Role-based interaction analysis for FLL: A sociocognitive UBL perspective

This article discusses, from a sociocognitive perspective, the integration of usage-based linguistics (UBL) models in favor of conversation analysis (CA) for second language acquisition (SLA). On this basis, it presents a pedagogical approach, viz. role-based interaction analysis (RBIA) for foreign language learning (FLL), by scaffolding, tracking and measuring learners’ behaviors of learning spoken grammatical and pragmatic features in intertextual affordances. Two groups were designated randomly as the experimental group (n = 30) and the comparison group (n = 32) to examine their uptake of the targeted features via explicit and implicit RBIA (i.e. two different ways of learning/processing in role-based interaction) respectively. Results showed: (1) there were significant differences between the two groups in the learning of grammatical features; (2) intergroup differences were significant in the development of pragmatic features; (3) the explicit RBIA learners outperformed the implicit RBIA learners in the appropriacy of expressing pragmatic meanings of social roles. These findings provide evidence for the integrated UBL model and the plausibility of the RBIA-for-FLL approach in instructed FLL contexts.