1. Epistemic Legitimacy and Sequential Pragmatics in L2 Interaction

This study challenges intervention-centred models of accommodation in contact interaction by showing that the withholding of accommodation can constitute normatively accountable pragmatic action when calibrated to participants’ displayed epistemic states and orientations to progressivity. Drawing on conversation analysis and epistemic approaches, it examines a naturally occurring Japanese L1–L2 telephone interaction in which ordinary talk is sustained across an extended procedural sequence, despite the interactional availability of clarification and repair. The analysis demonstrates that accommodation is not an ethical default but a contingent pragmatic practice. Ordinary turn design is maintained, progressivity remains unproblematic, and understanding is displayed through timely uptake. Adjustment occurs only in response to explicit lexical trouble and is narrowly scoped and retractable once recognition is achieved. The study extends interactional pragmatics by identifying epistemic restraint as a positive, observable dimension of interactional competence, showing how interactional equality may be enacted through restraint rather than overt accommodation.