Left and right dislocation with c’est ‘it’s’ in repair sequences in L2 French talk‑in‑interaction

This article investigates left and right dislocation (LD and RD) in sequences of other-initiated self-repair in spontaneous conversations between L2 speakers of French. While LD and RD have been widely investigated in L1 French, also from an interactional perspective ( Pekarek Doehler, De Stefani & Horlacher 2015 ), dislocation in interactions between L2 speakers remains a marginal topic in second language acquisition (SLA) research. Analyzing a corpus of 34 hours of video recordings of conversations between L2 speakers of French through the lens of Interactional Linguistics, I show that speakers use a particular dislocation format containing c’est ‘it’s’ to initiate repair, to resolve repair, or to reopen a sequence when uncertainty persists. This lexically fixed format allows L2 speakers to efficiently reestablish intersubjectivity. L2 speakers particularly exploit the structural ‘openness’ of LD: The format allows speakers to place the unknown word first, to refer back to it with c’est , and then project a verbal and/or embodied explanation, which emerges in a highly recipient-designed way. The systematic use of lexically fixed dislocations with c’est in repair sequences is yet another piece of evidence for the importance of conceptualizing an L2 grammar-for-interaction ( Pekarek Doehler 2018 ) as part of interactional competence in SLA research.