Long Negotiation Applied Linguistics 1983 LONG 126 41

8/18/2019 Long Negotiation Applied Linguistics 1983 LONG 126 41

1/16

Native speaker/non-na tive speaker

conversation

and the

negotiation

of

comprehensible

input

1

MICHAEL H. LONG

University o f Hawaii at Manoa

Linguistic input probably has to be comp rehensible to the learner if it is to serve

as data for second language acquisition. It is widely assumed that input becomes

comprehensible through the speech modifications of native speakers addressing

non-native speakers of the target language. Recent research on native

speaker/non-native speaker conversation suggests, however, that modifications

of the interactional structure of conversation are more important in this regard.

They are more extensive and more-consistently observed than input modifica-

tions, and often occur when the latter do not. Fifteen devices for the mod ifica-

tion of interaction are describe d. They are of three kinds: strategies, which serve

to avoid conversational trouble, tactics, which are used to repair the discourse

when trouble occurs, and strategies an d tactics, devices which serve both

functions.

1. INTRODUCTION

Recent years have seen at least forty studies of speech by native speakers (NSs)

addressing non-native speakers (NNSs) of the language of communication (for

review, see Long 1980, 1981a).

2

Most researchers report finding the NSs using a

reduced, or 'simplified' variety of their language, commonly observed features of

which include shorter utterances, lower syntactic complexity, and avoidance of

low frequency lexical items and idiomatic express ions (see, e.g. Ar thur et al. 1980;

Freed 1978; Gaies 1977; Henzl 1979). Several of the modifications of NS-NS

norms reflect adaptations made by adults talking to young children, although the

functions of caretaker speech often differ from those of speech to foreigners

(Freed 1978).

Speech to non-native speakers (foreigner talk) is sometimes also ungram-

matical, as w hen obligatory functors, such as articles, copula, or other inflectional

morphology are deleted (Ferguson 197 5; Meisel 1977). Unlike the earlier kinds of

modifications, however, use of this 'broken' form of a language is restricted,

seeming to occur only when two or more of the following conditions are met: (1)

the non-native speaker has very low or no proficiency in the language of com-

munication; (2) the native speaker is, or thinks s/he is, of higher status than the

non-native speaker; (3) the native speaker has considerable prior foreigner talk

experience, but of a very limited kind; and (4) the conversation occurs

spontaneously, i.e. not as part of a laboratory study (Long 198 l c ) .

The considerable interest in research on speech modified for non-native

speakers has largely been due to claims that linguistic input which is understood

by the learner, or 'inta ke' (Cor der 1967), is the primary da ta for second language

acquisition (SLA) (see, e.g. Hatch 1979; Krashen 1980; Larsen-Freeman 1979).

It is widely assumed (although yet to be shown empirically) that at least some of

the speech modifications referred to above are what serve to make input com-

prehensible. Recent research on NS-NNS conversation, however, suggests that

while understanding may indeed be facilitated by encoding in shorter, syntactic-

ally less complex utterances, speech modifications alone are rarely sufficient.

Native speakers also make a lot of adjustments to the interactional structure of

Applied Linguistics, Vol. 4, No . 2.


2/16

MICHA EL H. LONG 127

conversation, and it is modifications of the latter sort that are greater, more con-

sistently observed, and probably more important for providing comprehensible

input. Since the input/interaction distinction (Long 1980) is a fairly recent one, a

brief clarification of the terms is in order.

2 . MODIFIED INPUT AND MODIFIED INTERACTION

The literature on both first and second language acquisition (SLA) often conflates

two related but distinguishable phenomena: input to, and interaction with a

language acquirer. Input refers to the linguistic forms (morphemes, words, utter-

ances)—the streams of speech in the air—directed at the non-native speaker.

Thus , in terms of input we may w ish to describe (1) and (2):

1 Wh at 's the boy's name?

2 The boy, what's his name?

as two utterances with a mean length of 5.5 words (or 4.5, depending on how we

are scoring contracted forms), a mean syntactic complexity score of 1 (neither

contains more than one S-node), and with (between them) two instances each of

three grammatical morphemes, article, copula, and possessive, two verbs marked

temporally for present, none for non-present, and so on. Suppose, however, that

(1) and (2) occurred sequentially in NS-NNS conversation, as in (3):

3 NS : Wha t 's the boy's name?

NNS : Uh?

NS : The boy, what 's his name ?

Describing the same utterances in terms of interaction, we attend to the functions

they serve in conversation. We might now code both as Wh questions, and (2) as

a self-repetition, and perhaps as a topic-comme nt construction.

When describing linguistic input, therefore, we are considering only the forms

that the learner hears; analysis of interaction means describing the functions of

those forms in (conversational) discourse. Statements about differences in

linguistic input to native speakers and non-native speakers involve direct com-

parisons of the absolute or relative frequencies of certain forms in two corpora.

Statements about differences in the interactional structure of NS-NS and

NS-NNS conversation first imply identification of the conversational function of

forms within each corpus, followed by comparisons of the absolute or relative

frequencies of those functions acros s c orpor a. The analysis of input also involves

a consideration of the native s peake r's speech in isolation. Analysis of interaction

necessitates taking the non-native speaker's participation into account, for

identification of turns in conversation as, e.g. other-repetitions, confirmation

checks, comprehension checks, expansions and clarification requests, is only

possible by considering the relationships which utterances enter into with those

preceding and /or following them , including those by the non-native interlocutor.

Distinguishing input and interaction at one stage in the analysis of NS-NNS

conversation does not imply permanent separation. It seems clear, after all, that

several features of each are often related. Thus, Long (1981b) found a native

speaker preference for encoding topic-initiating moves as questions statistically

significantly more often when addressing non-native speakers than other native

speake rs. Since English ma rks simple past tense on the auxiliary (did) in questions

and on the main verb in statements, SL acquirers tend to hear the unmarked

infinitive form more often than native speakers, a factor which may prove to be


3/16

128 NATIVE SPEAK ER/NON -NATIVE SPEAKER CONV ERSATION

related to the relatively late acquisition of what, in English, is a simple, highly

regular form-meaning inflectional relationship.

While input-inte ractio n relationships of this sort clearly exist, it is equally clear

that modification in input and in interaction sometimes occurs independently.

Consider the following conversational fragments:

NS

NN S

NS

NNS

NS

NNS

NS

NNS

NS

NS

What time you finish?

Ten o'clock

Wh en did you finish?

Um?

When did you finish?

Ten clock

Ten o'clock?

Yeah

Wh en did you finish?

Ten

(4) shows the type of exchange typical of some observational studies of foreigner

talk, e.g. that between native speaker factory foremen and migrant workers. The

native speaker uses an uninverted Wh question lacking do-support or tense

marking. The question is understood first time, however, probably because of its

routine nature, and the worker's reply closes what is, in interactional terms, a

norm al tw o-part e xchange, as shown by the NS—NS equivalent in (6). Th e input

to the non-na tive speaker in (4) is modified,

3

that is, but the interactional structure

of the con versation is not. (5) shows just the oppo site, and is, incidentally, typical

of NS-NNS conversational data from the quasi-experimental laboratory studies.

After the native speaker's initial question fails, s/he uses an exact self-repetition,

which succeeds in eliciting an appropriate response from the non-native speaker.

The response is sufficiently ambiguous, however, to make the native speaker

employ a confirmation check

(Ten o clock?),

which serves to establish that the

non-native speaker's reply had in fact been correctly heard. The six-turn exchange

involves several modifications of the interactional structure of (6), but not of the

inpu t

Thus far, the two constructs, input and interaction, have been posited on the

basis of hypothetical examples and isolated fragments of data. There follows a

brief summary report of one part of a larger study whose findings provide

quantified em pirical suppor t for the distinction.

3 . AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF NS-NNS CONVERSATION: INPUT AND INTERACTION

4

Method

Controlling for sex and prior foreigner talk experience, 48 adult native speakers

and 16 adult non-native speakers from a variety of first language backgrounds

were randomly assigned to form 32 dyads, 16 NS-NS and 16 NS-NNS, in a

matched-pairs design. Each dyad performed the same six tasks in the same order.

These were: (1) informal conversation, (2) vicarious narrative, (3) giving instruc-

tions for two communication games, (4) playing the first game, (5) playing the

second game, and (6) discussing the supposed purpose of the research. About 25

minutes of conversation by each dyad were transcribed for analysis. In testing one

of the larger study's three main research questions, NS-NS and NS-NNS con-


4/16

MICHAEL H. LONG

129

versations were compared on 16 features of input and interaction. The findings

are presented in Tables 1-6.

Table I: Four measures of linguistic input across tasks (data from Long 1980)

S S

S S

Redefined

1 Average length of T-urats

in words

2

S-nodes

per

T-unit

3 Type-token ratio (tasks 1 and 2)

4 (a) lexical frequency of nouns

(b) lexical frequency of verbs

n

2224

2224

X

8.36

1.51

.71

426.68

3886.91

n

2369

2369

X

7.60

1.42

.65

313 76

4192.96

1 ^

16

16

8

8

8

T = 2 0

T = 2 8

T = 4.5

X = 6

X

=

3

V

.05 (n.s.)

on task 1 (data from

Total

100

100

Table 3: Numbers and proportions of present and non-present temporal markings

on verbs on task 1

Present Non-present

n n

NS -NS (n = 16) 245 68.06 115 31.94

NS-N NS (n = 16) 264 79.76 67 20.24

X

2

= 11.58,

df=l ,p< .001

Total

n

360 100

331 100

Results

Tables 1, 2, and 3 show values across all six tasks for six features of input in

NS-NS and NS-NNS conversation. The statistical significance of differences

between the two corpora was calculated using Wilcoxon's matched-pairs signed-

ranks test (variables 1-3), the sign test (variable 4a and b), and the chi-square test

(variables 5 and 6).

It can be seen that differences on only two of the six input variables attained

significance at the requ ired level (oc = .005)*. In input to N N Ss , the avera ge length

of T-units

6

was sh orter (T = 20, p


5/16

13 0

NATIVE SPEAKER/NON-NATIVE SPEAKER CONVERSATION

(higher) proportion of copulas to main verbs—generally operated in the same

direction, but did not obtain significance at the required level.

Tables 4, 5, and 6 show values across all six tasks for ten features of interac-

tion in NS-NS and NS-NNS conversation. The statistical significance of differ-

ences between the two corpora was calculated using the chi-square test (Tables 4

and 5) and Wilcoxon's signed-ranks matched-pairs test (Table 6).

Table 4: Numbers and proportions of questions, statements and imp eratives in T-

units on all tasks

Questions

Statements

Imperatives Total

NS-NS (n = 16)

NS-NNS (n

= 16)

449

728

20.19

29.49

1740

1679

78.24

68.00

35

62

1.57

2.51

2224

2469

100

100

2

=

62.12 ,df=2 ,p


6/16

MICHAEL H. LONG 131

p


7/16

132 NATIVE SPEAKER/NON-NATIVE SPEAKER CONVERSATION

planning by the native speaker. They tend to govern the way s/he conducts entire

conversations, and primarily concern wha t is talked about (conversational topic),

but affect

how

topics

are

treated,

too. I

call these conversational strategies.

Modifications motivated by the need to fix up the conversa tion when trou ble

arises seem to be spontaneous solutions to immediate, short-term problems. They

affect primarily how topics are talked a bo ut I call these tactics for discourse

repair. A subset of the modifications of each type, strategies and tactics, is used

both

to

avoid

and

repair trouble,

i.e. as

both strategy

and

tactic,

but

most

modifications

in

this group tend

to

serve

one or the

other function mor e often.

Some examples

of

devices used

as

strategies and /or tactics

are

shown

in

the table

below.

Table

:

Devices used by native speakers to modify the interactional

structure ofNS-NNS conversation

trategies S) Tactics T)

(for avoidin g trouble) (for repairing trouble)

51 Relinquish topic-control

Tl

Accept unintentional topic-switch

52 Select salient topics

T2

Requ est clarification

53 Treat topic s briefly

T3

Confirm own com prehension

54 Make new topics salient

T4

Tolerate ambiguity

55 Check NN S's comprehension

trategies

and

Tactics

ST)

(for avoiding

and

repairing trou ble)

ST1 Use slow pace

ST4

Decom pose topic-comm ent constructions

ST2 Stress key words

STS

Repeat own utterances

ST3 Pause before key words

ST6

Repeat other's utterances

4.1 Strategies

SI . Relinquish topic-control

Assuming there

is no

pressure upon them

to do

otherwise (e.g. from the na ture

of

the task), native speakers will often attempt to pass control of current and sub-

sequent conversational topics

to the

non-native speak er. Occasio nally, they

do

this explicitly,

as

in (7):

7 NS: OK Now you know the question tha t 's coming W hat hav e you what do

you think

of

the United States

or the

American people

or

whatever

it is

that interests you or you noticed?

Implicit willingness to talk about whatever the non-native spea ker feels comfort-

able with is pervasive, however, and is what often seems to lie behind the so-called

'or-choice' question (Hatch 1978), of which both (7) and (8) are exam ples:

8 NS: Are the islands the sam e— do they look same? . . as Japan as . the country

in Japan? Are the houses, for example, are the houses the same on

O s i m a . . as say in the country . . Sapporo o r (Akairo)? D o the people talk

the same

or

do the houses look the sam e?

. . . . Or

are the trees the same?

As Hatch points out, or-choice questions offer the non-native speaker a series of

potential topics to talk ab out, often also serving to suggest possible answers to the

'questions' themselves. Of course, native speakers use or-choice questions, too

(and, at times, all the devices discussed here), when talking to other native


8/16

MICHAEL H. LONG 133

speakers. Their use in NS-NNS conversation seems to be much more frequent,

however. One recent study of informal encounters between 36 adult native

speakers of English and 36 young Japanese adults (Long 1981b) found that in

NS-NNS conversations, of a total of 356 Yes/No questions, 75 (21 per cent)

were or-choice questions, compared with 10 (10 per cent) of 85 Yes/No questions

in a NS -N S corpus (x

2

= 6.16, df = 1, p


9/16

134 NATIVE SP EAKER/NO N- NATIVE SP EAKER CONVERSATION

N N S

N S

N N S

N S

N S

N N S

N S

I come from (Ngunga) Tokyo near- near Tokyo

A ha

But I live in Tokyo

Aha Do you study?

Or

N o

do you work

The native speaker closes down the previous topic and introduces two more

(where the non-native speaker is from and what she does there) in the space of

eight very sh ort turns containing only two topic-continuing moves in T-units (both

produced by the non-native speaker).

Two studies have provided data suggesting that brief treatment of topics is

common in NS-NNS conversat ion. Arthur et al. (1980) had native speaker and

non-native speaker telephone callers ask identical questions of airline reservation

staff concerning the nature of particular kinds of commercial aircraft. Non-native

callers consistently elicited fewer information bits than did native speakers. Long

(1981b) compared the number of topic-continuing moves in NS-NS and

NS-NNS conversation elicited by 50 sequential topic-initiating moves in each

corpus, the NS-NNS data again involving the 36 American-Japanese dyads in

informal face-to-face conversation. For 50 topic-initiating moves, there were 606

topic-continuations with a native speaker interlocutor, but only 211 with non-

native speakers (t = 5.768, df = 9 8, p


10/16


Using a slow pace (ST1), and especially stressing key words (ST2) and pausing

for half a beat or a be at before or after them (ST3) also boost saliency:

14 N S : How long have you been at UCL A?

15 NS : Aha What year are you? . What yea r in college are you in?

The last three devices are also used, and more frequently so, as tactics, however

(as indicated by 'S T) .

Perhaps the most noticeable effort to make topics salient is the use of questions

to encode topic-nominating m oves, as in (7), (8), (10) and (1 6):

16 N S : S o you g- are you going to con- continue at UC LA ? O r are you going

to change schools?

The self-correction, 'So you g-', in (16) seems to be motivated by the wish to

include an extra question marker, subject-auxiliary inversion. A previous study

(Long 1981b) found a remarkable 96 per cent of 50 topic-initiating moves

examined were encoded as questions in NS-NNS conversation, as compared to

62 per cent of 50 such moves in NS-NS conversation (x

2

= 17.54, df = 1,

p


11/16

136 NATIVE SP EAKER/NON- NATIVE SP EAKER CONVERSATION

18 NS

NN S

NS

19 NS

N N S

NS

Uh what does uh what does your father do in uh you're from Kyoto,

right?

Yeah

Yeah What does your father do in Kyoto?

When do you go to the uh Santa M onica? . . . You say you go fishing

in Santa M onica, right?

Yeah

When?

In exchange s of this type, the native speaker wishes to ask the non-native speaker

to comment on a new topic. In (18), where decomposition is operating as a

strategy, the native speaker checks

himself

self-correcting after 'what does your

father do in', and first establishes the new topic by stating it in isolation from the

request for commentary. As here, and also in (19), this is often done with rising

intonation, and often with a tag (right?), asking for confirmation that the topic has

been established (cf. the 'try-marking' intonation noted in Sachs and

Schegloff

1974).

Then, w hen the requested confirmation is given, the comm ent, in the form

of a question about the new topic, is stated or, when decomposition serves as a

tactic, as in (19), restated. Decomposition is clearly a more complex device,

whether used as a strategy or as a tactic, than others we have discussed. It has not

occurred as frequently as others in data ana lysed so far, and seems to be confined

to non-native speakers with considerable prior foreigner talk experience when it

does occur (Long, in press).

5 5 : Check non-native speaker s comprehension

Comprehension checks, such as Right?, OK? an d Do you understand?, clearly

show an effort on the part of native speakers to anticipate and prevent a break-

down in communication. They are used significantly more frequently with non-

native speakers than in NS-NS conversation, as was reported earlier (Table 6).

4.2 Tactics

Tl:Accept unintentional topic-switch

When native speakers fail to establish a new topic, and a communication break-

down ensues , they will sometimes dro p the topic altogether. One example of

this

is

the tactic of accepting an unintentional topic-switch by the non-native speaker, as

in (20):

20 NS : Ar e you going to visit San Franscisco ? Or Las Vegas?

NN S : Yes I went to Disneyland and to Knottsb erry Far m

NS : Oh yeah?

The non-native speaker misunderstands the question as one concerning her

previous sightseeing visits, and the native speaker repa irs the discourse by treating

the inappropriate response as a topic-nomination. I have no quantified data for

T l ,

and it does not seem to occur very frequently. It is clearly related to SI

(relinquish topic-control) and T4 (tolerate ambiguity), and again seems impres-

sionistically to be used more frequently by native speakers with considerable prior

foreigner talk experience. Compare its success in (20) with the failure, in (21), of

an inexperienced native speaker, who persisted with the original topic without ever

getting a real resp onse to his question:


12/16

MICHAEL H. LONG 137

21 NS : Um . . . how long do you think or how long do you want to wait to be

able to speak and read so you can go to college? What—two years?

One year?

NN S : One year?

NS : One year? Do you think in one year that you can learn to speak and

read well enough to go to college? . . . D o you understand w hat I'm

what I'm what I'm I'm going for?

NNS : College?

7 2 : Request clarification

Clarification requests are defined as any expression by a native speaker designed

to elicit clarification of the interlocu tor's preceding utterance(s). They are m ostly

formed by questions, but unlike confirmation checks, may consist of Wh or

Yes/No questions as well as uninverted (intonation) and tag questions, for they

require that the interlocutor either furnish new information or recode information

previously given. Unlike confirmation checks, in other words, there is no

presupposition on the speaker's part that s/he has understood or heard the other's

previous utterance(s). While questions are the most frequent form of clarification

request, they are also effected by statements like / don t follow, and imperatives

like Try again. Long (1980) found clarification checks were used statistically

significantly more often in NS-NNS than in NS-NS conversation, as shown

earlier (Table 6).

T3 : C onfirm own comprehension

Confirmation checks are defined as any expressions by the native speaker

immediately following an utterance by the interlocutor which are designed to elicit

confirmation that the utterance has been correctly heard or understood by the

speaker. Thus, The man? following Next to the man by the other speaker is a

confirmation check. Confirmation checks are always formed by rising intonation

questions, with or without a tag (The man? or The man, right?). They always

involve repetition of all or part of the other's preceding utterance. They are

answerable by a simple confirmation (Yes, Mmhm) in the event that the preceding

utterance was correctly heard or understood, and require no new information

from the interlocutor. Long (1980) found confirmation checks to be more fre-

quent in the N S- NN S than in the NS -N S corpus (see Table 6).

T4: Tolerate ambiguity

Another tactic used by native speakers to sustain conversation is to tolerate

ambiguo us u tterances by the non-native speaker. The no n-native's difficulties with

the SL pronunciation may make items impossible to hear clearly, and even

correctly pronounced items may be semantically anomalous, or inappropriate.

Acceptance of an unintentional topic-switch is an extreme example of this, but

many other semantic miscues or non sequiturs are all allowed to pass which do

not result in changes of

topic.

These often take the form of unsatisfactory replies

to questions , as in (22):

22 NNS

NS

N N S

N S

N N S

NS

Turkey I like

Really? Where did you eat turkey?. Where do you eat (the) turkey?

. . . Uhm in (university restaurant)

Here?

Yes sandwich

(.h) Turkey sandwiches, yeah


13/16

138 NATIVE SPEAKER /NON-NATIVE SPEAKER CONVERSATION

While impressionistically pervasive in NS -N N S conversa tion, T4 is difficult, if

not impossible to quantify, for ambiguity clearly exists in all conversation, and

varies in degree according, among other factors, to the amount of common know-

ledge shared by speakers. There are some clear cases, that is, but a lot of border-

line ones, too .

4. 3 Strategies and tactics

ST1-ST4 have already been dealt with in the role they play as strategies. They

function in the same way as tactics, but then follow a breakdown in communica-

tion indicated by inappropriate silence, an inappropriate or incomprehensible

utterance, or an appeal for assistance on the part of the NNS (one or more of

which must occur immediately preceding any native speaker utterance which is to

be classified as a tactic).

ST5: Repeat own utterances

Self-repetitions are pervasive in NS -N N S conversation, and ar e used significantly

more often than when the interlocutor is another native speaker (Table 6). As

defined in that study (Long 1980), they include partial or complete, and exact or

semantic repetition (i.e. paraphrase) of any of the speaker's utterances which

occurred within five conversational turns (by both speakers) of the turn contain-

ing the repetition. Distinguishing repetitions and paraphrases may prove impor-

tant for predicting certain aspects of SLA, but I know of no study to date which

has done so and quantified its data.

ST6: R epeat other s utterances

Other-repetitions in Long (1980) were defined in the same way as self-repetitions,

except for the obvious difference concerning which speaker's utterances were

involved. Again, as reported in Table 6, other-repetitions were statistically

significantly more frequent in the N S- N N S than in the NS- N S corpus.

4. 4 Summary

The fifteen devices described above, five strategies, four tac tics, and six that serve

as both, are some of the interactional resources open to native speakers in con-

versation with non-native speakers. Their use goes some way to making linguistic

input comprehensible to the SL acquirer, as evidenced by the fact that without

them communication, conversation, breaks down; with their use conversation is

possible and is sustained. Non-native speakers understand and so can take part

appropriately.

No claim is made, however, that these fifteen devices are anything like an

exhaustive list of the options available to native speakers. Some may also be

language- or culture-specific, and more frequent in the particular kinds of

NS-NNS conversations that provided data for the studies from which they were

derived. These a re issues which can o nly be resolved by further em pirical work.

CONCLUSION

It is widely assumed, and probably rightly, that samples of a SL heard but not

understood by a would-be acquirer of that language serve no useful purpose in the

SLA process. Only comprehensible input will do. The question is, how does that

input become comprehensible to the learner? Modifications of the input itself

almost certainly help. They are not, however, very consistendy observed in studies


14/16

MICHAEL H. LONG 139

that seek them, and they are certainly not the only means. Modifications in the

interactional structure of conversation are greater, more consistently found, and

probably more important. They even seem to occur when linguistic input is non-

significantly different in most respe cts from tha t in N S -N S conversation.

The modifications of interaction that native speakers make are quite numerous,

diverse, and apparently prone to vary with certain characteristics of the speaker,

such as his or her prior foreigner talk experience. Certain pattern s in their use can

be observed, however. Some, such as selecting salient topics and treating them

briefly, appear to be used only as strategies, to avoid conversational trouble.

Others, such as acceptance of unintentional topic-switches and clarification

requests, serve as tactics, to repair the discourse when trouble occurs. Further

research is needed to establish the validity of this preliminary classification, and

then to test ho w variation in the extent and nature of linguistic input to the learner,

and in the conversational style which succeeds or fails in making it comprehens-

ible, affect the co urse, rate, and ultimate attainment of

the

SLA process .

(Received May 1982)

NOTES

1

This is a slightly amended version of a paper appearing (in German translation) in a special

issue on second language acquisition of

Zeitschrift Jur Literaturwissenschafl und Linguistik

Vol.

45 , 1981. The author gratefully acknowledges the publishers of LiLi and the editors of Vol. 45 ,

W. Klein and i. Weissenborn, for permission to produce the English version.

2

As used throughout this paper, the terms 'native speaker' (NS) and 'non-native speaker' (NNS )

refer to speakers for whom the language of com m unication is/is not their mother tongue. In other

words, as used here, and also in the studies to be reported upon, the native/non-native distinction is

an absolute one. However, many of the linguistic and conversational resources attributed to NSs

addressing non-natives are undoubtedly available to other classes of speakers, too. Thus, some of

the NS speech modifications to be described are also well-attested characteristics of caretaker

speech and of speech to the mentally retarded. They may also turn out to appear in language

addressed to native speakers of a non-standard variety of that language, or, indeed, in language

addressed to any listener (perceived as) less in control of the variety of language being used, whether

or not he or she is a NS. If the ability to adapt linguistic performance to an interlocutor is a uni-

versal (non-language-specific) part of linguistic competence, non-native speakers should also be able

to modify their interlanguage when using it to address other NNSs who are of lower proficiency.

Some or all of the linguistic and conversational resources, that is, may well be available to speakers

when differences between their own and their interlocutors' abilities are not absolute, but relative.

1

The exam ple of modified input given in (4) involves deletion of did and hence, ungrammatical

speech. 'Modified' should not be equated with 'ungramm atical', however. Most modifications do not

result in ungra m m atically, taking the form of, e.g. lower syntactic com plexity in a corpus of speech

addressed to NNSs compared with that in a corpus of NS-NS talk. Modification within the bounds

of grammaticality is measured in terms of statistically significant differences in the relative fre-

quencies of som e linguistic featu res), e.g. S-nodes per T-unit, between the two corpora.

4

The research reported here was part of a larger study conducted for the author's PhD disserta-

tion at UCL A (L ong 1980). For their constructive criticism and support throughout, I would like to

acknowledge the debt I owe the members of my committee: Professors Roger Andersen, Russell

Campbell, Susan Curtiss, Gerry Mahoney, John Schumann, and Noreen Webb, and especially to its

chairperson, Evelyn Hatch. None has seen this paper, however, or is responsible for any errors of

fact or interpretation it may contain.

5

The unusually high alpha level of .005 was used in order to minimize the likelihood of chance

findings of significance when so ma ny variables and hypo theses (30 in the full study) were examined

on the sam e data s et This procedure, of course, also increases the likelihood of a type-2 error, i.e. of

not finding significant d ifferences when differences in fact obta in.


15/16

140 NATIVE SPEAKE R/NON-NATIVE SPEAKER CONVERSATION

' A T-unit (Hunt 1970) is defined as 'a main clause plus all subordinate clauses and nonclausal

structures attached to or embedded in it'.

1

Type-token ratio, a measure of lexical diversity, was calculated by dividing the total number of

different wo rds (types) by the total number of wo rds (tokens).

REFERENCES

Arthur, B., R. Weiner, M. Culver, Y. J. Lee

an d

D. Thomas.

1980. 'The register of

impersonal discourse to foreigners: verbal adjustments to foreign accent' in D. Larsen-

Freeman (ed.). Discourse Analysis in Second Langu age Acquisition. Rowley, Mass.:

Newbury House.

Corder, S. P.

1967. 'The significance of learners' errors'.

International Review of Applied

Linguistics,

5/4: 161-70.

Cross, T.

1977. 'Mothers' speech adjustments: the contribution of selected child listener

variables' in C. Snow and C. Ferguson (eds.).

Talking to Children: Language Input

and Acquisition.

Lon don: Cambridge University Pres s.

Ferguson, C. A.

1975. 'Towards a characterization of English foreigner talk'.

Anthropological Linguistics,

1 7 : 1 - 1 4 .

Freed, B. F.

1978. 'Foreigner Talk: A Study of Speech Adjustments Made by Native

Speakers of English in Conversation with Non-native Speakers'. Unpublished doctoral

dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.

Gaies ,

S. 1977. 'The nature of linguistic input in formal second language learning:

Linguistic and communicative strategies in teachers' classroom language' in H. D.

Brown, C. A. Yorio, and R. H. Crymes (eds.).

On TESOL 77.

Washington, D.C.:

T E S O L .

Hatch, E.

1978. 'Discourse analysis and second language acquisition' in E. Hatch (ed.).

Second Langu age Acquisition: A Book of Readings.

Rowley, Mas s.: Newbury House.

Hatch, E.

1979. 'Simplified Input and Second Language Acquisition'. Paper presented at

the winter meeting of the LSA, December, 1979, Los Angeles, CA.

Henzl, V. M.

1979. 'Foreign talk in the classroom'.

International Review of Applied

Linguistics, Mil:

159—67.

Hunt, K. W.

1970. 'Syntactic maturity in school children and adults'.

Monograph s of the

Society for Research in Child Development,

53/1 (Serial No. 134).

Hytnes, D.

1972. 'Models of the interaction of language and social life' in J. J. Gumperz

and D. Hymes (eds.).

Directions in Sociolinguistics.

New York: Holt, Rinehart and

Winston.

Krashen, S. D.

1980. The input hypothe sis' in J. E. Alatis (ed.).

Current Issues in

Bilingual Education.

Washington, D. C. : George town University Press.

Larsen-Freeman, D.

1979. 'The Importance of Input in Second Language Acquisition'.

Paper presented at the winter meeting of the LSA, December, 1979, Los Angeles, CA.

Long, M. H.

1980. 'Inpu t, Interaction, and Second Lang uage Acquisition'. Unpublished

Ph .D .

dissertation , University of California, L os Angeles.

Long, M. H.

1981a. 'Input, interaction, and second language acquisition' in H. Winitz

(ed.).

Native Langu age and Foreign Language Acquisition. A nnals of the New York

Academy of Sciences

379: 259-78 .

Long, M. H.

1981b. 'Questions in foreigner talk discourse'.

Language Learning,

3 1 / 1 :

135-57. .

Long, M. H.

1981c. 'Variation in Linguistic Input for Second Language Acquisition'.

Paper presented at the European-North American Workshop on Cross-Linguistic

Second Language Acquisit ion Research, Lake Arrowhead, Ca., September 7-14,1981.

To appear in the Workshop Proceedings, R. W. Andersen (ed.).

Long, M. H. In

press. 'Prior foreigner talk experience and the negotiation of conversation

with non-native speakers'.

Studies in Second Language Acquisition,

5/2.


16/16


Meisel, J. M. 1977. 'Linguistic simplification: A study of immigrant workers' speech and

foreigner talk' in S. P. Corder and E. Roulet (eds.).

Actes du 5eme colloque de

linguistique appliquee de Neucha tel.

Paris: AIMAV/Didier.

Sachs, H. and E. A.

Schegloff.

1974. 'Two preferences in the organization of reference to

persons in conversation and their interactions' in N. H. Avison and R. J. Wilson (eds.).

Ethnomethodology, Labeling Theory and Deviant Behavior.

London: Routledge and

Kegan Paul.

Sachs,

H., E. A. Schegloff and G . Jefferson. 1974. 'A simp lest systema tics for the

organization of turn-taking for co nversation'.

Language,

50/4 : 696-735 .

Scarcella, R. and C. Higa. 1982. 'Input and age differences in second language acquisi-

tion' in S. D. Krashen, R. Scarcella, and M. H. Long (eds.).

Child-Adult Differences in

Second Language Acquisition.

Rowley, Mass .: Newbury H ouse.

Wolfson, N. 1976. 'Speech events and natural speech: Some implications for

sociolinguistic methodology'.

Language in Society,

5 /2 : 189-209 .

Long Negotiation Applied Linguistics 1983 LONG 126 41

Documents

Transcript of Long Negotiation Applied Linguistics 1983 LONG 126 41