Non-native/Non-native Interactions: Meaning Negotiation by EFL College Students

The purpose of this paper was to examine various aspects of meaning negotiation process in online chatting. Korean college students were asked to engage in chatting on the Internet over the course of a semester-long period, and chatting transcripts were analyzed in terms of sources of communication breakdown, signals to indicate communication breakdown, strategies to overcome communication breakdown, and ways of closing meaning negotiation. According to the findings of the study, lack of background knowledge and incoherent string of sentences in text were two major barriers creating communication problems. Subjects were able to use signals to indicate their communication difficulties, and overcome them by using different strategies. In doing so, however, they were found to suffer a narrow range of signals and strategies, which showed their limited communicative ability in the management of interaction, and indicated a clear, strong need for an extension of discourse and strategic competences of Korean students for more effective and smoother transition of message in everyday interaction.