| Abstract |
The study was undertaken to determine
whether content knowledge influences conversational participation when native speakers
(NSs) interact with non-native speakers (NNSs). It also investigated whether NSs
tend to participate more actively than NNSs in NS-NNS interactions. The hypotheses
concerned predictions that (1) when the interlocuters have relatively equal content
knowledge, the NS will participate more and (2) when the interlocutors have relatively
unequal knowledge of the domain, the relative content 'expert' (NS or NNS) will show more
conversational participation. The content domains chosen were the subjects' major
field and a domain outside their major field.
Conversations from 45 NS-NNS pairs were analysed for amount of talk, fillers,
back-channels, interruptions, resisting interruptions, and topic moves. Outcomes of
several measures reveal participation patterns which can be explained by the
interlocutors' relative content knowledge. No clear, overall tendency was
found for the NS to participate more actively in the conversation. |
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