L2 Pragmatic Symposium with Emma Betz (University of Waterloo)

Thursday, January 15, 2026
2:00 PM - 5:00 PM (Pacific Time)
Bunche Hall, Rm 10383

SYMPOSIUM SCHEDULE

2 PM Opening Remarks | Hongyin Tao (UCLA)

2:10 PM "Inviting Self-Repair on the Fly: A Teacher’s Hand Gesture in Interaction"

This presentation offers an entry point for discussing current approaches to interactional competence by showcasing the specialized, embodied work of teaching (Hall & Looney 2019; Taleghani-Nikazm 2008) and revealing adaptation in the complex relationship between teaching and learning (Konzett-Firth 2020; Nguyen & Malabarba 2025). The lecture will report on video-mediated language lessons with adult learners of German as a second language, in which a teacher’s hand gesture emerges as a resource for managing trouble with morphosyntactic ordering in learners’ talk. This research discusses three distinct responsive uses of the gesture in our collection: to initiate repair, to confirm the correctness of a repair solution, and to issue an alert to possible upcoming trouble. With the gesture, the teacher momentarily foregrounds language in conversational moments in which linguistic form is not the main interactional business, while minimizing the impact of her intervention on the progress of the learner’s talk (see Mazeland 1987; Stolle & Pfeiffer 2023). Recordings span almost three years, and our analysis suggests that the functional range of the gesture changes in systematic ways over this time. This raises methodological questions about how learners’ competence can be tracked over time. This work illustrates context- and medium-sensitive practices used by teachers in settings beyond the classroom (Balaman 2023) and can inform evidence-based approaches in teacher education programs (Sert 2019). 

Emma Betz is professor of German at the University of Waterloo, Canada. Her interests are in conversation analysis (response particles, grammar and interaction) and second language teaching. Recent publications include the co-edited Special Issue “Describing and Assessing Interactional Competence in a Second Language” (Applied Pragmatics, 2023) and the co-edited volumes “OKAY across Languages” (2021) and “Mobilizing Others: Grammar and Lexis within Larger Activities” (2020). She is also the author of “Grammar and Interaction: Pivots in German Conversation” (2008) and co-editor of the Special Issue series “Beyond Grammar: Teaching Interaction in the German Language Classroom” (2014–2016).

3:15 PM Break

3:30 PM L2 Pragmatics and Interactional Competence Roundtable

Moderator: Juliana Wijaya (UCLA)

Panelists:

• Hongyin Tao (UCLA)
• Tianfang Sally Wang (UCLA Writing Program)
• Michiko Kaneyasu (UCLA)
• TBA

5 PM Closing Remarks

Register here to join the in-person symposium. 

Sponsor(s): Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Center for World Languages, Asia Pacific Center, Asian Languages & Cultures, UCLA Center for Language, Interaction, and Culture