Abstract
AbstractThis special issue reports on a cross-linguistic study of other-initiated repair, a domain at the crossroads of language, mind, and social life. Other-initiated repair is part of a system of practices that people use to deal with problems of speaking, hearing and understanding. The contributions in this special issue describe the linguistic resources and interactional practices associated with other-initiated repair in ten different languages. Here we provide an overview of the research methods and the conceptual framework. The empirical base for the project consists of corpora of naturally occurring conversations, collected in fieldsites around the world. Methodologically, we combine qualitative analysis with a comparative-typological perspective, and we formulate principles for the cross-linguistic comparison of conversational structures. A key move, of broad relevance to pragmatic typology, is the recognition that formats for repair initiation form paradigm-like systems that are ultimately language-specific, and that comparison is best done at the level of the constitutive properties of these formats. These properties can be functional (concerning aspects of linguistic formatting) as well as sequential (concerning aspects of the interactional environment). We show how functional and sequential aspects of conversational structure can capture patterns of commonality and diversity in conversational structures within and across languages.
Highlights
Background to the projectThe papers in this issue are written using a common framework for data collection and analysis
Can we discover core properties of a system for other-initiated repair? To what extent might these properties be shaped or constrained by local linguistic resources? Can we extend linguistic typology beyond the clause to describe and explain unity and diversity in conversational structure? We address these questions by combining an explicit comparative framework with sensitivity to language-specific resources
We carry out a systematic comparative investigation of other-initiated repair, using a combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis, and using insights from conversation analysis, linguistic typology, the ethnography of speaking, and cross-cultural pragmatics
Summary
In this special issue we present results from a comparative study of other-initiated repair, a domain central to human communicative competence. Other-initiated repair is a crucial part of a system of practices that people use to deal with problems of speaking, hearing and understanding in social interaction (Schegloff, Jefferson, and Sacks 1977). Other-initiated repair links language, mind, and social life. As a mechanism for negotiating mutual understanding, it provides a window onto the social mind. Consider the following extract from a conversation in a Siwu-speaking family in Ghana.. Consider the following extract from a conversation in a Siwu-speaking family in Ghana.1 Sesi and his Mum are sitting outdoors when Mum addresses a request to him (line 1). Article note: Part of a special issue on other-initiated repair across languages, edited by Mark Dingemanse and N.
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