Abstracts

In: Langages, 33e anne, n134, 1999. pp. 123-124.

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Abstracts. In: Langages, 33e anne, n134, 1999. pp. 123-124.
http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/lgge_0458-726X_1999_num_33_134_2197

Abstracts
Lorenza MONDADA : The achievement of foreignness in and through interac
tion
: Speakers ' categorization procedures
Speakers, as well as analysts, deal with the problem of having to relevantly catego
rize
themselves, their interlocutors and other persons in interactions. This catego
rization process is a contextualized, heuristic accomplishment related to the social
action being performed locally. In this article, a conversational approach to catego
rization processes, inspired by Harvey Sachs, helps us to re-think such taken-forgranted categories as non-native or foreigner in exolingual conversation,
and to analyze how speakers make these categories relevant in their actual interact
ions.
Luci NUSSBAUM : The emergence of linguistic awareness in group work between
foreign language learners
This paper aims to define the conditions allowing the emergence in peer groups of
linguistic awareness and representations of learning. The first part analyzes the
characteristics of the interaction when learners work in groups. The second part
examines the procedures used by learners in metalinguistic problem solving tasks
and communicative activities.
Uli KRAFFT and UK DauSENDSCHN-Gay : Writing system and formulation
processes in conversational writing
In conversational writing two or more persons cooperate in order to produce
common texts. We propose to consider these groups as writing systems , whose
functioning conditions can be determined as follows : construction of an interactio
nal
space, management of social relationship, definition of roles for the agents of
the system, conceptualization of the task, use of material resources, of norms and
conventions. The processes of L2 text production by a writing system are the object
of a second series of analyses : wording activities, preparation and elaboration.
These processes can be described as a step-by-step conceptual organisation with a
view to formulating the contents the system proposes to transmit.
Jo ARDITTY and Mireille PRODEAU : Giving instructions in native and foreign
language
This article proposes an interactional re-analysis of an experiment whose purpose
was to study instructions produced by fluent (native) and less fluent speakers of a
language. After describing the general characteristics of the experimental proce
dure, we compare the instructional discourse of a French speaker and of a semibeginner in French, first in interaction with a partner supposed to perform the
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instructions, then alone in front of a tape-recorder. Linguistic and rhetorical varia

tionis found in each text and related to the tension due to the combination of
cognitive difficulties and face-work. The second situation shows a sophistication in
both subjects' strategies to overcome these difficulties as well as experimentation of
new linguistic devices on the part of the second language learner.
Marit VASSEUR : An advanced learner's dialogues, soliloquies and learning
project
This case study focuses on one particular learner's particular practice of technical
reiteration in soliloquies, besides other intercultural communicative tasks. The
interest of such a case is that it emphasizes the fact that the learner may, in some
situations, conceive and organise her second language training as based on the
whole activity of task achievement. The analysis shows that the learner may focalise
and organise her reflexive activities on the interactional event as a whole. This does
not mean that she is not interested in linguistic forms but it highlights the fact that she
also gives importance to other aspects and levels which constitute interactions. This
case and similar ones tend to indicate that focalising on and negociating linguistic
forms is not the only way of conceiving L2 learning and acquisition (or of studying it) .
Celia ROBERTS : Language Acquisition or Discourse Socialisation ? Re-thinking
the boundaries of SLA
This paper recasts the process of learning to use a second language as language
socialisation (SLS). But also identifies some limitations of SLS. The social aspects of
language learning and use include not only a study of second language interaction but
also the wider social outcomes of intercultural encounters. Detailed analyses of
encounters between minority workers and gatekeepers from the majority group are
used to illuminate the socio-cultural knowledge necessary for SLS. They also shed
light on the ways in which minority workers are ideologically positioned in interac
tion
and so on the potentially hostile environment for language learning. The link
between SLS and wider social processes is illustrated through Gumperz's work on
intercultural communication.

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