Structural Alignment In Chinese EFL Learners' Interaction In Convergent And Divergent Tasks

The past decade has witnessed a growing body of SLA research on structural alignment since it was proposed in by Pickering&Carrod(2004)in the Interactive Alignment Model(IAM).However,most of existent empirical studies focused on structural alignment in controlled experimental settings with built-in priming manipulations,and the spontaneous L2 structural alignment in unscripted and natural interactions has received little attention.In order to fill these gaps,the current study is conducted to investigate the possible occurrence of L2 structural alignment in unscripted task-based interactions without researcher-delivered primes and to probe into the effect of different dialogue conditions,that is,task types on L2 structural alignment.Three questions are addressed: 1)Does structural alignment occur in Chinese EFL learners' interactions involved in unscripted convergent and divergent tasks? 2)Does the magnitude of structural alignment differ in Chinese EFL learners' interaction involved in convergent and divergent tasks? 3)Does the scope of structural alignment differ in Chinese EFL learners' interaction involved in convergent and divergent tasks?To answer these questions,the current study employed two different types of communicative tasks,including a convergent jigsaw task and a divergent debate task.34 English majors of intermediate L2 proficiency level from Guangdong University of Foreign Studies were randomly grouped into 17 dyads to perform the two tasks consecutively.The oral data of pair interactions were recorded and transcribed,and the most repeatedly used structures in two tasks were respectively coded for incidence of structural alignment measured as prime-target sequences(within six adjacent dialogue turns),which were further analyzed in terms of occurrence,magnitude and scope.All these data were computed by SPSS 22.0 for descriptive statistics and comparison analysis.The results of the statistical analysis revealed that: 1)spontaneous L2 structuralalignment occurred in both unscripted tasks involving Chinese EFL learners,and divergent debate task was more effective at eliciting alignment than the convergent jigsaw task.2)task type did not significantly affect the magnitude of L2 structural alignment,since parallel proportions of prime-target sequences in the jigsaw and debate tasks were observed in the data.However,different reasons for the two types of tasks eliciting strong structural alignment were revealed.Additional evidence showed that the magnitude of between-speaker alignment was greater than within-speaker alignment in both tasks;3)the scope of L2 structural alignment was subject to task type.Specifically,the debate task tended to elicit alignment of more diverse structure types than did the jigsaw task.The result that parallel magnitude of spontaneous L2 structural alignment occurred in unscripted dialogues regardless of task types supported the core conceptions of the Interactive Alignment Model.Pedagogically,the evidence that showed effectiveness of commutative tasks at eliciting spontaneous L2 structural alignment and different effects of task types on scope of structural alignment of L2 interlocutors could be referred to for language teachers to design effective types of tasks eliciting L2 structural alignment in grammar instruction.