Explicit/implicit CS-induced question in Chinese as a repair, preceded by the implicit

This extract below is taken from an interaction when the teacher, DT3, is going through several culture notes related to the reading text and dealing with the key linguistic items. Therefore, the mode is shifted from materials mode (lines 01-03) to skills and systems mode (lines 03-10).

Extract 8.1

01 DT3: ((reading))it is also a movement that

02 advocates gender equality for women

03 and campaigns for women's |right and interests |looking at Ss

04 (1.0)

05 DT3: for women's rights and interests

06 (0.5)

07 S1: °quanlihe:°

{tr. Rights and:}

08 DT3: interests shishenme yisilaizhe？

{tr. what’s the meaning of interests?} 09 Ss: liyi=

153 {tr. interests}

10 DT3: =liyi(.)|right↓ (.)

{tr. interests} |looking at the book 11 now the third one.

Firstly, in the teacher’s turn at lines 01-03, DT3 reads the note and stresses the key phrase ‘rights and interests’. As observed from the video, the synchronised action with the stress is that the teacher shifts her attention from the material and starts to look at the students, expecting the students’ reply (line 03). The teacher then repeats the phrase with the stress again in the way she does at line 03, because none of the students reply even though she gives 1-second wait time (lines 05-06). This time, after half of a second, the student, S1, takes the turn and provides the Chinese equivalent of the word ‘rights’. However, S1 fails to give the Chinese equivalent for ‘interests’, which is evident in the stretched last syllable (i.e., /d/) of ‘and’ by S1 (lines 06-07). In this case, at line 08, the teacher DT3 switches to Chinese to elicit the Chinese equivalent of ‘interests’ from the other students.

In this extract, the stress is put on the words during the reading, and followed by a significant pause to encourage the students’ reply. This is argued to be an implicit way to elicit the related response to the stressed segment(s) from the students in their native language, i.e., Chinese. Here, this can be identified as an implicit way of eliciting the Chinese response because the students’ reply in Chinese matches the teacher’s pedagogical orientation. This is evidenced both by the teacher’s acceptance and acknowledgment of the students’ provision of the corresponding Chinese equivalent, and her immediate use of a down-toned marker ‘right’ to close the turn leading to open a new turn of the interaction (lines 07-10). Additionally, this can also be considered as an implicit way because it is not as clear and straightforward as a “DIU” (Koshik, 2002) or a “display question”. As a result, it may cause some of the students’ failure or delay to get the uptake of the teacher’s orientation. For example, as shown at line 07, only one of the students, S1, gets the uptake, while the others do not show their

understanding and fail to provide a reply up until the teacher explicitly asks the Chinese equivalent (lines 08-09).

Therefore, in this extract, the stress that is put on the key linguistic items, followed by a significant pause allowing for the students’ reply, is the FPP (lines 03-04). It can be

154

seen that the CS, functioning as eliciting a Chinese response, takes place when most of the students fail to get the uptake due to the implicit eliciting. The CS (e.g., line 08), at this time, therefore successfully helps to clarify the question and get the oriented response from the students. However, only one of the students, S1, has taken up the turn and provided an insufficient answer (line 07) before the teacher codeswitches to Chinese to elicit the equivalent which has not been given yet by the students. Therefore, the occurrence of CS here can also be considered as a teacher-initiated other-repair strategy. Nevertheless, its occurrence is preceded by the implicit eliciting, e.g., stressing the targeted key linguistic segments to get a Chinese response in this extract.

However, it is also interesting to note that using Chinese to elicit a Chinese response is not always in an explicit way. The following extract shows that the teacher switches to Chinese to implicitly elicit a Chinese equivalent from the students.

Extract 8.2

39 GT1: ah (.) really we need to be-

40 quiet <to do meditation>(0.4) right↑(.)

41 I told you the word

42 GT1: meditation(.)[remem]ber? 43 S19: [yeah]

44 Ss: (1.2) ((murmuring in a very low voice)) 45 GT1: hai jide ma？zhege ci

{tr. still remember? This word} 46 S20: meditation

47 Ss: ((murmuring))

48 GT1: meditation

49 Ss: (1.6)((talking to partner in a very low voice)) 50 S21: monian (.)moxiang

{tr. thinking (.) contemplating} 51 S22: [mingxiang ]

{tr. musing}

52 GT1: |[meditation- is jing=]

{tr. being mentally in peace} |writing the word ‘meditation

53 S4: =jing↑=

{tr. being mentally in peace} 54 GT1: =jing(0.4)meditation(.)

155

{tr. being mentally in peace}

55 Ss: [jing ]

{tr. being mentally in peace} 56 GT1: [that] is we need to do meditation

57 from time to time(.)

58 especially in nowadays society.

This extract is taken from an interaction, discussing the differences between people nowadays and 20 years ago. The interaction starts from classroom context mode (lines 39-41) and then shifts to skills and systems mode, in which the teacher encounters and deals with the linguistic word “meditation” (lines 41- 55).

The teacher, GT1, says that ‘really we need to be quiet to do mediation’, stressing the key word ‘meditation’. Then, he initiates a question asking the students if they can remember the meaning of ‘meditation’ (lines 39-42). S19’s reply, i.e., ‘yeah’ is

overlapped with GT1’s question (line 43). The students start murmuring in a very low and inaudible voice during the provided wait time which lasts more than 1 second (line 44). Then, the teacher GT1 switches to Chinese, still asking whether the students remember the word ‘meditation’ (line 45). One of the students, S20, repeats ‘mediation’ while the others are murmuring again. It seems that they are doing a word search in their mind (lines 46-47). The teacher again repeats ‘meditation’ with stress and then gives students another waiting time which is over 1.5 seconds. Even though the majority of the students still cannot provide any reply, two students, S21 and S22, successively provide the Chinese equivalent of ‘meditation’ (lines 50-51). The teacher writes the word on the board and provides the Chinese equivalent, i.e., ‘jing (tr. being mentally in

peace)’, which is more appropriate in this local context. S4 repeats the teacher’s Chinese equivalent provision with a rising tone, showing sort of doubt and uncertainty. Thus, the teacher repeats the word in both Chinese and English for clarifying its

meaning (lines 53-54). At this point, the other students repeat the Chinese equivalent to show their acceptance and uptake. Then, the teacher goes back to the topic of the discussion, i.e., the differences between people nowadays and 20 years ago.

Note that the questions raised in English (line 42) and in Chinese (line 45) do not really orient to get the students’ reply with ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. Based on the “next-turn proof”

principle, the teacher’s final provision of the Chinese equivalent (i.e., ‘jing’) of

156

from the students. However, both questions are raised implicitly in terms of eliciting a Chinese response, so that the majority of the students cannot immediately get the teacher’s orientation. Consequently, it seems that the CS at line 45 does not work well, as the students show no uptake of the teacher’s orientation. Nevertheless, this

occurrence of CS, playing a role in eliciting the Chinese response, still shows the similarity with the CS use in the last extract. That is, the CS takes place after an implicit way of eliciting a Chinese response by means of stressing the target segment, followed by a significant pause waiting for the students’ Chinese equivalent provision. Therefore, regardless of the explicit or implicit use of the CS to bring about the students’ Chinese response, the CS use is sort of a repair strategy to help with the question clarification or students’ uptakes, even though it may not work as it is oriented to.

However, it does not necessarily mean that all the CS use to elicit a Chinese response is assisted with the extra prosodic features (e.g. stress) and followed by a significant pause. This will be discussed further in the following extract.

8.2.2 Explicit CS-induced question in Chinese for a locally emerging pre-emptive