Congruence in Native and Nonnative Conversations: Status Balance in the Academic Advising Session *

This paper examines the notion of status in institutional discourse and identifies congruence as a factor in determining the success of native speaker (NS) and nonnative speaker (NNS) interactions in that context. Thirty‐two academic advising sessions between faculty advisors and both native and highly proficient nonnative graduate students were examined. Whereas both NSs and NNSs show variable success in negotiating noncongruent (status‐challenging) speech acts such as suggestions, NNSs are generally less successful because of the absence of status‐preserving strategies that minimize the force of noncongruent speech acts. These strategies allow students to take out‐of‐status turns without jeopardizing their relationship with their advisors. Because of the advanced level of the NNSs, lack of success is not attributable to lack of linguistic competence but to lack of context‐specific pragmatic competence involving the use, kind, and number of status‐preserving strategies as well as the content and form appropriate for noncongruent speech acts.