Interrelationship between Interactions, Communication Strategies, and Social, Personal Traits in L2 Conversation

This study explores what factors influence a conversation between native and non-native English speakers. In second language acquisition (SLA) studies, a conversation between a native speaker (NS) and a non-native speaker (NNS) has been researched in terms of the effects on second language acquisition and learning. Focused on conversational interactions, interactionsists understand a conversation as an opportunity for negotiating meaning, which promotes L2 acquisition. On the other hand, communication strategy (CS) research has examined NNS's strategic language use for communicational purposes. While these approaches have investigated the nature of NS-NNS conversation and L2 learning, socio-affective and contextual factors have not been the focus of the research. However, with the increasing interest in the social and contextual factors, there is a growing need to expand conversation research to include these factors. Therefore, this study examines comprehensively conversational interactions, communication strategies, and intra- and inter-personal factors with three dyads of NS-NNS conversation participants. Six informal free conversations and interviews with all participants were conducted, and all conversations and interviews were transcribed for analysis. The results of the analysis indicate different communication performance across conversational dyads and interrelationship between conversational interactions, CSs, and intro- and inter-personal factors.