Sociolinguistics and Language Education.pdf

Conversation Analysis 519
restarts among Japanese novice speakers of English provides an interesting
counterpoint. As Carroll notes, whether they occur in the speech of native
or non-native speakers, it is rather easy to think of restarts, such as the following,
as ‘disfl uencies’, as ‘speech production errors’, as ‘false starts’ – in
short as ‘failures’.
(28) Carroll – 205
S: dyu: did you: (0.7) did you watch?
Carroll notes that this appears to be a clear case of NNS disfl uency with
the speaker starting the turn three times. Moreover, the inter-turn pause of
seven-tenths of a second appears to provide further evidence of production
diffi culties. However, through a detailed analysis of this and other
similar examples, Carroll shows that an alternative, ‘non-defi cient’ analysis
is possible. We know from previous studies of ordinary conversation
that turn-restarts are often used (1) to repair possibly impaired talk produced
in overlap (Schegloff, 1987) and (2) to solicit the gaze of a recipient
(Goodwin, 1979). Carroll shows convincingly that many instances of turnrestarting
in NNS talk can be accounted for in exactly the same way. For
instance in the example above:
(29) Carroll – 205
1 A: yes yes .hh [mm:]
2 S: [dyu]: did you: (0.7) did you watch?
oblique gaze
at A
3 (0.5)
4 A: OO[H!
5 S: [>did you se[e<
6 A: [little little =
direct gaze
at A
A brings gaze
to S
What initially looks like a case of NNS disfl uency actually turns out to
be an altogether typical deployment of a generic practice of talk-in-interaction
in no way specifi c to NNS talk (see also Rymes, this volume, on
correctness as secondary to communicative goal). While Carroll’s particular
concern is to characterize these as ‘skilled interactional achievements’
and to challenge an understanding of them as disfl uencies, to my mind
this study provides evidence for an even more fundamental point. When
analyzing speakers as NNS (or as women, or as African-Americans, or as
members of the working class) it is dangerously easy to attribute any and
all peculiarity as a feature of NNS talk (or as a feature of the talk or women,
African-Americans, the working class, etc.). And, to the casual observer