Mostovaia2021

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Mostovaia2021
BibType ARTICLE
Key Mostovaia2021
Author(s) Irina Mostovaia
Title Other-initiations of repair in German Whats App chats
Editor(s)
Tag(s) EMCA, Whats App chat, German, Other-initiated self-repair, Repair initiation, Emojis
Publisher
Year 2021
Language
City
Month
Journal Discourse, Context & Media
Volume 40
Number
Pages 100470
URL Link
DOI https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2021.100470
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

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Abstract

This paper takes a conversation analytic approach to investigate how interlocutors deal with different kinds of interactional problems occurring in German text-based communication on Whats App. The data analyzed in the present study is obtained from the Mobile Communication Database 1 (http://mocoda.spracheinteraktion.de) and Mobile Communication Database 2 (https://db.mocoda2.de). Focusing on other-initiations of repair, this article shows that interlocutors indicate trouble sources in the preceding messages sent by their communication partners in two ways: On the one hand, writers use a wide range of other-initiations transferred from German spoken language, such as question words (was ‘what’, wer ‘who’, etc.) or candidate understandings in the form of Meinst du X? (‘Do you mean X?’, cf. Schegloff et al., 1977). On the other hand, interlocutors may display an interactional problem by deploying particular resources that the medium provides, such as asterisks, equal signs, question marks, etc. (see also Busch, in this collection of articles). A close examination of other-initiations of repair in Whats App chats thus provides an insight into how the different formats mentioned above are used, especially in relation to (a) the different types of trouble sources occurring in text-based Whats App chats, and (b) the general communication conditions created by the medium. Moreover, it will be discussed how different formats of other-initiation of repair shape the negotiation of responsibility for the trouble source or the repair proper, manage epistemic rights and contribute to the face work in the sense of Goffman (1967).

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