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Part of
Intersubjectivity in Action: Studies in language and social interaction
Edited by Jan Lindström, Ritva Laury, Anssi Peräkylä and Marja-Leena Sorjonen
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 326] 2021
► pp. 231–

Extending sequences of other-initiated repair in Finnish conversation

| University of Helsinki
| University of Helsinki
| Tampere University
| University of Helsinki

This paper explores other-initiated repair, or more specifically, extended repair sequences. In extended cases, the repair turn does not immediately resolve the trouble, and the speaker needs to produce a new repair initiation.

Drawing on a collection of 458 other-initiations of repair in naturally occurring everyday interaction in Finnish, we show how the distribution of the outcomes of different types of initiations clearly differs. Typically, candidate understandings and open class repair initiations do not lead to extended sequences, whereas repeats (with question words) are more often followed by a second repair initiation. The type of trouble, as well as the typological specificity of different initiations, explains the outcomes of the repair sequences.

Keywords: other-initiated repair, non-minimal repair, extended repair sequence, open class repair initiator, candidate understanding, repeat, question word
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.When extensions are rare: Candidate understandings and open class initiators
  • 3.When extensions are more frequent: (Partial) repetitions of trouble turn and repetitions with question words
  • 4.Discussion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 17 November 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.326.11haa
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