Pursuing a response in office hour interactions between US college students and international teaching assistants

This article provides a discourse analysis of question and answer exchanges between US college students and international teaching assistants in office hours. Drawing upon second language acquisition (SLA), speech act theory (SAT), and conversation analysis (CA), this study aims to explicate the specific circumstances under which a question–answer exchange becomes problematic and the communicative procedures in which a problematic understanding gets resolved. The data under study here consist of a number of audio-taped, dyadic interactions that naturally occurred during office hours. A close examination of these interactions reveals that a question–answer exchange may become problematic when participants do not possess the same adequate access to the social, pragmatic, and interactional knowledge, and that participants may appeal to various kinds of modifications for achieving a mutual understanding. The findings may have some implications for enhancing communication competence across linguistic and cultural boundaries in instructional contexts.

► A Q–A exchange may become problematic in office hours because ITAs and ACSs do not have the same access to the pragmatic, social, and interactional knowledge.
► Participants may appeal to various kinds of modifications for achieving a mutual understanding.
► Modifications are interactionally called for and context specific.
► Interactional skills and context specific knowledge contribute to mutual understanding.