Initiating Repair With and Without Particles: Alternative Formats of Other-Initiation of Repair in Korean Conversation

Abstract

This study examines Korean speakers’ practice of initiating repair on the recipient’s talk with and without a subject or object particle and shows that the addition (or deletion) of the particle plays an important role in implementing the action of repair initiation. Initiating repair with a particle ordinarily serves as a harbinger of disagreement, surprise, or disbelief, while initiating repair without a particle functions as an understanding check. The study further suggests possible explanations for how and why the addition of the particle achieves the interactional work of performing a negatively valenced action in Korean. Data are in Korean with English translation.

Notes

¹ We thank a reviewer for suggesting these terms.

² More recently, Robinson (2013) has shown that, for at least one class of other-initiation of repair, “partial questioning repeats,” epistemics is the key determinant for its action formation. That is, how much the repair-initiating party knows about the repeated item in context needs to be determined by the recipient in order for the recipient to understand the particular social action accomplished by the partial repeat.

³ The subject particle is i after a consonant and ka after a vowel. The object particle is ul after a consonant and lul after a vowel.

⁴ Korean speakers often leave many elements out of their utterances when they assume these can be easily retrievable from context or when they have been mentioned in a prior context (Sohn, 1999, p. 402). In fact, some studies have shown that leaving in these referents is considered a marked form in Korean (e.g., Oh, 2007).

⁵ All the names and other identifiers in the data have been anonymized.

⁶ This observation is consistent with Antaki’s (2012, p. 538) study, which shows that in response to affiliative understanding checks, the speaker usually provides a minimal response, a confirmation; however, in response to disaffiliative understanding checks, the speaker provides a nonminimal response, providing more than what is required. Such a response implies that the speaker has trouble with the disaffiliative candidate understanding.