Suspending the next turn as a form of repair initiation: evidence from Argentine Sign Language.

Elizabeth Manrique,N J Enfield

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01326

Elizabeth Manrique, N J Enfield

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01326

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Abstract

Practices of other-initiated repair deal with problems of hearing or understanding what another person has said in the fast-moving turn-by-turn flow of conversation. As such, other-initiated repair plays a fundamental role in the maintenance of intersubjectivity in social interaction. This study finds and analyses a special type of other-initiated repair that is used in turn-by-turn conversation in a sign language: Argentine Sign Language (Lengua de Señas Argentina or LSA). We describe a type of response termed a “freeze-look,” which occurs when a person has just been asked a direct question: instead of answering the question in the next turn position, the person holds still while looking directly at the questioner. In these cases it is clear that the person is aware of having just been addressed and is not otherwise accounting for their delay in responding (e.g., by displaying a “thinking” face or hesitation, etc.). We find that this behavior functions as a way for an addressee to initiate repair by the person who asked the question. The “freeze-look” results in the questioner “re-doing” their action of asking a question, for example by repeating or rephrasing it. Thus, we argue that the “freeze-look” is a practice for other-initiation of repair. In addition, we argue that it is an “off-record” practice, thus contrasting with known on-record practices such as saying “Huh?” or equivalents. The findings aim to contribute to research on human understanding in everyday turn-by-turn conversation by looking at an understudied sign language, with possible implications for our understanding of visual bodily communication in spoken languages as well.

Highlights

People in interaction use and interpret meaningful hand and facial gestures spontaneously and frequently as part of their efforts to express themselves and to understand others when formulating turns in conversation
Question-answer Sequences This study focuses on question-answer sequences in unscripted sign language interaction
The preferred response to a question is an answer (e.g., “9 o’clock”), but the normative obligation to deal with the question can be handled by a non-answer response that is still relevant to the question (e.g., “Sorry, I don’t have a watch”)

Summary

Introduction

People in interaction use and interpret meaningful hand and facial gestures spontaneously and frequently as part of their efforts to express themselves and to understand others when formulating turns in conversation In spoken languages, these visible behaviors form an integrated multimodal system with speech, where the visible and audible signs are linked pragmatically, semantically, and temporally (McNeill, 1992; Kendon, 2004; Enfield, 2009). An addressee can answer a question directly if that is possible If they do not understand or do not hear the question clearly, they have the option of initiating repair by the questioner, for example by saying in English “Sorry?,” “What?,” “Huh?,” or “Can you repeat that?.”. If they do not understand or do not hear the question clearly, they have the option of initiating repair by the questioner, for example by saying in English “Sorry?,” “What?,” “Huh?,” or “Can you repeat that?.” This is called other-initiation of repair, abbreviated as OIR (Schegloff et al, 1977; Dingemanse et al, 2013; Dingemanse and Enfield, 2015)

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