The data and the phenomenon

This study focuses on a single-case analysis of an episode in which a change of language occurs, made possible by a transformation of the participation framework and the interactional space of the meeting. This article deals both with the interactional work needed for this change and with the interactive consequences of this change.

The meeting was recorded during fieldwork observing an emergent network of scientists gathering together in order to launch a new important research project in the field of biomedicine involving partners from different countries (especially France, England, and the USA), as well as interdisciplinary collaborations. The meeting took place in a big university town in France. The participants were mostly French-speaking researchers, with an invited speaker from England and a chairman and animator of the group, an immunologist working in the US but of French origins. The meeting (which lasted the entire day), as well as other previous ones, were recorded with two video cameras, one directed towards the chairman and the main speakers and the other towards the remaining participants. Participants gave their informed consent for the recording (all names and institutional affiliations have been changed by using nicknames).

The episode in the analysis occurred in the early afternoon and is a pivotal moment in the meeting, where the participants switch from English—which has been used until then—to French, in order to enable the participation of a person who does not speak English. This article focuses on this language shift, the conditions and contingencies preceding it and making it possible, as well as on the consequences for the organization of the meeting, the achievement of collaborations, and the categorization of the participants. This moment occasions a visible-observable-accountable transformation, achieved collaboratively by various participants using various multimodal resources, as well as changes in the participation framework of the meeting, the interactional space, the language, and the identities of the participants. This transformation reveals different possible alternative modes of organization of the embodied social interaction in the meeting, offering alternative opportunities to participate. It is also a vivid example of the interactional work it takes to promote a speaker who is normally excluded from speaking, and of changing the language once the meeting has been defined a “lingua franca English only meeting.” In addition, it is a vivid example of the interactional consequences of a radical change in the established ways of doing in the course of the activity.

The single-case analysis (see Schegloff Reference Schegloff and Tannen1988 on the analysis of a single case vs. a collection) of this event allows us to observe a range of transformations and, therefore, to compare the situation before and after the language shift. This concerns not only language use, but also the linguistic competences involved and recognized by the participants themselves, the evolving identities and categories made progressively relevant by them, as well as the monolingual vs. bilingual interactional practices characterizing the organization of the meeting. Thus, the analysis of a moment of change highlights two contrasted interactional formats, characterizing the meeting before and after change has occurred.

The analysis focuses on the sequential environment in which the occasioned switch from Lingua Franca English to French is accomplished, on the consequent establishment of a bilingual mode of interaction, enabling the participation of a francophone who was silent until that moment, and, finally, on the subsequent active bilingual conduct of a person previously treated as a monolingual anglophone by the other participants.

The embodied achievement of an occasioned switch from English lingua franca to French

The meeting analyzed is chaired by Gilbert, a French immunologist who migrated to the US where he became the director of a prestigious scientific research laboratory. He hosts Mary, a well-known biologist from London, who has been invited to present some of her recent results. The other participants are French researchers in medicine and biology, as well as doctors working in large hospitals and the pharmaceutical industry. Previous meetings with Gilbert have been held in French, but this one centers around the exchanges with Mary, who does not speak French. As a consequence, even if most of the participants are not fluent in English, the meeting is held in English Lingua Franca. English is the unique language used from the beginning of the workshop in the morning. The episode under study happens seventy minutes after the beginning of the afternoon discussions.

We join the event as a member of the local medical team, Mederic, is doing a short talk based on a PowerPoint presentation projected on the wall. In the presentation, he mentions a category of hospital patients who could be good candidates for collecting the human samples necessary for the experiments planned within the project. In excerpt (1) Gilbert interrupts his presentation in order to make an observation about the necessity of obtaining the adequate ethical authorizations.

Gilbert self-selects and looks at the actual speaker, Mederic, while he mentions the ethical issues. In this way, he clearly addresses Mederic in the first place. Although Gilbert's turn is presented as an observation, it can also be understood as a request, which projects a response next. But after a pause (line 3), Mederic only acknowledges this minimally, without offering any solution to the problem presented by Gilbert.

At this point, Gilbert pursues the issue: he repeats his point about the ethical issues and changes his addressee, now turning to the audience (line 5), thereby disqualifying Mederic as a possible interlocutor for obtaining an answer. Overlapping with his turn post-completion “I mean,” another participant, Robert, who is the director of the local research program and is sitting behind Gilbert, also turns back towards the audience. He nominates another person, Blandine (line 6), who is selected as the next speaker and as a person who was supposed to do something to solve the ethical problems.

In sum, in this short excerpt, a suspension of Mederic's talk is achieved by the chairman, and a progressive reorientation of the interactional space occurs. The relevant interactional space, designed by the disposition of the participants' bodies (Mondada Reference Mondada2009), is no longer oriented towards the front where the official speaker stands, but is reoriented towards the back, with the selection of a member of the audience. These participation shifts and explorations within the interactional space of the room correspond to the search for a person able to give a response to the problem raised by Gilbert. Interestingly, the camera goes along with these switches, following step-by-step the participants' gazes and gestures: interactional space is also constituted by the movement of the camera.

When she responds, Blandine contributes to a further enlargement of the interactional space, by introducing a new person, Anne Rambeau, who is supposed to have a solution to the problem.

Blandine responds first by securing her turn (line 9) while she turns back. Her body torque (Schegloff Reference Schegloff1998) maintains her orientation forewards, to Gilbert and Robert, and adds a new orientation backwards, to Anne Rambaud. The latter is introduced after Blandine's body torqued position is completed by a pointing gesture (emerging line 10), towards her (Figure 3). Blandine reveals Anne's name (line 11) while she points at her. As she initiates an utterance about her, she suspends it as she is overlapped by Gilbert telling something to Robert, asking him to pursue the issue at hand. She does not immediately continue her initial utterance and instead inserts information about Anne's linguistic preferences (line 13), thus accounting for her silence and raising a problem of language for the progression of the activity. Gilbert aligns in French—“oui” (line 15)—with this insertion, thereby confirming the possibility of a change of language. Then Blandine reintroduces Anne (line 14), with a try-marked intonation (Sacks & Schegloff Reference Sacks, Schegloff and Psathas1979) checking the shared knowledge of Gilbert and Robert about her—“you know” (line 14). In the absence of a confirming response from them, she goes on introducing the person by her first and second names and, after a pause, still in absence of their response, describes her tasks and responsibilities (line 16). The problem encountered here by Blandine is that neither Gilbert nor Robert seem to recognize the person she is introducing, as she goes on tentatively trying various personal reference formats, naming Anne and then describing her (cf. Schegloff Reference Schegloff and Fox1996; Enfield & Stivers Reference Enfield and Stivers2007). Nevertheless, she succeeds in progressively turning Gilbert's attention to Anne.

Finally, as Blandine is about to describe Anne's task, Gilbert stands up and turns towards her (Figure 4), producing a mild acknowledgement. His invitation to continue includes an authorization to change the language, uttered in French (line 17). At this point, even if Gilbert still does not seem to recognize Anne, he clears the way for her selection in French. Anne is established as the next speaker by him as well as by other participants turning towards her, like Mary (Figure 4). Anne's first response acknowledges the change of language (line 18), with laughter. Others join in with this laughter (Jefferson Reference Jefferson and Psathas1979; Glenn Reference Glenn2003; Markaki, Merlino, Mondada, & Oloff Reference Markaki, Merlino, Mondada and Oloff2010), displaying an affiliation concerning the problem of language choice.

Nonetheless, Anne cannot continue with the announced information about human sample collection. Instead, in the next slot, Gilbert comments further on the consequences of the linguistic choice, this time turning to Mary.

Before Anne speaks, and as her turn in French is projected and expected, Gilbert makes a comment about Mary (line 20), making publicly relevant the fact that the change of language from English to French could be a problem for her. He categorizes Mary as a person in need of translation, both by addressing her—he is behind her and approaches, touching her shoulder (line 20)—and the audience (the repetition is addressed to the other participants, line 20).

Interestingly, overlapping with Gilbert's turn, Mary self-selects and addresses Anne directly (21). In this way, she performs various actions: she does not respond to Gilbert, who is referring to her supposed monolingualism; instead, she turns to Anne and asks her a question in French, displaying her adaptation to Anne's language. In this way, she is refusing Gilbert's categorization of her as speaking English only, as well as his offer to interact with Anne by means of translation. She engages in an alternative mode of interaction, which is a bilingual mode. At this point, three linguistic models of interaction are confronted: the monolingual model (English Lingua Franca only); the translation model (French translated into English); and the bilingual model (French and English). Mary actively chooses the last model.

In line 22, as Anne does not answer the question she asked in French (line 21), Mary orients to possible trouble related to her use of an English term, “ethic,” and corrects it (line 23), searching for a French word. Her search becomes public (Goodwin & Goodwin Reference Goodwin and Goodwin1986) as she turns towards Blandine, thus categorizing her as a bilingual speaker and a possible facilitator. Other persons participate in offering the solution (lines 24–27) and finally Mary is able to amend and complete her initial question by using a French expression (line 28), which is addressed to Anne, to whom she turns (line 28).

Again, although Anne has been selected by Mary, the next action is not Anne's answer but Blandine's instruction about the expected format of her answer (lines 29–31). Blandine has turned again to Anne as soon as the word searched for by Mary has been found (line 25); she continues her facilitating work by specifying the kind of information Anne is supposed to give, ratified by Gilbert (line 32). Finally, Anne answers, engaging in a long turn in which she describes her previous experience with the collection of human samples (from line 33 on).

In these fragments, the recognition of Anne as a legitimate participant is the result of intensive interactional work. Sequentially, a first observation about the lack of an ethical framework for the collection of human samples is treated as a request to search for a solution, projecting a response granting it. This response is delayed by the search for a knowledgeable participant able to produce it. Within this search, one participant has a key role as a mediator and a facilitator, making possible the selection of the expert. This implies a radical change of the participation framework. Whereas at the beginning of the excerpt everyone was turned to the front of the scene where Mederic was giving his talk, Anne's selection is possible when everyone turns back, focusing their attention on the last row of the room. Blandine makes this change possible, thanks to a variety of resources: her body torqued position mediating between the chairman and requester, Gilbert, and the respondent, Anne; her gesture pointing to the back; her multiple descriptions of Anne, making her identifiable in a situation where she is not recognized; and her bilingual skills. Once Anne's legitimacy has been recognized, and once the participation framework has been radically changed, the linguistic regime “English only” is dissolved, and French is recognized as a possible linguistic resource. This shift to a bilingual mode also implies a different treatment of the participants: if the monolingual English mode excludes Anne, the bilingual French-English mode is supposed to exclude Mary. This is the case as long as she is treated (by Gilbert) as a monolingual speaker. However, she actively refuses this categorization, by adopting a bilingual mode, with some facilitators helping in the word search (among which Blandine is again a central resource person). Thus, a change in participation implies a change not only in the linguistic regime, but also in the linguistic competences ascribed, recognized, and exhibited to and by speakers.

The collective achievement and sustainement of the bilingual model of interaction

Once the participation framework and the linguistic regime have been changed, the issue for the participants is to maintain the bilingual interactional mode that has been established. In the next step of the analysis, the techniques making Mary's participation possible are described, and reveal how Anne's talk orients to them.

Anne's explanation goes on for quite a long time: the participants listen, some turn back to her (such as Gilbert, Mary, Blandine; see Figure 5), displaying their attention to her.

In line 105, Blandine turns to Mary and leans in her direction, beginning to translate (Figure 6), offering a condensed version of what she is relating. Translation in a soft whispered voice is a first solution that Blandine finds to facilitate Mary's understanding of Anne's contribution. This translation, however, does not last for the entire multi-unit turn and as soon as Blandine stops to whisper, both Mary's and her attention is refocused on the speaker. In this way, Mary displays that she is following what Anne is saying, even without translation.

Another way in which Blandine facilitates communication is observable in the continuation of this fragment (line 115).

In line 113, Anne mentions a French institution, using an acronym, CPP (Comité de Protection des Personnes). Blandine orients toward it as a possible trouble source for non-French-speaking persons: in line 115, she immediately stops Anne (with a gesture, open horizontal palm), initiating repair with a negative order. By pointing at Anne, she allows her to self-repair her turn, which Anne does immediately by providing the exact wording of the acronym (line 117), in overlap with another participant other-repairing it (line 116).

Mary reacts to this side sequence as a privileged addressee, by looking at Blandine, then by turning back towards Anne and by nodding as soon as the repair is achieved.

At the end of this side sequence, Gilbert also produces a facilitating comment, by offering a comparable acronym, that corresponds to a similar institution in the Anglo-American context—IRB (Institutional Review Board; line 119), but he does it in French. Mary shows again her recipiency and responsiveness to it (line 120). In this case, Gilbert self-categorizes as “Anglo-American” by the use of the possessive pronoun (“notre”). Thus, translation sequences, side sequences, repairs, and metalinguistic comments occasion displays not only of linguistic competences but also of linguistic, ethnic, and national categorizations and affiliations (Egbert Reference Egbert2004; Mondada Reference Mondada, Gardner and Wagner2004).

Another way in which Mary shows her participation is through the timely production of continuers, such as in excerpt (6).

As Anne goes on, Mary produces continuers (in French, line 124) and nods (line 126) displaying her understanding of the ongoing explanation.

In this part of the meeting, while Anne continues to speak, the participants actively sustain the bilingual participation mode initiated for her. The procedures they use—which are, in fact, essentially mobilized by Blandine, confirming her facilitator's role—comprise improvised, occasioned, synthetical translation, side sequences and repairs treated in a recipient-oriented way as being possibly obscure, as well as other intercultural glosses. In this way, participants show an attention to the linguistic resources, being treated locally as more or less transparent or opaque, from the perspective of their fellow participants.

Moreover, this context enables Mary to display a flexible and enhanced bilingual competence: she looks attentively at the speaker, produces continuers in the language of the speaker, and nods during her talk. Through her embodied demonstrations of understanding, Mary achieves her status of recipient, even of first recipient for Anne's talk. She also exhibits her identity as a bilingual, able to follow a complex turn in French. She actively displays her status as a participant, which was partially contested by Gilbert, when he proposed a translation for her as soon as French emerged.

Whereas in the previous excerpts, these demonstrations were mostly limited to her comprehension of Anne's talk in French, in the next stretch of talk, Mary will demonstrate her ability to actively produce a contribution in French within an exchange with Anne, at a crucial moment in the meeting.

The final negotiation of collaboration and partnership

As Anne has finished her long explanation, a general discussion follows in which it appears that Anne could serve as the central collector of human samples for the project. Mederic continues his presentation, but this is again suspended by several questions concerning the way in which the ethical authorizations will be collected at the national level in France. Ten minutes after Anne has finished her explanation, Mary asks a series of questions, turning again towards Anne.

Mary asks her question by looking at Gilbert, who manages the turn-taking during the discussion, and by pointing simultaneously at the PowerPoint presented by Mederic, where a list of patient cohorts planned for the experiment is visible. The object of the question is introduced in English with a demonstrative referring to his slide (line 900). The subsequent part of the question is formulated in French (line 901), as Mary turns to Anne, to whom the question is addressed. After Anne responds by a positive confirmation, treating the question as a presequence, Mary asks another question in French (line 904), still looking alternately at Mederic's PowerPoint and at Anne. After a delay (line 905), Anne gives a response, mentioning blood samples of 7ml (line 906–8). Thus, Mary initiates two adjacency pairs, asking questions in French, recipient-designed for her Francophone addressee.

The quantity of blood indicated by Anne in her response is further questioned by Mary.

In line 909, Mary explicitly queries the answer given by Anne, by repeating the quantity (7ml). This is treated by Gilbert as a problem of comprehension, repaired by a translation in overlap (line 910). But Mary continues, asking if this quantity is obtained subsequently. She looks at Gilbert and alternatively at Anne and this time Gilbert offers a comment aligned with the gist of her question (line 913), explicitly formulating 7ml as a small quantity. Anne admits it and aligns with them too (line 914).

As Anne continues her response (line 916), invoking the constraints set up by the ethic committees, Mary in overlap (line 915) initiates another question in French, but leaves it incomplete. Anne continues her turn (line 917), giving a new quantity, indicating the maximal quantity of blood samples admitted by the ethical committees, and mentioning 30 ml. Mary offers another, slightly superior number, 40 or 50 ml, first gestually, in overlap (line 917), then verbally (line 919); Anne aligns with 40 ml (line 920), referring to the quantity that is generally admitted for blood donations. Thus, a negotiation about the maximal quantity of blood that is possible to collect is going on here between Anne and Mary. Mary tries to push the number as high as possible, whereas Anne keeps it lower, invoking ethical constraints. Mary uses gestural as well as linguistic resources in this negotiation, mobilizing hand gestures indicating numbers in a very efficient way during Anne's formulations.

As soon as Anne has admitted that 40ml could possibly be sampled, Mary turns to Gilbert and, in English, formulates the consequence of this information for the ethics form of the project (lines 921–22).

Finally, in line 924, Mary turns again towards Anne and formulates the conclusive statement, again beginning in English but then switching to French as she looks at her: she officially proposes to send her the ethics form and to let Blandine translate it. In this way, she gives them the responsibility of obtaining the ethical clearance for the blood collections.

The episode is closed as Mary turns again towards the front of the room.

In this last fragment, a negotiation takes place about the volume of blood that can be taken legally from patients for scientific purposes. This negotiation is held in a bilingual mode, with Mary code-switching according to her addressee. When she looks at Gilbert, she speaks English, when she turns to Anne she chooses French (a form of what Auer (Reference Auer1984) calls a participant-related code-switching). Whereas Gilbert continues to interpret some of Mary's questions as repairs related to a problem of comprehension—that is, to treat her as an incompetent speaker (line 910)—Mary actively initiates new sequences in French, addressed to Anne. She negotiates the final quantity of blood actively and agonistically, by using her available resources in French and by combining them efficiently with gestural resources; namely, showing numbers with her fingers. As a consequence, a cooperation contract is agreed upon by Mary and the French team composed of Blandine and Anne: the episode ends in the establishment of a new cooperative relationship, which further fieldwork has shown continues in a durable way.