An exploratory study of expressing disagreement in ELF academic group
      discussion
Creators: name: Toomaneejinda, Anuchit
Publisher: name: Lancaster University
Year: 2018

description: In many academic contexts in the United Kingdom, group work is an
      important site of English as a lingua franca (ELF) communication. Group
      work can involve challenging pragmatic acts, and chief among these is,
      arguably, disagreement. The need to disagree amicably is important for two
      reasons: (1) to achieve consensus on group tasks, and (2) to negotiate
      meaning around academic topics. There is, however, little known about how
      disagreement is realised in ELF academic group discussion tasks.
      
      The purpose of this thesis was to investigate the disagreement realisation
      of MA students from highly diverse linguacultural backgrounds interacting
      in academic group discussion. Specifically, the study aimed, firstly, to
      uncover the disagreeing practices of participants who were using English
      as a common means of communication; and secondly, to discover and
      explicate the factors which influence those practices. This study
      addressed these issues using a multi-method approach. Twelve students from
      ten different linguacultural backgrounds completed two discussion tasks
      (one targeting opinions, and the other consensus decision-making) and
      responded to follow-up questionnaires. The same students also took part in
      stimulated recall interviews (using the video-recording of each group
      discussion and self-completed questionnaires as stimuli).
      
      Discourse analysis of the transcribed interactions revealed that they
      carefully select the appropriate and amicable way to express themselves in
      general and their differing ideas in particular and that disagreement in
      this context is multifarious. That is, the ELF participants employed a
      wide range of complex verbal and nonverbal strategies in realising
      disagreement and their disagreement is complicatedly managed. In
      particular, they appear to tend towards less explicit disagreeing
      practices such as the use of non-performative or pragmatic disagreement
      and other mitigating devices, ranging from sound/word and discourse levels
      to complex turn management. This is because the practices allow them both
      to achieve the tasks at hand and at the same time to maintain amicable
      interaction.
      
      The stimulated recall data shows that their disagreement practices were
      influenced by both internal/prior and external/immediate factors (self-,
      others- and situation-oriented factors). What the participants bring with
      them to the group discussion—personality traits, beliefs, linguistic
      proficiency, cultural backgrounds, knowledge or experience on the topic,
      interactional goals—all exert a powerful influence on the way disagreement
      is realised. In addition, their perceptions of their interlocutors’
      cultural backgrounds, personal traits and their concerns about their
      interlocutors’ feelings as well as the immediate context in which the
      group discussion is taking place and what is emerging during the
      interaction all result in certain forms of disagreeing. The participants’
      attentiveness, flexibility and adaptability confirm the fact that ELF
      speakers are highly aware of diversity and possible clashes of
      interactional norms and expectations. They appear to enthusiastically
      anticipate, or even pre-empt, those challenges and they manage their
      language use accordingly. It also reveals that there were many different
      kinds of linguistic work underlying the disagreeing forms realised on the
      surface.
      
      The convergence of findings indicates that what makes these group
      discussion sessions unique is that the participants from highly diverse
      linguacultural backgrounds clearly exhibit intercultural awareness. They
      are aware of, sensitive to, and even respectful for, cultural differences
      and, particularly in academic group discussion, they are evidently
      flexible and adaptable to the group dynamic. Also, the participants appear
      to aptly and subtly use both linguistic and non-linguistic resources to
      manage and achieve their communicative goals. In these ways the data
      support the view in the literature. However, given the fact that
      disagreement is contextually and functionally preferred in the present
      study and that the participants tend towards less explicit disagreeing,
      this challenges the existing notion that ELF interactions are inherently
      explicit, supportive and agreement-oriented.