Computer-mediated negotiated interaction and lexical acquisition

This paper reports a paired-groups experimental study, which tests the Interaction Hypothesis in a computer-mediated communicative environment. Pairs of intermediate-level nonnative speakers of English (n = 24) interacted with one another in a synchronous mode over a local area network while attempting to jointly complete jigsaw and decision-making tasks that were seeded with largely unknown target lexical items. The data suggest that learners often engage in negotiated interaction when presented with unknown lexical items during the course of task completion. Results also show that previously unknown lexical items that were negotiated were retained significantly better as measured by immediate and delayed recognition (receptive) and object labeling (productive) posttests than those items where preemptive input alone was provided and where target items were not engaged. The results are interpreted as being supportive for the interactionist perspective on SLA, especially the importance of attention, as they provide evidence of a more direct link between negotiated interaction and acquisition.I would like to thank the following people for their input and interaction with various aspects of this work: Roby Ariew, Sue Gass, Greta Gorsuch, Jun Liu, and Mary Wildner-Bassett. I would also like to thank the five anonymous SSLA reviewers whose insightful comments certainly helped strengthen this article. Finally, I would like to thank the participants in the study, to whom I am greatly indebted.