The Conversation Analysis of Iranian EFL Learners 'Interaction via Telegram Application

Abstract

The use of computer-mediate communication (CMC) and social networking services have become an integral part of people's daily lives. Due to the potentials that CMC and social networking services have for providing more interaction opportunity, they have been widely discussed in language learning and language teaching. Since the interactional features of CMC and social networking services seem to be quite different from face-to-face interaction, the present study aimed to investigate some of the interactional features of EFL learners' communication via Telegram application, focusing on turn-taking system and repairing. Using
the frameworks of conversation analysis, 1581 messages were collected from three Telegram groups owned by Iranian EFL learners. The findings of the study revealed that although the medium imposed some restrictions on participants' access to communicative recourses, the participants could develop a meaningful interaction by adopting some turn allocation strategies and providing clues for each other. Each posted message was considered to be a turn constructional unit (TCU) and self-initiated self-repair was the most common type of repairing. The findings of the study can give insights to EFL teachers into integrating CMC and social
networking applications in language courses.