







































Education, Language and Sociology Research 
ISSN 2690-3644 (Print) ISSN 2690-3652 (Online) 

Vol. 2, No. 1, 2021 
www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/elsr 

Original Paper 

A Conversation Analysis of Staff Members’ and Researchers’ 

Repair Strategies in the Iraqi University Viva Discussions in 

English  
Mohammed Jasim Betti1 & Mohammed Abbas Mahdi1 

1 Department of English, College of Education for Humanities, University of Thi-Qar, Nasiriya, Iraq 

 

Received: November 15, 2020  Accepted: November 30, 2020 Online Published: December 17, 2020 

doi:10.22158/elsr.v2n1p14      URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/elsr.v2n1p14 

 

Abstract 

This article studies the Conversation Analysis (CA) of Iraqi university staff members’ and researchers’ 

self-repair and other-repairs strategies in the Iraqi University Viva Discussions in English (IUVDE). It 

aims at constructing a model for repair strategies to describe those academic discussions in English, 

which is taken from representative authors and writers, studying and analyzing repair strategies and 

correction, and arriving at the types of self-repair and other-repair operations and strategies used by 

the participants in the study, something which characterize their academic discussions. The collected 

data of the study include four hours and ten minutes of audiotaped oral interactions of the staff members 

and researchers’ interactions in the viva discussions of some departments in some universities in Iraq. 

The data is recorded in 2019. The theoretical framework adopted in this study is a CA one.  

The study concludes that the eclectic model suggested and applied in this study, being comprehensive, 

works successfully to describe the designated areas and types of repair strategies, the staff members 

(examiners) in the discussions prove proficient in using self-repair and other-repair operations 

efficaciously. It is also concluded that the Iraqi university staff members and researchers use self-repair 

strategies which are recycling, deleting, reformatting replacing, inserting aborting, sequence jumping, 

and reordering, and they use other-repair ones which are candidate understanding, partial repeats, full 

repeats, replacement candidate understanding, open class repairs, request for translation and 

explanation, request for definition and explanation, interrogative words and request for repetition. 

Likewise, staff members are proven to produce more repair cases than researchers. 

Keywords 

Conversation Analysis, repair strategies, Viva Discussions in English, Iraqi university staff members 

and researchers 

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1. Introduction 

Language is a means of communication between interlocutors, which is sometimes hardly delivered by 

its partakers as faultless as they anticipated (Feltner, 2016, p. 1). Participants of any talkative activity 

may encounter frequent occurrences of “disfluencies” e.g., “umms”, “ahhs”, “hesitation markers”, 

“misarticulations”, exploitation of “a wrong word”, inaccessibility to a word if looked-for, “failure to 

hear or to be heard”, and inappropriate understandings by receivers, or some other talk troubles, etc. 

(Sert, 2015, pp. 88-89; and McTear et al., 2016, p. 42; Tracy, 2020, p. 203). Such a joint or two-way 

talkative activity indicates that the process of talking is participant dependent.  

As a result, such a trouble may explicate that any instance, which impedes the continuous 

meaning-making of mutual understanding, seems to be dispreferred and the participants are of 

instantaneous need to be terminated and fixed at once (Bazerman, 2012, pp. 228-229). Conversation 

has a powerful mechanism, which is called repair organization that is exploited in interaction to prevent 

and to fix any unsuccessful instances of talk in exchange which may cause serious communicative 

breakdowns between the involved partners of talk. This strategic organization of repair is then operated 

to capacitate talkers of unavoidable interactive breakdowns of talk (Moore & Arar, 2018, p. 9). 

Implementing repair strategies can encourage interlocutors and provoke them to talk more, and repair 

can be considered as a productive mechanism to foster language skills (Pachler et al., 2014, p. 74).  

This paper studies the repair strategies of Iraqi university staff members and researchers in viva 

discussions in English. The study is set to bridge the gap by addressing the following research 

questions: 

1). What repair strategies do the participants in IUVDE use? 

2). What are the trajectories of repair used in the IUVDE? 

3). Does repair or correction exist in the data?  

The aims of the addressed research questions, the study sets to achieve, are as follows: 

1). Constructing a model for repair strategies to describe the Iraqi university staff members’ and 

researchers’ repair strategies in IUVDE. This model is constructed from representative authors and 

writers. It should be comprehensive to account for all repair strategies and should be workable to 

describe all the study data.  

2). Observing, transcribing, describing and analyzing self-repair and other-repair strategies and 

correction, and the types of trajectories and the repair strategies of both staff members and researchers 

in IUVDE. 

3). Arriving at the types of self-repair and other-repair operations used by the participants in the study 

and characterize their academic discussions. 

The data includes oral recordings of some staff members’ and researchers’ repair strategies in IUVDE. 

The sample of the study consists of (12) staff members and researchers specialized in English and it 

consists of (4 hours and 10 minutes) hours of naturally occurring interactions in academic discussions. 

The time of recording the data is between 2019. 
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To the best of the researchers’ knowledge, no study inside Iraq is conducted to investigate the use of 

repair strategies in the staff members’ and researchers’ use of repair strategies in IUVDE. It is very 

essential for researchers in CA, and definitely in the other fields, to illuminate and abridge gaps in 

scientific researches. Likewise, dissimilar to some other studies conducted about repair, this study deals 

with several sides of repair strategies not just one side. It includes an account of self-repair, other-repair, 

structural trajectories, a comparison in the use of repair strategies between staff members and 

researchers and the use of correction compared to repair. In addition, such a study is very important to 

shed light upon the staff members’ and researchers’ competence and performance.  

To fulfill the aims of the study, an eclectic conversational analytic model is selected from 

representative theorists and writers and incorporated to describe the repair strategies used by the Iraqi 

university staff members and researchers. The theories which constitute the current model include the 

following: 

1). Schegloff (2013), it is used to analyze self-repair strategies. 

2). Schegloff et al. (1977) and Schegloff and Sacks (2018), they are used to analyze the trajectories of 

repair, and some other-initiated repair initiators.  

3). Kendrick (2015a, 2015b), and Schegloff and Sacks (2018), they are used to analyze 

other-initiated repair strategies. 

4). Jefferson (1987, 2007), it is exploited to analyze other-corrections. 

5). Dulton-Puffer (2007), Roshan (2014), and Schegloff and Sacks (2018), they are used to analyze 

repair, non-repair, miss-repair, and repair failures.  

 

2. Theoretical Framework 

2.1 Conversation Analysis 

CA goes back to the pioneering studies done by Harvey Sacks, Emanuel Schegloff, and Gail Jefferson 

in the 1960s to 1970s. Fundamentally, it is well motivated and originated through the influence of 

sociology. Since that, it is developed as an interdisciplinary nature with fields such as anthropology, 

psychology, communication, cognitive science, evolutionary theory, education, clinical research and 

practice, and electrical engineering (Clift, 2016: xv; and Hoey & Kendrick, 2018, pp. 151-154). 

CA is one of the approaches, which deals with social interaction. Several definitions of CA are 

proposed. Generally, it is “the study of talk”. More particularly, “it is the systematic analysis of the talk 

produced in everyday situations of human interaction: talk-in-interaction” (Hutchby & Wooffitt, 2002, 

pp. 13-14). It can also be defined from a methodologic-theoretic orientation as “an inductive, 

micro-analytic, and predominantly qualitative method for studying human social interactions”. This 

definition highlights explicitly one of the CAs’ key principles and different methodologies from other 

social approaches to discourse. It directly calls for the use of naturally occurring data and qualitatively 

motivated approaches for verifying the claims in dealing with social interaction (Candling et al., 2017, 

pp. 156-166; and Zhou, 2020, pp. 99). 
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According to CA, language is a social action and thus talk is systematically organized and ordered. 

Therefore, one of the main objectives of CA is to analyze actions socially to explain by what means 

individuals “do social action not why they act as they do” (Have, 2007, p. 9). For that reason, 

conversation analysts believe that it is highly important to study everyday conversation in different 

contexts since firstly, it is the basic communicative device in different organizations and different 

institutional settings by which our lives are based on, secondly, for finding out the model of interaction 

of people at all times and contexts (Garcia, 2013, p. 7).  

Another salient feature of the methodological orientation of CA is the naturalness of data, which 

necessitates the actuality of talk; this means that gathering data through “interviewing techniques, 

observational methods, native intuitions, or experimental methodologies” is not allowed since this 

violates the sense of being natural in collecting data (Wong & Waring, 2010, p. 4). 

One consequence of such methodology is that the data must be systematically transcribed with the 

special distinctive system because such natural data is extremely rich with details (Bergmann & Drew, 

2018, pp. 1-7). Accordingly, the transcription systems of CA tend to be too complex, and for the reason 

that, researchers are expected to deal with the transcription of the conversation, in 

simplicity-driven-approaches (Renkema & Schubert, 2018, pp. 215-217).  

However, CA is not the only social discipline, which deals with language social interactivity in that, 

social interaction has many approaches, which address the process of interaction. Undoubtedly, one 

prominent discipline, which shares significant key principles with CA, is the approach of Discourse 

Analysis (DA). DA is an approach, which functions as an apparatus to analyze linguistic patterns of the 

language across diverse domains such as the domain of text, social context, and the cultural one in 

which the language takes place (Partridge, 2012, pp. 1-2). DA is not just the study of language. It is a 

way of looking at language that emphasizes how people use it in real life to do things, such as jokes, 

argument and persuasion, and to show that they are particular sorts of people or belong to certain groups 

(Betti & Hashim, 2018, p. 279).  

“Text and discourse apply equally to speech and writing in spite of some tendency to associate text with 

writing and discourse with speech. In fact, though writing and speech may differ in many ways, they 

share the same structure” (Betti, 2007, p. 400). 

As a result, and to be more precise, it is remarkable to outline the technicality of both CA and DA. In 

this regard, both notions have some different and similar key principles. From this perspective, there is 

closeness in the field of investigation of everyday interaction and thus they are similar in the talk, 

which is subject to investigation, along with, all the characteristics and details of data, which are 

significant. Additionally, “ethnomethodology” has an impact on both of them (Wooffitt, 2005, pp. 

71-73). Ethnomethodology refers to a distinctive way of social investigation, which is aimed to outline 

the ways which social individuals use for establishing social order and intelligibility in communicative 

social interaction. However, CA can be considered as one of the subdivisions of the 

ethnomethodological orientations to social interaction (Bloor & Wood, 2006, pp. 75-76). 
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Nevertheless, both CA and DA differ in some dissimilar key principles. Accordingly, CA is concerned 

with social action while DA is cornered with the orientation of the social action in that it deals with talk 

in interaction whereas DA operates in discovering language practices and its properties in talk or text. 

Moreover, the language in CA is used to perform interpersonal actions within its social organizations 

while in DA it is seen in terms of the social function they perform (Wooffitt, 2005, pp. 78-80). 

Furthermore, both CA and DA are at variance in terms of the attention paid to the empirical analysis, 

the methodology, the nature of data and the analyticity of findings, and the tools used to validate such 

empirical arguments through naturally occurring data (ibid: 89). 

It should be pointed out that CA is privileged to have promising features in that it investigates not only 

everyday talk-in-interaction but also it can operate in institutional settings such as classroom discourse, 

doctor-patient discourse, and journalistic interviews, etc. (Renkema & Schubert, 2018, p. 215). 

Additionally CA has a considerable inventory of structural practices which are used to analyze 

talk-in-interaction such as turn-taking, sequence organization, action formation, repair, word selection 

(including person reference), storytelling and the overall structural organization of interaction, etc. 

(Hoey & Kendrick, 2018, p. 153; and Li, 2020, p. 67).  

In this regard, turn-taking refers to “the change from one speaker to another in conversations and 

dialogues. Turn-taking is made possible by a verbal or nonverbal bid, e.g., so that’s what we’re going 

to do, that’s was all I wanted to know, that’s fine … or by completing an initiating act, or by gazing or 

looking at the listener” (Betti & Al-Jubouri, 2015, p. 307). 

2.2 Definition of Repair   

Hayashi et al. (2013, p. 9) define the organization of repair as “a set of systematically organized, 

party-administered practices through which a conversation’s participants manage such inescapable 

contingencies”. Schegloff et al. (1977, p. 361) state that “repair operates in conversation, and is 

addressed to the recurrent problems in speaking, hearing, and understanding”. Similarly, Fox and 

Jesperson (1995, p. 80) define repair as “any instance in which an emerging utterance is stopped in 

some way, and is then aborted, recast, or redone”.  

As such, repair is one of the interactive resources accessible to speakers in the process of talk. Thus, the 

organization of repair is responsible for providing participants with appropriate resources to deal with 

possible obstacles while speaking, in that it affords diverse practices to fix these troubles. That is why, 

Tye-Murray (2020, p. 163) states that repair strategies are tactics available to the participant to rectify 

communicative breakdowns in conversation and remedying any communicative trouble. This magnifies 

the domain of repair strategies to a wider layer in communication.  

The word repair is widely acknowledged by researchers, in terms of its acceptability, as a covering 

term to communicative breakdowns (Alzaidi, 2016, pp. 20-22). Another significant implication of the 

wide scope of repair’s definition is that “repair” is used rather than “correction” because “correction” is 

meant to refer to the process of replacement of an “error” or “mistake” by what is correct. This term is 

preferred to cover all the communicative breakdowns of conversation and for its sense of wide 
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applicability to all domains of interactions. Moreover, repair “[is] neither contingent upon error nor 

limited to replacement” (Schegloff & Sacks, 2018, p. 95). Mechanism of repair is of two main forms; 

firstly, it is a conversational one that functions in common purposes and contexts of interaction. 

Secondly, a didactic one, which is similar to the above-mentioned one but it, has a pedagogical nature 

(Nassaji , 2015, p. 93). 

2.3 Components of Repair  

The repair process consists of components on which the mechanism of repair is based. These 

components are working sequentially and harmonically with each other at the time of executing repair. 

As such, Repair is composed of structural sequential components that work in-talk-interaction. These 

components are trouble-source, repair initiation, and repair outcome (Kim & Park, 2015, p. 240): 

1). The Trouble Source  

The trouble source ( the repairable), which is a word, phrase, utterance, or something else; that contains 

problem to the ongoing progressivity of turn-taking system and thus it is a source of trouble to some 

parties of conversation or talk (Sidnell, 2010, p. 110; and Kitzinger, 2013, p. 231): 

Extract 18   

01 Kaley: [.hhhh Well] you know the home birth rate                                 [1] 

02 is going up in this country no:w?, 

03 Mil: Sorry[:?,]                                                               [2] 

04 Kaley: [.h ]hh The home birth rate is: going up.                                   [3] 

05       (0.5) 

06 Mil: Yeah. 

The above extract shows that in the turn, represented by turn [1], is the trouble source because it causes 

a problem to the ongoing progressivity of the turn-taking system since it results from either hearing or 

understanding problems. Then, the third turn, represented by turn [2], shows the repair initiation to the 

problem in the previous turn. To end with, turn [3] represents repair the outcome or the solution of the 

problem in this conversation. 

2). Repair Initiation  

This component targets or treats the trouble source in that the procedure of repair initiation begins in 

this component (Garcia, 2013, p. 110). The following extract shows this (Egbert, 2017, p. 168): 

Extract 19 

01 Stefan: with julia Roberts                                                       [1] 

02     (0.5) 

03 Bärbel: what?                                                                 [2] 

04 Stefan: with julia Roberts                                                       [3] 

The above extract shows an instance of trouble to the ongoing progressivity of the turn-taking system. 

As such, the turn which is represented by number [1] refers to the trouble source whereas the turn 

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which is represented by number [2] refers to the initiation of repair to the troubling turn. To end with, 

the turn which is represented by number [3] refers to the process of repair completion or outcome.  

3). Repair Outcome 

Repair solution or repair completion refers to the accomplishment of the repair procedure provided to 

the trouble source (Hoey & Kendrick, 2018, p. 153).  

Extract 20 (Liddicoat, 2011, p. 214). 

01 Anna: → oh so then he is coming back on Thur- on                                   [1] 

0    Tuesday.                                                                    [2] 

In the above extract, [1] represents the trouble source word “Thur” which is being cut-off. Later, repair 

is completed by providing a solution to the trouble, which results in the outcome of the repair process, 

as shown in the second turn “Tuesday”.  

To conclude, the following visualized example shows all of these components: 

Extract 21 Dingemanse et al. (2015, p. 4). 

2.4 The Structural Trajectories of Repair  

2.4.1 Self-Repair 

2.4.1.1 Self-Initiated Self-Repair 

Self-initiated self-repair deals with the situations in which a speaker produces a verbal problem, which 

disturbs the normal flow of speech. Normally, the speaker in this type of repair who produces a 

self-initiated repair item is engaging also in fixing the trouble source. However, a situation of such a 

trajectory like this can be technically termed as self-initiated self-repair or self-initiated and 

self-completed repair, since this type of repair is initiated and completed by the speaker himself 

(Kitzinger, 2013, pp. 230-231; and Schegloff & Sacks, 2018, p. 98; (Robinson, 2013, pp. 46-47)):  

Extract 24 (Plejert, 2004, p. 46) 

01 Magnus: because (0.2) I mean if we do not forgive (0.8) we cannot excep- e- eh:: expect 

forgiveness (2.0) ourselves.  

This extract shows that the speaker uses the wrong selection of words with more than one pause (i.e., as 

represented in seconds like 0.2, 0.8). Instead of using the word, (expect) he uses (excep-), and then the 

utterance is being cut-off and stopped as the extract shows (excep- e- eh::). After that, the speaker 

produces an editing sound and a repair item (expect). Finally, the utterance runs smoothly (Ibid).  

The conversational repair theory is based on an assumption, which states that there is a tendency in the 

conversation towards the preference of self-initiated over the other-initiated trajectories. Participants 

tend to generate self-repair frequently in that the producer of the source of the trouble attempts to get 

the trouble source repaired before the other participants try to do so. In other words, speakers 

unconsciously produce self-repairs very frequently more than the other types of repair and in theory, it 

is the most frequent type of all repairs (Wong & Waring, 2010, pp. 216-217; and Couper-Kuhlen  & 

Selting, 2018, p. 115). 

 
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2.4.1.2 Other-Initiated Self-Repair 

The type of repair, which is done by someone other than the trouble source maker, is called 

other-initiated repair. This obligates the other partaker of conversation to remind the speaker of the 

troubled utterance that something has to be repaired so as the progressivity of talk is being maintained 

(Tudini, 2010, p. 84). As such, other-initiated self-repair follows the schema, in which the listener is the 

one who points toward the verbal problem and its producer while the speaker is the one who is 

responsible for repairing the troublesomeness of speech (Bloch & Barnes, 2020, p. 2). 

Characteristically, the listener remarks trouble in the speaker’s speech and thus the speaker is 

committed to repair his communicative breakdown (Benjamin & Mazeland, 2013, p. 2; and Höhn, 2019, 

pp. 111-113). 

It worth noting that the other-repairs are significant to facilitate the process of communication since 

they assist the participants to fix the trouble of speaking, hearing or understanding, etc. (Gisladottir, 

2015, p. 309), and they relate language, mind, and social life in that they have a wide-ranging set of 

linguistic devices that can be utilized to function differently in conversation. As such, the significance 

of other-repairs can be attributed to their extensive functionality in establishing intersubjectivity (i.e., 

mutual understanding) or negotiation of meaning (Dingemanse & Enfield, 2015, p. 96). 

Extract 51   (Egbert et al., 2009, p. 107)  

01   A: He’s just impo:ssible. 

02 → B: Did juh tell ‘im that? 

03       (0.4) 

04   A: Wha:t? 

05→ B: D’=juh tell ‘im that? 

06       (1.4) 

07    A:   no: 

The above extract shows the incapability of participant (A) to infer the answer of participant (B). 

Therefore, he uses the interrogative words (what?) to identify that there is a problem with the previous 

turn. For that reason, the problematic turn (i.e., the second turn) must be repeated once more to provide 

more clarifications to the participants of this conversation. 

2.4.1.3 Self-Repair Initiators, Interactional Uses and Operations 

2.4.1.3.1 Self-Repair Initiators 

It is possible to describe self-initiated self-repair as a “cut-off” or “stopped” unit of talk in interaction. 

It is also likely to be located within the word, at the boundary between words or phrases in that it may 

occur at different places of the utterance such as the beginning, the middle, or at the end of the 

utterance (Plejert, 2004, p. 46; and Laakso & Sorjonen, 2010, p. 1153). 

The repair process may be accompanied by the stop or the cut-off, which must be done to provide 

appropriate solutions for some troubles in speech. The function of this process is to provide 

adjustments to utterances for the sake of letting participants feel that conversation runs smoothly 
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without troubles. However, the cut-off initiator of self-repair may be considered as one the most 

noticeable of all other markers. It functions as a repair initiator for assisting listeners to understand the 

fact that the current utterance is a matter of not completing the previous turn; rather it is a matter of 

repairing or correcting (Hest, 1996, pp. 36-37).  

Moreover, editing terms plays a fundamental role in repair mechanisms and their initiators are of help 

to the listener to spot the verbal troubles while they are of help to the speakers to let them be able to 

produce a repair item to the self-trouble source. Words like “that is” or “no” etc., are of considerable 

importance to participants (Hest, 1996, pp. 36-37; and Schegloff & Sacks, 2018, p. 102). 

Furthermore, the phonological markers of self-repair initiation are of considerable importance namely, 

speech perturbations such as in-breaths, creaking or sound stretching (e.g., “O:::h”), etc. Hesitation 

markers and gap fillers are significant to hold the floor. This could be done by placeholders or to be by 

exact quasi-lexical fillers such as (e.g., “uhm”or “uh”), lexical fillers such as “as well, you know, right, 

I mean, etc.,” or by non-lexical fillers, which involve lengthening the sound. Self-repairs also utilize 

initiators like pause (e.g., (0.3) or (0.2), etc. or repetition (e.g., “school- school”), etc. (Rieger, 2003, p. 

48; and Laakso & Sorjonen, 2010, p. 1153; and Wong & Waring, 2010, p. 218). 

2.4.1.3.2 The Interactional Uses of Self-Repairs  

Self-repair repair can be of use mostly in situations that correct the speaker and provides evidence of 

the grammaticality and ungrammaticality of language. Besides, self-repairs function in their ability to 

occupy the gaze of the hearer by using pauses, word searches, self-interruption, insertion of new items, 

and topic jumps. Furthermore, the functionality of lengthening the turns can be done by using repeats, 

pauses, uh’s, corrections, and clarifications. Another function is to assist the participants through word 

searches. Self-repairs function in repairing mishearing and misunderstanding, for example self-editing, 

error-replacement, repetition and reformulation, other-corrections, and by practices like (Y mean?) 

practices, etc. (Goodwin, 1981, pp. 68-172; and Levinson, 2008, pp. 330-340). 

Plejert (2004, pp. 5-6) argues that the functional activates and functions, or structures that may operate 

in company with repair include exclamations of dissatisfaction, apologies, alterations of modality,  

alterations of tense, attending to mispronunciation, and alteration of a word in a way that displays the 

speaker’s lexical knowledge. In this regard, “the organization of lexis in … teaching materials stems 

from the conviction that learning can be made easier if there is some objectivity in selecting the lexical 

items … and arranging them in appropriate sequences” (Al-Seady, 1998, p. 59): 

Extract 27 (Ibid) (exclamations of dissatisfaction) 

01 Linda: but well (0.2) eh .hh it’s much eh of a question if you believe in God or not 

02 Erik:     yeah 

03 Linda: actually. .hh and I don’t know (0.6) I prepared myself eh going here he he he .hhhhh an eh:::: 

(0.8) I thought (0.7) the question would be do you believe in God and .hh well I I Twell I prepared 

myself an I (1.1) I come to the conclusion I don’t (0.7) knowl (0.4) eh:: spontaneous you eh (p)ough! 

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<spontaneously> (0.5) I would say no(0.8) but (0.3) I (‘ve) found myself eh:: surprisingly enough eh:: 

to turn to God (0.9) in rough times. 

2.4.1.3.3 Operations of Same-Turn Self-Repair  

Participants can deal with ongoing talk troubles by utilizing certain operations or strategies (Schegloff, 

2013, pp. 40-43; and Clift, 2016, p. 237; and Mihas & Santos Perez, 2017, p. 222; and Németh, 2017, p. 

281): 

1). Replacing 

Replacing is the process of substituting the trouble source with another item. It is one of the strategies 

by which a participant replaces a whole or partial component of ongoing turn constructional unit with 

different elements while maintaining the sense of the meaning as it is (See Fox, 2012, pp. 1-2; and 

Németh, 2015, p. 36). A synonym for replacing is substitution “which is the process by which a 

linguistic item is replaced by another one within a larger unit” (Igaab & Al-Bdeary, 2016: VII) (The 

following extract clarifies this clearly (Schegloff, 2013, p. 44): 

Extract 40 

01 Bely: .hh Yihknow buh when we walk outta the cla:ss.= 

02 Ava: = nobuddy knows wh’t [wen’ on, ] 

03 Bely: [Wid- .hh] h= 

04 Bely: = Li (hh) ke wu- .hh Didju n- Didju know what he wz= 

05            talking about didju know wh’t [structural paralysis= 

06 Ava: [dahhhhhh ! 

07 Bely: = was I sid no I sid but we’re supposetuh know what it 

08         - > is (Juh Weh-) .hh yihknow fuh tihday’s [class, ‘n,   

09 Ava:       [.hhh Mmm. 

10 Bely:   He nevuh wen’ o:ver it ‘n, t! .hhhh 

This extract shows that the eighth turn “We[dnesday’s] class” is being substituted with “today’s class”. 

Bely here self-repairs and completes his utterance by replacing one element by another. The operation 

is done while preserving the same meaning. The substituted element is considered here as a trouble 

source, whereas the element which is being substituted by is considered as a repair item or repair 

initiation (Kusey, 2016, p. 37).  

2). Inserting 

Inserting operation is an act by which the participants terminate the ongoing talk for a while aiming at 

inserting something into the turn-taking system before starting again. Therefore, the participants can 

supplement the turn-taking system with some additional item (s) which must be distinguishable before 

and after the process of articulation repaired-talk (Wilkinson & Weatherall, 2011, p. 65): 

Extract 41    (Schegloff, 1979, p. 270) 

01 Bely: → hh Hey do you see V- (0.3) fat old Vivian 

02   anymore? 
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Bely at the first turn of the above-mentioned extract initiates a repair procedure. Later, he generates a 

cut-off with the sound “V-” and the pause (0.3) of silence. As such, the insertion is done by saying “fat 

old” between the cut off and the newly inserted word, which is “Vivian”.  

3). Deleting 

In deleting, the participant eliminates some prior items to repair initiation phase, which seems 

completely or incompletely uttered in the ongoing turn. In this regard, deleting or ellipsis “is the 

omission of one item from a sentence or a clause leaving the reader to conclude the omitted item when 

there is a verbal or mental evidence to that ellipted element” (Betti & AlFartoosy, 2019, p. 94). 

There are three types of ellipsis: nominal, verbal and clausal (Betti & AlFartoosy, 2019, p. 95, p. 96): 

nominal ellipsis is the ellipsis that occurs within the nominal group where the noun or pronoun is 

deleted, verbal ellipsis an elliptical verbal group implies words from a preceding verbal group. There 

are two types of verbal which are ellipsis, lexical ellipsis and operator ellipsis and clausal ellipsis 

occurs if either the model element or propositional one is omitted. However, one of the frequent repair 

initiators in this operation is the cut-off. However, this operation is less frequent than the first two ones 

(Fox, 2012, pp. 1-2; and Tang, 2014, p. 114; and Wong & Waring, 2010, p. 219): 

Extract 42 

01 Shelley: alright well I talked to him earlier and I told 

02                him I didn’t know what the scoop was and 

03 →           now: I don’t know .hh if I should jus- if I 

04               should blow off u:m tha:t stupid trial thing 

05               or what I mea:n (.) I don’t know. 

This extract shows at the third turn how Shelley deletes the element “just”. Later, Shelley initiates 

repair with the cut-off of (“jus-”), she then deletes that cut-off (“jus-”) and continues her talk by saying 

“if I should jus- if I should blow off”. Shelley repeats some adjacent words of the deleted element. 

Deleting is achieved by eliminating an element(s) directly prior to the repair initiation passing through 

the cut-off and then continuing articulation of the ongoing talk (Wong & Waring, 2010, p. 219). 

4). Searching 

Searching or word search is a situation by which something is not accessible at the time of articulating 

the ongoing talk, so the speaker tries to search for the appropriate output (Chiarenza, 2010, p. 1; Laakso, 

2014, p. 269): 

Extract 43   (Schegloff, 2010, p. 137) 

01 Joy: Why don’tchoo: go into Westwood,  

02   (0.4) and go to Bullocks. 

03   (1.2) 

04 Sally: Bullocks? ya mean that one right 

05   u:m (1.1) tch! (.) right by thee: 

06  u:m (.) whazit the Plaza? theatre::= 
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07  Joy: Uh huh, 

08    (0.4) 

09 Sally: (memf::)  

10 Joy: Yeah, 

Here Sally tells Joy about some names of theaters that they plan to see movies in like Westwood and 

Bullocks. The speaker here struggles for searching for the name of the theater “Plaza? Theatre” and he 

finally gets access to that. 

5). Parenthesizing 

Parenthesizing is an operation, which adds something into the turn-in-progress and it typically involves 

a clausal turn (Mazeland, 2007, p. 1816). However, this strategy is limited in comparison to the others 

because not all parentheticals can be exploited in fixing the interactive troubles of talk. (Kusey, 2016, p. 

39).  

Extract 45      (Land & Kitzinger, 2007, p. 506) 

01 Debbie: <It’s not cause uh:m (0.5) Mark’s not going.  

02 Shelley: No- well that wuz initially and then I’m like 

03    no: I’ll just go and then hm yaknow this- this 

04    two bandit (.) thing that I have, that we’re 

05   doing, [he w]a:nts me: >I don’t know if I= 

06 Debbie: [mm hm] 

07 Shelley: =tol’ you this,< he wants us to come out to 

08    his house and do:, .hh like spend a whole day 

09    o:n putting everything together cause we don’t 

10   get the shit done while we’re at work 

This extract shows how Shelly interpolates the clausal turn into the turn constructional unit in the sixth 

and seventh turns by saying “I don’t know if I tol’ you this”. The parenthetical operation is exploited 

here to show that Shelly is now more aware than earlier of what she is talking about. Besides, she may 

be informing Debbie something, which is already being informed. In other words, after she (Shelly) 

takes this possibility of informing something which is told to Debbie before now, she continues the 

process of telling by going back to the pre-parenthetical talk as it is shown in the eighth turn (Kusey, 

2016, p. 39). 

6). Aborting 

Generally, aborting strategy is a way of abandoning an already initiated repair process, once it is 

aborted; the speaker starts a new one. This can be done by initiating a turn constructional unit, 

abandoning it, and then starting a new one (Kulkarni, 2016, p. 237). However, this operation occurs 

infrequently compared to the other operations of same-turn self-repair (Couper-Kuhlen  & Selting, 2018, 

p. 128): 

Extract  46  Schegloff (1996, p. 479) 
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01 Shelley: Who w’s the girl that was outside 

02 (his door¿)/(the store¿) 

03 (0.8) 

04 Mark: Debbie. 

05 (0.8) 

06 Shelley: Who’s Debbie. 

07 Mark: (Katz.) 

08        (0.7) 

09 Mark: –>a1 She’s jus’ that girl thet: uh:, (0.2) 

10 –>   a2 ˙hh I met her through uh:m::, (1.0) 

11     I met ‘er in Westwood.=I (caught that–) (•) 

12   ‘Member I wenttuh see the premie:r of (0.3) 

13    Lost Horizon¿ [(                 ) 

14 Shelley  [I DID’N KNOW YOU did,= 

This above extract shows that Shelley fails two times in understanding the answers to the questions 

presented in the conversation. It appears, later at the ninth and tenth turns that Mark aborts the ongoing 

turn constructional unit of the repair initiation. It also shows that there is another attempt of providing a 

new different answer of the aborted one at the tenth turn, which is initiated for maintaining 

intersubjectivity. As such, Mark provides two dissimilar answers to the question of the asker by 

initiating a completely new one, which approaches the same way of the addressed question, 

7). Sequence Jumping 

Sequence jumping is an abandonment of the ongoing turn constructional unit, with a direct and explicit 

shift to something, which is unrelated and different from the current turn and the progress of the 

ongoing sequence (Schegloff, 2013, p. 56; and Kulkarni, 2016, p. 238): 

Extract 47 Holt (2013, p. 87): 

01 Rubin: They don mind honey they’re jus not gonna talk to us 

02              ever again=. 

03 Dave:   =(hehem)/ri: (h)igt. 

04              )0.8(      

05 Kathy:  We don mind <[we jus never gonna talk to you e:ver= 

06 D           [(No, b’t) 

07 Kathy:   =(hh heh) 

08 Rubin:  heheheheh 

09 Kathy:   [No: :] that’s awright 

10 Frieda:  [So: :] 

11 Dave:     [(                                        )]. 

12 Frieda: [You know what were gonna—] in fact I’m— she I 
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13                haven’t seen her since I spoke to you but im going to 

14                talk to = what a you making¿ 

15                ) .0.2(  

16 Kathy   :   it’s a —bla:nket 

17 Frieda: did yu weave tha[t yourse:lf] 

18 Kathy   :  [I w o : :]ve this myself.= 

In this extract, Rubin and Frieda are friends and they are now having dinner at the house of Kathy and 

Dave. Their families invite each other from time to time. Rubin at the first two turns breaks a period of 

silence for an intendedly ironic intent, addressing his wife Freda but it is intended to address Kathy and 

Dave. Later, Kathy senses a joke/ironic meaning in that she repeats Rubin’s talk from “not … ever” to 

“never … ever”). Next, it seems that Kathy at the ninth turn offers an unpersuasive assurance by saying, 

“That’s all right.” Provided with a joke-to-serious “no”. Later, Freda tries to escape for the 

awkwardness of this miserable situation by sifting explicitly the ongoing turn in that she says, “What 

are you making” which is an extremely radical different turn  (Kusey, 2016, pp. 42-43). 

8). Recycling 

Recycling is the repetition for the second time of previously articulated talk with almost usually not as 

much of that of a complete turn constructional unit, which is previously said (Németh, 2012, p. 2023).  

It is claimed that recycling is itself a distinct operation, which has different uses like “framing a repair 

when inserting an element, deleting an element, or searching for a word” (Németh, 2015, pp. 47-49). 

Extract 48 Schegloff (1987c, p. 75) 

01 Ron: Well thee uhm (•) (a paz) they must have grown a 

02  culture. 

03  )0.5(  

04 Ron: You know, (•) they must’ve I mean how lo- he’s been 

05  in the hospital for a few day:s, right? 

06  )}1.0’/( hhh{ 

07 Ron: Takes a[bout a week to grow a culture,] 

08 Kay: -> [ I don think they grow a       ] I don think 

09          -<  they -grow a culture to do a biopsy. 

10 Ron: No::. (•) They did the biopsy while he was on the 

11    -table. 

12       Kay: Nononono. They did a frozen section, when he 

13  ]was on the tab[le. 

14 Ron: [Right, ()] 

15 Kay:  But they didn’t do the- it takes a while to do a 

16  complete biopsy. 

17  (0.8) 
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This extract contains an overlapping of talk between Kay and Ron at the seventh and eighth turns. It 

appears that Ron at the end of the seventh turn arrives at possible completion of his turn at the word 

“culture”, so Kay in the turn after (08) seizes every possible moment to withhold the turn. Later, Kay 

recycles her ongoing turn from the eighth turn to the ninth in that she says once more as the extract 

shows“[I don think they grow a] I don think they-grow a culture to do a biopsy”. The way of providing 

a solution in the overlapped talk gives recycling operation a great advantage to the extent that makes 

Schegloff (2013, p. 60) comment on the recycling operation here by saying that recycling is the “star of 

the repair show, not a secondary supporting role”.  

9). Reformatting 

Reformatting is a reformulation of the ongoing structure with just a more or less diverse one by 

changing the grammatical structure of the turn constructional unit (Schegloff, 2013, p. 62; and Mihas, 

2017, p. 229; and Couper-Kuhlen  & Selting, 2018, p. 128): 

Extract 49      (Schegloff, 2007a, p. 441) 

01 Virginia: ‘hh Beth gets all the clo:thes. 

02       (•) 

03 Mom:      Well: -Beth (.) spends her own money on her clothes. 

04       )0.7" (  

05 Virginia: <Well if I got more money  I could spend my own 

06        mon[ey. 

07 Mom:          [But Beth works. 

08 Virginia:  Wull why can’t E : ?  

09 Mom:        Beh- oh:, Vuhginia, we’ve been through this. When 

10         you’re old enough you cam work in the store. 

11         )0.2(  

12 Virginia :->‘hh Well Beth didn’ Beth get tih work b’fore she was 

13        sixteen = ? 

14 Mom: =No::! I’d- (0.2) I would let her wrap presents an’ 

15  packages et Christmus an:’- “times we needed 

16  somebady.0 ‘hh >But people just don’t want< (0.4) 

17  chuddren (0.2) waiting on[(‘um). 

This extract at the twelfth turn shows that Virginia is generating a declarative question by saying,   

(“Well Beth [got to work ...]” or “Well Beth [didn’t have to wait ...]”), and then Virginia on the same 

ongoing turn constructional unit generates a reformatted negative interrogative by saying (“Didn’t Beth 

get to work ...”).  

10). Reordering 

Reordering operation is a process that speakers exploit to figure out the order in which the elements of 

the ongoing turn should be arranged (Németh, 2015, p. 8):  
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Extract 50 Sidnell (2014: 129) 

01 Rose: An’it- (0.3) An’it left’er (0.4) quite permanently 

02  damaged °I s[uppose° 

03 Bea: [‘tk 

04 Bea: Uh:pparently, 

05  (•) 

06 Bea: Uh -he is still hopeful 

07 Rose: The husb’n. 

08 Bea: -> Ah hah end yih never jus’ (•) eh yih js’ never saw 

09  such devotion in your life  ...  

The above extract shows how the mechanism of reordering works. The speaker uses this operation to 

reorder what is expected to be a mistake to a more adequate formula of speech. Bea infers that she 

committees a mistake, and as such, it needs a reordering of the formation of the structure of the turn 

constructional unit by saying “yih never jus”, which the speaker reorders to “yih js’ never saw” (Kusey, 

2016, pp. 47-48). 

2.4.2 Other-Repair 

2.4.2.1 Self-Initiated Other-Repair 

This strategic trajectory is one of the verbal resources that are available to participants after the 

occurrences of verbal troubles, which cause a delay in the normal flow of the speech. Accordingly, 

self-initiated other-repair is the second trajectory of conversational repair. Typically, the speaker 

designates a problem in the talk, but the hearer fixes the problem (Al-Harahsheh, 2015, pp. 400-401). 

However, this type is in one way or another associated with word search as an attempt to enable the 

participants in finding the appropriate words they need (Plejert, 2004, p. 56). This may be fulfilled by 

using some initiators like repetitions, pauses, fillers, or word searches (Rieger, 2003, pp. 48-49). 

A very frequent instance of this trajectory is searching for names. However, this trajectory may show 

diverse discrepancies about its frequency and occurrences in a different institutional setting. It may be 

argued this trajectory is as frequent as the self-initiated self-repair trajectory (Köhler, 2007, pp. 20-22; 

Cheng & Cheng, 2010, p. 457). The following extract clarifies this clearly (Plejert, 2004, pp. 56-57): 

Extract  25 

01 Celia: so (0.7) (cause) (1.3) (Don an) Nellie ar:e   (0.2) gonna go (0.3) or well they might go (0.8) 

ehm (1.2) some time in November (1.4) and they’re only paying a hundred some crowns because (0.5) 

the- you know ahm (0.8) nt (0.3)ah::eh oh I can’t think of his name right now (1.3) that Swedish 

guy in our (0.9) in our European (and)(inte[gration)] 

02  Emily: [jo-] jo- jo- Johan.  

03 Celia: Johan yeah he works for a radio station. 

The previous example shows the nature of self-initiated other-repair by utilizing word search. 

Seemingly, Celia has verbal trouble, which makes her unable to recall the name of a certain individual.  
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The extract shows that the speaker produces more than one pause as being indicated by numbers like 

((0.7), (1.3), and (0.2), etc.). Later, Emily initiates a repair producer to assist the other participant to 

remember the name of a certain individual. Remembering the name of this individual may help the 

conversation go smoothly after a set of pauses. Finally, the repair outcome makes Celia is capable of 

recollecting the name of the intended individual (Ibid: 57).  

2.4.2.2 Other-Initiated Other-repair 

In Other-initiated Other-Repair, the hearer himself indicates the trouble and repairs it. The other 

infrequently employs this trajectory in everyday conversation in which the hearer can do the repair 

initiation and its completion. Directness or dispreferredness is a discriminative characteristic of such a 

type of repair as it has direct corrective supremacy and thus such reformatory capability may seem face 

threatening or offensive. As such, other-initiated other-repair is sometimes associated with 

other-correction, which has the function of general means of correction in interaction (Benjamin & 

Mazeland, 2013, pp. 4-7).  

Extract 53   (Nassaji, 2015, p. 92)  

01 Speaker: He added a particular herb to the dish. 

02 Listener; Mint, I think. 

The other correction of other-initiation other-repair has two forms which are exposed and embedded 

correction (Benjamin and Mazeland, 2013, p. 5): 

1). Exposed correction 

Exposed correction is extremely overt and it becomes the center of conversation in the course of 

executing the correction itself. It disturbs the ongoing communicative action since it breaks the 

conversation explicitly to address the source of the trouble. Consequently, the process of correction 

presentation in conversation may be agreed or rejected by participants (see Alvanoudi, 2015, pp. 

131-132; and Beeke et al., 2020, pp. 2-3): 

Extract 54  (Jefferson, 1987, p. 88) 

01 Jan: I guess they paid two-twenty thousand for the house 

02        and two thousand for the ki:l. 

03 Beth: Mm::, 

04 Jan: Technically, 

05 Ron: → (It’s a) kil:n. 

06 Jan: Kil:n, I don’t know how to say it, 

07 Ron: You always say kil. 

08 Jan: I don’t know I thought that’s righ[t. 

09 Beth:      [Yeah. 

10 Ron:     [It’s like- 

11 Ron: Is that right? You say kil? 

12 Beth: Kil:n, I don’t know I’ve heard both . . . 
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Ron considers Jan’s pronunciation of the word “ki:l” (“kiln”) at the second turn as a trouble source. So, 

he does an overtly exposed correction at the fifth turn by saying “(It’s a) kil:n”. This extract shows that 

other-initiated other- repair is done by the other participant in that a complete process of repair is 

executed through performing the processes of an indication of the trouble source and performing the 

repair process. Evidently, at the sixth turn, Jan agrees to take Ron’s correction (Wong & Waring, 2010, 

pp. 238-239). The correct repetition of the word “kil:n” at the end of the conversation gives the 

impression of the acceptability of the presented exposed correction with lack of definitive 

acknowledgment of the disarticulation of the word by saying (“I don’t know how to say it”) (Ibid). 

2). Embedded correction 

An Embedded correction is a correction, which is implemented latently (i.e., implicitly). This is to be 

done without the disruption of the course of the conversation trajectory. However, the participants are 

capable of determining the acceptance or refusal of such corrective practice (Höhn, 2019, pp. 95-96). 

This is the traditional correction done by the teacher inside the classrooms whether for reasons related 

to syntax, vocabulary, or pragmatics. The use of pronouns is a certain example. Pronouns is “a 

grammatical topic … which is defined as one of the parts of speech. They are closed system items. It 

means that they are fixed in number and new words cannot be added. They are used as substitutes of 

noun phrases, which are not derived. They have a constant form. Pronouns occur in the nominative, 

accusative and prepositional cases” (Igaab & Tarrad, 2019, p. 63). Another example is concord which 

“refers to the relationship between two grammatical units”. One unit which triggers the agreement 

relation is known as “controller” and the other unit which is determined by the controller known as 

“target”. These two units are determined by syntactic and semantic characteristics which are called 

“agreement features” (Igaab & Altai, 2018, p. 288). That is why, “learners must be provided with 

enough description of concord by EFL textbook designers. EFL Teachers must provide the learners 

with a clear account of concord as a grammatical phenomenon which shows a relationship between 

different elements of the sentence” (Igaab & Altai, 2018, p. 294): 

Extract 55 (Jefferson, 1987, p. 93) 

01 →Customer: Mm, the wales are wider apart than that. 

02 →Salesman: Okay, let me see if I can find one with wider threads  ((Looks through stock)) 

03      Salesman: How’s this. 

04 →Customer: Nope, the threads are even wider than that.  

It can be seen that the salesman replaces a linguistic element in the former talker’s turn “wales” (i.e., 

streak) to a more appropriate one “thread”. Such a corrective process is done implicitly and it seems 

that the other participant decides to accept it. This example shows also that though there is a correction; 

the ongoing progressivity of talk is being maintained talk is being maintained (Betti, 2020: VI). 

2.4.2.3 Other-Initiated Repairs Initiators 

Other initiated repairs are privileged with a distinctive inventory of practices or strategies, etc., which 

provide the participants with special space in dealing with problems in interaction. These wide-ranging 
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features give significance (Barnes, 2016, pp. 111-112). The seminal work of the theory introduces only 

five types of these practices or strategies.  

1). Open Class Repair Initiators 

When speakers produce a repair procedure, they use initiation markers, which identify the precise 

troublesome turn (repairable) in the turn-taking system. However, they may elect initiators, which 

consider the entire turn(s) in one way or another as problematic. As such, the whole exchange needs to 

be repaired (Drew, 1997, pp. 69-75). The later cases of such a sketch can be labeled as an open class. 

They are labeled as such because they do not delimit the nature and the location of the verbal 

troublesome or its trouble source if it is due to hearing, understanding, speaking, etc. (Barnes, 2016, pp. 

111-113). 

Open class repair initiators can be exemplified in lexicalized practices such as “huh”, “what”, “hey”, 

“ey”, “mm”, “what’s that”, “excuse me”, “pardon”, “I beg your pardon”, “pardon me”, “sorry”, “I’m 

sorry”, “Hm”, “he what?”, “to what?” and “a what?” etc. They may also include phrases such as 

(excuse me), (say again) or (what did you say), etc. and assertion-based other-initiations like (I didn’t 

hear you), (I don’t understand), etc. (Benjamin, 2013, pp. 19-64; and Enfield et al., 2013, pp. 343-349; 

and Clift, 2016, p. 258). The following extract shows a use of the practice “sorry”, which belongs to the 

open class repair format: 

Extract 58 (Drew, 1997: 71-2) 

01 Lesley: …..they’ve gone over to the Cat Ash.: 

                (0.3) 

02 Norm:   Oh: right. 

03 Lesley: I don’t = if you want to go over there an’  see them a:ll? 

04 Norm:   I can’t I’m dialyzing at the mo-:ment. he[h, 

05 Lesley: →  [Sorry? 

06 Norm: I’m dialyzing at the mome[nt, 

07 Lesley: [.hh Oh:: 

The practice “sorry” here indicates that there is a problem in the previous turn. The nature of such a 

problem has an unidentified sense in which the participants do no locate specifically what and where 

the trouble of the ongoing conversation. The word “sorry?” in this extract shows that the other 

participant is not able to sense the meaning of the prior turn and thus it needs to be repaired (Drew, 

1997, pp. 71-72). 

2). Category-Specific Interrogatives 

Category-Specific Interrogatives are words which are used to a definite class of (persons, entities, times, 

or locations). This classification can locate a certain problem in the former turn. However, this category 

has equivalences of interrogative words that function as an interrogative referential determiner of 

precise trouble sources of the former turn. It has the power to specify the nature of the trouble source of 

the previous turn that may refer to place (where), time (when), or reference to individuals (who), etc. 
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The referential power of this format is to specify the entire former turn constructional unite as a trouble 

source (Couper-Kuhlen  & Selting, 2018, p. 196). 

However, it has two formatted subcategories: firstly interrogative words as complete turn 

constructional units, and secondly interrogative words with partial repeats (Kendrick, 2015b, pp. 

147-150). Interrogative Words as Complete Turn Constructional Units makes use of wh-questions 

like (who, what, when, and where) as initiators to other-repairs for locating the troublesomeness of the 

former turn (Liebscher & Dailey-O’Cain, 2003, pp. 376-377). Wh-interrogatives can be called as 

class-specific question words technique since they are used to specify the source of the trouble 

(Schegloff , 2007b, pp. 101-102): 

Extract 59  (Schegloff, 1997a: 511) 

01 Freda: This is nice did you make this? 

02 Kathy: No Samu made that. 

03 Freda: → Who? 

04 Kathy: Samu. 

The previous example demonstrates the way by which the wh-question is used to locate the trouble 

source.  Freda is dubious about the one who makes this; as a result, she interrogates Kathy. Then, 

Freda is not certain of the answered question. So, she initiates a repair procedure by saying (Who?). 

Later, the participants come to an end of a positive repetition of repair completion of Samu’s name 

(Cogo & Dewey, 2012, p. 117). 

Interrogative words with Partial Repeats  makes use of wh-question with interrogative words in 

that the interrogative words are used to refer to the source of trouble while the partial repeats are used 

to locate and frame it (Egbert, 1998, pp. 171-177). 

Extract 60     (Schegloff et al., 1977, p. 368; cited in Schegloff, 2007b, p. 105):  

01 A:    Was last time the first time you met Mrs. 

02              Kelly? 

03               (0.2) 

04 B: → Met whom? 

05 A:       Mrs. Kelly. 

06 B:      Yes. 

The referent in the conversation causes some sort of miscomprehension to the other interactant, which 

obliges participant (B) to initiate a repair producer. Participant (B) decides to repair since the other 

interactant faces a problem in identifying the referent’s name. As such, he partially repeats a previously 

articulated word in the prior turn. Accordingly, he uses the word (met) and the interrogative word 

(whom) to accomplish the identifiability repair of this conversation.  

3). Repeats of the Trouble Source 

This strategic format can be achieved by repeating the trouble source of the previous turn. The repair 

procedure, which involves the repetition of trouble source turn, has three types which are partial repeats 
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of the trouble source, which involves the other-participant’s repeating of all or parts of the former turn 

with a stereotypical sense of an intonated question (Robinson & Kevoe-Feldman, 2010, p. 232-237), 

full repeats of the trouble source, which does not confine the trouble to a definite constituent of a 

former turn constructional unit, but designates that the speaker confronts a trouble with the turn 

constructional unit or the action as a whole (Moore & Arar, 2019, p. 128) and  incomplete repetition 

of the trouble source which replicates part of the prior turn and making the repetition prosodically to be 

audible to as incomplete (Koshik, 2002, pp. 291-292). The last type of repetition is believed that such a 

turn is not that of “syntactic question” or “complete turn constructional unit”; rather it is grammatical 

incomplete sentence, phrase, or word designed by speakers to be completed for accomplishing definite 

acts (Yang, 2018, p. 33). 

Extract 61 (Garcia, 2013, pp. 115-116) (partial repeats of the trouble source)  

01 Rick: haven’t seen uh movie in uh long time. [have ] you? 

02 Mary:                                                               [(aye-)] 

03            (0.4) 

04 Rose: i saw ne:ll? 

05           (0.4) 

06 Rick: nell? 

07           (0.2) 

08 Rose: ne[ll. ] 

09 Rick: [was] that good?                                     

10         (0.2) 

11 Rose: ih=was preddy goo:°d.°= 

The situation of the previous extract is a conversation between three students while they are 

tape-recording a conversation for a class in which a movie had been presented. Rose declares that she 

saw a movie called (Nell) in the (turn 04: i saw ne:ll?) after being questioned by the other participants. 

Later, and after a short pause, Nick initiates a repair producer that interrogates Rose. The process of 

interrogation by repair initiation here is taking place because of the title of the movie, which one might 

interpret it for its oddity as being short or less widely well-known. However, the turn which contains 

the repair initiation (nell?), is partially repeated of the trouble source turn (i saw ne:ll?). This is done 

with a stereotypical sense of an intonated question form as it appears in the underlined word. Finally, 

Rose restates the title of the movie in the (turn 08: (ne[ll.])) which is considered here as repair outcome 

or completion to this miscommunication (Cora Garcia, 2013, pp. 115-116). 

4). Copular interrogatives 

Kendrick (2015a, pp. 173-174) mentions that this category is made of a clause the subject of which is 

an interrogative noun phrase (e.g., who, what, which one) and the predicate is a repetition of the trouble 

source. The subject and its predicate are to be linked by copula (one form of “be”) so as to produce a 

copular interrogative clause. It is a fact that the predicate nominal clause of declarative whose semantic 
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predicates is a noun phrase can be employed to affirm the “membership” of the constituent within a 

class (i.e., He is a teacher) or affirms the identity of a subject (i.e., He is my father) (Payne, 1997, p. 

114; and Sidnell, 2007, pp. 281-285). It is also a fact that the predicate nominal clause of interrogative 

requires a “membership or identity” (Sacks, 1992, pp. 448-450): 

Extract 64 (Sidnell, 2007, pp. 284-285)   

01 Bet: They said that Phillips got um (0.5) knee:  wa:lking 

02        dru::nk at the reception. 

03           (0.5) 

04 Mom: Who:? 

05           (0.3) 

06 Bet: Phillips,  

07          (0.4) 

08 → Mom: Wh[o’s Phillips.  

09 Bet: [Pa:m Bensen’s (.) husband.  

The first turns of this extract cause trouble to the other participant. This trouble may be attributed to 

mishearing or misunderstanding of the referential membership identity of this object (i.e., Phillips), and 

thus, this could be interpreted as a source of trouble. As a result, the hearer starts questioning the 

producer of the trouble source by saying “Who:?”. Then, the identity of this individual is to be repeated 

for the second time and it seems that it is until now incomprehensible (Kendrick, 2015a, pp. 173-174). 

Finally, the exchange ends by constructing a repair procedure by saying “Wh[o’s Phillips” which 

consists of the interrogative noun phrase “who”, plus predicate repetition of the trouble source and the 

auxiliary verb “is” in between. Noticeably, the extract shows also intervening turn in between the 

trouble source and the repair procedure (Sidnell, 2007, pp. 283-285). 

2.4.2.4 The Interactional Uses of Other-Repair  

Plejert (2004, pp. 6-7) argues that the procedure of executing repair can take place in a diverse 

communicative state of affairs that go along with the process of repair. These activities, functions, or 

structures that may operate in company with repair include other-initiation as a response to 

unconventional syntax, other-initiation at sudden shifts in perspective, other-initiation at 

misinterpretation of a word, other-initiation at hearing difficulties, and mismatches in participants’ 

interpretations of the need for other-repair: 

Extract 77 (Ibid: 145) (other-initiation as a response to unconventional syntax) 

01 Tobias: what is stealing to you? 

02 John: h. ((coughs)) stealing ey? well (1.5)f I 

let me see (1.3) nt if I jumped up and 

nabbed that camera and ran out the door shou’in ha 

[ha! I stole this camera ((laughs))] 

03 Tobias: [((laughs))] 
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04 John: thinkin’ [(x)] 

05 Tobias: [well where does stealing] stop then? 

06              (1.5) 

07 John: h°h 

08 Tobias: what is almost stealing and what isn’t? 

09               (2.5) 

10 John: ehm (1.1) <where does stealing stop> (0.7) how d’ you mean? 

The Above extract shows unusual use of the verbs “stealing” and “stop” in a metaphorical expression, 

which complicates the comprehension to the other participants (Plejert, pp. 145-146 and p. 150). 

 

3. Methodology 

3.1 Participants  

The sample of the study consists of (12) advanced post-graduates specialized in English. They are 

either staff members or researchers in some Iraqi departments of English. Those staff members include 

examiners in MA and Ph.D. viva debates. The scientific degrees of those staff members range from 

assistant professors to professors. The second group consists of candidates for MA and Ph.D. Those 

oral recordings of the conversation between those staff members working as examiners and the 

candidates or researchers constitute the data of the study. The ages of the partakers are from 26 to 50 

years. This study does not take gender as variable. The term participants in this study is used to refer to 

both the staff members and researchers.  

3.2 Data  

3.2.1 Data Recording and Transcription 

3.2.1.1 Data Recording 

Data recording means recording the naturally occurring interactions of some staff members and 

researchers in academic discussions. To achieve the purpose of recording these discussions, a special 

instrument is being exploited which is called “Sony UX560F Digital Voice Recorder UX Series”. This 

device is used to record all the interactions in the academic discussions because it is small and is 

capable of recording all voices and sounds from all the directions of the site of the study. Four hours 

and 10 minutes of naturally occurring interactions is recorded. The real names of the participants in the 

study are encoded as participants in order to preserve privacy and ethical considerations. 

3.2.1.2 Data Transcription   

Data transcription is the center upon which the study is established. Accordingly, the study adapts Gail 

Jefferson’s (2004, pp. 24-31 cited in Jefferson, 2018, pp. xi-xii) conversational analytic system of 

transcription as a framework in transcribing the data of the study. This framework is implemented 

purposely because of its comprehensiveness in representing different features of talk. The stage of data 

transcription requires some considerations to be addressed. The audiotaped data is first recorded and 

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then transferred to the computer to be processed for the next step, which is data transcription. 

Furthermore, this stage necessitates many active observations to the entire datasets of the audio tracks.   

A specialized conversational analytic program called “CLAN” is utilized to manually digitize and 

convert the spoken language into written transcribed language. This program is one aspect of a project 

developed at Carnegie Mellon University (USA) by Brian MacWhinney. The transcriptions of the data 

are done only to the situations, which serve the purposes of the present study.  

Instances, like silent situations and off-topic talks, the visual resources actions of the participants, etc. 

are not considered. Full descriptions of the adapted notations of the transcriptions are presented in 

Appendix (1) of the study (Jefferson, 2004, pp. 24-31 cited in Jefferson et al., 2018, pp. xi-xii).  

3.2.2 Data Collection Procedures  

Some procedures are adapted directly before or after the processes of data recordings, which are as 

follows: a) taking the official agreement for the participants who accept the participation in the study.   

b) Distributing a form that elicits some related information such as gender, age from the part of the 

researchers and gender, age, and scientific title from the part of the examiners and staff members.  

c) Recording the academic discussions by using a special digital audio-recording instrument. 

d) The data is transferred to the researcher’s own computer to be stored and arranged to assign them 

into tracked files with special private folders for maintaining a high level of privacy and security.    

e) The last step is to finalize and to prepare the organized data to the next steps, which are data 

transcription and data analysis.  

It is worth mentioning the fact that all the partakers of this study are officially informed that their 

participation is employed for scientific purposes only privacy is guaranteed for them.  

3.3 Data Description and Context Features 

3.3.1 Data Description Features 

There are some parameters of the communicative situation, which designate situations in terms of some 

features, which are as follows:  

1). Genre       

According to Van Dijk (2015, p. 1), genre refers to the kind of speech event used. Genre may has the 

form of conversation, story, political debate, story, joke, lecture, poem, myth, tale, proverb, riddle, 

curse, prayer, oration, lecture, commercial, form letter, editorial, etc. Naturally occurring interactions 

are the dominant characteristics of this type of genre. As such, the genre of this study is the institutional 

one of academic discussion-oriented naturally occurring conversation.  

2). Length  

The data of the present study is of ( 4 hours and 10 minutes) hours of naturally occurring interactions in 

IUVDE. 

3). Form 

Talk is the main source of data in CA, which can be acquired by video or audio recordings of 

interactions. The data of the present study is audibly recorded and then transcribed to be analyzed.  
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3.3.2 Data Context Features 

There are some related factors, which facilitate the identifications of the speech event. These features, 

which are adopted in the data, are as follows (Zhu & Han, 2010, pp. 141-142):  

1). The Addresser and the Addressee 

The addressor or the speaker refers to the participant who produces the speech, while the addressee is 

the individual (s) who receives the commutative speech signals, namely the listener (s), or the hearer (s) 

or the audience (Senft, 2014, p. 120). This study includes addresser and addressee who are referred to 

as either the Examiner or Researcher. All of the preceding figures are referred to as participants.   

2). The Topic  

The topic can be manifested in the content, type, or issues, which are being discussed in a talk (Zhu & 

Han, 2010, pp. 141-142). Accordingly, the data shows that the participants are engaged to talk about 

academic issues related to the MA or Ph.D. being discussed. 

3). The Settings 

The setting refers to the actualities of space and time in which the communicative situations are being 

produced (Pérez-Milans, 2018, p. 118). Therefore, the setting of the undertaken study is of the 

academic discussion genre. These discussions take place in some departments of English. 

4). The Ends 

The ends refer to the goals or the purposes of which the commutative event is aiming to accomplish 

(Floyd, 2018, p. 377). As such, repair in the study can be exploited purposely for fixing troubles of 

hearing, speaking, listing, understanding, etc. (Weismer & Brown, 2021, p. 369).   

 

4. Data Analysis and Discussion 

4.1 The Participants’ Use of Self-Repair Operations 

The same-turn self-repair operations in IUVDE yields 293 cases: 

 

Table 1. Frequency and Percentages of the Participants’ Use of Self-Repair Operations 

% Frequencies Same-Turn Self-Repair Operations N 

52.21 153 Recycling 1 

20.13 59 Deleting 2 

13.31 39 Reformatting 3 

8.90 26 Replacing 4 

4.09 12 Inserting 5 

0.68 2 Aborting 6 

0.34 1 Sequence jumping 7 

0.34 1 Reordering 8 

0.0 0 Parenthesizing 9 

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0.0 0 Searching 10 

100 293 Total  

 

Recycling represents the highest frequency of self-repair in IUVDE; 153 occurrences, 52.21 %. It is 

shown that it is a resourceful operation in managing language deficiencies. Moreover, the participants 

of the study explicate a high tendency towards the prevailing exploitation of recycling since it is 

significant in overcoming the problem of understanding or hearing. Thus, repeating some other item 

can remove the barriers of comprehension. The following extract illustrates this operation: 

71     

*EXAMINER: The first two lines, the earliest notions of enslavement denote the way hhhh property 

law covered people this cover this coverage means that people could be owned as, what do you mean 

by cover, covered, coverage? why did you use this? what covered what, (the examiner repeats) the 

earliest notions of enslavement denote the way property law covered people. 

The least occurring self-repair operations in IUVDE include searching, aborting, sequence jumping, 

reordering, and parenthesizing. Aborting occurs in a low number of occurrences; two occurrences only, 

0.68%. The participants abort the ongoing established talkative activity in favor of another sense of 

expressing same the activity. The following extract shows this operation:  

163 

*RESEARCHER: In my analysis of hhhh the in ins hh not being no- hhh the visibility they do not 

know that there been observed (.) that Erudite for example each one of them hhh (.) it is not mentioned 

in the movie. 

The speaker of the above extract misarticulates and generates some trouble, which requires him to abort 

the ongoing talk and start a new one (hhhh the in ins hh not being no- hhh the visibility). 

Moreover, sequence jumping is of a powerful maneuvering implication in dealing with the withdrawal 

of tricky situations in which the speaker is not fully capable of expressing the current interactional 

determinations. In the following extract, the speaker unambiguously jumps the sequence of the talk 

from the ongoing one to a dissimilar one.  

55 

*EXAMINER: The way they did it hhhhh I did not mean like hhhh only faction but faction versus 

factionless, because in the factionless they hhhh they represented (.) Edward Said the way he said 

that we are whatever they are not. 

Parenthesizing and searching have no occurrences. The participants of the study are unwilling to 

jeopardize themselves by providing less informative meanings since the context of the data imposes the 

participants to be in conformity with delivering accurate and accepted responses. The unemployment of 

parenthesizing can be attributed to the contextuality of the states of affairs of the data. Likewise, the 

reason for not using searching is associated with self-initiated other-repair rather than self-initiated 

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self-repair. Surprisingly, one noteworthy finding of the investigated data is that the participants of the 

present study exploit the apologizing word “sorry” as self-repair initiator: 

44 

*EXAMINER: Is it proper to start with a theoretical (.) background framework, sorry? 

The speaker of the above extract employs the word “sorry” as a self-repair initiator. 

The analysis and discussion of this section confirm some of the results of Kusey (2016). The present 

study finds eight self-repair operations of Schegloff’s (2013) framework of same-turn self-repair 

operation, which are recycling, replacing, aborting, inserting, deleting, reordering, and reformatting and 

sequence jumping. 

4.2 The Participants’ Use of Other-Repair Strategies 

The study yields 45 occurrences of other-repair strategies in IUVDE: 

 

Table 2. Frequency and Percentages of the Participants’ Use of Other-Repair Strategies 

N Other-Repair Strategies Frequencies % 

1 Open class repairs 4 9.52  

2  Interrogative words as complete turn constructional units 1 2.38  

3  Interrogative words with partial repeats 0 0.00 

4  Partial repeats of the trouble source 6 14.28  

5  Full repeats of the trouble source 5 11.90  

6  Incomplete repetition of the trouble source 0 0.00 

7 Copular interrogatives 0 0.00 

8 Candidate understanding 11 26.22  

9  Replacement candidate understanding 5 11.90  

10  Continuation candidate understandings  0  0.00 

11  Insertion candidate understandings 0 0.00 

12  Complex candidate understanding 0 0.00 

13  Requests for repetition 1 2.38  

14  Request for definition or information 2 4.76  

15  Request for translation or explanation 3 7.14  

16 Other practices 4 9.52 

Total 42 100 

 

Candidate understanding is the most frequently employed by the participants which results in 11 

occurrences, 26.22 %. This can be attributed to the fact that the interlocutors try to deliver their own 

interpretations and understanding of certain meanings. As such, the participants, who invest this 

strategy, try to provide an alternative perception of the predetermined facts, which are stated by them. 

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Such a joint activity of the presentation of intelligible knowledge lies on those talkers who may either 

accept or discard such actions since the purpose is to establish a constructive meaning making 

engagements. The following extract of the investigated data clarifies this strategy evidently: 

18 

*EXAMINER: When whatever style there is no indentation in the block quotes. 

*RESEARCHER: You mean in the indentation before the text? 

*EXAMINER: Yes. 

The above extract explains how the execution of understanding check is being employed to let the other 

partaker authorize the adequacy of his own understanding.   

However, the other-repair strategies, which have no occurrence in the data, are incomplete repetition of 

the trouble source, interrogative words with partial repeats, copular interrogatives, insertion candidate 

understanding, complex candidate understanding, and continuation candidate understanding. These 

strategies have some gradient implications such as being repetitive, incomplete, or inquisitive or by 

perceiving the knowledge of the otherness in variable senses. The infrequent exploitations of the above 

strategies in the data insinuate that providing complicated, replicated, and/or injected within another 

variable candidate understanding is not fruitful since the main purpose of the context of the data is to 

provide extra clarifications or interpretations of what is abstruse to those who need such necessities. 

Furthermore, the data indicates that the transmission of the information between the participants is 

fertile since such intrusive strategies have the sense of being repetitively and interrogatively incomplete 

or of an individual membership attribution.  

As a result of the analysis carried out in this section, it is found that the staff members and researchers use 

some other-repair strategies which are candidate understanding, partial repeats, full repeats, replacement 

candidate understanding, open class repairs, request for translation and explanation, request for 

definition and explanation, interrogative words and request for repetition.  

4.3 The Participants’ Trajectories of Repair 

The following table elucidates the frequency of the occurrences of structural trajectories of repair 

organization and their percentages: 

 

Table 3. Frequency and Percentages of Participants’ Use of the Trajectories of Repair 

Organization 

N Type of the Trajectory Frequencies % 

1 Self-initiated self-repair 293 85.69 

2 Self-initiated other-repair 4 1.16 

3 Other-initiated self-repair 42 12.28 

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The data of the study reveals that all the types of trajectories exist in IUVDE but with different 

occurrences as clear in the above table. Self-initiated self-repair trajectory, for instance, is dominant 

over all the other types of trajectories in IUVDE, 293 occurrences, and 85.69 % while other-initiated 

other repair is the least occurring; 3, 0.87. This means that Self-initiated self-repair is the most 

preferred by the partakers of the study. In view of that, the participants of the study have pivotal 

presentiment tendency to repair themselves. Moreover, the competencies of the partakers qualify the 

talkers to be highly initiative in perceiving their own troubles and repairing them. In other words, the 

staff members and researchers are competent enough to initiate and repair themselves: 

84 

* EXAMINER: why would vernona-Veronica Roth write such a thing. 

The above extract illustrates the speaker’s proficiency in identifying and repairing the trouble source. 

Other-initiated self-repair is the second most frequent trajectory in the data; 42 occurrences, 12.28 %.  

The utilization of this trajectory obligates the listener in recognizing a trouble in the talk whereby the 

initiator of the repair is engaged in repairing what is troubling the progressivity of the oral interaction. 

As such, this trajectory intensifies the progressivity of those who are involved in the situation. Since it 

needs a considerable effort in managing the situations (see 91 below): 

91 

* EXAMINER: It is possible today to anatomize enslavement? 

* RESEARCHER: Yes. 

* EXAMINER: What do you mean? 

* RESEARCHER: From the word anatomy like put in clinic imagining put put yeah it in clinic 

imagining put in clinic. 

* EXAMINER: Scrutinize you mean. 

*RESEARCHER: Huh? 

* EXAMINER: You mean scrutinize it. 

* RESEARCHER: emmmm scrutinize is not related to anatomy. 

The above extract clarifies that more than one occurrence of this trajectory are being initiated so as to 

fully accomplish the mutual knowledge once again. For that reason, more than one other-initiated 

self-repair strategies are activated like what do you mean, huh, and you mean.  

As a result of the analysis of the structural trajectories, it is found self-initiation trajectory is the most 

used one in IUVDE and this confirms the results of Al-Khalaf (2018).  

 

 

4 Other-initiated other-repair 3 0.87 

Total 342 100 

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4.4 The Participants’ Performance of Repair 

The rationale for this analysis is to elucidate the impact of the competencies of the study participants on 

the activation of repair organization: 

 

Table 4. Frequency and Percentages of the Participants’ Performance of Repair 

 

Table 4 above demonstrates that the examiners initiate 260 occurrences, 76%. Similarly, the data 

indicates that the level of competence is a significant indicator to the initiation of the repair 

organization. Moreover, the data proves that the examiners are equipped with many inquiries to be 

answered by the researchers, and they activate the repair initiations in an attempt to get full clarification 

from the researchers. However, the case is different with the researchers since they are being 

cross-examined in that they activate the repair completion. The following extract clarifies the expedite 

proficiency of the examiner to activate repair in the same turn: 

27 

* EXAMINER:  .... they ler- rarely fou- have such mistakes ….. 

The above extract elucidates the talker mispronunciation and the repair of (ler- rarely) is being much 

accelerated in the same turn of the trouble source.  

82 occurrences of repair are initiated by the MA and PhD. researchers, which represent 23.97 %. This 

clarifies that the level of competence of the researchers is much less than that of the examiners. This 

finding is supported by Betti and Hasan (2020, p. 62): “The MA … [researchers] commit more errors 

in frequency and type than the Ph.D. ones ...  . The Ph.D. IEFL learners perform better in their 

defence than the MA ones in terms of the less errors they commit”.     

The syntactic features of the interlanguage of speakers include cases of missing articles, cases of 

missing the “s” of third person singular, misuse of tenses, negation, failure to coin past form and past 

participles, and misuse of relative clauses (Al-Seady, 2002, p. 18). As such, this exposes the impact of 

the level of competence on the use of repair.  

“Our EFL learners in the departments of English in Iraq are incompetent in theme and rheme linguistic 

area. This is partly due to the idea that our colleges teach (in syllabus items and technique of 

presentation) through syntactic terms … which are never referred to in our syllabus items in spite of a 

four-year grammar teaching in the departments of English” (Betti & Al-Jubouri, 2009, p. 19). 

N Participants Frequencies % 

1 Examiners           260 76 

2 Researchers 82 24 

      Total 342 100 

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The following extract demonstrates the moderate expedite proficiency of the researcher to initiate 

repair in over the same turn since he needs extra triggers and more than one turn to get his massaged 

delivered and repaired: 

66 

* EXAMINER: Were not they are categorized , were not they taken away from their families and 

put in another groups that are different from  .  

* RESEARCHER: But not alone (0.1) theee I mean no- no- no- nothing like individually me- hhhh 

was directed toward them. 

* EXAMINER: Huh? 

* RESEARCHER: They were like part of the group, part of the carol that is why I talked in general 

because they did not have something so unique to distinguish them. 

* EXAMINER: ok. 

As a result of the analysis of the participants’ performances of repair, it is found that the staff members 

produce more repair cases than the researchers in IUVDE .  

4.5 Participants’ Repair and Correction 

In this study, the data shows that 339, 99.13 % repair occurrences whereas correction is noticeably a 

deviating mechanism than that of repair:  

 

Table 5. Frequency and Percentages of Participants’ Repair and Correction  

N Types of mechanisms Frequency % 

1 Repair 339 99.13 

2 Exposed Correction 0 0.00 

3 Embedded Correction 3 0.87 

Total 342 100 

 

The above table clarifies that correction whether exposed or embedded has only three occurrences, 

0.87 %. The uncommonness of correction is attributed to its distending capacity of the ongoing talk 

sequence. Moreover, correction is of highly threatening behavior to the interactive atmosphere. 

Additionally, talkers are equipped with copious corrective behaviors of a more gentle and fruitful 

consequence than correction which is repair organization:  

179 

*RESEARCHER: For example at the very beginning of the paht-part one, we see that hhhhhh I forget 

he- her name. 

*EXAMINER: What about peter what about peter. 

*RESEARCHER: yeah aaaa I was going to reach that. 

*EXAMINER: Peter is the antagonist of Beatrice]. 

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*RESEARCHER: I was going to reach that but he can be up- an antagonist like a major one because 

his role is so minor even, hhh I do not remember her name in the novel but in the movie Kate (once 

let/was) her her representative hhhh the representative of Erudite, yeah the leader of aaa Er- Erudite, 

yeah. She at the very beginning she was pictured as the antagonist. 

The above extract illustrates that the other interactor is implicitly correcting without distorting the 

course of sequence projection. As such, the situation highlights that none of the speakers is shifting the 

idea to a divergent one. As a result of the analysis and discussion in this section, it is found that repair 

is the most frequent strategy in the academic discussions.  

 

5. Conclusions 

5.1 Conclusions 

The following conclusions are arrived at as a result of the analysis and discussion of the study: 

1). The practical application of the eclectic model in this study demonstrates that it is comprehensive in 

that it includes all the sides of repair study and proves its success although it is taken from American, 

British, and German contexts and applied in the analysis of the participants’ repair strategies in IUVDE. 

This is in harmony with Betti (2002, p. 7). 

2). The Iraqi university staff members in IUVDE are proficient in self-repair efficiently. They initiate 

and use same-turn self-repair operations frequently. 

3). The Iraqi university staff members and researchers in IUVDE use some self-repair strategies which 

are recycling, deleting, reformatting, replacing, inserting, aborting, sequence jumping, and reordering.  

4). The other-repair operations used by staff members and researchers in IUVDE are candidate 

understanding, partial repeats, full repeats, replacement candidate understanding, open class repairs, 

request for translation and explanation, request for definition and explanation, interrogative words and 

request for repetition. 

5). Searching, aborting, sequence jumping, reordering, and parenthesizing as same-turn self-repair 

operations are the least frequent ones used by the staff members and researchers.  

6). Incomplete repetition of the trouble source, interrogative words with partial repeats, copular 

interrogatives, insertion candidate understandings, complex candidate understanding, and continuation 

candidate understanding have no occurrences in the data.  

7). All the types of trajectories exist in IUVDE but with different occurrences. Self-initiated self-repair 

trajectory, for instance, is dominant over all the other types of trajectories in IUVDE. 

8). The data of the study reveals that self-initiated self-repair trajectory is dominant over all the other 

types of trajectories in IUVDE. 

9). Other-initiated other-repair is of extreme face-threatening functionality in that it is powerful in 

directing and correcting the other. 

10). The level of competence of the researchers is much less than that of the staff members in the data. 

That is why, the latter have a low number of use of repair strategies. 
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11). The participants show a tendency towards repairing the deficiencies of oral interaction in that 

sufficient repair strategies are accessible to be exploited. 

12). Correction is an uncommon strategy compared to repair. For that reason, the rarity of correction is 

attributed to its protruding capacity of the ongoing talk sequence. 

13). Interruption and overlapping are employed commonly when people practice other-initiated repair. 

 

Acknowledgements 

I would like to acknowledge my indebtedness to my wife Prof. Zainab Kadim Igaab of the Dept. of 

English, College of Education for Humanities, University of Thi-Qar for reading an earlier version of 

this paper. 

 

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Appendix (1): Transcription System 

Gail Jefferson’s conversational analytic transcription system (2004, pp. 24-31 cited in Jefferson et al. 

2018, pp. xi-xii)  

N Symbols Brief description 

1 = Close talk together but not too much overlapped 

2 ˚ ˚ The symbol of encloses represent quiet talk 

3 underline The symbol of underling under the words refer to “intonationally stressed” 

words 

4 CAPS The capitalized letters refer to the production of words LOUDLY 

5 s::: The colons indicates to the stretched production of sounds or words  

6 .hhh Inbreathed production of sounds or words 

7 [ ] Overlapped talk between some participants 

8 (word) Two parentheses surrounding some word (s) to refer to the uncertainty of the 

transcriber in some the transcription of these words 

9 ( ) Two Parentheses with no words to indicate to the transcriber is hearing 

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https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41733-2_9
https://doi.org/10.1080/08351813.2011.544136
https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203852347
https://doi.org/10.4135/9781849208765
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-1255-1
https://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v3n1p142


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something, but he cannot figure it out 

10 (this/that) Alternativeness in hearings 

11 ((description)) Descriptions of things, which are hardly to be represented by symbols such as 

mobile phone ringing, shuffling papers, baby crying, etc. 

 

12 cu- Cut-off in word or sound 

13 (0.6) Silence measured by seconds 

14 (.) “Silence of less than two tenths of a second” 

15 ↑ ↓ The arrows present the shift into higher or lower pitch than normal 

16 ^ Alternative symbol represents the rise to high pitch 

17 > < The talk within these symbols is speedy talk 

18 H The letter h represents laughter 

19 wohhhrd A combination of some h within a word is to represent breathiness 

20 (h) The letter h with two parenthesis represent  plosiveness of aspiration in talk 

such as talk with breathlessness, laughter or crying , etc 

 

 

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	Original Paper
	Abstract
	1. Introduction
	To fulfill the aims of the study, an eclectic conversational analytic model is selected from representative theorists and writers and incorporated to describe the repair strategies used by the Iraqi university staff members and researchers. The theori...
	2.2 Definition of Repair
	1). The Trouble Source
	2). Repair Initiation
	3). Repair Outcome

	2.4 The Structural Trajectories of Repair
	2.4.1 Self-Repair
	2.4.1.1 Self-Initiated Self-Repair
	2.4.1.3 Self-Repair Initiators, Interactional Uses and Operations
	2.4.1.3.1 Self-Repair Initiators
	2.4.1.3.2 The Interactional Uses of Self-Repairs
	2.4.1.3.3 Operations of Same-Turn Self-Repair
	1). Replacing
	2). Inserting
	3). Deleting
	4). Searching
	6). Aborting
	7). Sequence Jumping
	8). Recycling
	9). Reformatting
	Reformatting is a reformulation of the ongoing structure with just a more or less diverse one by changing the grammatical structure of the turn constructional unit (Schegloff, 2013, p. 62; and Mihas, 2017, p. 229; and Couper-Kuhlen‏ & Selting, 2018, p...
	10). Reordering
	1). Exposed correction
	2). Embedded correction

	2.4.2.3 Other-Initiated Repairs Initiators
	2). Category-Specific Interrogatives
	Interrogative words with Partial Repeats  makes use of wh-question with interrogative words in that the interrogative words are used to refer to the source of trouble while the partial repeats are used to locate and frame it (Egbert, 1998, pp. 171-177).

	3). Repeats of the Trouble Source
	4). Copular interrogatives
	2.4.2.4 The Interactional Uses of Other-Repair
	3.2.1 Data Recording and Transcription
	3.2.1.1 Data Recording
	3.2.2 Data Collection Procedures
	3.3 Data Description and Context Features
	3.3.1 Data Description Features
	There are some parameters of the communicative situation, which designate situations in terms of some features, which are as follows:
	1). Genre
	2). Length
	3). Form

	3.3.2 Data Context Features
	1). The Addresser and the Addressee
	2). The Topic
	3). The Settings
	4). The Ends

	4.1 The Participants’ Use of Self-Repair Operations
	4.2 The Participants’ Use of Other-Repair Strategies

	4.3 The Participants’ Trajectories of Repair
	4.4 The Participants’ Performance of Repair
	4.5 Participants’ Repair and Correction

