Corrective recasts in interaction: A case study

Abstract

The research that this paper reports on comes from a pilot study that investigates three questions about how corrective recasts may fit into the local sequential organization of interaction. First, does, and if so, how does the local sequential organization of interaction, including the organization of repair, act as a variable influencing incorporation by language learners of recasts? Second, how do recasts, with and without being incorporated, affect the local sequential organization of interaction? And third, can evidence be found in interaction which indicates that recasts are associated with learning? The details of how particular recasts fit into the organizational structure of interaction are being investigated quite closely, so the methodology chosen for this research is conversation analysis, or CA, a methodology specifically designed to investigate the details of how interaction is organized (Hutchby & Wooffit, 1998; Psathas, 1995; ten Have, 1999). The adoption of this methodology leads to a fourth question of interest, which is the extent to which CA can be a useful methodology in the study of second language acquisition (SLA), and particularly in the study of corrective recasts.