Abstract Academic group work can involve challenging pragmatic acts, and chief among these is, arguably, disagreement. There is little known, however, about how disagreement is realised in ELF academic group discussion tasks, where the tendency towards greater cooperation and mutual support in ELF communication may be at odds with the need to achieve task goals through the expression of an oppositional stance. In addressing this issue, the current study sought to answer the research question: how do postgraduate students in a UK university setting express their disagreement in ELF academic group discussion? Twelve participants from ten different linguacultural backgrounds completed two different simulated discussion tasks: one targeting opinions, and the other consensus decision-making. The same participants also took part in retrospective stimulated-recall interviews using the video-recording of their discussions as a stimulus. Discourse analysis of the transcribed interactions revealed that the ELF participants used a wide range of verbal, nonverbal and interactional strategies in their disagreeing practices. Three salient strategies are presented in detail: focus shifts, complex turn-management (other-initiated disagreement turn dependence and turn-throwing/passing), and the use of gaze. Through these examples, we show that while the discourse produced in group discussion tasks was rich in disagreement, ELF participants used complex linguistic and interactional strategies to avoid explicit displays of their oppositional stance. Results are discussed with a view to developing theory around disagreement in ELF academic contexts.

中文翻译：

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ELF 学术小组讨论中的分歧实践：语言、非语言和互动策略

摘要 学术小组工作可能涉及具有挑战性的务实行为，其中最主要的是可以说是分歧。然而，关于如何在 ELF 学术小组讨论任务中实现分歧的知之甚少，在 ELF 交流中加强合作和相互支持的趋势可能与通过表达对立立场来实现任务目标的需要不一致。为了解决这个问题，当前的研究试图回答一个研究问题：英国大学环境中的研究生如何在 ELF 学术小组讨论中表达他们的不同意见？来自十个不同语言文化背景的十二名参与者完成了两个不同的模拟讨论任务：一个针对意见，另一个是共识决策。同样的参与者还使用他们讨论的视频记录作为刺激参与了回顾性刺激回忆访谈。转录交互的话语分析表明，ELF 参与者在他们不同的做法中使用了广泛的语言、非语言和交互策略。详细介绍了三个突出的策略：焦点转移、复杂的转弯管理（其他引发的分歧转弯依赖和转弯投掷/传球）和凝视的使用。通过这些例子，我们表明虽然小组讨论任务中产生的话语充满分歧，但 ELF 参与者使用复杂的语言和互动策略来避免明确表现出他们的反对立场。讨论结果的目的是围绕 ELF 学术环境中的分歧发展理论。