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A CONVERSATION ANALYSIS OF OTHER-COMPLETED REPAIRIN SYNCHRONOUS COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION

by

Phalangchok Wanphet

A Dissertat ion Subm itted inPartial Fulfillment of the

Req uirem ents for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophyin English

a tThe Universi ty of Wisconsin-M ilwaukee

May 2011

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UMI Number 3462804

All rights reservedINFORMATION TO ALL USERSThe qua lity of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted

In the unlikely event that the author i not send a complete manuscriptand there are missing pages these will be noted Also if material had to be removeda note will indicate the de letion

UMIUMI 3462804Copyright 2011 by ProQuest LLCAll rights reserved This edition of the work is protected againstunauthorized copying under Title 17 United States Code

ProQuest LLC789 East Eisenhower ParkwayP O Box 1346Ann Arbor Ml 48106-1346

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A CONVERSATION ANALYSIS OF OTHER-COMPLETED REPAIRIN SYNCHRONOUS COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION

byPhalangchok Wanphet

A Dissertat ion Subm itted inPartial Fulfillment of the

Requirements for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophyin English

a tThe Universi ty of Wisconsin-M ilwaukee

May 2011

6IUIIIGradua te School Approval

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ABSTRACT

ACONVERSATIONANALYSIS OFOTHER-COMPLETED REPAIRIN SYNCHRONOUS COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION

by

Phalangchok Wa nphet

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2011Under th e Supervision of Patricia Mayes, PhD

This disser tation, based on a Conversation Analytic (CA) perspective, inves tigates (1)how participants who do not understand what someone just said in online chatsinitiate and com plete repair and(11) the characteristics and functions of other-completion in synchronous online comm unication This study is based on thefollowing premise First, troubles in unders tanding a message som eone justproduced in social interaction are ubiquitous Secondly, when participan ts take thenext turn to produce th eir m essage, they reveal their analysis and understan dings ofthe ongoing interac tion Third, social interac tion is designed for effortlessunders tanding and for managing such problems Fourth, other-completion is asocially disaffihative action

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After the close analysis of mu ndane synchronou s electronic interaction, Idivided other-completion in synchronous computer-mediated communication(CMC),based on the locations of repair- initiation and -com pletion, into sixvariations, namely,self-mitiationanddistancedother-completion, other-initiationanddistancedother-completion, o ther-repair performedin onee-turn,other-repairperformed over twoconsecutivee-turns,immediate other-completion,andsimultaneousother-completion The findings can be twofold First, othe r-co mpletionoccurs more frequently and pervasively in we b chats than in face-to-faceencou nters Second, the ways other-completion is performed in synchronous CMCreflect both transactional and interactional views of language use

The transactional view of other-completion in synchronousCMCechoes thefact that m utual understandin gs are ultimate goal in social interaction Theinteractional view su ggests that not threaten ing p articipan ts' face is a major goal inma intaining social bonds during such electronic social interac tion This is witn essedwhen other-completion is distanced from repair-initiation, allowing an opportu nityfor self-completion Related to the interaction al view, this study connects the face asa socio-psychological concept to the physical pres ence of par ticipants When theyintera ct online, the ir social cues and the aspects of face are filtered out, resulting infrequent occurren ce of other-com pletion, a socially disaffihative actions, which israre in face-to-face talk

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Copyright by Phalangchok Wanphet, 2011All Rights Reserved

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In Memory of Pra Kru Nibhasa PanyakhunaandMyGrandparents

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TABLEOFCONTENTS

CHAPTER1 Introduction 1Background information 2

Wh ere talk takes place 3How people comm unicate electronically 5

How participants engage in synchronousCMC 6What synchronousCMCmessag es look like 7

Preference for self-completed rep air and face consid erations 11Scope of the study 12Purpose of the study 15Significance of the study 17Summary 17

CHAPTER2 Literatu re Review 19Repair Aconve rsation analytic perspe ctive 21

Defining rep air 21Intersubjectivity Adisplay of mutual unde rstanding in talk 24Participants' roles in repair 27Some sources of misunde rstanding 29

Organization of conversational interaction 35Turn-taking organization 35

Turns and turn-constructional units 36vn

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Tran sition relevance place 39Turn allocation com ponen t 40

Sequence organization 42Adjacency pairs 43Insertion sequences 45

Electronic env ironm ent as comm unicative context 48Inte rnet Technologies for comm unication 48Computer-mediated communication 49

Technically, is synchromcity a crite rion 7 51The medium of online chat is it speech or tex t7 53Unclassified features of online chats 63

Language in synchronousCMC 65Structural and interactional features of synchronousCMC 67

Turn-taking system and sequences 67Social intera ction al activities 70Flaming 72Emoticons 77

Summary 80

CHAPTER3 Data and Methodology 82Data, particip ants, and language of the syn chrono usCMC 83Data 83Participants 85

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Language of the we b chats 86Electronic recording s and data collection 86Unit of Analysis 88Data Analysis 90Summary 95

CHAPTER 4 Variations of Other-Completed R epair in SynchronousCMC 97Self-initiated rep air and distanced other-com pleted rep air 97Other-initiated repair and distanced other-completed repair 103Other-repair completed in one e-turn 108Other-completed repair performed over two consecutive e-turns 113Immediate other-completed repair 119Summary 128

CHAPTER5 Sequence O rganization of Other-Completed R epair inSynchronousCMC 129

Question 1 How othe r initiates and completes rep air 129Types and positions of other-completed repair in synchronousCMC 130Simultaneously-completed repa ir 13 1Sequence organization of other-completed repair in synchronousCMC 133

Question 2 F unctions of other-initiated repair and other-co mp leted rep air 138Preference organization of other-completed repair in synchronousCMC 139Face and face-threatening acts 142

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Sequence organization of distanced other-completed repair 144Sequence organization of other-completed repair in one and two e-turns 146Sequence organization of immediate other-completed repair 150

Turn-initial position 151Elsewhere other tha n turn-initial position in the sam e e-turn 152Accompanying conve rsational wo rk 157

Summary 160

CHAPTER 6 Discussion and Conclusion 162Other-com pleted re pa ir as a social action in synchro nousCMC 164

Other-com pleted rep air Evidence of social disaffiliation 165Unm itigated or 'still-dispreferred' other-co mp leted rep air 166

Other-com pleted rep air Evidence of ma intenan ce of social bon ds 171Opp ortunity given for self-completed repa ir 172Other-initiated r epa ir as a display of understa ndin g of theTS 176Smiley as a rem inde r of face 179

Other-com pleted rep air Transa ctional and interactiona l functions 182Conclusion and future researc h 184

References 189Curriculum Vitae 205

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LISTOFTABLES

Table 2 1 Featu res of spoken language and wr itten language 55Table 2 2 Features of language in synchron ousCMC Morphology and syntax 66

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

CACMCDCLEMPFTA'sOC01SCSITS

Conversation AnalysisComputer-Mediated Communicat ionDeclarativeEmphasisFace-Th reatening ActsOther-Completed Repair (or Other-Complet ion)Other-Initiated Repair (or Other-Initiation)Self-Completed Repair (or Self-Completion)Self-Initiated Repair (or Self-Initiation)Trouble Source

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Iwould never have brought this dissertation to com pletion without constanthelp, support, and enco uragement from many people to whom Iwish to express myappreciation The very first personIwould like to than kismy dissertation advisor,Dr Patricia M ayes, who introdu ced Conversation Analysis (CA) to m e at th ebeginning of my gradua te studies She first steered me in the direction of this fieldthatIhave never regretted, and then p atiently and intently directed thisdissertation Most of my ideas abou tCAand research in talk-in-mteraction havedeveloped over the yea rs of conversations with he r AfterImoved away fromMilwaukee, WI, for wor k in New York City, and she advised me via em ail, shecontinued her thoroug hness by sending me long and detailed emails with h ercomments on my written work Ican say tha tIhave had the pleasure and h onor ofbeing her student and working on this dissertation with her

I am thankful for insightful a nd invaluable c omm ents and advice on this w orkfrom my four rea ders Drs Kathleen Wheatley, Raquel Oxford, David Clark, and EdithMoravcsik Iwas very fortunate to have such a dedicated and sup portive comm itteeSpecial than ks go to Kathie and Raquel for the ir willingness to serve on my AcademicReview comm ittee in 2007 Iam greatly indebted to them for their encouragement,patience, and the time they spent with m e during the p reparation of the AcademicReview Both Kathie and Edith read this dissertation in a timely man ner

The next people who deserve my great gratitude are my paren ts (Mr RiangWanphet and Mrs Bumrung W anphet), who have always pointed ou t to me how

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impo rtant education is and have encouraged me and believed in me throughou t mylife Icould call them no matter when during the completion of my graduatedegree s Talking to them and hearing their voices encouraged me to get schoolwork, including this dissertation , done Iowe an enormous thanks to my brother(Mr Jatuchok W anph et) for taking excellent care of our paren ts whileIwas goneThis workisdedicated to thre e of them Mythanks also go to my friends andcolleagues in Chicago, New York,and B angkok for their k indness, friendship, hum or,and support during the last stage ofmydissertation

The last peopleIw ant to thank are my nephew and niece, whomInever metbu t indirectly inspired m e to complete the disserta tion a s soon as possible so tha tIcould make a trip home to visit them They have no idea how many timesIlooked atthei r pictures du ring the completion of this dissertation for inspiration a ndmotivation

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1CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Qualitative resea rch in the social sciences, in general, investigates hu manbehavior-related p henom ena and is intended, mainly, to answ er how- and why-que stions to explain such phen om ena So does this study As will be shown later,this study will focus m erely on a how -question,1e, how participants d etect andrep air a troub le in ongoing talk This dissertatio n aims to study talk, the hum anverbal behav ior, especially when talk is used to fix prior talk One how -question,then, is how pe ople u se talk to rep air prior talk, not in face-to-face, b ut insynchronous electronic enc ounters

BeforeIproceed , it is im porta nt he re to briefly define a few im porta nt te rm sthough they are exp lored in greater length in Chapter2 The first term ,repair,is atechnical term used in conversation analysis (hereafterCA)to refer to the practiceof dealing with troub les in understan ding , speaking, or hea ring in prior talk Thisdoes not include all types of trouble or misunderstanding, b ut those found in w hatsomeo ne involved in the same talk has just said

Another term,other-completed repair(also known asother-completion),need s to be defined he re as it is the focus of the analysis Other-comp leted re pa ir isa repair th at is completed by a participant who does not own the troub le(henceforth other),regard less of who initiates a rep air The practice of other-completed repa ir is a socially disaffihative action becau se, m many cases, itfunctions as the prelimina ry to or harbing er of disagreem ent (Schegloff 2007 ,

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2

Schegloff et al , 1977) This can be observed wh enotherbelieves what th e owner ofthe trouble (henceforthself)said is doubtful, unclear, problem atic, unintelligible, orincorrect Then,othermay replace wh at se//just said with wh atotherbelieves iscorrect without givingselfachance to correct it

The last term,face, is defined by Goffman (196 7) as the positive social valuea person effectively claims for himself (p 5) Bynature, other-completed repairtypically threa tens the face of se//because, once performed, it may seem to se//t ha totherdoes not take into accountselfsface wan t To minimize the degree of face-threatening acts (hereafter FTA's) or to maintain social bonds between participants,other-completed repa ir should be specially performed and positioned How turn sare designed to m inimize the degree of face-threatening acts can be explicated bypreference organization (this is discussed later in this chap ter and C hapter 5)

This first cha pter provide s general information an d some technical andsociohnguistic backg round on which the lite ratu re review, Chapter 2, is builtIncluded in this cha pter a re background information, the scope in which theresearch questions are outlined, and the purpose and significance of thedissertation The first section discusses the natu re of talk, the m ost basic of socialinteraction, and in troduc es how it has changed in the digital age

Background InformationThis section aims to introduce the basic background which inspired and

influences th e focus of this study Its aim is also to provide technical an dsociohnguistic backgrou nd on how to become an online use r and especially an

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4

Siegel, McGuire, 1984 , Yates, 1996) in real time or postpo ned time According tostatistical data p resented on the Interne t Society website (2010), the usage grow thof interne t users from 2000-2010 w as 444 8% in June 2010 From the same source,two billion people had access to the internet in 2010 This num ber has tended tosharply increase

There are many reasons th at explain why mo re people use the intern etFirst, the costs of personal computers and internet services are inexpensive(Herring, 2004b) Second, com puters and inte rne t progra ms are mo re user-friendlyand easier to operate and maintain than they we re Third, compu ter and interne tprograms are equipped with more o ptions and functions, e g, larger mem ory units,a web camera, a microphone, a speaker, etc , allowing users to express them selves,fully com municate, and socialize Fourth, many stores (e g , coffee shop s,restau rants), organizations (e g, governm ent buildings), institutes (e g, universities,public libraries) and o ther places (e g, hotels, train stations, airports) provide freeinternet services to the public

In addition, advanced technology allows many electronic devices tocollaboratively work with co mp uters (Kalman Rafaeli, 200 7) Cellphones andSmartphones, for example, are electronically connected with an internet service,permitting their users to send and receive messages anywh ere anytime This ismade possible by electronic devices which are now portable and wireless The nextsubsection explains how people can communicate electronically on the internet,both the process and product of online communication

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5How People Communicate Electronically

Online commun ication is defined as all kinds of hum an comm unication t ha tis mediated by the internet Such human com munication can be either synchronous(e g online chats), asynch ronous (e g email or discussion board s), or a combinationof both Synchronous comm unication may involve visual prese ntatio n as in Skype,wh ereb y participa nts can talk to and see each other in real time However, in thisstudy, only synchro nous text-based comm unication is used as the data

Characterized by visual anonymity, physical isolation, and selective self-presentation (Chester Gwynne, 1998), online com munication h as directly andindirectly come to play an im porta nt role in our lives One impact it has on our livesis in the ways we comm unicate with one anoth er Hutchby (2001) argues that th enat ure of hum an communication and how intersubjectivity (Schegloff,1992, p1295) is established and m aintained have been affected by technologies forcommunication (see Chapter2for a discussion of intersubjectivity) For this reason ,it is worth investigating how mutual un derstandings are generated, maintained,hindered, and reg enerated by such technologies

Although there are several communicative media supported by technologiesfor com munication, this study is focused exclusively on one type of synchrono uscomputer-mediated communication (hereafter CMC), l e, text-based online chatsOnline chats requ ire certain tools and specific action from particip ants, so that th eycan be engaged in this type of comm unication The subsections below prov idetechnical background abou t synchronousCMC the process of synchronousCMC(l e ,howparticipants get involved in online ch ats,howthey typing, edit, com plete,

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6and s end a text , and who can observe the process of message production) as well asthe product of synchronous CMC(1e , what a text as a final product in online chatslooks like)

How part ic ipants en gage in synch ron ous CMCSynchronousCMC al lows exchanges of wri t ten messages between an

unlimited num ber of part icip ants in real t ime (Kiesler et al , 1984) Those who ha vea comp uter with an inte rne t connection can part icip ate in a chat prog ram To beable to enter into a chat room, a part icip ant has to down load a chat progr am Mostof the t ime, chat prog ram s a re free of charge (e g, yah oo com, msn com, skype net ,et c) Com pletely-downloaded chat pro gram s automa tical ly preinstal l a chatme ssen ger which functions as a ma nag em ent tool tha t allows i ts part icip ants to, forinstance, present their availability, check the availability of others, send video links,add a contact , edi t the us er 's profile , and se nd an ins tant me ssage

To log in to a chat me sseng er, part icip ants h ave to have an acco unt w hichtypical ly req uires a use r nam e, passw ord, an d, optionally, a profi le, which a re al lcreate d wh en they sign up for the accoun t for the first t ime To chat with other s in aw eb chat , part icipa nts can ei ther do so with th ose wh o are already in their contacts,or search for new con tacts Once both part icip ants are co-pre sent and available tochat , they can begin their chat A system connecting part icip ants in a chat pro gramis called a chat server Messages can be sent to a chat serv er at any time bypart icip ants On com pute r screen s, in general , the re is a space cal led a dialogue box,private box, or compose box in which part icip ants type mes sages Next to a dialog

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7box, the re is the SEND butto n participa nts can click on when they finish typingmessages and wan t their messages to be read by others

Before sending a m essage to a chat server(1e , before pressin g the SENDbutt on), particip ants can edit or delete it in the ir private box Again, this process isnot seen by other particip ants Once the partic ipan t presse s the ENTER key, themessage is sen t off to a chat serve r After tha t, it is sen t off again to all involvedparticip ants It is at this time that all particip ants involved in that channel can seewh at other s typed After messages have been s ent off to a chat server, they ca nnotbe edited, correcte d, or deleted by any partic ipants including their ow ners The nextsubsection explores messages produced by participants in a chat room th at areshown in a public dialog

What synchronousCMCm essages look likeRecall th at the message is sent off to a chat server once the partic ipan t

presse s th e ENTER key Achat server works as a center distributing messages to allparticipants involved in the same channel Achat server does not change the formatof texts originally composed by participan ts, but ad ds use r nam es of messag esend ers at the beginning of the message Extract 1 shows a public dialog

Extract 1 Turns and dialog in synchron ousCMC (Chat 2313-2009-4/70)Dave let me google itDave hahaMaia o k

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8Dave the Chinese name of the movie is A^ZM1Maia Idon't have Chinese front2Maia Ican't read it

In Extract 1, a message follows a user name ofaperson who composes it andwh ateve r fonts participan ts used will no t be changed by the chat server In a privatebox, participants can press theSENDbutton whene ver they wan t, therefore,messages may not always be comp lete sentenc es or clauses (Schofeldt Golato,2003) In other words, one turn of an online chat can range from one symbol (e g,O,'},o,') , to one or more w ords, phrases, clauses, or many complete sentencesSometimes, one turn unit may not repre sen t one idea very well As a result, wh at isin one turn in an online chat is not the same as what is in one turn in ordinaryspoken language as characterized byCAresearchers (Sacks,Schegloff, Jefferson,1974) Murray (1988b) therefore introduces the term e-message (p 353) to meana message produced during electronic communication

In everyday talk, one turn roughly begins when a speak er begins to talk andends when he sends the message Thatis,a speaker takes his turn or competes forthe floor in order to produce a message This is different from how partic ipan ts inonline chats take turn s An electronic turn the refore is not the same as a spokentur n u nit in terms of the turn-ta king system, not only because of the syntacticstructure or the presentation ofideas,but also how participants take a turn While1Allextracts illustrated in this dissertation p resent w hat the p articipants actually typed in theironline chats Foreign characters will be shown in this study without being changed, but with o rwithout the translation21 have not corrected or made changes to any of their grammatical erro rs or typos

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9e-message general ly refers to the features of mes sages p rodu ced online, i t does notdiscuss how par t ic ipants take turn s and the order of turn s Therefore, thro ugh outthis study, e-turn is used to refer to each t ime a part icipan t starts typ ing a mes sageunti l he presses the ENTER key The com mo n deno min ator used to define e-turn,then , is pres sing the ENTER key Extract 2 sho w s different length s of e-turn

Extract 2: Turns and dialog in syn chro nou sCMC (MK-Chat: 2 00 9- 28 /4 5)Alice I feel so rr y to see you alon e in office hou rs@Alice no on e com ingPaula So I can do oth er stuffsAlice Did you kn ow w ha t Jane 's teach er just told us tha t the re

is no su ch thin g as stuffsAlice stuffis already noun pluralPaula I don ' t think th ere will be costom ers since the re is no

a s s i g n m e n t / H W .Alice Jane ma de mistake in he r wri t ing and the teac her sh ow ed

is to usPaula OK I can 't do othe r stuff(good to know )Alice yes, I lear n a lot from my kids Alice okay, l'll talk to yo u later, I'll finish my din ne r I ca n't eat after

midnight for the glucosa test so I have to fill up my tummyby now O

(1)(2)(3)

4)5)

(6)

(7)(8)(9)

(10)

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10In Extract2,somee-turnsare less tha n one line long (seee-turns1, 2, 3, 5,8 , and 9),while some can be longer than one line long (e-turns 4, 6, and 10) It is possible tohave two consecutive e-turnsby the sam e pa rticipant (e-turns 1 and 2 by Alice, e-tur ns 4 and 5 by Alice, ore-turns9 and 10 byAlice)as well as a two-line longe-turn(e-turn 4 by Alice,e-turn6 by Paula, ore-turn7 by Alice)

In the broa der picture of a chat room, because of transm ission rate andinternet services, messages appearing on computer screens may not relate to thepreceding or following messages These unrelated m essages following one anothe rmake the content and patterns of the conversation rather incoherent and disorderlyBecause of the num ber of participants in a chat room w ho send messages at thesame time, the flow of comp uter conversation goes very fast and th e resu lts a remultidimensional, leading to various subtopics and conversations

Moreover, each partic ipan t can talk about different topics with differentpartic ipan ts All of these factors make online chats far different from typicalordinary conv ersations w here pervasively only one participant talks at a time(Sacks et al, 1 974), wh ere ther e are fewer subtopics which are coherently o rdered,and wh ere tu rns themselves are chronologically ord ered (Schegloff et al , 1977)Therefore, Murray (1991) coins the term computer conversation (p 35) to refer toa dialogue in online chat

Before I proceed to the next section, there are a few points to be m ade h ereFirst, there is an increasing numbe r of people who comm unicate on the int erne tSecondly, the internet as a new platform for social interaction requires devices (l e,software and ha rdw are ) an d skills (e g, literacy skills, typing skills, and basic

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11com puter skills) from pa rticipants Thirdly, wh at they comm unicate on the in tern etis mostly text-based with available comm unicative functions p rovided by the chatprogra ms The next section introdu ces face consideration s and relates it to other-completed repair and to preference organization

Preference for Self-Completed Repair and Face C onsiderationsInCAliterature, there is a structura l preference forself-completed repair(1e ,

a repair th at is completed by a participant who ow ns the trouble) over other-completed rep air because of the following reaso ns (Lerner, 1996b) First,opp ortun ities for self-initiated r epa ir(1e , a repa ir that is initiated by a participantwho owns the trouble) preced e opp ortunities for other-initiated rep air(1e, a repairtha t is initiated by a particip ant who does not own the trouble) Second, both self-mitiated repair and other-initiated repair result interactionally in self-completedrepair

Other-completed rep air is not only structurally biased as pres ente d above,bu t also socially biased This does not mean tha t no particip ants a re allowed torepair what others have just said during talk-in-interaction, but that other-comp leted repair is customarily performed with extra wo rk This extra wo rk (e g,special marks or/and special positions) draws the distinction between actions thatare preferred from those that are dispreferred Such distinction can be explained bypreference organization (Pome rantz, 1984), which not only explains howdispreferred actions are specially marked and positioned in conversations, but alsoreveals how the design of dispreferred actions is interre lated to parti cipa nts' social

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and psychological states (Holtgraves, 1992) wh en participa ting in talk Such socialand psychological states com e to be known a s face-considerations which, Holtgravesconten ds, is the major goal underlying preference organization (p 148) That is,partic ipan ts' face consid eration affects how they design their turn in talk-in-mteraction

To conclude, the design of other-com pleted repair, a dispreferred action, canbe investigated through the preference orga nization or the set of practices throug hwhich persons m anage courses of action tha t either prom ote or und ermine socialsolidarity (Heritage Raymond, 2005 , p 16),which is intimately conn ected to faceThis study looked at how p articipants in online chats positioned and marked other-comp leted repair and how this is related to face-considerations Although thetechnical term s were introduce d above, they will be again discussed in Chapter 2This section has provided a general background for this study, while the next onepresen ts the scope of the study

Scope of the StudyAs men tioned above, technologyisdesigned to overcome geographical

distance This advan tage implies tha t technology can connect people from differentpa rts of the world due to the aforem entioned five factors (l e, cost, user-fnend hness, built-in devices, accessibility, and comp atible electronic devices) Theinte rne t indeed is a space wh ere peo ple from different backg rounds n ot only learnbu t also socialize The electronically-mediated space known as the internet, wh erehum an beings com municate is usually referred to as a global village (McLuhan,

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131962),virtual com mun ity (Rheingold, 1993), or cyberspace (Gibson, 1982) Thisphenomenon reflects the context of globalization where people are connected bycommunication technologies

One interactional ph enomenon this research studies is how such onlinechatters rep air the immediately preceding talk Given that many people fromdifferent ba ckgrou nds ar e using English, the op portu nity for miscom mum cation isgreat, as is the o ppo rtunity to study miscomm umcation It is likely tha t the causesof repair in synchronousCMCdiffer from th ose of rep air in everyday interactio n Onthe one hand, chat participants may need to repair their utteranc es m ore for thefollowing reaso ns non-verbal com munication (e g, facial expressions and gestures )and pa ralangua ge (e g, pitch, volume, rhythm , or intonation) are missing,e-turnsinsynchronousCMCmay not be sequentially ordered, and the re may be subtopicsembedd ed in each topic On the other hand, chat participants may need to repa irtheir u tterance s less because they can review previously typed text to retrieve theinformation and to deal with the causes of misu nde rstand ings Still, whe n chatsinvolve non -native speak ers, it is likely th at r epa irs will involve m ore negotiation ofmeaning, that consists of requ ests for explanation of language and conten t Thisdissertation investigates miscommumcation between native speakers and non-nativespeakers of English tha t happe ns to occur online and how b oth group s handle it

The analysis of rep air in online chats will reveal th e cau ses ofmisunderstanding s and miscommumcation and reveal how these are dealt with byonline particip ants From the beginning,CAresearch ers have focused on everydaycommunication, tha tis,how peo ple talk, and th e language they u se in order to

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14comm unicate (eith er verbally, non-verbally, or a combination of both) The fourmain features that have been of interest toCAresearchers include turn-takingsystems, sequences, repairs, and preference organization (Liddicoat, 2007)

Since inte rne t technologies we re invented in the 1980s, alternative w ays ofcommunicating have been developing (e g, email communication, web discussionboa rds, text-based chats), but to my knowledge, the re are few stud ies so far tha texamine rep air in online chats The first one, by Schofeldt and Golato (2003 ),investigated whether the four positions of repair (see Chapter2for the definition ofeach position) ap pea r in web chat In thei r study, the language of interaction wasGerman, not English, and their pa rticipa nts used German as a mo ther to ngu e

The study, by Shekary and Ta hn na n (2006), explored the negotiation ofmeaning and noticing in text-based online chats amongESLlearners Their studydid not exam ine all repa ir practices, but only those resulting in negotiation ofmean ing and then noticing To locate negotiation of mean ing which is one activity ofrepair, the two researchers followed aCAmethod However, they planned theexperiment to collect data and intervened in the participants' interaction

The third study, by Golato and Talegham-Nikazm (2006 ), studied howparticipants made requests, a negative face-threatening action in German onlinechats They found tha t their participa nts used a wr itten pa use to defer theirrequ ests, and used pre -requ ests and questions to elicit an offer Their studyindicated tha t participants design their action in order to save othe r p articipants'face and tha t face can be a pheno men on tha t can be explored in web ch ats

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15Purpose of the Study

Anum ber of scholars, including Baron (2 003), Crystal (20 01), and W alther(2004), emphasize that technology promotes more effective human interaction,creates new language features, and influences ways in which humans communicateTherefore, it is essential to exam ine and explain hum an inte raction as it occursonline

As men tioned, before comm unication technology cam e to play a role incommunication, research inCAfocused exclusively on ordin ary com mun ication, andin particular conversation or mu ndane talk (Schegloff, 199 1,19 96) Later,CAresearchers (Goodwin, 1981,1984,Schegloff,1984) began studying non-verbalcomm unication For example, how participants simultaneo usly used eye gaze tomanage turn-taking and to catch attention, used gestures to indicate the transitionof a story being told, and evaluated listeners in relation to th e co ntent being focusedMore recently, the in tere sts of someCAresearc hers h ave shifted to synchronous andasynchronous online communication Like other scholars wh o study communicationor linguistics,CAresearche rs have suggested tha t comp uter technology has changedthe na ture of human interactions and relationships (Garcia Jacobs, 1999),sociability (Hutchby, 2001), and social identity (Kiesler et a l, 1984) As men tioned, itis the p urpose of this study to investigate the social natu re of human comm unicationin the form of repair in a technology-mediated e nvironm ent The research questionsof this study are as follows

1 How do participants who do not own the trouble in online chats initiateand complete repair7

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This research question examines how the participants who are the recipientsmanage misunderstandings and miscommumcation The process of dealing with atrouble so urce found in ordinary conv ersation may be different from t ha t found insynchronousCMCbecau se the medium of comm unication is different, in particular,the re are no verbal (aural) or non-verbal (visual) cues W hat is available is the textthrough which they can comm unicate and turn s they take to type, which they do no thave to com pete for Like ordina ry talk, online chatters have to deal withmisunderstandings and miscommumcation in order to keep the conversationflowing, though pace in online chats seems a lot faster than face-to-face talks

2 Wh at are the chara cteristics and functions of other-com pleted repa ir insynchronous online comm unication7

Like repair found in face-to-face talk, repair found in online contextsinvolving non-native speak ers m ay be caused by limitations in second languageproficiency that hin ders the progre ss of the conversation One possible strategy fordealing with this tro uble is to requ est an explanation on language, for example,word mea nings and grammatical structu res Repairs can also be caused byunshared background knowledge and experience of participants (Gass, 1997)Other factors include gende r, culture, and familiarity with each other Moregenerally, the mech anisms of online chats can lead to repa irs bec ause onlinemessages are not in sequential order and many participants can type severalmessages at the same time This researc h question is aimed at finding the locationof the cause of repa ir and the functions of other-com pleted rep air

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17Significance of the Study

There are two advantages of this study First, it dem onstrates how languagecan be used in hum an social interac tion w hich is now delivered electronicallyCrystal (2001) m aintains that, with different co mm unicative media, new languagefeatures evolve and are continually being interpreted by users who a re moreconscious of meaning than form

Second, the research dem onstrates how technology, such as the interne tsystem, sup ports and at the same time limits huma n social interactio n Incommunication, all comm unicators wa nt to be understood by and unde rstandothe rs As a result, they develop strate gies to deal with such limitations oftechnology because, as Walther (1996) points out, computer program s w ere firstespecially designed for information storage and d ata analysis purpo ses, notcommunication purposes

SummaryIn this introduction , the p ractice of repair w as briefly defined to it make it

easier to explore the process and its bound aries This chapte r also introduced a newunique setting in which human comm unication is taking place, tha tis,the inte rnetThe specific type of comm unication th at will be examined, synchron ous onlinechats,was also introduce d These poin ts will be examined in detail in Chapter 2The last section outlined two research questions this study aims to answe r Thissection provided a general idea of the research procedures and tools that w ere usedThese issues will be dealt with in more detail in C hapter 3

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The next chapter p resents theo retical background on repair, sources ofmisunderstandings, conversational organization, and electronic environment, w hileChapter3outlines research methods which consist of data collection and dataanalysis Extracts from online chats are given in Chapter3to dem onstrate how anemic perspec tive will be implem ented in the analysis Also, Chapter3introducesthe online participants and language of the w eb chats

Chapter 4 presen ts five variations of other-completed repair found insynchrono us CMC, according to the locations of repair-initiatio n and other-completed repair In addition to adding one variation of other-completed rep air tothe list, Chapter 5 discusses the sequ ential location of each variation Thesevariations of other-com pleted re pair lead to the discussion in Chapter 6 Chapter 6also answ ers the two research questio ns, concludes the study, and suggests furtherresearch

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19CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

This dissertation aims to examine howothernavigates and fixesmisund erstandings and m iscommum cation during interactional online chats wh ereEnglish is used as a language for commun ication While the backgroun d informationabout this topic was provided in the previous chapter, this chapter is intended toreview the literature on repair from a conversation analytic perspective, onorganization of conversational interaction, on other-completed repair andpreference organization, and on com puter-m ediated comm unication Beforereviewing this topic, it is important to devote a few paragrap hs below to presentingthe developm ent of CA, and how repair and com puter-mediated human interactionare related in the field ofCA

Face-to-face interaction is the d efault format of everyday situations of hum ancommunication (Goodwin, 1981,1984, Goodwin Heritage, 1990, H eritage, 1985,1989,1991,1995, Hutchby Wooffitt, 2008,Schegloff,1 991,199 2), where twoparticipants must be physically co-present in order to pa rticipate in conversationalinteraction , while verbal cues which are au dible and gestu ral cues which are visibleto participants facilitate communication

It was talk on the telephone tha t pioneeringCAresearche rs first used toexamine human verbal interaction (see Sacks, 1992, Schegloff,1968, SchegloffSacks, 1973), before paying close attentio n to face-to-face talk However, it wa sface-to-face talk to whichCAresearchers tu rned because it reveals fundamental

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20communicative practices (e g, utterances, gesture, eye gaze, head direction, etc) andoffers a domain in which they can investigate the stru ctura l organization of humansociality (Drew Heritage, 2006, Goodwin, 19 80 ,19 82 ,19 84 , Heritage, 1985,19 89,1991,1995,Schegloff, 198 4,1 99 1,1 99 2, Schegloff et al , 1977) In otherwords,CAwas developed to examine the sequential ordering of utteranc es in order to find outabout the properties of normative, micro-level social order

With the adv ent of technologies for comm unication, hum an comm unicationhas been operated through, around, and with the com puter netwo rk since the 1990s(Hutchby, 2001) This new electronic environment has provided not onlyCArese arch ers b ut also commu nication res earc her s, linguists, sociologists, and socialpsychologists with a new variable that broadens their research paradigm s ForCAresearche rs, a computer-mediated environment is a completely new strategicsetting in which hum an intera ction is found and, therefore, wh ere the y can examinemun dane hum an interaction This dissertation is inspired by a claim made byCAresearch ers and sociohnguists tha t misunderstandings and thus repa ir areubiquitou s in all kinds of hum an interaction (Schegloff,1991,1992, Schegloff et al,1977, Tannen, 198 4,19 86), com puter-mediated human interaction is no exception

This cha pter is divided into three main sections The first one introdu cesrepair, intersubjectivity, p articip ants ' roles in repair, and po tential sou rces ofmisunderstandings, while the second section reviews the organization ofconversational interaction The last section explores the electronic environm entwhich provides the medium and context in which human social action occurs

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Repair:AConversation Analytic PerspectiveTalk-in-interaction is considered a joint and coo perative u nderta king (Clark,

1996,Gumperz, 1984,Schegloff, 1991,W ardhaugh, 1985), wh ether or not it issmooth, enjoyable, or successful It occurs in a wide range of activities, such asenco unters am ong acquaintance s, discussions, or meetings All of these an d manyother verba l activities cannot be successful if the p articipa nts c annot gra sp wh at isbeing said or can not grasp the significance of wh at is being said However, whe nthey cannot doso ,talk-in-interaction provides them with the sequentialorganization of interaction to detect and afterw ards fix problem atic talk (DrewHeritage, 200 6,Schegloff,1 991,1992, 2000)

The practice of detecting and the n fixing problematic talk, known as repair,can be considered a joint and cooperative undertaking not only because itisoneactivity of talk but also because it require s pa rticipan ts to cooperatively deferwhatever else was due next in order to deal with the problematic talk that imp edestheir shared unde rstandin g of the ongoing interactional work (Schegloff,2000) Thissection is divided into four subsections designed to explore the practice of repair

Defining RepairIn this study, rep air is used as a technical term , following the w ork ofCA

researchers who define it as the treatment of troubles, miscommunications, ormisu nderstan dings occurring in talk-in-interaction (Schegloff et al , 1977, Schegloff,Koshik, Jacoby, Olsher, 2002 ) Similarly, rep air is referred to as a constellation ofpractices through which participants resolve breakdowns in the production and

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22intelligibility of talk (Drew Heritage, 2006) The problem s calling for repa ir maybe caused by difficulties in speaking, listening, or und erstan ding the talk inconversation (Schegloff, 1987,1991,1992,1997, 2000, Schegloff etal, 1977)

That rep air is defined as practice s dealing with difficulty in un dersta ndin gtalk does not mean t ha t it includes within its scope all practices add ressingproblems of understanding, but rathe r only the narrowe r domain of understandin gwha t someone has just said (Schegloff,2000, p 207) In other word s, a repair is ageneral mech anism used to modify the talk after its production (Kurhila,2001,p1084) Thatis,repair does not stand byitself,it necessarily follows what it isintended to repair Acause resulting in repa ir is referred to as a trouble source(henceforth TS) or repairable (Schegloff et al , 1977, p 363) It should be notedtha t repa ir som etimes can be located whe re the re is no error, m istake, or fault, as inthe case of a word sea rch, the opposite is also true Thatis ,audible erro rs, mistakes,or faults sometimes do not lead to repair

Several scholars in pragmatics, sociohnguistics, and comm unication studieshave claimed that misunderstandings are ubiquitous (Adenzato Bucciarelh, 2008,Dascal 1999, Gumperz Cook-Gumperz, 2002 , Mauranen, 2006) This is also truefor a rep aira ble , as claimed by Schegloff et al (1977), noth ingis,in principle,excludable from the class repa irable (p 363) All utter anc es can be troub le sourcesand thus repairable Moreover, utterances used to repair miscommumcation andmisunderstandings can be trouble sources themselves needing to be repa ired

Considering the process of repa ir in relation to the talk -m-pro gress, Schegloff(2000) claims that the organization of repair is an organization of action that can

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replace or defer wh atev er else will be due next The problem detected byparticipan ts needs to be solved before the ongoing talk can resum e This isobserved in face-to-face talk as dem onstrate d in Example 1

Example 1: Repair as an action (Schegloff et al., 197 7, p. 36 7)TS B Oh Sibbie's sistuh hadda ba by bo way (1)

A Who7 (2)B Sibbie's sister (3)A Oh really7 (4)B Myeah, (5)A That's nice (6)

In Example1,repa ir int erru pts the flow of ongoing conversation to, instead, do thebusiness of repair as in turns 2 and 3 These two turn s were inserted into theongoing talk to deal with th e problem in hearing It can be noticed that, after repa iropera tes, there is a mark of possible split betw een the imm ediately preceding talkand the rest of the conv ersation (l e, betw een e-turns1 and 4) According toSchegloff (2000), repair is the only action type tha t has this pro per ty

Aturn a participant produces as a contribution to the ongoing talk canfunction as a regular pa rt of the ongoing talk or as an indicator tha t amisun derstand ing is occurring The latter is inserted into ongoing talk todiscontinue it, so tha t troubles in prior talk are dealt with, mutua l und erstan ding sreestablished, and the talk resume d The next subsection explores how mutual

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24understandings in the talk-in-progress are m aintained and reestablished a s talkemerges

Intersubjectivity:ADisplay of Mutual Und erstanding in TalkThis section relates th e practice of repair, introduce d in the last section, to

the sequential organization of turn-taking, and then dem onstrates how such a turn-taking system leads to the presentation and establishment of shared understand ingsin social actions It is necessary to sta rt off this section with ethnom ethodology, aterm first introdu ced by Garfinkel in 1967 It is defined as the study of the body ofcommon-sense knowledge and the range of procedures and considerations byme ans of which the o rdinary me mb ers of society make se nse of, find their w ayabou t in, and act on the circum stances in which they find them selves (Heritage,1991,p 4) In othe r wo rds, ethnom ethodology reflects the contingent and sociallyconstructed nat ure of both action and un dersta ndin g of action and the role of sharedmethods in the production, recognition, and shared understanding of joint activities

The me thods of practical reaso ning and sense-making which, Garfinkelbelieved, underlay social life were explicated by breac hing expe rimen ts inethnometho dological studies These experim ents we re designed to intentionallydisrup t the taken-for-granted routin es of ordina ry social life in order to ob servehow mem bers dealt with their sudd en lack of certainty As it turn ed out, thebreaching experiments failed to dem onstrate how m utual understandings areconstructed and maintained in the course of mundane interaction (Hutchby Wooffitt, 2008)

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25Because methodologically,CAseeks to uncover the practices, pattern s, and

generally the methods through which participants perform and inte rpret socialaction, whatCAcan contribute to ethnomethodologyisanalytic access to th esituated achieveme nt of intersubjectivity shared or mutua l knowledge andund erstan ding among social actors (Heritage,1991,p 23) or the ma intenan ce ofcommon, share d and even collective und erstand ings betw een social actor s (DrewHeritage, 2006, p 5) Intersubjectivity explains how mutual und erstan ding s can beachieved mom ent by moment or turn by turn as the talk proceeds In thesecoherent moves, participants display to one another their analysis andund erstan ding of one ano ther's conduct a nd of the field of action, principallythroug h sequen ce organization of turn-tak ing According to Goodwin and H eritage(1990), throug h the sequence of turn-taking , action and interp retatio n a reinextricably intertwin ed (p 288) These mutu al unde rstandin gs em phasize the facttha t talk-in-interaction is a strategic setting that allows particip ants to perceive th eworld as the same wo rld and, therefore,CAresearchers to study social sharedn ess(Schegloff,1991, p 150)

Since the beginning of CA, then , the se quential organization of turn -takinghas been the primary focus because it displays how participants' sense-making andunderstanding are established and organized by them during social activities(Heritage, 2008) for the following reason s First, by constructing a cu rren t action orturn, speakers normally project and require normatively the relevance of the next ora range of possible next actions to be done by a subseq uent speak er (Heritage, 200 8,Schegloff,1991 ) This is illustrated in the investigation of seque nce orga nization,

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wh ere the conditional relevance of subs equ ent turn s is expected Put differently,the first speaker's turn makes it conditionally relevant for the next speaker torespond ap propriately in the next turn Second, in producing a current turn ,speakers customarily address themselves to the preceding talk and, mostcommonly, the imm ediately preceding talk (Heritage, 2008 ,Schegloff, 1991) Third,by the production of the next actions, speakers show an un derstand ing of a prioraction or turn (Goodwin Heritage, 1990, Heritage, 2008 ,Schegloff,1991) It isthroug h this activity that o wn ers of the imm ediately preced ing action check if theiraction is correctly interpreted by others

However, in talk-in-progress, spe ake rs of a prior tu rn may find theunderstanding of curren t speakers problematic in terms of understand ing Thesemisu ndersta nding s always occur and as stresse d by Schegloff (1991 ),intersubjectivity is not always untroub led (p 157), therefore, the sequential

organization of ordinary conversation provides participants with the resources forrecognizing the breakdow n of talk in prog ress and repa iring it This point is furtherstressed by Drew and Heritage (2006) any form of systemic organization ha s as abasic engineering problem the ma tter of how to fix problems w hen th e systemenco unters difficulties o r break s down (p 15) For this very purp ose, turn s canfunction as repair

I have presented the practice of repair produced by two participants, onewho ow ns the misunderstood talk and the other on e who locates trouble inund erstan ding However, repa ir may involve only one participan t who initiates andcompletes a repair The next subsection introduces pa rticipants' participatory roles

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in repa ir and how the ir action and involvement s hape th e direction and sequen ce ofrepair

Participants' Roles in R epairRepair is an organization of action tha t deals with trou ble in the preceding

talk It is inserted into ongoing talk in order to reestablish the m utualunde rstand ings among participants before the ongoing talk can resum e This mean sthat th e practice of repair ha s a boundary, it has both a beginning and an endSchegloff (2000) locates the practice of repair which starts from repair-initiationand ends either with solution or aban donm ent of the problem The literature oneveryday conversation distinguishes betwee n who indicates a problem and w hoactually executes the repair The distinction is ma de betweenselfandother

Therefore, self-initiated repair is a repa ir d etected by the o wn er of the TS,while other-initiated repair is a repair done by the recipien t who identifies the TSIn the same fashion, self-completed repair is a repair com pleted by the ow ner ofarepairable , while other-completed re pair is resolved by the recipient Whenselfboth initiates and completes a repair, this is referred to as self-repair Other-completed repair, in the same vein, mea nsotherdoes both repair-initiation andrepair-completion So there are four types of repa ir based on who initiates andcompletes repair self-initiated self-completion (1e, self-repair), self-initiated other-completion, other-initiated self-completion, and other-initiated other-completion(1e, other-repa ir) Example 1, repeate d below, illustrates three comp onents ofrepair, namely, the trouble source, repair-initiation, and repair-completion

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Example 1: Repair as an action (Schegloff et al., 197 7, p. 36 7)TS B Oh Sibbie's sistuh hadd a ba by bo way (1)01 A Who 7 (2)SC B Sibbie's siste r (3)

A Oh really7 (4)B Myeah, (5)A Tha t's nice (6)

In Example 1, theTS,Sibbie'ssistuh,is located in turn 1 B,other,does not hear theword,Sibbie'ssistuh,soBinitiates a repair Ie, other-initiated repair) by askingWho7in turn 2 W ho7is understood byAas a requ est for repetition, whichAdoesrepea t with the wordSibbie'ssister Ie , self-completed rep air) in turn 3 In thisexample, the re is other-initiated self-completion We have seen tha t severalpartic ipants can be involved in the practice of repa ir, how ever, it can also involveonly one person , as illustrated in Example 2

Example2:Self-initiated self-comp letion (Schegloff et al., 19 77 , p. 36 6) .L An' 'en bud all of the doors'n things we re tape d up=

TS L =1mean y'know they put up y'know tha t kinda pape r'r stuff,01 L the brown pape r

Example 2 shows th atLhas trouble in searching for a word when due, though a bitlater he finds the word (l e, thebrownpaper) SoL initiates and completes repair

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29Particip ants' particip atory roles affect the s hape and direction of repa ir, all is

done to ensure th at sources of misunderstanding in talk-in-interaction are properlyresolved As stated earlier, one pro pe rty of repa ir is th at it follows or replaces w hatcomes before it, tha tis,a potential source of misun derstanding Below is adiscussion of some sources of misunderstanding, a phenomen on that repair issubsequently developed to manage

Potential Sources of MisunderstandingIn any communication, participants always manage to get meaning through

as effectively and early as possible (Schegloff, 1979) This is made possible becau se,Schegloff (1987) a rgues, talk in interaction is built for und erstan ding a nd on thewhole effortless und erstan ding (p 202) This section aims to introduc e somepoten tial sources of misu nde rstandin gs that call for repair Notw ithstanding, it isfound th at misund erstandings are pre sent and ubiquitous due to the fact that,among o thers, not e verything can be explicitly said (Gumperz Cook-Gumperz,2002, H eritage,1991,Tannen, 1983 ,1986), that the same things can be differentlyinterpreted (Blum-Kulka Weisman, 1987), and that language systems areambiguous (Channell, 1994, Cutting, 2007, Jucker, Smith, Ludge, 2003) However,methodologically, in CA, the sources of misu nde rstandin gs are identified differentlyEmically speaking, the sources of misunderstandings are only considered troublesources when they lead to repair performed by participants in the talk and, moreimportantly, when they a re recognized by the participants in the course ofinteraction

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Based on the con versation analytic perspective on context, Schegloff (1987)studies problematic talk that resu lts in misunderstanding and divides the causes ofmisund erstanding into two groups The first group, problematic reference (p204), refers to a recipient's utteranc e responding to a speaker, which displays to th espeaker an acceptable unde rstanding of wh at that prior utteran ce was doing butreveals mis und erstan ding of some reference in tha t turn Factors involved in thistype of misunderstanding are, for instance, ambiguous pro-forms, an interpretiveerror, and a fully explicit reference Example 3 illustrates prob lema tic reference

Example3:Problematic reference Schegloff,1 987, p. 204 )TS A Which one s are closed, an which ones are open (1)01 Z Most of em This, this, / / this, this ((pointing)) (2)SC A I on tmean on the shelters,Imean on the roads (3)

Z Oh (4)

Ztreated turn 1 as a request for information andAintends it to be interpreted thisway, butones,m entioned twice in turn 1, is problem atic asZmisinterprets what itrefers to Clearly, wha tZunderstands is different from whatAwants tocommunicate, therefore,Atakes the third turn to initiate and com plete the repair

The second source of misu ndersta nding s, problematic sequentialimplicativeness (Schegloff,1987, p 204), refers to a conve rsational troub le causedby the sequential impo rt of the utterance or turn as a whole This reflects therelationship betw een a speak er's utterance, turn, or turn comp onent which the

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31speake r inten ds to have different effects on the recipient or in which a recipienttakes it in an opposite or different way Problematic sequential implicativeness iscategorized into four types

The first type, serious versus no nsen ous distinction (Schegloff, 1987, p206), refers to when u tterance s trea ted as serious by the recipient may be claimedto have been produced as nonse nou s by speakers This is shown in Example 4.

Example4:Serious vs. nonseriou s distinction Schegloff,19 87, p. 207 )TS A Iw an 'da hk no w ify ihg ota -uh m whutchimicalht A -pah(hh)king

th's mornin' hhOC B Apa rking place,

A Mm hm,SI B Wher e

A t' Oh just anyp (h)la(h)ce 71 wz jus' kidding yuh

The second type, favored action interp retatio ns (Schegloff, 1987, p 208),occurs when a turn prod uced to do one action is taken byotherto be doing a differentaction, wh ere one action appe ars to be favored This is dem onstr ated below

Example 5: Favored action interpretations Schegloff,19 87, p. 208 -9)TS B Well hon ey 7I'll prob'ly see yuh one a'these day s, (1)

A Oh God yeah (2)B Uhh hu h' (3)

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32

01 A B'tIcI jisSC B

W e - (4)couldn' git dow npth ere (5)Oh OhIknow

I'm not askin yuh tuh come dow (6)A Jesus I meanIjis I didn' have five min utes yesterd ay (7)

Example 5 shows that turns 5 and 7 were used byAas she thought tha tBhad madea complaint tha t they could not get toge ther (tu rn 1) In tur n 6,Bthen denied thatshe was complaining and, therefore , used line 6 as a repair-com pletion

Third, the constructive versus composite distinction (Schegloff,1987, p 210)in the understand ing of utterances occurs when wh at se//intends to beconstructively unde rstood byotherisinstead compositely und erstoo d This isexemplified in Example 6

Example 6: Constructive vs. com po site d istinction Schegloff,19 87, p. 21 1)B but-hh lately71 have fears a'dnving

over a bridge (1)((silence))

B And uh seemsIuh - 1 just can'ttuh (sit) - ifIhevuh haftuh crossa bridgeIjus',don't (go an'make -uh-do the) trip at all (2)

TS A W haddyuh afraid of (3)

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01 B I dun'kno w, see uh (4)OC A Well I mean wa itam'n Wh at kind of fear

is it 'R you afraid ye r gunnuh drive off the e dge 7'R youafraid thet yer gunnuhhit while yer on it7What (5)

B Offtheedge 'rsumthin (6)

Example 6 is from a phone call to a talk show TheTS is located in tur n 3 ThequestionWhaddyuh afraidofcan be un derstood either, constructively, as a req uestfor information or, compositely, as som ething betw een a reassu ranc e and a jeerThe respon se /don't know ,then, showsBto be add ressed to th e latter he aring ofprior turn, whereasAmeant the former Athen initiated repair in turn 5 redoingwh at was meant in the first place Turn 5 reveals thatWhaddyuh afraidofwasintended as a request for information

Fourth, the practice of the joke first (Schegloff,19 87, p 212) can be asource of misunderstanding Thatis,joke firstsa re produced as intentionalmisund erstandings of the prior talk which has set the terms for the joking spe aker'stalk The practice of ajoke first occurs when a participant provides a joke firstbefore providing a serious response next A joke first makes the next serious turnconditionally relevant This is shown in Example 7

Example 7:Jok e first Schegloff,19 87, p. 21 3)TS J You study the Tiw i7 (1)

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01 R Tea Wee (leafs) Tell people (fortune) (2)SC J No, the Tiwi(0 2) the

Tiwi of North Australia (3)R Ihave heard of them (4)

So far,Ihave introduced the practice of repair, intersubjectivity, repair positions,and some sources of misund erstandings in this section There are threeobservations to be introduced here First, repair as previously argued is not regularongoing talk in tha t it is inser ted into ongoing talk and it defers w hat is due next Inessence, it is a separa te organized action

Secondly, a repai r prac tice tha t involves onlyself,as in same-turn repair andtransition-space repair, does not reflect how p articipants reestablish mutualunderstand ings during everyday talk-in-interaction In contrast, a repair practicethat involves two or more pa rticipants repre sents a reesta bhsh me nt of jointunderstand ings (or intersubjectivity) when each takes a turn after theconversational system encounters difficulties and breaks down

Thirdly, some sources of misunderstanding we re touched uponMisunderstandings and the practice of repair can be po tential and, according to aconversation analytic method, are only realized when they are talked into being incontext It is then that decisions about what these are become app arent That is,only participants in an ongoing conversation are able to recognizemisunderstandings or sources of misunderstandings as such, this emphasizes theparticipants' perspective

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In order to help und erstand the sequence organization of interaction inwhich rep air is found and in order to m ake discussion of my data clea rer, the nextsection pre sen ts some fundamentals of sequenc e organization namely, turn-takin g,adjacency pairs, and insertion sequences

Organization of Conversational In teractionSo far,Ihave presen ted how a turn functions as repair once troubles in

speaking, hearing, and understand ing a re located and how pa rticipants are involvedin the practice of repair simply by being the nex t speak er or, in oth er wo rds, takingthe next turn Speaking-next reveals the mutual unde rstanding that speakers haveso far interactionally built Indeed, a repair is performed in a sequen ce of turns ,illustrated in three types of organization below

Turn-Taking O rganizationSpeaker change is characteristic of talk-in-interaction (Sacks et a l, 1974) It

can be observed when th ere are two turns one belongs to the current speaker andthe next one to the next speaker The rule may be as simple as once the first speakerends his turn, the next one begins a new turn However, itismore complicated an dsystem atic than it seems, not only becau se, as Schegloff (2 006) argues, it deals withwho should talk or move or act next and when should they doso (p 61),but also

because all participants m ust achieve this or the talk cannot continue BeforeIdiscuss the turn-taking system, itisessential to understand wh at a turn is and how itis constructed This is discussed next

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36Turns and turn-constructional units.Turns, according to Sacks et al (1974), consist of stretche s of language which

are formed as a unit This unit is named the turn-con struction al un it (henceforthTCU), which includes sentential, clausal, phrasal, and lexical constru ctions (p702) One turn can consist of one or mo re small TCU's Examples 8-10 illustrateturn-constructional components which have different linguistic forms

Example 8: Single-word turns (Sacks etal., 1974, p. 702)Desk What is you r last name Loraine

Caller Dinnis- > Desk Wh at7 Caller Dinnis

Example9:Single-clause turns (Sacks etal., 1974, p. 703 )A Uh you been down here before havencheB Yeh

A Wh ere the s idewalk is7B Yeah,

A W hun tends ,B Goes alla wayup there7A They c'm up tuh the re,B Yeah

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Example 10: Single-sentence turns (Sacks et al., 1974)Ken I still say though th at -if you take uh a big fancy car out on the road

and you 're hotroddin' a round, you're- you're bound to get- you'rebou nd to get shafted

Although a turn can con sist of aTCUwhich can be a sente ntial, clausal, phrasal, orlexical construction, it does not necessarily mean tha t all tur ns fit into these singlelinguistic categories (Liddicoat, 2007, Schegloff, 1996, Seedhouse, 2004) InExample 11 below, it can be seen tha ta t(turn3) ,though it is conside red a lexicalconstruction, stand s alone In a linguistic sense, however, this wo rd does no tusually stand alone

Example11:Stand-alon e linguistic form Schegloff, 199 6, p. 76)

T h e r W h a t k m d o f w o r k d o y o u d o7 (1)Mom Food service (2)

- Ther At7 (3)Mom (A) / (uh) post office cafeteria downtown main post office

on Redwoood (4)Ther Okay (5)

So far, it may have seemed tha t turn-con struction al units can be con structed out oflexical, phrasal, clausal, or senten tial unit This reflects the fact that seve ralCAresearchers emphasize the importance of syntactic structure in conversation

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interactional significance because the place between them creates a socially-sharedplace which can lead to the possible change of speak ership As in this example,Harry may project to be the next spea ker after Joy's /tri ed This socially-sharedplace in talk-in-progress will be exam ined again in the next section

I have included in the discussion tur ns an d possibleTCUs',from aCAperspe ctive which differentiate them from linguistic systems The possiblecompletion of TCU's may be d eterm ined by lexical, phrasa l, or clausal com pletion,which is groupe d unde r syntax Other indicators include intonatio nal com pletion,pragm atic completion, and social action completion The possible completion ofTCU's can be seen wh en th ese elem ents a re achieved, singly or in comb inationEmically speaking, it is a possibleTCUwhen it is recognized by participan ts aspossibly comp lete, and also as performing a social action (Liddicoat, 2007) Thenext subsection examines th e spac e tha t follows possible TCU's, namely, tran sitionrelevance place

Transition relevance placeSacks et al (1974) arg ued th at, although one perso n talks at a time, the re is

speaker change Aspeaker change permits pa rticipants to take a turn in order tohave their men tionables talked abo ut (Schegloff Sacks, 1973 , p 300) Languageand social action have developed units of talk and rules of tur n allocation to ens uretha t participan ts achieve this goal While tur ns and TCU's w ere touched uponabove, rules of turn allocation will be pres ente d below It is essential to first explorethe place in talk-in-interaction tha t allows speak er change

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Speake r change is found to occur thro ugh ou t talk-in-interac tion However,the place wh ere it is found is not random but interactionally systematic The placewh ere th ere is a possible change of speak er is called a transition relevance placeorTRP(Sacks et al, 1974, p 703) Once aTCUis brought to a possible end, there isaTRP,which mea ns that, at aTRP,speaker change can, but n eed not, occur

Speaker change is a norma tive process in which participan ts in a conversationemploy one signal or a combination of the signals discussed above in ord er tosuccessfully take the next turn However, the re is often a coordina tion problem(Heritage, 2008), for instance, there are gaps and overlaps found in the mom ent inwhich there is speake r change This problem can occur more often in multi-partyconversations However, talk has a mechanism that deals with who can talk, andwho can talk next and when This mechanism is reviewed next

Turn allocation comp onent.The mechanism tha t deals with tur n contribution, as touched upon above, is

known as the turn allocation com ponent (Sacks et al , 1974, p 703) Sacks et al(1974) prop osed that the re are two way s in which a recipient can become the nex tspeaker, and these are performed hierarchically

First, the cur rent speak er selects the next speaker This can be achieved inmany different ways,for example, the u se ofeyegaze (Goodwin, 1981) or context(Lerner, 2003) Another device is the use of a question asked by the cur rentspeaker, which makes an a nsw er a relevant next action, as shown in Example 13

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41Example 13 : Question (Liddicoat, 2007 , p. 64)

Joy: how 's thingsHarry: Not ba:d Joy.

The next strategyisthe use of an addre ss term . It can be seen in Example 14 that thefirst speaker also uses the pronou nyou.

Example 1 4: Qu estion (Liddicoat, 2007 , p. 64)Joy: Have juh got the pap ers for the meetingye'CarolCarol: Yeah=they came in th's morning

The use of the p ronoun youis not problematic when it is a two-party conversation;howe ver, it is ambiguou s when it is a multi-party conv ersation. To solve thisproblem, the curr ent speaker may use context, turn design, physical location, andeye gaze (Lerner, 1996a, 2003 ). After a single strategy or a com bination of thestrateg ies is used, the next spe aker is identified. The next speake r has the rights andobligations to take the next turn , and no one else does. If one who is not selectedtalks,his talk is considered an acc ountable action tha t need s an explanation.

Secondly, if the talk so far has no t employed th e current-spe aker-selects-ne xtrule,the next speak er self-selects. Whoever s tarts talking first and no one else hasthe righ ts and is obliged to take the tu rn. The speaker who self-selects often startstalking after a brief silence following the turn-con structional compon ent. There a retimes when there are no recipients selecting themselves to be the next speaker.

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42

This is evident wh en the TRP is extended or whe n the cu rren t spea ker usescontmuers (eg,yeah, u hhuh,etc ) Thirdly, if these two rules- current-speaker-selects-next and self-selection for next speak ership- have not ope rated, the c urren tspeak er may, bu t need not, continue talking Once his turn has reached th e next TRPor subseque nt ones, these three rules reapply

So far,Ihave presented how turns are p roduced as a unit which may consistof small TCU's Units of talk and rules of tur n allocation a re conv ersation almechanisms designed to allow participants to collaboratively produce their turnTurn-taking beh avior is indeed a socially-constructed behavior, while rulesdesigned to help participants take turns appropriately are considered normativeand interactionally enacted by participa nts in talk-in-interaction Having discussedturns, turn construction, and turn completion,Iwill next demo nstrate how turns areorganized to form coordina ted social actions

Sequence OrganizationI have noted th at a turn by the first speaker m akes speaker change a relevant

next action The relationship between these two turns repre sents sequenceorganization, which is a primary focus ofCA Sacks (1987) defines a sequence asthe pa rts which are occu rring one after the other, or are in some before an d after

relationship, and have some organization as betw een them (p 54) The relationbetw een two consecutive turn s within a sequence can be explained by wh at Schegloffand Sacks (1973) call adjacency pairs (p 295), which are pres ente d next

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Adjacency pairs.To help explain the sequential relationship between tu rns th at a re

considered adjacency p airs, it is impo rtant to discuss the co ncept of conditionalrelevance, suggested by Sacks (1972) The term m eans given the first[item],thesecond [item] is expectable, upon its occurrence it can be seen to be a second itemto the first (Schegloff,1968, p 1083) Items her e refer to particip ants'expectations in regard to the sequential organization of tur ns in con versation(Bussmann, 1999, p 229) Conditional relevance can be observed in sequence ofturn s, for instance, a turn can initiate a particular type of action to be produced bythe next speaker Examples of conditional relevance includes greetings, such ashellowhich occasions anotherhello,as doesh i,questions which require answers,invitations which involve either acceptances or rejections, and an noun cem entswhich involve either con gratulations o r condolences, etc

The seque ntial relationship between two turn s is called a sequence pair ,adjacency pair (Schegloff Sacks,1973,p 295), or utteranc e pair (Sacks 1987,

p 56) Schegloff and Sacks (1973) conclude th at the characteristics of adjacencypairs are as follows Firstly, the adjacency pair consists of sequen ces prod uced bytwo different pa rticipan ts Secondly, the sequence has two uttera nce s, the firstutterance produ ced by the first speaker, the other produced by the second speakerThirdly, the first utteranc e,Ie, first pair part, precedes the second utteran ce,Ie ,second pair part The first pair pa rt is produced to initiate the next action, while thesecond pair pa rt is designed to complete the action initiated in the first pair pa rtAfter th e first pair pa rt is produced, its speake r customa rily stops talking at the first

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Ton WellIwz won dering when 'e left

Example 18: Invitation-accep tance (Liddicoat, 20 07 , p 11 0)Amy w'd yuh like tuh come over t'mo rrow nightJane yea h =that'd be nice

Examples 15-18 indicate sequences of adjacency pairs Schegloff and Sacks (197 3)emphasized th at both th e first and second pa rts of a sequence m ust be m embe rs ofthe same pair-type The completion of adjacency pairs largely depen ds on wh eth eror not the second pa rticipant recognizes the first pair part as such and whe ther ornot he respon ds to it, especially in the way that the first speaker c onsiders releva ntTwo cues for understandin g tha t the second participant can rely on when hearingthe first pair pa rt are syntactic structure and conven tional formulas of the first pairpa rt (Schegloff Sacks, 1973)

One of the ch aracteristics of sequences of adjacency pairs, as explainedabove, is that th e first and second pair p arts a re physically and imm ediately placedadjacent to each other (e g, question followed by answ er) However, un der somecircumstances, the second pair par t does not imm ediately follow the first one Thisphenomenon is elaborated below

Insertion sequences.Adjacency p airs req uire that, after the first pair par tisproduced by the first

speaker, the second pair part should be immediately produced, adjacent to the first

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46one,by the second speak er How ever, i t has been found that these seq uen ces ar esom etim es inter rup ted by oth er talk (Schegloff, 1972 ) Th at is, a ne w adjacency p airis inserte d be twe en the first pair par t and second pa ir part of the previouslyprod uced adjacency pair The condit ional relevance of the previou sly-prod ucedadjacency pa ir is brok en by the par t icipan ts ' involvement in an oth er adjacency p airThis can be seen b elow

Example 19: Insert ion seq uen ces (Schegloff, 19 72 , p. 78)Q l A Are you coming ton ight 7Q2 B Can I brin g a gu est 7A2 A SureA l B I'll be the re

Example 20: Insert ion sequ en ces (Schegloff, 19 72 , p. 78)Q l A Have you seen Jim7Q2 B Was he in toda y 7A2 A YeahA l B No, I did n't see him

It can be observed in Examples 19-20 that the first pair part of the first adjacencypair is sep arate d from the second pair pa rt of the sam e pair-type by a secondadjacency pair This can be more com plicated, as in Example 2 1

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47Example2 1:Insertion sequences Schegloff,1 972 , p. 79)Ql A Are you coming tonight 7Q2 B CanIbring a guest7Q3 A Male or female7Q4 B Wh at difference does tha t m ak e7A4 A An issue of balanceA3 B FemaleA2 A SureA l B I'll be the re

Schegloff (1972) argu ed th at this pheno me non is so distinctive that th e absence ofthe second pair part and th e replacement of the second pair pa rt with som ethingelse unrecognizable as an answ er does no t lead to a repair-initiation, it also does notlead the first pair part of the new adjacency pa ir to be accountable and in need ofexplanation The reason for this is that whatev er sequence is inserted between theoriginal adjacency pairs, although it interru pts the ongoing talk, it does no t cancelthe relevance of the original second pair pa rt Those insertion seq uence s areconsidered relevant to the first pair part and to the projected second pa ir pa rt

In brief,this section has introduced the sequential organization ofconversational interaction, which was pioneered byCAresearch ers The purposewas not only to provide background information on how p articip ants u se talk as acourse of action to accomplish social actions in talk-in-interaction, b ut also to helpexplain how participan ts interac t to accomplish such actions online The next

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section introduces the electronic environment in which human social interactioncan be found, and reviews literatu re on on line social interaction

Electronic Environment as a Communicative ContextBydefault, huma ns comm unicate verbally and non-verbally because b oth

sounds(1e, voice) and images(1e, body m ovement) can be perceived by otherparticipa nts witho ut using any devices With the internet, we can be physicallysepara ted by distance b ut can still commun icate, textually(1e , by typing texts) andvisually(1e, by reading text) Although the medium and channels have been alteredby the interne t, we can communicate and perform social activities This sectionexplores the intern et as a medium for social interaction, synchronous text-basedcomm unication on the inte rnet, linguistic features of language on the intern et, andhuman social interaction on the internet

Internet: Techn ologies for Comm unicationThe In ternet, first know n as ARPANET (Advanced R esearch Project Agency

Network) in 1969 and renamed Internet in 1983, is a number of computers linkedtogeth er into a comm unication network (Baron, 2003) It was initially intend ed forscientific comm unication in the United States and rem ained in use for the samepurposes until the 1970s (DiMaggio, Hargittai, Neuman, Robinson, 2001) It wa snot until the 1980s tha t ordinary people began to have access to com puternetw orks The inter net is the fastest growing new commu nication technology(Flaherty, Pearce, Rubin, 1998) which provide s different w ays of comm unication

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49such as electronic mail (or email) and web chats Operating on network edcomp uters, the chat programs th at are c urrently in use can be dated back to 1988wh en th e first on line chat program s, Intern et Relay Chat or IRC, was writte n by aFinnish student to enable synchron ous communication Differences betw een thechat program in the eighties and the ones currently in use are, among others, the useof emoticons (discussed below), allowance of a private cha nnel and multiplechannels, the number of characters in each e-turn,etc

It should be rem arked tha t the int ern et is not limited only to technologies forcom mun ication In fact, as inclusively defined by DiMaggio et al (2001) , theintern et is an electronic netwo rk that links people and information throughcomputers and other digital devices, allowing person-to-person communication andinformation retrieval (p 30 7) Bellamy and Hanewicz (1999) and Santoro (1994)agree with this definition and prop ose that, according to its purp oses, the inte rne t isdivided into hum an-hum an comm unication and informatics However, the formerreceives close attention from researchers from language-related disciplines becauseofitscompletely new and un ique channels of human communication and because itdeals with d irect human-human personal and group communicative practices, and itis thu s the focus of the next sub section

Computer-Mediated CommunicationMurray (1991) defines com puter-m ediated com munication as any hum an-

hum an comm unication med iated via com puter (p 18) This definition unde rscore scomp uters and networks as mediators of human comm unication Several authors

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50have added to the definition ofCMCthat it is mainly text-based natura l languagethat is transm itted a nd /or received via a computer connection (Baron,2003,Herring, 2001) These definitions recognize tha tCMCtakes place on the internet,thoughCMCcan ope rate on several new portab le devices (this is discussed in thefollowing section)

I considerCMCas interperso nal human comm unication, mostly in the form oftyped text, tha t is enhanc ed by a netw orked system In general,CMCis divided intoasynchronous Ie, delayed-time) and synchronous (l e, real-time) communication(Kiesler et al , 19 84), according to the level of interactiveness and the depen denceon the presence ofaco-participant for the comm unication to take place The formerdoes not require p articipants to be online at the same time in order to communicate(e g, email, discussion boa rds), while the latter do es (e g, ch at) The time lag of theformer tend s to be greater than tha t of the latter

Online chats, one activity of synchronous CMC, not only permit human-human communication to operate but also provide a new empirical arena forvarious rese arch traditio ns in linguistics, comm unication, educa tion, psychology,and sociology, due to the fact that th ey resu lt in completely novel and u nique socialinteraction in which language, communicative practices, learning, cogmtively- an dsocially-related be havio rs, and comm unities emerge

Indeed, a debatable question regarding synchronousCMCis no longer whe theror not technologies of communication affect language, human behav iors,comm unication, and society (Baron,2003,DiMaggio et a l,2001,Kiesler et al, 1984)but, rather, un der w hat circumstances, in what ways, and to wh at extent they do so

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(Herring, 200 2,20 04b , Walther, 2004) This section does not exhaustively discuss allof the effects of synchronousCMCbu t rath er gives an overview of its characteristics

Techn ically, is synchrom city a criterion?Initially,CMCcan be divided into synchronous and asynchronous modes

according to the synchrom city of participation Yet, Kalman and Rafaeh (2007)disagree with t he idea of dichotomizingCMCinto asynchronous and synchronousmodes and propo se a continuum between highly asynchronous on the one end andhighly synchronous on the oth er because of several factors discussed below

Their analysis of ma nne rs in which participan ts actually utilizeCMCpresentsthree important findings First, during the course of communication, there areseveral activities that ope rate on the int erne t which ranges from highlyasynchron ous to highly synchron ous For example, participa nts may first chatonline, then u se a discussion board, before exchanging several emails Participan tsmay even use a first pair pa rt of an adjacency p air in one mode, and the receivermight respo nd in a different mode (l e , second pair part) (Murray, 1988b)

Second, the re a re interm ediate levels of synchromcity found in eachCMCactivity Online chats, for example, can be highly synchronous w hen th e twoparticip ants interactively converse Although email is recognized as asynch ronous,it may be considered synchron ous if the rec eiver is logged on wh en th e em ail is sentand respond s immediately It is imp ortan t to note that the feature of synchromcityis dynamic rat he r than static because, for example, email may be as fast as or evenfaster than online chats

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52Third, the levels of synchromcity a re no t only a function of the medium being

used but also of decisions made by particip ants Users constan tly make decisions onthe level of synchromcity they prefer for each conversational exchange they ar einvolved in Most particip ants a re aw are of the technological functions of availablemedia tha t can serve their need or the context of situation (Murray 1988b p 351)Murray (1988b) suggests that the context of situation covers the nature of the topicbeing communicated (whethe r it is sensitive, wh ether it is recorded, or whe ther it isa secret) Also, the context of situation covers the availability of a certainCMCmodeat tha t mom ent In addition, the context of situation includes the relationshipbetwee n th e sende r and th e receiver, amou nt of time for participants to com municate,and the n ature of communication (e g, w hether or not it is urgent, or secret)

Kalman and Rafaeh (2007) p ropo se four technological trend s facilitated byadvanced computer netw orks that weaken the dichotomy distinguishingasynch ronous and synchron ous First, the ease and ubiquity of digitahzation allowsinformation to be digitahzed and comm unicated anytime anyw here Secondly, theconvergence of media blurs the boundaries b etween the message and th e m ediumused to create the message and to receive it Third, the increasing availability andquality of wireless co nnection allow devices to be online all the time Fourth,portability allows messages to be created, sent, and responded to instantly, andstored indefinitely These four factors imply th at synchromcity of compu ter-me diated comm unication does no t reflect a function of technologies forcomm unication, but rath er a result of user preference s a nd decisions at the timethey com municate

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54L