Thesis
French
ID: <
10670/1.206sui>
Abstract
This research is based upon Conversation Analysis (CA) and integrates a sociocultural perspective. It describes the situated learning practices and conversations of a social group of people of a Self-Access Center. Based upon empirical data from audio and video recordings of exolingual conversations between French and Spanish learners with French and Spanish native speakers, the phenomenon of “repair” (Schegloff, Jefferson & Sacks, 1977) is analyzed to describe “methods” (Garfinkel, 1967) used by the participants in order to provide elements to understand the notion of learning-in-action. Some features of repair sequences are shown, as well as the orientations of one participant to the expertise of another participant. It is noticed that the speakers exhibit an identity of expert or learner, and I argue that category is a transitional and dynamic entity in the interaction where repair mechanism is an indispensable tool. I show that the repair mechanism in exolingual conversations is also a learning method used by learners. Interaction and particularly the "interaction for acquisition" is a tool that promotes L2 acquisition ("cognition in practice", Lave & Wenger, 1988; "community of practice", Wenger, 1998) and allows us to simultaneously observe the process "on line" of the appropriation of linguistic resources and the way participants resolve problems that risk intersubjectivity. I notice more generally, that learning cannot be defined a priori but it is contingent and contextual and emerges from the dynamic activities of interaction.