Same-turn self-repair practices in peer-peer L2 conversational dyads

This dissertation presents microanalyses of same-turn self-initiated self-repair practices employed by 17 advanced-level English language learners as they engaged in a naturally occurring conversation task in their Listening and Speaking class. Drawing on videotaped interactions involving dyads from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds, I investigated learners’ self-repair practices using a Conversation Analytic (CA) framework, specifically Schegloff’s (2013) ten operations in self-initiated, same-turn repair: replacing, inserting, deleting, searching, parenthesizing, aborting, sequence-jumping, recycling, reformatting, and reordering. Using CA, I examined the moment-by-moment unfolding interaction, focusing on the kinds of same-turn self-initiated self-repair operation types and subtypes that emerged in the data along with their relative distributional frequency and technologies. Technologies are the techniques that learners employ as they carry out various repair operations (e.g., hesitation markers, gesture, etc.). This study provides a detailed description of first (primary role) and second order (supporting role) operation types and subtypes, and technologies employed by the language learners during conversation. Sometimes, a repair operation functions as a technology within another repair operation. For example, recycling may be used as a first order operation to gain time, but can also be used as a second order operation as a framing device to locate the trouble source. The results of this study suggest that same-turn self-initiated self-repairs provide language learners with opportunities to progress the conversation, as well as opportunities to construct various action types (e.g., preempting an upcoming misunderstanding, obviate a potential disagreement, remove responsibility due to lack of certitude, etc.). The results also support language learners’ preference for progressivity, where they utilized various technologies to help them manage this preference. There appeared to be many similarities and a few differences between the analyzed data and native speaker data. The findings revealed a multi-dimensional view of repair that highlights students’ linguistic, communicative, and interactional competence, not their deficits. This study addresses methodological and pedagogical implications, as well as future research directives.Foreign Language Educatio