Turn-Initial Minimal Responses in NES and NNES Student Writers’ Talk in Writing Center Conferences
| dc.creator | Mackiewicz, Jo | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2021-06-10T14:18:39Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2021-06-10T14:18:39Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2021 | |
| dc.description.abstract | Writing center tutors strive to facilitate participation from student writers, particularly student writers who are not native speakers of the conference language. This study investigated one way that tutors might better understand student writers’ intent to contribute a substantial turn at talk and thus better understand when they might make way for student writers’ active participation. This study examined four minimal responses (MRs)—mmhm, uhhuh, yeah, and ok—at the beginning of student writers’ turns at talk. It differentiated between MRs that were free standing, constituting the entire turn and suggesting passive recipiency, and MRs that were not free standing, suggesting speakership incipiency. Importantly, the study differentiated between the MRs of native English speakers (NESs) and non-native English speakers (NNES). NNESs used freestanding mmhm far more than NESs, suggesting that the NNESs may have extended the use of mmhm to a greater array of discourse contexts. NNESs used free-standing yeah far more frequently than they did non-free-standing yeah, suggesting that yeah would not have been a reliable signal for tutors that NNESs would extend their turns at talk. This study also found that both NESs and NNESs used ok to signal not only consideration of but also agreement with tutors’ evaluations or acceptance of tutors’ advice about lower-order concerns. Understanding how MRs vary from passive recipiency to speakership incipiency might help tutors better understand student writers’ intent to contribute a substantial turn and thus indicate when tutors might wait for student writers’ participation. | en_US |
| dc.description.department | University Writing Center | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/2152/86405 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://dx.doi.org/10.26153/tsw/13356 | |
| dc.language.iso | eng | en_US |
| dc.relation.ispartof | Praxis: A Writing Center Journal | en_US |
| dc.relation.ispartofseries | Praxis Vol 18, No 2 | |
| dc.rights.restriction | Open | en_US |
| dc.subject | NES | en_US |
| dc.subject | NNES | en_US |
| dc.title | Turn-Initial Minimal Responses in NES and NNES Student Writers’ Talk in Writing Center Conferences | en_US |
| dc.type | Article | en_US |