ABSTRACT
This chapter considers some examples in more depth. The term case study is used loosely here to indicate a greater focus on the detail on the content and process of the conversation. The interactional strategies utilised by interlocutors in the conversations on word meaning offer a rich opportunity for consideration of processes which, in the course of everyday conversations between speakers of different languages, probably go unnoticed. In Chapter 4, Sfard’s two metaphors for learning were discussed: the acquisition metaphor (AM) and the participation metaphor (PM). The first of these has its epistemological basis in concepts of learning which can be ‘accumulated, refined and combined to form ever richer cognitive structures’. Chapter 5, in line with the AM metaphor, considered cognitive approaches to understanding the conceptual frameworks in word meaning, as understood through word associations of native English and native Spanish speakers. There was some evidence of difference between the conceptual frameworks of the two groups, some of which could be attributed to differences in meaning between the words, others which pointed to contextual or personal/social influences (such as the preponderance of UK students living away from home and Spanish students living at home, or interests in sports). It was also noted that participants attributed any change in their understanding of the word meaning less to possible differences in the word meaning than to the activity itself or what their partner said (see section 5.4). Chapter 6 offered an overview of the conversations holistically, focusing in particular on the conversation shapes, and noting that the majority of conversations were a combination of one-sided, parallel and jointly constructed, with little evidence of expert/novice overall patterns. This current chapter takes a closer look at a number of case studies. Two of them involve conversations about the words cooperate and cooperar undertaken by different tandem pairs, one of which involves a distinct change of shape, and the other which has evidence of clear recognition of possible differences in word meaning by one interlocutor. The discussion of these two examples considers the strategies undertaken by interlocutors in this process of achieving understanding on the word meaning with 84their partner. The strategies undertaken by interlocutors are discussed in relation to the notion of decentring, a central process in the development of intercultural competence (see Chapter 3). While the strategies identified here are clearly relevant to previous work on communication strategies (Dornyei & Scott, 1997; Faerch & Kasper, 1983; Tarone, 1980; Bialystok, 1983; Dornyei,1995 among others), and those specifically relating to tandem learning (e.g. Calvert, 1992; Lewis, Stickler & Walker, 1999; O’Rourke, 2005), the focus in this chapter (and indeed in this book) is also on understanding the question of interculturality (How do we do cultural and linguistic identifications?), identity (‘Who am I?/Who are you?’), and specific to the tandem context, ‘Who is a native speaker?’ and ‘Who owns the language? (see Chapter 4). As stated earlier the interrogation of the a priori assumption that tandem is intercultural (because of the NS-NNS relationship) is central to this book. The first part of this chapter discusses four case studies which follow a similar format (not always in the same order): a) a consideration of ‘before’ and ‘after’ associations; b) evidence from the post-conversation interviews with interlocutors; and c) examples from the conversations themselves. A commentary is given after each example. Further content and process examples from conversations are discussed later in this chapter, together with an overview of the range of strategies utilised across the conversations.
