Multilingual learners’ engagement with languages: pragmatic-related episodes in collaborative writing

The study explores learners’ deliberations on pragmatic aspects through the lens of Engagement with Language (Svalberg [2009]. Engagement with language: Interrogating a construct. Language Awareness, 18(3-4), 242–258; [2012]. Language awareness in language learning and teaching: A research agenda. Language Teaching, 45(3), 376–388.). The corpus comprised audio-recorded oral exchanges from fifteen dyads collaboratively composing request emails in three languages: Spanish, Catalan, and English. Pragmatic-related episodes (PREs) were identified within student-student interaction and analysed in terms of cognitive, affective, and social engagement. The findings revealed a strong presence of elaborate cognitive engagement, while quantitative analysis confirmed a positive correlation between elaborated discussion and the successful resolution of PREs. Additionally, qualitative analysis was conducted with three selected dyads to further explore the role of socio-affective engagement in relation to cognitive engagement. The results suggested that a collaborative interactional pattern and a positive interpersonal disposition can foster deeper cognitive engagement. These findings offer new insights into the role of collaboration in fostering dialogic interaction conducive to language learning. The study also highlights how cognitive and socio-affective engagement during task performance can support collaborative opportunities for fostering multilingual pragmatic competence.