Dutch and German L1 speakers in ELF interactions within an online setting.
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2022-01-24
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en
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Abstract
Upon the ongoing globalisation and digitalisation, conversational settings tend to become
increasingly multilingual and within a digital environment. Therefore, this study examined the
effect shared language background/ non-shared language background, and visibility/ nonvisibility
have on the evaluations of communicative success and interlocutor evaluation within
an online setting. Within an online zoom experiment, participant pairs (German/ Dutch or
mixed) were presented with a spot the difference task and assessed the differences via a
collaborative dialogue task. Based on this and a post-experiment survey, the number of
differences spotted, the communicative success, the perceived language proficiency of the
interlocutor, as well as likeability and solidarity were measured.
Results showed that sharedness and visibility had no significant effect on
communicative success or interlocutor evaluation as opposed to what was expected. However,
several correlations for communicative success and solidarity could be found. The variables
for communicative success and solidarity positively correlated with each other, as well as
with likeability and competence. Moreover, there was a positive correlation of solidarity and
number of differences spotted. These findings are also in line with previous research of
language convergence and identity processes within interaction.
Nonetheless, the findings of this study are restricted by the limitations such as a
limited test sample and similar linguistic systems of the participants. Thus, further research
must be done to investigate the cultural factors that could also affect the communicative
process absent of the previously mentioned limitations.
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