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Approaches and Methods in French Second Language Acquisition Research
Edited by Martin Howard
[Research Methods in Applied Linguistics 9] 2025
► pp. 236–262

Chapter 10
CA-SLA

Investigating L2 interactional competence and L2 grammar-for-interaction — principles and methods

 | University of Neuchâtel
Second language interactional competence has for long remained out of the focal concerns of research on second language acquisition (SLA). Over the past two decades, however, the field has seen emerge a prominent line of conversation-analytic (CA) SLA research investigating the procedures and resources L2 speakers use to accomplish actions in interaction and coordinate these with others, and how these procedures change over time and proficiency levels. This chapter discusses the key role played by research on French in these developments in terms of the advancement of methods for longitudinal investigations of L2 interactions, the conceptualization of L2 interactional competence and — relatedly — L2 grammar-for-interaction, and the identification of the basic developmental trajectory of such competence. It presents the cumulative evidence stemming from developmental studies of L2 interactional competence and identifies existing French L2 corpora suitable for such studies. The chapter closes with a discussion of the methodological limits of current research as well as avenues for future investigations.
Keywords: interactional competence, grammar-for-interaction, conversation analysis, developmental trajectories, longitudinal research
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Epistemological background
  • Basic methods in CA
    • Key methodological principles
    • Example 1: Why study SLA based on finely transcribed naturally occurring data?
  • Specific methodological procedures for longitudinal studies of L2 social interaction
    • Challenges
    • a.Warranting comparability — corpora suitable for longitudinal CA-type analysis
    • b.Establishing collections longitudinally — the need for substantial interactional data
    • c.Evidencing the systematic character of longitudinal change — the need for quantification?
    • d.Analyzing L2 development from a participant-relevant (emic) perspective
    • Example 2: On the routinization of a multi-word expression into a discourse marker
      • Warranting comparability
      • Establishing collections longitudinally
      • Evidencing the systematic character of longitudinal change
    • Example 3: Documenting the development of L2 interactional competence from an emic perspective — the case of story-openings
  • A note on French L2 corpora suitable for longitudinal interaction analysis
  • Discussion: Contribution, limitations, and avenues for future research
  • Author queries
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
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