recordings made use of three strategies in order to prevent misunderstanding, the first being that of confirmation checks. The author notes that these checks can either be minimal or more explicit (see the respective examples in (102) and (103) in Section 4.3.1.3). Mauranen (2006: 140) interprets the use of comprehension checks and their subsequent responses as indications from both the speaker and the hearer of their “willingness to cooperate toward comprehension and an awareness of its precariousness.”
The second strategy used by speakers to prevent misunderstanding is one of interactive repairs (see (104) in Section 4.3.1.4). This happens when a speaker has difficulty finding the right word or phrase. The hearer recognizes the speaker‟s communicative problem and makes a verbal contribution in order to help him/her. Mauranen finds that most repairs are driven by the objective to enable the continuation of the discourse.
The third strategy used by speakers to prevent misunderstanding is that of self-repair. This happens when a speaker detects a fault in the content or grammaticality of his/her utterance and repairs it. This reparation can happen immediately after (part of) an erroneous word has been uttered, in which case the speaker will interrupt him-/herself, repair the word or phrase, and carry on with his/her turn. The reparation can also happen at the end of the speaker‟s utterance, in which case the speaker will have thought about what he/she just said, detected the fault and corrected it (see examples (105) and (106) in section 4.3.1.5). Mauranen notes that in her data, almost every ELF speaker made considerable use of self- repairs. She quotes Kurhila (2003a) who found that E-L2/ELF speakers tend to self-repair the grammaticality of their utterances much more often than E-L1 speakers. E-L1 speakers also tend to focus more on the content and meaning of their utterances rather than the grammaticality. She adds that both interactive repair work and self-repair are highly cooperative ways of guaranteeing the flow of mutual intelligibility in ELF discourse.