On the Organization of Repair in Multiperson Conversation: The Case of “Other”-Selection in Other-Initiated Repair Sequences

Abstract

This article examines a previously undocumented way in which the presence of more than two interlocutors matters for the organization of repair (Schegloff, Jefferson, & Sacks, 1977): when the repair initiation is addressed to—and thereby selects as the next speaker—somebody other than the speaker of the trouble-source turn (“other”-selection, for short). The speaker of the trouble-source turn is ordinarily the one who is selected to repair it (Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson, 1974). Under what circumstances, then, is “other”-selection used? The analysis shows that, while rare, “other”-selection in other-initiation of repair is a systematically deployed practice. In selecting somebody other than the speaker of the trouble-source turn to provide a repair solution, the repair initiator orients to two broad considerations (sometimes concurrently): progressivity and social epistemics. The article examines how these considerations play out in a variety of contexts and considers implications of “other”-selection for our understanding of the repair organization.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Maria Egbert, Jeff Robinson, the journal's three anonymous referees, and the editor Charles Antaki for their insightful and helpful comments on drafts of this article. The analysis has also greatly benefited from data sessions with Heidi Kevoe-Feldman, Jenny Mandelbaum, and Geoff Raymond.

Notes

¹While turn taking is organized by reference to parties, the number of persons in a party and the overall number of participants in a conversation have an impact on various aspects of turn taking, as subsequent studies (referenced in text) have shown.

²It should also be noted that a large body of research conducted in a variety of institutional settings (classrooms, courtrooms, media interviews, various workplace contexts, etc.) has explored institution- and activity-specific resources and practices for organizing multiparty interaction (for a few examples, see Asmuß & Svennevig, 2009; Atkinson & Drew, 1979; Clayman & Heritage, 2002; Heath & Luff, 2000; Kangasharju, 1996; Mondada, 2007; Seedhouse, 2004).

³Following Egbert (1997b), the term multiperson rather than multiparty interaction is used in this article to be able to take into account the fact that in dealing with conversational repair, conversationalists may act collectively as incumbents of a multiperson party (Lerner, 1993) or individually as a single-person party.

⁴Research into repair in multiperson interaction has primarily focused on collaborative word searches, a form of self-initiated other-repair (e.g., M. H. Goodwin, 1983; Hayashi, 2003). As will be discussed in a later section, other-initiated repair sequences that involve more than two interlocutors have been documented in settings where participants have divergent linguistic competencies (e.g., Bolden, 2011; Egbert, 2004; Ikeda, 2007; Mori, 2003).

⁵A party may be composed of one or several individuals (e.g., a couple acting as a collectivity) (Schegloff, 1995). For a detailed discussion of addressing a single-person party, see Lerner (2003); for addressing a party composed of several individuals, see Lerner (1993).

⁶Two observations point to Zhenya's TCU not being possibly complete when Lena starts speaking. First, Lena does not come in at an intonational unit boundary (i.e., the TCU is not possibly intonationally complete). Second, Zhenya is in the middle of a list production, and, as it has been shown (for English), interlocutors orient to lists as having three parts (Jefferson, 1990).

⁷Among various other copresent participants, Boris chooses to select Maria perhaps due to the fact that she had displayed understanding of Tasha's talk by laughing at it (line 3) and because she is showing herself available by turning to look at Boris (see line 6).

⁸Note the form of Michael's repair initiation: a partial repeat (“Nex'week”) immediately followed by “yer doing it?” (line 5). While the repeat adequately locates the trouble source, the addition of “yer doing it” is designed to explicitly address Shane (with “you”; Lerner, 2003) in a situation where Michael's gaze is likely not seen by Shane, who is looking down at his plate at line 5.

⁹Sergey's selection of Mom here is consistent with the general observation that, when they are several equally plausible candidates for “other”-selection, the repair initiator may be guided by his/her personal relationships with the copresent parties in choosing whom to select. There appears to be a tendency to target the repair initiation at a relational intimate, such as a romantic partner or closest caregiver rather than a more distant relative or friend. Selecting somebody to provide a repair solution is a display of entitlement on the repair initiator's part; it is perhaps for this reason that repair initiators tend to select people they feel most entitled to bother or distract from the ongoing course of action. Furthermore, the selection of the most physically proximate interlocutor is also common.

¹⁰Furthermore, my data show that when several participants have (near) equal epistemic rights to what is being conveyed by the trouble-source turn, “other”-selection may be deployed strategically to promote or obstruct certain courses of action. Space considerations prevent me from discussing such cases.