Word search in L2 Chinese: differential practices and evidence for the development of interactional competence

Abstract This study investigates word searches produced by L2 Chinese learners in their conversation with an L1 speaker. Prior research has examined the organization of L2 word searches and the resources that L2 learners typically draw on. However, it is unclear how learners of different proficiency levels differ in the methods for accomplishing this action and whether their differences, if any, can provide insights on their development of interactional competence. To address these two questions, the present study adopts the framework of conversation analysis to examine three L2 Chinese learners’ conversations with the same L1 speaker. It discovers that lower-proficiency learners have limited methods to manage the interactional exigencies in a word search whereas higher-proficiency learners are able to use more varied methods, some of them showing features close to L1 speakers’ word searches. The three learners’ differential practices, which can be considered as three different moments in the acquisition of word search, converge with the three stages in the developmental trajectory reported in a previous longitudinal study (Pekarek Doehler & Berger 2019), providing evidence for L2 development of interactional competence.