‘How was your weekend?’: developing the interactional competence in managing routine inquiries

Abstract

Given the cross-cultural differences underlying interactional routines such as ‘How are you?’ or ‘How was your weekend?’, managing such routine inquiries can be problematic for second language learners. Based on data from an adult ESL (English as a second language) class, this conversation analytic study shows how learners develop their competence in mastering the sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic aspects of certain interactional routines in English over the span of nine weeks. Through detailed analyses of teacher–learner interactions, I show what is being ‘taught’, how it is done, and what evidence of development may be garnered. Findings of this study contribute to the growing interest in the development of interactional competence and, in particular, the application of conversation analysis (CA) to the study of such development.

Keywords:

• interactional competence
• learning
• development
• longitudinal
• conversation analysis
• interactional routines
• cross-cultural pragmatics

Acknowledgements

This research would not have been possible without the generosity of the ESL teacher and his students who allowed my camera to ‘eavesdrop’ as they went about their classroom business. I would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for productive feedback and the ESL teacher for helpful insights. All remaining inadequacies are mine.