ABSTRACT
While in Chapter 4 we focused on the options minority participants have to respond to problems of understanding, in this and the following chapter we are going to explore the means speakers use to pre-empt non-understandings they anticipate (this chapter) and to handle problems already manifest (Chapter 7). In a way, this will involve a shift in perspective to the 'native speaker'. Since they have greater resources with respect to language competence and structuring power, as a rule they also have a bigger share in the negotiation of understanding. Where both interlocutors have to try to reach a maximum of comprehensibility for the other, the minority speaker's limited language abilities are not only the source of understanding problems but at the same time make it difficult for them to contribute to their clarification.
