Reformulation and Co-completion: L1 responses to L2 assessment accounts

Using conversation analysis as a theoretical and methodological framework, this study examines how Japanese learners of English and their interlocutors, who are speakers of English as a first language, co-construct assessment activities, in the context of a student exchange in the U.S. Special attention is paid to the L1 speakers' reformulation and co-completion in response to the L2 speakers' accounts, to justify their assessments.The moment-by-moment analysis of the conversations between L1 and L2 speakers reveals that the identities of the L1 speakers as "language experts" and the L2 speakers as "non-experts" are occasionally salient, as the L1 speakers orient to the L2 speakers' minimal accounts or indications of difficulty by reformulating and co-completing the L2 speakers' utterances.Furthermore, the analysis indicates that the L1 speakers commonly orient to understanding rather than non-understanding of the L2 speakers' accounts.Consequently, asymmetric contributions by the L2 and L1 speakers function as a resource for successful communication, leading them to achieve intersubjectivity.Finally, drawing on Vygotsky's sociocultural theory, the paper discusses how such assistance by the L1 speakers, as needed by the L2 speakers, could lead to the independent functioning of the L2 speakers in assessment activities in the future, and to the further development of their interactional competence.