Interactional features of repair negotiation in NS–NNS interaction on two task types: Information gap and personal information exchange

The studies in task-based approaches in second language acquisition claim that controlled and goal convergent tasks such as information gap tasks surpass open-ended conversations such as personal information exchange tasks for the development of the learner's interlanguage, in that the formers promote more repair negotiation. And yet, few studies so far have focused on the fine-tuned analysis of repair negotiation which occurs when learners are engaged in both those tasks.This study investigates the sequential environments where repair negotiations occur in the NS–NNS interaction in two types of tasks: information gap tasks and personal information exchange tasks in order to understand the interactional features of repair negotiation entailed with both those task types and their potential influence on learners’ interlanguage development.

► The repair negotiation in the information gap tasks occurs mainly as a subsidiary action.
► In the information gap tasks, NSs take pre-emptive measures of avoiding further communication breakdown.
► In the personal information exchange tasks, uncertainty in meaning was the trigger for the repair negotiation.
► In the personal information exchange tasks, NSs act like co-participants of a problem-solving activity.
► In the personal information exchange tasks, NNSs’ pushed output reveals strategies of expressing the same meaning from different angles.