ABSTRACT
This chapter concerns the structural organization of complaining in L2 French and how this structure changes over time as speakers gain L2 proficiency. It focuses on the core actions (or basic ‘building blocks’) of complaints, how speakers initiate complaints, and how participants together co-construct complaint sequences. The analysis compares interactions by groups of elementary and upper-intermediate/advanced L2 speakers. It demonstrates both similarities and differences in how these groups of speakers organize their complaints. It first shows that the overall structural composition of complaints is essentially similar among elementary and more advanced speakers when it comes to recurrent actions in complaint sequences. It then documents qualitative and quantitative differences in how speakers initiate and co-construct complaints, showing more advanced speakers’ ability to move into complaining in a progressive, stepwise manner and a higher degree of co-construction of complaints at higher proficiency levels.
