Setting the group agenda: negotiating deontic rights through directives in a task-based, oral, L2, group assessment

ABSTRACT

The use of group-based, task-oriented, peer interaction formats in classroom and public L2 speaking tests has grown in recent years. However, these assessments have received comparatively little attention when compared to other formats such as the oral proficiency interview (OPI). In order to better understand the local exigencies of this group-based, peer interaction format, the current paper, using a Conversation Analytic (CA) methodology, explores the mechanisms through which consequences are brought about in such highly task-oriented, collaborative discourse. In doing so, I report on examinees’ use of directives to shape the emerging interactional agenda and so negotiate deontic rights relative to their co-participants. There is a focus, in particular, on the turn design and sequential placement of these directives and, from this, it is shown how different linguistic formats correlate to a propensity for recipients to either endorse (that is, enact) or circumvent (ignore, challenge) the interactional agenda imposed by said directive. Finally, this paper discusses some of the implications these findings have in terms of learner and assessor training.

KEYWORDS:

• Directives
• deontics
• peer interaction
• L2 assessment

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. It is worth noting, however, that hierarchical relationships are local accomplishments and even in settings where there appears, prima facie, to be a pre-established hierarchical relationship between participants (e.g. between a manager and a member of her team) this relationship can be rendered neutral by such local exigencies as, for example, differential epistemic access (Asmuß and Oshima 2012). This, presumably, holds true for interactional settings in which there is a flat relationship structure between participants; i.e. a symmetrical relationship may be rendered asymmetric.

2. See Stevanovic (2015) for discussion on how certain action types can make either proximal or distal deontic claims. See also Houtkoop-Steenstra (1987) on immediate and remote proposals.

3. These illustrative examples cited in Heinemann (2006) are taken from Brown and Levinson (1987) and Allwood (1977).

4. For parallels to this task-as-workplan versus task-as-process dynamic outside of educational settings, see Deppermann et al’s., (2010) work on agenda management in workplace meetings, where it is shown how participants collaboratively construct an ‘interactional state of affairs […] which differs widely from [that] projected by the written agenda’ (p. 1700). See also Rossi (2012) on interactional projects.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Michael Stephenson

Michael Stephenson teaches English for Academic Purposes (EAP) at INTO Newcastle University and is a doctoral candidate in Educational and Applied Linguistics within the University's school of Education, Communication, and Language Sciences.