Self-repair operation

Encyclopedia of Terminology for CA and IL: Self-repair operation
Author(s):	Irina Mostovaia (University of Hamburg, Germany) (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1381-050X) & Martin Pfeiffer (University of Potsdam, Germany) (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5175-3657)
To cite:	Mostovaia, Irina, & Pfeiffer, Martin. (2023). Self-repair operation. In Alexandra Gubina, Elliott M. Hoey & Chase Wesley Raymond (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Terminology for Conversation Analysis and Interactional Linguistics. International Society for Conversation Analysis (ISCA). DOI: 10.17605/OSF.IO/3PYVD

Research on conversational repair has identified a range of repair operations that producers of repairables deploy for carrying out self-repair.

Operations of self-repair in same-turn

For English talk-in-interaction, Schegloff (2013) reports on ten repair operations speakers use for dealing with trouble within the current turn:

1. replacing: speakers substitute the whole trouble-source turn or a part of it with another item;
2. inserting: speakers add one or more items in their ongoing trouble-source turn (cf. also Wilkinson & Weatherall 2011);
3. deleting: speakers omit one or more elements they have previously produced within the trouble-source turn in progress;
4. searching: speakers are recognizably “doing ‘searching for a next word or other item’” (Lerner 2013: 99) that they need for proceeding with their ongoing TCU;
5. parenthesizing: speakers use parentheticals in order to “add to the turn-in-progress something other than a next-due element; unlike insertings, they are ordinarily composed of clausal TCUs” (Schegloff 2013: 51; cf. Mazeland 2007);
6. aborting: speakers interrupt an ongoing TCU and begin a new one related to the abandoned, incomplete TCU;
7. recycling: speakers repeat one or more items they have previously produced within the ongoing trouble-source turn (cf. Schegloff 1987);
8. sequence-jumping: speakers interrupt an ongoing TCU and begin a new one that, in contrast to aborting, is unrelated to the abandoned, incomplete TCU;
9. reformatting: speakers change the syntactic design of the trouble-source TCU in progress (cf. Drew, et al. 2013);
10. reordering: speakers change the order of items within an ongoing TCU or the order of TCUs within the turn in progress.

Studies interested in the relationship between self-repair and grammar have focused on some of these operations in more linguistic detail. For example, Fox & Jasperson (1995) investigate a range of operations in English that seem to correspond with recycling, replacing, inserting, aborting, and reformatting in terms of Schegloff (2013). Based on the syntactic design of same-turn repair, Pfeiffer (2015, 2017) identifies four basic repair operations (including sub-types) in German talk-in-interaction: repetitions, substitutions, insertions, and deletions of elements of the ongoing turn. For cross-linguistic research on selected repair operations see, for instance, Fox, et al. (2009, 2010), Fox, et al. (2017), and Birkner, et al. (2012).

Operations of self-repair at the transition-relevance place and in third turn

In contrast to same-turn self-repair, there are only a small number of studies on self-repair occurring at the transition-relevance place or after next turn. Kitzinger (2013: 245) notes that speakers seem to use similar repair operations for carrying out self-repair at the transition-relevance place as for same-turn self-repair, e.g., replacing the trouble source or inserting some new items into the trouble-source turn (cf. also Bolden, et al. 2012; Hepburn, et al. 2012; Lerner & Kitzinger 2015).

Schegloff (1997: 35-36) argues that self-repairs in third turn are similar to self-repairs at the transition-relevance place with respect to repair operations and provides some examples of replacements.

Operations of third position repair

For self-initiated self-repair in third position, Schegloff (1992: 1308-1317) distinguishes six types of repair operations:

1. repetition of the – slightly modified – trouble-source turn or a part of it (“doing clearer repeat”, Schegloff 1992: 1308);
2. providing a reformulation of the misunderstood trouble source;
3. providing a contrast to the recipient’s incorrect understanding of the prior turn;
4. providing a specification of the misunderstood trouble source;
5. providing an explanation of the misunderstood trouble source;
6. re-categorization of the mode (serious vs. non-serious) or the action (e.g., a complaint can be re-categorized as a request) of the trouble-source turn (“‘characterization’ of the trouble-source turn”, Schegloff 1992: 1312).

Furthermore, Schegloff (1992: 1308-1317) points out that the repair operations (2)-(5) are usually prefaced by I mean.

Operations of other-initiated self-repair

Couper-Kuhlen & Selting (2018: 146-201) and Selting (1987a, b) argue that repair operations of other-initiated self-repair in German and English are related to the type of trouble source the particular self-repair deals with, as well as to the format for other-initiation of repair. The main types of these self-repair operations are presented below:

1. repetition of the trouble-source turn or a part of it invited by ‘open’ class repair initiators (Drew 1997), class-specific interrogatives, and interrogatives with partial repeat addressing problems of hearing;
2. replacing the trouble source invited by class-specific interrogatives addressing problems of reference;
3. confirmation or disconfirmation (and correction) of the offered candidate solutions;
4. “explanation or other help in understanding” (Couper-Kuhlen & Selting 2018: 199) invited by metacommunicatively explicit initiations (Selting 1987a), and copular interrogative clauses (Kendrick 2015) addressing problems of understanding;
5. “[s]orting out, clarification of clashing expectations or beliefs, explanation, […] correction of expectations” (Couper-Kuhlen & Selting 2018: 200) invited by different formats addressing problems of expectation or acceptability.

Additional Related Entries:

• Self-initiated self-repair
• Same-turn self-repair
• Third turn repair
• Third position repair
• Other-initiated self-repair
• Transition-relevance place (TRP)
• Turn-at-talk
• Turn-constructional unit (TCU)

Cited References:

Birkner, K., Henricson, S., Lindholm, C., & Pfeiffer, M. (2012). Grammar and self-repair: Retraction patterns in German and Swedish prepositional phrases. Journal of Pragmatics, 44, 1413–1433.

Bolden, G. B., Mandelbaum, J., & Wilkinson, S. (2012). Pursuing a Response by Repairing an Indexical Reference. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 45(2), 137–155.

Couper-Kuhlen, E., & Selting, M. (2018). Interactional Linguistics. Studying Language in Social Interaction. Cambridge University Press.

Drew, P. (1997). ‘Open’ Class Repair Initiators in Response to Sequential Sources of Troubles in Conversation. Journal of Pragmatics, 28, 69–101.

Drew, P., Walker, T., & Ogden, R. (2013). Self-repair and action construction. In M. Hayashi, G. Raymond, & J. Sidnell (Eds.) Conversational repair and human understanding (pp. 71–94). Cambridge University Press.

Fox, B. A., & Jasperson, R. (1995). A syntactic exploration of repair in English conversation. In P. Davis (Ed.) Descriptive and Theoretical Modes in the Alternative Linguistics (pp. 77–134). John Benjamins.

Fox, B. A., Maschler, Y., & Uhmann, S. (2009). Morpho-syntactic resources for the organization of same-turn self-repair: Cross-linguistic variation in English, German and Hebrew. Gesprächsforschung – Online-Zeitschrift zur verbalen Interaktion, 10, 246–291.

Fox, B. A., Maschler, Y., & Uhmann, S. (2010). A cross-linguistic study of self-repair: Evidence from English, German, and Hebrew. Journal of Pragmatics, 42, 2487–2505.

Fox, B. A., Wouk, F., Fincke, S., Flores, W. H., Hayashi, M., Laakso, M., Maschler, Y., Mehrabi, A., Sorjonen, M-L., Uhmann, S., & Yang, H. J. (2017). Morphological self-repair. Self-repair within the word. Studies in Language, 41(3), 638–659.

Hepburn, A., Wilkinson, S., & Shaw, R. (2012). Repairing Self- and Recipient Reference. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 45(2), 175–190.

Kendrick, K. H. (2015). Other-initiated repair in English. Open Linguistics 1(1), 164–190.

Kitzinger, C. (2013). Repair. In J. Sidnell, & T. Stivers (Eds.) The Handbook of Conversation Analysis (pp. 229–256). Wiley-Blackwell.

Lerner, G. H. (2013). On the place of hesitating in delicate formulations: a turn constructional infrastructure for collaborative indiscretion. In M. Hayashi, G. Raymond, & J. Sidnell (Eds.) Conversational repair and human understanding (pp. 95–134). Cambridge University Press.

Lerner G. H., & Kitzinger, C. (2015). Or-Prefacing in the Organization of Self-Initiated Repair. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 48(1), 58–78.

Mazeland, H. (2007). Parenthetical sequences. Journal of Pragmatics, 39, 1816¬–1869.

Pfeiffer, M. (2015). Selbstreparaturen im Deutschen. Syntaktische und interaktionale Analysen. De Gruyter.

Pfeiffer, M. (2017). The syntax of self-repair in German: An explanatory model. Journal of Pragmatics, 119, 63¬–80.

Schegloff, E. A. (1987[1973]). Recycled turn beginnings: a precise repair mechanism in conversation's tum-taking organisation. In G. Button, & J. R. E. Lee (Eds.) Talk and Social Organisation (pp. 70–85). Multilingual Matters.

Schegloff, E. A. (1992). Repair after next turn: The last structurally provided defense of intersubjectivity in conversation. 'American Journal of Sociology, 97(5), 1295–1345.

Schegloff, E. A. (1997). Third turn repair. In G. R Guy, C. Feagin, D. Schiffrin, & J. Baugh (Eds.) Toward a social science of language. Papers in honor of William Labov, Vol. 2. Social interaction and discourse structures (pp. 31–40). John Benjamins.

Schegloff, E. A. (2013). Ten operations in self-initiated, same-turn repair. In M. Hayashi, G. Raymond, & J. Sidnell (Eds.) Conversational repair and human understanding (pp. 41–70). Cambridge University Press.

Selting, M. (1987a). Verständigungsprobleme. Eine empirische Analyse am Beispiel der Bürger-Verwaltungs-Kommunikation. Niemeyer.

Selting, M. (1987b). Reparaturen und lokale Verstehensprobleme. Oder: Zur Binnenstruktur von Reparatursequenzen. Linguistische Berichte, 108(9), 128–149.

Wilkinson, S., & Weatherall, A. (2011). Insertion Repair. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 44(1), 65–91.

Additional References:

Al-Harahsheh, A. M. A. (2015). A Conversation Analysis of self-initiated repair structures in Jordanian Spoken Arabic. Discourse Studies, 17(4), 397–414.

Benjamin, T., & Mazeland, H. (2012). Conversation Analysis and Other-initiated repair. In C. A. Chappele (Ed.) The Encylopedia of Applied Linguistics (pp. 1068–1075). Wiley-Blackwell.

Chui, K. (1996). Organization of repair in Chinese conversation. Text & Talk, 16(3), 343–372.

Clayman, S. E., & Raymond, C. W. (2021). An Adjunct to Repair: You Know in Speech Production and Understanding Difficulties. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 54(1), 80–100.

Clift, R. (2016). Conversation Analysis. Cambridge University Press.

Egbert, M., Golato, A., & Robinson, J. D. (2009). Repairing reference. In J. Sidnell (Ed.) Conversation Analysis: Comparative Perspectives (pp. 104–132). Cambridge University Press.

Emrani, F., & Hooshmand, M. (2019). A conversation analysis of self-initiated self-repair structures in advanced Iranian EFL learners. International Journal of Language Studies, 13, 57–76.

Fincke, S. (1999). The syntactic organization of repair in Bikol. In B. A. Fox, D. Jurafsky, & L. A. Michaelis (Eds.), Cognition and function in language (pp. 252–267). CSLI Publications.

Fox, B. A. (2012). Conversation Analysis and Self-Repair. In C. A. Chapelle (Ed.) The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics (pp. 1105–1110). Wiley-Blackwell.

Fox, B. A., & Jasperson, R. (1995). A Syntactic Exploration of Repair in English Conversation. In P. W. Davis (Ed.) Alternative Linguistics. Descriptive and Theoretical Modes (pp. 77–134). John Benjamins.

Fox, B. A., Hayashi, M., & Jasperson, R. (1996). Resources and repair: A cross-linguistic study of syntax and repair. In E. Ochs, E. A. Schegloff, & S. A. Thompson (Eds.) Interaction and Grammar (pp. 185–237). Cambridge University Press.

Huhtamäki, M., Lindström, J., & Londen, A. (2020). Other-repetition sequences in Finland Swedish: Prosody, grammar, and context in action ascription. Language in Society, 49(4), 653¬686.

Kazemi, A. (2020). Same-turn self-repairs in Farsi conversation: On their initiation and framing. Journal of Pragmatics, 170, 4–19.

Kusey, C. (2016). Same-turn self-repair practices in peer-peer L2 conversational dyads. Ph.D. thesis, University of Texas.

Laakso, M., & Sorjonen, M.-L. (2010). Cut-off or particle – Devices for initiating self-repair in conversation. Journal of Pragmatics, 42, 1151–1172.

Lerner, G.H., & Kitzinger, C. (2007). Extraction and aggregation in the repair of individual and collective self-reference. Discourse Studies, 9(4), 526–557.

Németh, Z. (2012). Recycling and replacement repairs as self-initiated same-turn self-repair strategies in Hungarian. Journal of Pragmatics, 44(14), 2022–2034.

Plug, L. (2015). Discourse constraints on prosodic marking in lexical replacement repair. Journal of Pragmatics, 87, 80–104.

Quan, L., & Weisser, M. (2014). A study of ‘self-repair’ operations in conversation by Chinese English learners. System, 49, 39–49.

Rieger, C. L. (2003). Repetitions as self-repair strategies in English and German conversations. Journal of Pragmatics, 35, 47–69.

Sidnell, J. (2010). Conversation analysis: An introduction. Wiley-Blackwell.

Uhmann, S. (2001). Some arguments for the relevance of syntax to same sentence self-repair in everyday German conversation. In E. Couper-Kuhlen, & M. Selting (Eds.) Studies in Interactional Linguistics (pp. 373–404). John Benjamins.

Wouk, F. (2005). The syntax of repair in Indonesian. Discourse Studies, 7, 237–258.

Zhang, W. (2014). A prosodic analysis of insertion repair at transition space in Chinese conversation. International Conference on Asian Language Processing (IALP), 151–153.