Drew1997
| Drew1997 | |
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| BibType | ARTICLE |
| Key | Drew1997 |
| Author(s) | Paul Drew |
| Title | 'Open' class repair initiators in response to sequential sources of troubles in conversation |
| Editor(s) | |
| Tag(s) | EMCA, Conversation Analysis, Open class repair initiators, Repair, Troubles, Sequence organization |
| Publisher | |
| Year | 1997 |
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| Journal | Journal of Pragmatics |
| Volume | 28 |
| Number | 1 |
| Pages | 69–101 |
| URL | Link |
| DOI | 10.1016/S0378-2166(97)89759-7 |
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Abstract
When speakers initiate repair on the talk of co-participants in conversation, they may use repair initiation forms which locate the specific source of trouble (the repairable) in the prior turn; alternatively, they may select forms which treat the whole of the prior turn as in some way problematic. This paper explores the latter, i.e. ‘open’ forms of repair initiation, e.g. ‘pardon?’, ‘sorry?’, ‘what?’ etc. The analysis here, of a corpus of instances of this kind of repair initiation in naturally occurring telephone conversations, focuses not on the repair management sequence, but rather on the sequential environment in which ‘open’ class NTRI's are employed. It explores two environments in particular, involving first an apparently abrupt shift in topic, and second an apparently inapposite, or even disaffiliative, response by the other speaker. Analysis of these environments, and of the troubles in ‘understanding’ which may be associated with them, suggests that troubles generating this form of other-initiated repair shade into matters of alignment or affiliation between speakers (and hence conflict in talk). It also underlines how far ‘understanding’ is related to the sequential organization of talk.
☆ I am grateful to Maria Egbert, Ian Hutchby, Manny Schegloff and Tony Wootton for their detailed comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Whilst I have not, probably, been able to answer all the points they each have raised, the paper has, I hope, benefitted from their observations. I am also grateful to Auli Hakulinen and Anne-Marie Londen, and their respective research groups in the University of Helsinki, with whom I discussed many of the ideas which lay behind this paper, during visits in 1991 and 1992. Finally, my thanks to Tony Wootton for drawing to my attention data examples (22) and (23), from his corpus of recordings of children in the home.
Notes
