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This study investigated the influence of interlocutors' relative content knowledge on conversational participation in interactions between native speakers (NSs) and normative speakers (NNSs) with limited oral skills. Forty‐five male NS‐NNS dyads were audio taped having two conversations; in the second conversation, which concerned students' major fields, 15 of the dyads included NNSs who had relatively more content knowledge, in another 15, the NSs had more knowledge, and in 15, participants were considered equal. Measures of conversational participation included amount of talk, pause fillers, back‐channels, topic moves, and several measures of interactional negotiation. Outcomes of log linear analyses indicated that both NSs and NNSs appeared conversationally active, but there were different patterns of participation that could to some extent be explained by relative content knowledge. As such, this study extends our understanding of the dynamics of NS‐NNS interchange.
Jane Zuengler (Wed,) studied this question.