"Do we put the star map after the first aid kit?" : The Use of Questions as Indicators of Interactional Fluency in L1 Finnish and L2 English Interaction
This thesis examines English L2 learners’ use of different question types in L1 Finnish and L2 English interactions and how their question use affects interactional fluency. In addition, this study aimed at comparing the question types used in L1 and L2 interactions. This study utilized a mixed-methods approach, analyzing some aspects of the data quantitatively and some qualitatively. This was done in order to meet the goals of the study more appropriately. The data of this study consisted of 54 audio-recorded interactions, 26 of which were recorded in English (L2) and 26 in Finnish (L1). For the recordings, the participants had to complete problem-solving tasks. The number of participants was 54, all being advanced learners of English. The data set is part of the data collected originally for the FDF2 project, which is funded by the Academy of Finland. This thesis examines aspects that have not been widely explored before in L2 interaction research, namely the effect of question use on interactional fluency as well as raising attention on the importance of comparing the performance of the same speakers across L1 and L2.
In the analysis of the data, five question categories were utilized. The categorization was based on previous research but, for the purposes of the present study, a system working for Finnish and English was created to correspond to each question type utilized in the data. All questions were then collected from the data and placed into the corresponding categories. The L1 and L2 data were categorized separately, although the categories were the same for both languages. After the categorization, the overall number of questions in the data as well as the number of questions presented by each pair in
the L1 and L2 were calculated. In addition to this quantitative information, the results were analyzed qualitatively with examples drawn from the pair interactions. The qualitative analysis was done to illustrate and compare the use of questions from an interactional fluency perspective in the L1 and L2 interactions.
The study discovered that questions were used extensively in both the L1 and L2 discussions, although the number of questions was notably higher in the L2 interactions. The total number of questions in the L2 interactions was 546, whereas the total number of questions in the L1 interactions was 444. Questions helped the interlocutors to maintain interactional fluency by helping them reach agreement and overcome communicative problems, such as lack of vocabulary knowledge in both languages. The results also showed that differences in question use across the languages might be due to, for example,
structural differences between languages. The present study also offered insight into the importance of using interactive spoken tasks in L2 classrooms, since the results show how questions, an aspect of speech, affect interactional fluency positively. This relation between interactional fluency and L2 learning is something that could be acknowledged in future research as well
