ABSTRACT
This chapter first introduces the overall aim of the book - namely, to advance our knowledge about the development of L2 interactional competence. It presents and motivates the analytical focus of the empirical investigation - how L2 speakers of French longitudinally change their practices for complaining in interaction - and situates the study in its social-interactional research framework. By means of an empirical example from the study, the chapter thereafter illustrates typical features of complaints so as to show the complexity of this interactional phenomenon. It then presents the specific research questions investigated in the study and finally offers an outline of the book.
