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Formulaic Language and Interactional Practices: Their Impact on Interactional Competence During Group Discussions
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2025-08
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Applied Linguistics
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https://doi.org/10.34944/h7wx-3v11
Abstract
A staple activity in language classes is the small group discussion, in which three or more students share their thoughts, solve a problem, or do any number of activities. However, small group work is no panacea, and second language research studies have noted that small group interactions in the classroom often do not resemble conversations outside of the classroom. For example, talk might proceed in a fixed clockwise order, with long periods of silence between speaking turns, and little uptake of other speakers’ ideas. It is to be expected that interactions between English language learners will not be perfect because they all lack proficiency to varying degrees; however, having students talk simply for the sake of talking can inadvertently reinforce non-conventional patterns of interaction. The main focus of this study is interactional competence, or the ability of speakers to manage interactions using linguistic and non-linguistic resources.
This mixed methods study is an investigation of the authenticity of formulaic language in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) textbooks and examines how instruction in interactional practice influences the use of formulaic language and the development of interactional competence. Formulaic language is composed of ready-to-use chunks of language which are often used during speaking. Interactional practices are verbal and nonverbal practices that speakers deploy during interaction. A total of 76 participants from a private university in western Japan took part in this study, which was conducted over the course of 11 weeks. The aims of this study were: (a) to examine the functions that formulaic language in EAP textbooks perform, (b) to investigate whether EAP textbook formulaic language can be considered authentic, (c) to investigate the relationship between individual interactional practices and ratings of interactional competence, and (d) to measure the effectiveness of instruction for interactional competence. Data in this study consisted of text from EAP textbooks, counts and measures of interactional practices, human ratings of interactional competence, and discussion transcripts.
To determine the functions that formulaic language in EAP textbooks performed, I compiled their audio and video scripts into a corpus of EAP textbook language. Then, I compared that formulaic language to the formulaic language in a corpus of spoken academic English. To investigate whether EAP textbook formulaic language was authentic, I searched for formulaic sequences, or individual formulaic language expressions, in the same corpus of spoken academic English. Subsequently, the formulaic sequences which exceeded a frequency threshold were considered authentic. From those authentic formulaic sequences I selected 10 target formulaic sequences and taught them as well as five interactional practices to the participants for the treatment. To investigate the relationship between individual interactional practices and ratings of interactional competence, I transcribed the discussions and counted instances of formulaic sequence use and interactional practices. Then, I performed a hierarchical multiple regression to assess the relationship between formulaic language use, interactional practices, and ratings of interactional competence. Lastly, to measure the effectiveness of instruction, 10 raters assessed the discussions, and I compared the participant ratings on the pretest and posttest using a repeated-measures MANCOVA.
The first finding of the study was that EAP textbook formulaic language performs different functions from formulaic language in a corpus of academic spoken English. The second finding was that most formulaic sequences in EAP textbooks cannot be considered authentic because a majority of the formulaic sequences did not appear with sufficient frequency in the same corpus. The third finding was that three interactional practices significantly correlated with ratings of interactional competence: total number of speaking turns, total speaking time, and English backchannels. The fourth finding is that the treatment was not statistically significant for improving the interactional competence of the participants.
Based on the findings, research and pedagogical implications were posed. For EAP textbooks, L2 researchers have long recommended that textbook publishers incorporate findings from research. An ever-increasing number of publishers are using corpus linguistics, however, results from this study suggest that textbook publishers do not treat formulaic language in EAP textbooks consistently or overlook them entirely. For interactional competence, the results indicated that raters based their assessments primarily on frequency-based measures. This may be because several interactional practices did not occur often enough to be stable categories for evaluation. Similarly, the relationship between formulaic language use and interactional competence ratings could not be assessed because the participants largely did not use the expressions. The qualitative data showed recurring trends among different participant groups and highlighted the many factors that affect interactions in small group discussions. In summary, this study shows the challenges for operationalization, instruction, and assessment of interactional competence. The findings also suggest that it is necessary to teach and evaluate interactional competence in a variety of contexts and with stricter control of variables despite potential tradeoffs in validity.
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