Developing Interactional Competence in a Japanese Study Abroad Context

Naoko Taguchi is Associate Professor in the Modern Languages Department at Carnegie Mellon University. Her research interests include second language pragmatics, classroom-based research, English-medium education and Japanese SLA. Her recent publications include Context, Individual Differences and Pragmatic Competence (Multilingual Matters, 2014) and Technology in Interlanguage Pragmatics Research and Teaching (coedited with Julie Sykes, John Benjamins, 2013).

• Chapter 1 – Interactional Competence in Japanese Study Abroad: An Introduction Chapter 2 – Linguistic and Interactional Resources in Japanese Conversation: Speech Styles and Incomplete Sentence Endings Chapter 3 – Context of Study: Study Abroad as a Site for Language Learning Chapter 4 – Methods of the Study Chapter 5 – Speech Styles Chapter 6 – Style Shifting Across Discourse Boundaries Chapter 7 – Incomplete Sentences in Joint Turn Construction Chapter 8 – Case Histories of Interactional Development and Study Abroad ExperienceChapter 9 – Conclusion References Appendices

Written by a distinguished applied linguist, this book describes the development of interactional competence by learners from a wide variety of backgrounds studying abroad in Japan. These individuals learn not only the forms of a new language but how their new language creates identities of them in social situations, some of which the learners desire and some of which their interlocutors find strangely impolite. Through her innovative study of how interactional competence develops, the author paints an optimistic picture of how language learning develops through language use.