A reexamination of conversational repair

Abstract

Conversational repair is a communication phenomenon which helps to sustain social interaction by allowing conversants mutually to handle problems which arise as they communicate. In this sense, conversational repair is a form of alignment talk. In the present study, conversations were examined to assess the preference system for self‐repair over other‐repair said to exist in conversation. Problem Type, Initiation Type, and Relationship History were also included in the analysis. The structure of repair episodes was found to be sensitive not only to sequencing determinants such as Initiation Type but also to content determinants such as Problem Type and to social, contextual determinants such as Relationship History. These findings suggest that approaches to conversation based primarily on sequencing and turn organization are limited. Conversational repair is also related to other conversational phenomena such as coherence.

Notes

Christopher J. Zahn is a doctoral student in the Department of Speech Communication, University of Texas, Austin. The author acknowledges the invaluable comments of Robert Hopper on earlier versions of this manuscript.