Kaur2011

Kaur2011
BibType	ARTICLE
Key	Kaur2011
Author(s)	Jagdish Kaur
Title	Raising explicitness through self-repair in English as a lingua franca
Editor(s)
Tag(s)	EMCA, Interactional Linguistics, English as a lingua franca, Self-repair, Explicitness strategies, Linguistic and cultural diversity, Mutual understanding, Intelligibility
Publisher
Year	2011
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Journal	Journal of Pragmatics
Volume	43
Number
Pages	2704–2715
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School
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Howpublished
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Abstract

A key feature of interaction in English as a lingua franca (ELF) is diversity – in the varieties of English spoken, the levels of proficiency displayed and the cultural norms and communicative styles of the participants – which can pose challenges to the process of achieving shared understanding in talk. Research into ELF, however, shows that participants make adept use of interactional practices to both pre-empt and resolve problems of understanding. Additionally, speakers use various ‘‘explicitness strategies’’ (Mauranen, 2007) to enhance the clarity of utterances and promote the comprehensibility of speech. This paper examines further the notion of raising explicitness of expression by looking at some of the self-repair practices of speakers using ELF. Using conversation analysis procedures, 15 h of audio-recorded naturally occurring ELF conversations of international graduate students were analyzed for this purpose. Instances of self-initiated repair were examined to identify the types of repair performed and the kinds of trouble addressed. The results show that in addition to correcting, the participants employ a variety of self-repair practices that make utterances explicit and improve communicative clarity. The speakers’ meticulous attention to clarity and explicitness possibly stems from an awareness of the precarious nature of the ELF situation.

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