Park_2007_Co-construction of Nonnative Speaker Identity in Cross-cultural Interaction

Applied Linguistics28/3:339–360ßOxford University Press2007 doi:10.1093/applin/amm001Advance Access Published on27April2007Co-construction of Nonnative Speaker Identity in Cross-cultural InteractionJAE-EUN PARKUniversity of California at Los Angeles,USAInformed by Conversation Analysis,this paper examines discursive practices through which nonnative speaker(NNS)identity is constituted in relation to native speaker(NS)identity in naturally occurring English conversations.Drawing on studies of social interaction that view identity as intrinsically a social,dialogic,negotiable entity,I propose that NS/NNS identities are social categories that are made procedurally relevant to the ongoing interaction and that consequently invoke an asymmetrical alignment of the participants.Two sets of videotaped English conversations were analyzed to delineate the sequential organization of the participant framework whereby participants negotiate their NS/NNS identities by aligning and realigning vis-a`-vis each other.The analysis shows that participants invoke NS/NNS identities by incidentally undertaking requestor–requestee identities in the midst of a word search and further sustain them by assuming assessor–assessed identities within the situated activity of evaluating self or other’s linguistic performance.Invoked NS/NNS identities often undergo renegotiation,which instantly revokes an asymmetry that has arisen between the participants within their NS/NNS identities.The findings indicate that a local asymmetry between an NS and an NNS is not merely an external constraint on participants’discursive conduct but also provides resources for moving the interaction ahead.INTRODUCTIONThe constructs native speaker/nonnative speaker(NS/NNS)have long been viewed as controversial in thefield of applied linguistics and Second Language Acquisition(SLA).Researchers have dealt with fundamental matters of conceptualizing the construct NS(e.g.Coulmas1981;Davies 1991).Those who are concerned with English teaching and world Englishes have also addressed issues regarding the entitlement of NS status and ownership of language,as well as ethical and attitudinal problems that arise from these issues(e.g.Cook1999;Kachru and Nelson1996;Rampton 1990).A simplistic,dichotomous treatment of the constructs NS/NNS,particularly prevalent in SLA research conducted within cognitive and linguistic perspectives,has also been viewed as controversial and even as problematic by a group of researchers working in a Conversation Analytic(CA) framework.These researchers criticized traditional SLA research practices for taking the NS/NNS dichotomy for granted and called for a deeper340NONNATIVE IDENTITY IN CROSS-CULTURAL INTERACTION understanding of language learners as social beings in real world situations (e.g.Firth and Wagner1997).In fact,prior to this call for research on learner identity,researchers working in post-structuralist frameworks began to study second language learners in their own social surroundings(Norton1997,2000;Siegal1995, 1996).Influenced by Bourdieu’s(1991)view that linguistic practices are symbolic capital and also the site of identity construction,these studies have emphasized learners’agency,illuminating how such human agency is shaped by particular sociocultural environments(Pavlenko2003).With a few notable exceptions(McKay and Wong1996;Siegal1995,1996),this line of research has mainly examined distal,larger social contexts rather than proximate social contexts,that is,the immediate interactional contexts whereby learner identity is discursively constituted in and through social interaction(see Schegloff1992a,and1997a for a discussion of distal vs. proximate context).1Similarly,NNS identity has been under-researched in proximate social contexts.Even if studied,they have been treated as part of,or subordinate to,cultural or ethnic identity(Blommaert and Verschueren1992).This contrasts with the extensive research on other closely intertwined constructs such as cultural identity(e.g.Mori2003),national identity(e.g.Hester and Housley2002),or ethnic identity(e.g.Day1994,1998;Duff2002;Miller 2000).In this paper,I intend to illuminate what it is that characterizes NS/NNS identities distinctively as such,with the ultimate aim to establish an empirical basis for the notions of NS/NNS as members’categories instead of a priori labels externally imposed on the participants.I take the position that NS/NNS identities are not necessarily coincidental with cultural,ethnic,or national identity.This will be further elaborated in the following sections (see sections‘Approaches to identity’and‘Interactional occasioning of NS/NNS identities’).As a theoretical framework,I employ CA integrated with the view developed from various studies of social interaction that define identity as a social,dialogic,negotiable entity(see Antaki and Widdicombe 1998;Ochs1993).Originating in sociology,CA has developed as a methodology for studying talk-in-interaction in various social settings.Since the1990s,CA has been further extended to examine nonnative discourse in ordinary conversations as well as institutional settings(e.g.Carroll2000;Firth1996;Firth and Wagner,1997;Gardner and Wagner2004;Hosoda,2000,2006;Koshik 2002a,2002b;Kurhila2001;Markee2004;Richards and Seedhouse2005; Seedhouse2004;Wong2000a,2000b,2000c).CA strongly objects to imposing an identity on someone prior to examining discursive practices conducted by that person and their co-participants(Schegloff1997a,2001; Wong and Olsher2000).Treating NNS-ness as an object of inquiry rather than as a given property,CA focuses on showing how someone does‘doing being an NNS’in the course of interaction.JAE-EUN PARK341 In addition to CA,I incorporate related views on identity as a local, dialogic,and joint accomplishment developed through various studies of social interaction(see Antaki and Widdicombe1998;Ochs1993).Based on these views,I will demonstrate how NS/NNS identities are co-constitutive as a local phenomenon in the midst of unfolding social interaction.Given that everyday interaction is the‘primordial site of human sociality’(Schegloff 1992b:1296),mundane interaction among peers is a worthwhile setting to examine so as to understand how NNS identity is constructed in relation to NS identity.Before proceeding with a detailed analysis of the phenomenon, I willfirst outline my approach to identity.APPROACHES TO IDENTITYAn identity is conceptualized as an inherently social product that is jointly created by interactants,rather than as a pre-determined,psychological construct that is lodged within each individual’s mind.The basis of identity co-construction2lies in the working of human social interaction charac-terized by turn-taking organization(Sacks et al.1974)and participation (C.Goodwin1984,1986).Conversation operates on a turn-by-turn basis whereby the speaker’s understanding and analysis of a prior turn is reflected in the way that a current turn is constructed.The sequential organization of talk(Schegloff and Sacks1973)thereby manifests how people invoke an identity in their talk,inviting others to orient to that identity and reveal how it has been interpreted.Participation(C.Goodwin1996,2000;C.Goodwin and M.H.Goodwin, 2000)also serves as an important theoretical basis for understanding identity anized not only through turn-taking but also turn-internally occurring embodied actions,participation places a particular emphasis on a hearer’s role as an active co-participant(see C.Goodwin and M.H.Goodwin1987).Thefine-tuned,detailed analysis of participation thus reveals how a hearer participates in identity construction by concurrently constructing an activity through talk and the body.Further,identity is viewed as a situated,emergent construct that arises from the contingencies of local interaction.Identity ascription is thus highly context-specific(Antaki1998).This appears to be relevant to Sacks’notion of Membership Categorization Device(MCD)(1972).As he illustrates,people have common-sense knowledge about collections of categories(e.g.male/ female,student/professor,NS/NNS)as well as‘category-bound activities’.Not only does this knowledge enable people to describe and identify someone in a particular way within the given scene,but also it allows them to construct or reconstruct identity with respect to the specifics of a social context (Silverman1998).It is in this sense that the constitution of NS/NNS identities is observable through a moment-by-moment analysis of the developing talk within which they are made procedurally relevant.342NONNATIVE IDENTITY IN CROSS-CULTURAL INTERACTIONFinally,an identity is highly negotiable.As suggested by a social choreographic approach to‘identity-in-interaction’(Aronsson1998),identity can be explained in terms of the relative positioning of people toward each other.In this light,the analysis of participation alignment provides resources for interpreting how an asymmetrical relationship among the participants gets subverted and renegotiated in the course of interaction.These views of identity have been reflected in much of previous research involving institutional settings(C.Goodwin2000;Jacoby and Gonzales1991; Matoesian1999).Particularly pertinent to my approach to NS/NNS identities is Jacoby and Gonzales’study on interaction among a group of physicists during conference presentation rehearsals.The interaction manifests a dynamic,moment-by-moment shifting process of Self and Other construction as expert or novice.Similarly,NS/NNS identities reflect expert–novice identities in that participants’discursive behavior is under certain constraints within their respective social roles.These constraints are attributed to participants’orientation to a normative entitlement to linguistic knowledge that is tied to the category NS(Drew1991;Nishizaka1995).3My contention is that NS/NNS categories are a type of relational pair composed of ‘positioned’categories which are asymmetrical with respect to each other (Sacks1972).This will be supported in the following analysis of how participants display their orientation to an NS’s ownership of English through various discursive practices.INTERACTIONAL OCCASIONING OF NS/NNS INTERACTION Given that the categories NS/NNS are demonstrably participants’phenom-ena,NS/NNS interaction can be viewed as a local event thatfleetingly occurs in the course of a social encounter.4As participants orient to and make procedurally relevant their identities as NS/NNS in the midst of an unfolding interaction,NS/NNS interaction is occasioned,thereby putting on hold what has been going on up to that point.5In the presentation of the full spectrum of the phenomenon whereby an NS/NNS interaction is engendered,developed,and negotiated,I focus on analyzing the participant framework,a temporally unfolding process through which participants are positioned and portrayed in relation to each other(M.H.Goodwin1990a,1990b,2002a,2002b).This helps us consider asymmetry anew as a momentary,social phenomenon implicated by the constitution of NS/NNS identities rather than as an intrinsic feature of interaction that involves an NS/NNS.6An asymmetry is occasioned by a participant’s initial display of an unequal distribution of knowledge (Drew1991)7with respect to the language being used.The invoked asymmetry gets further sustained through extended sequences of talk,where the participants topicalize the NNS’s linguistic performance in their displays of stance toward it.JAE-EUN PARK343 A detailed analysis of the phenomena laid out above is organized in three parts:(a)how NS/NNS identities are invoked through request making and granting,reconfiguring a participant framework whereby the participants are aligned asymmetrically in relation to each other;(b)how invoked NS/NNS identities are further sustained through assessment proffering;and(c)how NS/NNS identities are renegotiated, demonstrating that an NS/NNS asymmetry is not static but dynamic and negotiable.The data analyzed in this paper are drawn from two one-hour long conversations,each of which was videotaped in one of the participants’rooms at a co-educational dormitory located in close proximity to a state-run university in southern California.The NS participants were,in one case, a college student and,in the other,a recent college graduate.The NNS participants had already received their college degree in their home countries and were studying English at a language institute except for a Korean man who was going to college in America.Thefirst set is a conversation between James,an American man,and Maria,a woman from Spain.As neighbors, they had been acquaintances for a few months.The second set is a conversation between Tanya,an American woman,Mijin,a Korean woman, and Sangjun,a Korean man.The participants were close friends who lived in the same dormitory,and they often used Korean words and expressions in their English conversations because Tanya had studied Korean for several months.INVOKING NS/NNS IDENTITIES(REQUESTOR–REQUESTEE IDENTITIES)The initial manifestation of a consequential tie between NS/NNS identities and the external context is observed by the participants’undertaking of discourse identities in a word search(i.e.,requestor–requestee identities). Zimmerman(1998)explains how social identities are made consequential in and through the participants’discursive conduct:‘activities in a given setting achieve their distinctive shape through an articulation of discourse and situated identities for each participant and an alignment of these identities across participants,linking the proximal and distal context of action’(1998:88).In a similar vein,C.Goodwin(1987)provides a specific example of how social identities are enacted in a collaborative word search activity within which a speaker constitutes a particular recipient as a‘knowing recipient’.In my data,I found similar instances of a word search activity(see Schegloff et al.1977)whereby participants invoke an asymmetrical alignment of NS/NNS identities through the incidental undertaking of requestor–requestee identities.Excerpts(1)through(2)illustrate the phenomenonin point.In Excerpt (1),a participant institutes a request,projecting her NNSpersona.While trying to compare Spanish and English meal schedules,Maria displays uncertainty regarding the correct pronunciation of the word ‘meals’(line 3).In spite of James’s acknowledgment token (line 4),Maria self-interrupts the ongoing turn and initiates other-repair in line 5(‘Milsiz?’)and in line 7(‘Oumit?’).Maria’s firm,steady gaze 8toward James manifests how she is oriented to his entitlement as an NS who might potentially provide the linguistic resources to resolve Maria’s communicative impediment.In line 8,James aligns with the invoked NNS identity by granting Maria’s request for clarification through two rapid consecutive acknowledgment tokens:‘Yeah,yeah.’One practice for invoking more dramatically NS/NNS identities is shown in the following excerpt,in which an NS and two NNSs are involved.Excerpt (2)demonstrates how an NNS treats the NS rather than another NNS as an appropriate requestee for a demonstration of an Englishpronunciation.344NONNATIVE IDENTITY IN CROSS-CULTURAL INTERACTIONJAE-EUN PARK345 While the three participants gaze at Tanya’s Adidas sneakers,Mijin embarks on a request for the‘correct’pronunciation of the word‘Adidas’(lines1 and3).Mijin selects Tanya as the recipient of her request through her postural orientation as well as herfirm,steady eye gaze toward Tanya.By directing a linguistic inquiry to the NS rather than to the other NNS,Mijin displays her sensitivity to the uneven distribution of linguistic knowledge among them,publicly ratifying the NS’s knowing recipient status(see C.Goodwin1987).As was shown in the two excerpts above,NS/NNS identities are occasioned in the course of the ongoing interaction when an NNS displays uncertainty regarding a‘correct’grammatical or phonological form of an English word. With the incidental undertaking of requestor–requestee identities in a collaborative word search,the participants publicly orient to their member-ship in NS/NNS categories and align themselves asymmetrically in relation to each other.I now wish to revisit Excerpt(1)to examine how NS/NNS interaction is constituted as afleeting event in the course of developing talk.Excerpt(3) is a reproduction of Excerpt(1)surrounded by the talk that precedes and it.follows346NONNATIVE IDENTITY IN CROSS-CULTURAL INTERACTIONto display uncertainty about the pronunciation of‘meals’and repositions herself as a non-expert who turns to James,the NS,for a resolution of the trouble source(lines11and13).Not only does this insertion of a request sequence interrupt the interaction in progress(Schegloff1979),but also it reconfigures the participant framework,instantly converting the ongoing cross-cultural interaction to an NS/NNS interaction.When Mariafinally resumes the interrupted talk in line16,the participants return to the previous participant framework,realigning themselves as an American and a Spaniard,respectively.Excerpt(3)illustrates how an NS/NNS interaction is occasioned and,in fact,inserted in the unfolding interaction.Participants are re-categorized as NS/NNS as the NNS displays uncertainty about an English word by initiating two consecutive repair sequences.Consequently,the participation framework undergoes a momentary conversion from a recognizably cross-cultural interaction to an NS/NNS interaction.The asymmetry associated with the positioned categories NS/NNS gets sustained until the subsequent resumption of cross-cultural interaction.SUSTAINING INVOKED NS/NNS IDENTITIES(ASSESSOR–ASSESSED IDENTITIES)In the aftermath of invoked NS/NNS identities,participants often sustain these identities through an explicit display of stance toward the quality of self or other’s linguistic performance.As noted by Ochs(1993),displays of affective stance appear to be a common practice for self-identification. The participants publicly display their orientation to the categories NS/NNS by treating the quality of self and other’s linguistic performance as an assessable object.The special import of an assessment lies in the fact that it can invoke a situated social activity that achieves a concurrent,multi-party display of affective stance(C.Goodwin and M.H.Goodwin1987).A hearer may or may not actively co-participate in the current speaker’s activity of stance display,which can be consequential for the progression of the invoked NS/NNS interaction.This will be taken up further through the detailed analysis below.An NS’s fault-finding with an NNS’s pronunciationExcerpt(4)is a part of the talk that follows Excerpt(2)where NS/NNS identities are invoked in the middle of a discussion about the brand name, Adidas.Mijin’s assertion that Adidas is a German brand overlaps with Tanya’s utterance,‘Originally’(lines16–17).While all three participants’attention is focused on Tanya’s Adidas sneakers,Mijin starts to display her uncertainty about the pronunciation of the word ‘originally’(line 18),which she picked up from Tanya’s immediately preceding turn;Mijin tries to figure out on which syllable the primary stress JAE-EUN PARK 347348NONNATIVE IDENTITY IN CROSS-CULTURAL INTERACTIONshould be placed,as evidenced by the different prosodic qualities embedded in each try:‘ Originally. Originally.ORI:ginally.’Her focus on the word soon turns into a bilateral activity that resembles a teacher–student interaction,where Tanya demonstrates the English pronunciation and Mijin repeats after her(lines19–24).The asymmetrical alignment between these two becomes aggravated when Tanya explicitlyfinds fault with Mijin’s pronunciation:‘Your pal-um!(Korean for‘pronunciation’)hh’(line27).Mijin responds to this with a request for a re-demonstration of the NS pronunciation:‘Your(h)pal-um!Mwe-la-ko(h)(Korean for‘what did you say’)? Say again.’(lines28–29).This engenders an extended exchange of turns,where Tanya attempts to make Mijin’s pronunciation conform to hers(lines30–41).Tanya even pinpoints what part of Mijin’s ‘originally’is not acceptable:‘Or::that’s the pa(r)t.That’s the part.hhh’(line34).Following Tanya’s re-demonstration at line41(‘Origina(h)lly.’), Mijin displays a disagreeing stance through repair initiation and a negative response token(‘Ori-Orginally?No.’)and proffers the version with a stress on the second syllable‘ORIginally.’(line42). However,Mijin displays uncertainty about this alternative version by immediately adding‘No?’,which is designedly anticipatory of Tanya’s disapproval(Sacks1987).In response,Tanya closes down further argument by making afinal rejection of Mijin’s version and simultaneously treating it as laughable in line45:‘Whatever you sa(h)y hih-hih-hih.’Tanya’s disapproval of Mijin’s pronunciation is revealed once again in lines50and51,where she expresses how understanding she actually is of Mijin’s pronunciation in spite of its‘incorrectness’;‘I know what-what you’re saying.So it’sfine.’As this excerpt depicts,an NS’s negative evaluation of an NNS’s linguistic performance results in a sustained asymmetry between an NS and an NNS.The asymmetry-sustaining move is also often made by an NNS,which will be shown in the following analyses.An NNS making an excuse for linguistic deficiencyAn NNS’s linguistic deficiency is often topicalized by the NNS himself or herself.In Excerpt(5),Maria makes an excuse for her public display of uncertainty about the correct pronunciation of an English word.Maria’s other-repair (line 3)displays her uncertainty about her own pronunciation of the word ‘county’;the deficiently formed request that lacks the specification of what is sought (‘do you-?’)results in a slightly expanded sequence of collaborative search until the participants successfully finalize it in line 6.Following up on the public display of her linguistic incompetence,Maria makes it more explicit by topicalizing her difficulty with pronunciation (lines 10–12):‘Bkeh-,I (know)(0.4)how to write,but in de:pronunciation is very::’In this turn,Maria attempts to attenuate the displayed linguistic deficiency by making a positive self-assessment about her written knowledge of the word.In line 13,James minimally aligns with her by producing a couple of acknowledgment tokens without pursuing further action.An NNS’s self-assessment that sustains the invoked NS/NNS asymmetry is also expressed in the form of self-deprecation,as shown in the next excerpt.An NNS’s self-deprecation of linguistic abilitiesAn NNS may topicalize his or her linguistic deficiency through self-deprecation.9As normatively expected (Pomerantz 1984),an NS disagrees with the self-deprecatory assessment of an NNS’s linguistic performance.Consequently,this sustains the invoked NS/NNSasymmetry.JAE-EUN PARK 349350NONNATIVE IDENTITY IN CROSS-CULTURAL INTERACTIONIn the face of NS/NNS identities invoked by Maria’s embodied request for linguistic assistance(lines3–4),Maria issues a self-deprecation:‘Oh my god.I didn’t remember this.’(line11).Maria publicly takes up an affective stance toward her failure to recall an English word by treating‘not remembering’as a reproachable rather than as an accidental phenomenon.This self-deprecation is followed by a preferred response from James who tries to undermine the validity of the self-deprecation(Pomerantz1984); James responds to it with a laughter-infiltrated disagreement(line12):‘Na-ha-ha-ha-ha’.Nevertheless,with an emphatic tone of voice accompanied by abrupt lowering of her upper body and awkward eye gaze toward James,Maria continues her talk in a self-deprecatory tone by specifying what it is that she failed to‘remember’:‘This wo(h)rd century.’(line13).In response, James again tries to mitigate the negativity conveyed in Maria’s self-assessment:‘Oh,it’s not like you say century all the time.’(line14). He characterizes the word‘century’as not easily recallable,thus attempt-ing to downgrade the linguistic deficiency expressed in Maria’s self-deprecation.Noticeably,James takes up a position where he can console Maria for her lack of linguistic competence by attempting to undermine the validity of the self-deprecation or mitigate the negativity conveyed in it.Excerpt(6)demonstrated how an NNS may take the initiative and topicalize her linguistic deficiency in the face of suspended talk-in-progress due to inserted repair sequences.Another instance of an NNS’s display of affective stance is presented below.An NNS’s appreciation of English pronunciationAn NNS’s appreciation of the aesthetic value of English results in a sustained asymmetry between the NS and the NNS.In Excerpt(7),Maria makes an aesthetically-oriented assessment of the sound of an English word.This is followed by James’s second assessment(Pomerantz1984),which slightly shifts the focus of an assessable to the sound of Maria’s pronunciation of the word.JAE-EUN PARK351In the aftermath of their NS/NNS identities invoked by Maria’s initiation of a word search activity(lines1–4),Maria topicalizes the trouble source (‘theaters’)by issuing an assessment regarding the sound of word:‘Ah,I love this sound,theaters,’(line5).James responds to this with a second assessment(Pomerantz1984):‘Sounds better the way she says it though.’(line8).He does agree with the aesthetic value of the way‘theaters’sounds, but he slightly shifts the target assessable from the sound of the word to Maria’s pronunciation of the word.This instantly places James in an expert position where he can evaluate Maria’s NNS pronunciation.James further adds an account,displaying how he uses Maria’s accent as a basis of differentiating himself from her:‘’Cause I don’t say it with any accent.I say,theaters ha-ha.’(line10).Maria’s response‘We-any accent? Really?’(line11)forms an unavoidable context where James cannot help but articulate explicitly that Maria has an accent:‘No,you say it with an accent.’(line12).Orienting to a candidate hearing of this talk(i.e.a critique of Maria’s accent),James preemptively produces two consecutive assess-ments.First,he attempts to neutralize the possible negativity conveyed in his preceding talk‘5That sounds good though.’(line12)(note the rushed start).Further,he diverts the progression of the ongoing talk by making Maria’s ethnic background explicitly relevant:‘Sounds-sounds European.’(line13).NEGOTIATING AND RENEGOTIATING INVOKEDNS/NNS IDENTITIESIt was discussed earlier that an identity is subject to negotiation in the highlyfluid,immediate interactional context.At times,participants,NNSs in particular,display resistance to an action taken by others that ascribes352NONNATIVE IDENTITY IN CROSS-CULTURAL INTERACTIONan NNS identity to them.In Excerpt(8),Maria rejects James’s attempt at other-repair that was self-initiated during her word search,which prohibits further progression of the discursive local construction of an NNS identity.In line1,Maria re-nominates a topic that James brought up earlier by asking a question in an incomplete form:‘So this movie(.)is?’.Treating it as a topic proffer,James responds to it with an assessment:‘Oh,sca:ry.’(line2).In response,Maria initiates a third turn repair(Schegloff1997b),in the course of which a word search is initiated:‘((brief,unintelligible murmuring))I don’t remember de::’(line3).While her word search is still in progress, James publicly orients to Maria’s linguistic incompetence by defining the word‘scary’for her:‘Scary is terrifying.¼’(line4).However,Maria immediately rejects James’s offer of linguistic information by claiming her knowledge of it:‘¼Yeah,I know.’(line5).Subsequently,she re-institutes the request for the movie title:‘But de:the title.’(line5).A similar instance is observed a few turns later(lines8–10).As shown in these two instances of an NNS’s resistance,NS/NNS identities are prone to negotiation and renegotiation.An NS’s excessive favoring of attention to linguistic matters in talking with an NNS leads him to miss the possible interactional meanings of the NNS’s discursive choice.Thereby,the NNS engages in renegotiating the invoked NS/NNS identities by trying to define the limits of her linguistic expertise herself.In a three-party conversation between an NS and two NNSs,an NNS strategically deploys his body and talk in order to avoid being collectively categorized as an NNS along with the other NNS.To examine this phenomenon,a part of Excerpt(4)is revisited with a particular focus on how Sangjun manages himself in the course of the increasingly asymmetrical alignment between Tanya and Mijin.He aptly negotiates his status by deploying multiple semiotic resources such as eye gaze and gesture in addition to the talk itself.Instead of remaining passive to be categorized as an。