| This study investigates the communicative strategies of so-called non-native speakers or English as a lingua franca (ELF) speakers in the context of ESL writing classrooms at an U.S. university by employing a sequential analysis combined with ethnographic information. Following the latest work on ELF academic discourse (e.g. Bjorkman, 2013; Kaur, 2011b, 2011c; Mauranen, 2012; Smit, 2010), it closely examines how ELF speakers resolve or prevent miscommunication through repair conducted by using various multimodal interactional resources available in the classroom ecology (van Lier, 2000, 2004). Such ecological resources include gesture, embodied action, non-verbal vocalization (e.g., laughter and silence), classroom artifacts, and people in the classroom besides verbal speech. This study is one of the first attempts to illuminate the complex process of resolving or preventing miscommunication among ELF speakers by adopting a multimodal orientation to ELF interactional analysis and to expand the notion of ELF speakers' communicative competence.;Through a sequential analysis with ethnographic information gained from regular classroom observations and stimulated recall interviews, the following patterns of resolving or preventing miscommunication among ELF speakers in the writing classroom have emerged. The first pattern is enhanced explicitness (e.g., Mauranen, 2007). Namely, in order to create extra explicit meaning, multilingual instructors and students employ various communicative strategies, including repeating key words/phrases, explicating with examples, using discourse markers, employing gesture that visualizes and concretizes abstract components, and combining information on PowerPoint slides and worksheets with verbal speech. The second pattern is the use of laughter and humor to mitigate face-threats related to overt repairs and to engage in relational work through laughing together. Another pattern is voluntary help by those who are the third-party participants in miscommunication phenomena, especially by representing their peer's point of view. As many studies (e.g., Hulmbauer, 2009; Kaur, 2011c; Meierkord, 1998) have demonstrated, ELF speakers in these academic writing classrooms generally display a tolerant attitude toward language variation and interactive cooperativeness. Nevertheless, the data demonstrates that multilingual students sometimes highlight problems through laughter and ridicule, supporting the claim that ELF speakers are not always collaborative and tolerant of perceived communicative problems (Jenks, 2012; Knapp, 2002; Seldlhofer, 2004). In other words, it became clear that the nature of ELF interactions is indeed context-dependent and cannot be characterized in definite manners (Mortensen , 2013). Lastly, the data analysis clearly reveals that these ELF speakers in the academic writing classrooms effectively coordinate multiple semiotic resources along with speech by an "ensemble" of the semiotic modes in order to achieve mutual attention to critical information and make their meaning transparent for their interlocutors, which contributes to their communicative success.;To conclude, I argue that miscommunication can be beneficial in ELF speakers' achieving mutual understanding because it creates an interactional space wherein they can explicitly negotiate various layers of differences and collaboratively construct situated understanding. Furthermore, miscommunication can lead to building solidarity and relationships among classroom members. In other words, this study projects an alternative and positive picture of miscommunication phenomena rather than conceiving them as something that always brings negative consequences owing to the nature of intercultural communication simply caused by cultural and linguistic differences. This study also provides important pedagogical implications and suggestions for English language learning and teacher education. Finally, through integrating an analysis of ELF speakers' use of multimodal and embodied interactional resources for meaning making, this study can overcome the "lingual bias" (Block, 2014, p. 56) that focuses only on grammatical resources in language acquisition and use, and suggest the benefits of the multimodal orientation to ELF interactional analysis. |
