Bi-plurilingual formulation practices in conversational writing interactions

2.1 State of research

Collaborative writing represents a highly researched subject in the anglophone scientific community. One of the first major monographs, devoted to the question of processes, effects and implications of collaborative writing in the workplace and classroom, is Singular texts, plural authors (1990) by Lisa Ede and Andrea Lunsford. The authors pose the fundamental question of why people should write together and – building on theoretical and historical deliberations on collaborative and group writing, as well as on their own questionnaire-interview study – they conclude with the injunction that writers must be able to collaborate in the twenty-first century. A very interesting result of their survey is that people perceive improved content and greater sensitivity to audiences because of the enlarged base of knowledge and experience as major advantages of this writing mode. Shifting attention to collaborative and group writing against a plurilingual background, one can detect a whole body of research pertaining to collaborative writing in L2 contexts. Storch (2011), for example, highlights that carefully designed and guided collaborative writing tasks represent an optimal format for L2 language learning. Different criteria such as task type, L2 proficiency and the social relations between the interacting writers influence the efficiency of this writing format and, accordingly, of the learning effect.

Looking to the francophone scientific field, the Lyon research group, led by Robert Bouchard, Interactions, Acquisition et Apprentissage, engages with conversational writing interactions in the anthology Les processus de la redaction collaborative (Bouchard and Mondada 2005). Here, Apothéloz (2005) addresses the question of how writers progress during the interactive writing process by examining techniques of reformulation in the collaborative fabrication of text. In the German scientific landscape, the research group led by the conversation analysts Ulrich Dausendschön-Gay, Ulrich Krafft and Elisabeth Gülich also focuses on conversational writing interactions, already investigating in 1992 how exolingual writing situations between German- and French-speaking interlocutors foster the acquisition of a foreign language. Building on that, in 1996, Dausendschön-Gay and Krafft analyzed formulation processes in the acquisition of a foreign language by posing the question of how knowledge of text genre and formulation solutions are related. Based on their observations, they categorized writing systems of interactive formulation processes (Krafft and Dausendschön-Gay 1999, 2000). Moreover, Faistauer (1997) examined conversational writing processes (and products) of students in her own class of German as a foreign language at university, in order to look for factors which contribute to more creativity and motivation in writing, on the one hand, and an improved quality of a text product, on the other hand. Overall, although this research has made headway in understanding how interlocutors (of different linguistic backgrounds) organize their writing interactions, it left the role of linguistic resources used in formulations unexamined.

Considering studies on conversational writing interactions in higher education dating from this century, one can notice that they primarily take place in a monolingual context, conceiving writing tasks and participants as being monolingual (see Lehnen 2000; Hinrichs 2014).^[4] Moreover, when research into foreign languages is undertaken, it usually takes place in an L2-context, which, by focusing on the development of L2 literacy, has a clear orientation towards one target language. Questions of how students’ plurilingual repertoires interact with their academic writing within a collaborative scenario are therefore not explicitly approached in such studies. In addressing this research gap, the present study takes a broader view on linguistic repertoires by critically discussing the actual use (or non-use) of plurilingual resources within oral procedures of formulation.

2.2 Oral procedures of formulation within conversational writing interactions

Lehnen and Gülich (1997) have defined the following characteristics of oral procedures regarding formulation within conversational writing interactions:

1. Pauses or hesitations in the transition from conceptually oral to conceptually literate formulations

2. Change of speech rate and intonation (rhythmization)

3. Meta-discursive expressions (e.g. comments on speech)

4. Orientation towards norms and explicit conditions of constitution for the common text

5. Cooperative reference to the co-author(s) as a procedure of reassurance and a sign of relationship work

Their focus is on L1-writing, hence, an examination of whether a multilingual context reveals different or additional characteristics for formulation practices remains.

Also adding to our understanding of oral procedures of formulation, Beißwenger (2017) distinguished between oral and written resources in formulation processes within conversational writing interactions. Oral or interactional resources can be used in order to verbalize ad hoc alternative formulations or supplements to an already written text – here referring to the present status of a written draft at a specific point in the production process. As a result, writers perform ad hoc repairs, which are embedded in oral formulation sequences and, therefore, is comparable to repair in spoken language (see Mroczynski 2014). The written resource of the already existing text helps to conceptually differentiate between the activities of planning and formulating on the one hand, and the activities of reading and evaluating on the other hand. Consequently, and in contrast to the first type of repair, participants in a writing interaction can also carry out repairs at a later stage of their writing processes while revising an already completed text product. The present article focuses on the first type of ad hoc repair.

2.3 Plurilingual writing practices

According to the Austrian linguist and didactician Sabine Dengscherz (2019a), plurilingualism in the context of writing can be addressed on three different levels: on an individual level, writers have different language biographies and respective writing experiences in the languages they have acquired and learned throughout their lifetime. On a situative level, writers can work in various languages by, for instance, reading scientific literature in one language and writing an academic text (based on that literature) in another language. Here, the writing task represents a relevant factor for the use of different languages. On a product-orientated and textual level, this plurilingual working mode can be (temporarily) visible in the emerging text product (see Canagarajah 2011 for a study on codemeshing in final versions of academic essays).

For the study and analysis of formulation practices with embedded repairs within conversational writing interactions presented herein, these levels shall be considered as intertwined. Although I primarily look at effective plurilingual practices in writing, the students’ linguistic backgrounds, as well as the didactic format of the seminar – specifically designed to foster plurilingual practices in speaking and writing – must be considered. From this, I classify the conversational writing interactions of the corpus as multilingual, even if the formulation passages might primarily be marked by bilingual practices.^[5]

The analysis of bi-plurilingual formulation practices is based on the notion of functional language distribution. As Krafft and Dausendschön-Gay (1999) observed in their study of students writing dyads, when sharing the same L1 (French or German) and writing a text in the same L2 (German or French, respectively), there is a functional language distribution^[6] between the two languages. While the L2 is used to propose, correct, dictate or read through formulations, the L1 is used as a common working language in which the participants coordinate their activities, discuss content, comment on propositions, control morphological, syntactical and semantical aspects of expressions or constructions, and debate advantages and disadvantages of a procedure. This kind of functional language distribution can also be observed in my data, on a macro-level. However, on a micro-level, the picture seems to get more complex due to heterogeneous linguistic repertoires, as demonstrated in section 3.3.

3.1 Frameworks and pre-conditions

The method of linguistic conversation analysis (CA) pursues conversation theoretical aims by determining “the general in the specific” (Brinker and Sager 2006: 180). Regarding the present subject of examination, the intention is to detect general principles of interactive, dialogical formulation practices. Before carrying out the analysis of exemplary formulation passages, the frameworks and pre-conditions of the conversational writing interaction – including the material base, the social conditions of the conversation, the linguistic competences of the participants, as well as the interpretative stance of the researcher – will be defined, following the suggestions of Brinker and Sager (2006). These preliminary considerations are meaningful for further analysis and interpretation because they clarify under which circumstances a conversational writing interaction has taken place.

The material base consists of an audio recording, a screen recording and a text product. The audio recording is considered central to the analysis, while the screen video serves as a support function and is used selectively in order to provide an impression of the emerging text in addition to the verbal interactions of the conversation. Concerning the social conditions, the conversation can be classified as a writing interaction between three students which took place during a bloc session^[7] of a research seminar.^[8] The interaction partners, here referred to by the pseudonyms Amna, Carola and Maike, had never written together, and consequently, did not build upon a shared experience of cooperation. Amna took on the role of the writer, using her own computer. The institutional frame of the seminar favored specific interaction norms between the interlocutors, whose social roles were that of learners in an academic, university class. As fellow students, they acted on an eye-to-eye level and were driven by the intention to formulate an academic text, according to their discipline’s scientific writing norms. It should be noted that the conversational writing interaction took place in a semi-experimental setting of data collection, namely, the research seminar. This format could have had an impact on the students’ attitudes towards the writing task; their awareness of being recorded might have prompted a disposition to putting more effort into fulfilling the assignment than one would typically encounter under natural conditions.

The students had to write a research proposal in French for a fictional study on the topic of ‘ways to work with language biographies in a school class’. In preparation for this assignment, they were required to master two material-based writing tasks beforehand (principle of scaffolding^[9]), drafting two question-guided excerpts in French, based on scientific texts. Students were to make use of German guidelines (as formulated by the Faculty of Educational Science at Bielefeld University^[10]) for their research proposals and the writing task presented at the seminar. As a result of their conversational writing interaction, lasting approximately 90 minutes, the students drafted a research proposal of about 18 sentences (see Appendix 1). Regarding the visual text organization, they structured their research proposal into five sections, with the second and fifth sections consisting of just one sentence each. This structure was informed by notes they drafted, in an initial brainstorming phase, for each of the five sections.

In order to fulfill the writing task, the students had to demonstrate a certain ability of academic text composition in French. The following table provides a general overview of the participants and of their linguistic repertoires, at the time of data collection (winter semester 2017/2018).

Although Carola and Maike were both enrolled as first-semester students in the Master’s program ‘Moving Cultures’, they had different focal languages: Carola’s was French (with English as an additional language), whereas Maike’s was English (with French as an additional language). Amna, however, was a bachelor’s student^[12] in her 7^th semester with the subject combination of Romance studies and political science. The three students shared the competence of English as a first foreign language. Apart from this common resource, they were heterogenous in terms of their first languages and in the order in which they learned additional languages. Both Carola and Maike acquired German as a first language, whereby Maike had an additional first-language proficiency, in Polish. Concerning the target language of French, they showed a similar school career, where French was introduced as a second foreign language. Amna, contrary to her interlocutors, did not grow up in Germany, but in the border region of Switzerland and France. Consequently, she had both Swiss French and, due to her family background, Moroccan Arabic as first languages. Altogether, the interaction partners shared the competence of academic writing in French, however, this might have been developed at different stages in their academic careers, and to different degrees.^[13]

With respect to my interpretative stance, I had assumed the roles of the teacher and researcher and, consequently, scaffolded and observed the writing interactions without actually participating in them. However, a certain experience with the writing format employed in my research, outside Goethe University Frankfurt (in the form of self-experiments), allowed me to gain an inside view as to the processes of production, although I had not participated in a setting similar to the one employed in this particular research. Having been both an undergraduate and a graduate student at Goethe University Frankfurt, I had a similar academic socialisation to the participants of my study and understood that the format of conversational writing interaction was unfamiliar to them. Nevertheless, the asymmetric relationship between teacher and students on the one hand, and between researcher and researched subjects on the other hand, had to be kept in mind while preparing and carrying out the seminar.^[14]

Regarding the macro-structure^[15] of the conversational writing interaction of Amna, Carola and Maike recorded for my analysis, six higher-level phases of interactive writing and negotiation can be distinguished:

1. Preparation and preliminary talk (0:00–4:29), approx. 4.5min

2. Brainstorming and note-taking (4:30–18:49), approx. 14min

3. Exchange on own school experiences (18:50–25:54), approx. 7min

4. Transition to writing process (25:55/first recording–2:39/second recording), approx. 5min

5. Intense process of negotiation and formulation (2:40–53:29), approx. 51min

6. Short closing (53:30–54:59), approx. 1.5min

On the whole, the interactive writing process is structured into two parts: after a stage of experience exchange, knowledge sharing and note-taking (phases 1 to 3), there is a short transition (phase 4), followed by an intense process of negotiation and formulation (phase 5), where all formulation sequences can be situated. Due to organizational and technical circumstances, there were two recordings made (see point 4 in the list), as the group had to change its writing space after 30 minutes of conceptual work – there was confusion regarding room reservations with another group, thus, the audio recording and the screened video were interrupted. Lasting approximately 51 minutes, the processes of negotiation and formulation covered about two thirds of the total conversational writing interaction. The method of detailed sequence analysis, as explained below, will be applied to a collection of passages from phase 5.

3.2 Detailed sequence analysis

To begin, my analysis takes a microscopic approach that starts with a detailed sequence analysis of one conversation passage (Deppermann 2008).^[16] This passage was defined as a prototypical example based on a collection of formulation procedures with embedded repair(s)^[17] for the conversational writing interaction of the three student participants.^[18] The example can be considered prototypical because it represents the most frequent way my participants formulated a sentence segment for their final text, with Amna as the dominant formulator and Carola and Maike acting as supporters. The prototypical example, as well as the other examples selected for analysis were chosen based on their naturalness. This means that the immediately preceding and subsequent sequences to the focused conversation passages were considered in order to discern context. Then, these passages were analyzed according to different aspects of detailed sequence analysis, including the following (Deppermann 2008):

1. Paraphrase and description of action

2. Expression design and verbalization dynamic

3. Timing

4. Context analysis

5. Consequence expectations

6. Interactive consequences

7. Sequence patterns and macro-processes

Heuristic questions are linked to each of the seven analytical sections. These are, according to Deppermann (2008), open questions that do not prescribe theory-driven classification categories, rather, they stimulate and systematize the material-based search for features and coherences within conversations. These heuristic questions, with which a conversation passage is analyzed according to the principle of sequentiality, foster a certain analytic sensitivity to the description and do not explicitly result in standardized procedural rules. It is important to note that, only for the prototypical example, all seven heuristics were used. The analysis of all other examples was more selective and synthetic; only three heuristics were used, namely, I, II and IV.^[19]

After an analysis of the prototypical example, a hypothesis concerning the conversation practice was deduced. This hypothesis consists of assuming that there is a clear functional language distribution between interlocutors’ dominant language of verbal communication inside the classroom (German) and a language being studied and trained (French), with the first having the function of a common working language and the second playing the role of a language of formulation (see language usage observed by Krafft and Dausendschön-Gay 1999, Section 2.3). I endeavored to systematically verify the hypothesis throughout the course of my analysis (constitution of subject) and selected additional examples based on the collection of formulations (sampling). Strategic example selection was guided by the criterion of variance of components and forms.^[20] Selected examples were once again systematically analyzed according to the principles of detailed sequence analysis (analysis of subject).^[21] An examination of the prototypical example is presented in section 3.3.1, followed by an analysis of two deviating examples in sections 3.3.2 and 3.3.3.

3.3 Different variants of embedded repair within formulation sequences

The analysis results in three sub-collections of formulations with embedded repair (for the categories of repair referred to hereinafter, see Schegloff et al. 1977): self-initiated and self-executed repair (8 cases), other-initiated and other-executed repair (7 cases), as well as self-initiated and other-executed repair (1 case). In the following sections, the structures, as well as linguistic and interactional particularities of the repair operations, will be explained by means of an exemplary case that illustrates this practice clearly.^[22]

3.4 Summary of findings

For a preliminary typology of formulation procedures with embedded repair(s), one can differentiate a repair operation according to: a) involved actors; b) functions for the ongoing writing process and/or the writing product; as well as c) their occurrence in the final text. While in the first two examples, repair is initiated and executed by Amna, who controls writing on the computer, in the last example, it is initiated by the co-author Carola, but is nevertheless still executed by Amna. This fosters the dominant role of the person who is actually in charge of writing down the formulations. Furthermore, one can detect the following procedures and related functions in the repair operations (see Schegloff 1977 for seven procedures of repair): a withdrawal with justification implying exclusion of a lexeme for the further writing process (3.3.1), a replacement leading to increased precision of formulation in the target text (3.3.2), and a search that indicates an ongoing process for finding an appropriate formulation in the interaction (3.3.3). With regards to occurrence of repair in the final text, there are different repercussions on the writing product. For the first two examples, one can claim that the repair operation leaves a visible trace in the final text, though rather indirectly – in the first example (3.3.1), through lexeme deletion. On the contrary, the repair does not appear in the final text in the third example (3.3.3) and thus, represents an intermediate status of the sentence within the emergent writing product.

Moreover, the hypothesis of functional language distribution between German as a common working language and French as language of formulation, as proposed in the last paragraph of section 3.2, can be refuted. The heterogenous linguistic repertoires of the participants in this particular study generate more complex developments. Indeed, German is used for a range of organizational activities, expressed by discourse, consent or formulation markers, by meta-discursive comments and metalinguistic, as well as conceptual considerations (pre-texts) while French is used for suggestions of formulation, repair and self-dictation. However, the usage of French expands to more activities. The participants (mostly Carola) use French for conceptual considerations and meta-discursive comments (that resemble thinking aloud processes), as well as for consent markers. In this regard, there is an interesting pattern in Carola’s propositions in Transcript 2, segment 468 and in Transcript 3, segment 1127 where she opens her turn in German and just then switches (back) to French. Here, it would be important to look for similar language patterns in this (and other) writing interaction(s of the corpus), as this could offer further insight into language use on a micro-level. Overall, the findings obtained throughout the iterative course of analysis (constitution of subject, sampling, analysis of subject) in this single interaction, highlight the differentiation of the functional uses of language. In a future analytical step, I will examine these insights within the context of the corpus to see if any further discernments can be perceived.