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Repair

Definition:

Repair is the set of conversational practices through which participants in interaction address and resolve problems in speaking, hearing, or understanding. Identified and systematized by Harvey Sacks, Emanuel Schegloff, and Gail Jefferson (1977), repair is a fundamental feature of conversation — not a sign of failure, but the mechanism that keeps communication on track when troubles arise.

What Counts as Repair?

“Trouble sources” that initiate repair include:

  • Errors in articulation (a word spoken incorrectly)
  • Errors in word choice (“She went to… sorry, I mean he went to…”)
  • Mis-hearings (interlocutor doesn’t hear what was said)
  • Non- or mis-understandings (interlocutor doesn’t grasp the meaning)
  • Factual or social errors (incorrect information, inappropriate form)

Repair is the mechanism for addressing all of these.

Self-Repair vs. Other-Repair

Self-repair: The speaker who produced the trouble corrects it themselves.

  • Self-initiated self-repair: “I’m going to the— I’m going to the store.” (speaker catches and fixes own error)
  • Other-initiated self-repair: The other party signals a problem (“Hm?” / “What?” / “Sorry?”), and the original speaker then repairs their own talk

Other-repair: The other participant corrects the trouble source.

  • Exposed correction: “You said Tuesday, but you mean Thursday.” (Direct, explicit)
  • Embedded correction: “Oh, Thursday?” (repairs while continuing conversation) — this is the more common form in natural conversation because explicit correction can be face-threatening

Sequence Organization of Repair

Repair typically unfolds in a sequence:

  1. Trouble source — the problematic utterance or action
  2. Repair initiation — drawing attention to the problem (can be by speaker or hearer; next turn or later)
  3. Repair completion — the correction or resolution

Schegloff, Jefferson, and Sacks (1977) noted a clear preference hierarchy:

  1. Self-initiated self-repair in the same turn (most preferred)
  2. Self-initiated self-repair in transition space (after completing the TCU)
  3. Other-initiated self-repair (hearer signals trouble; original speaker fixes)
  4. Other-initiated other-repair (hearer both signals and fixes) — least preferred

This hierarchy reveals a preference for the original speaker to maintain “authorship” of repair. It also minimizes face threats — other-correction is face-threatening; self-correction is not.

Repair as Corrective Feedback in SLA

In the SLA literature, the concept of repair overlaps with corrective feedback — specifically, the mechanisms by which errors are addressed in learning contexts:

  • Recasts (teacher reformulates student’s error without explicit flagging) — a form of embedded correction/other-repair
  • Explicit correction — other-initiated other-repair, explicitly metalinguistic
  • Elicitation — teacher initiates repair but prompts student to self-repair: “How do we say that?” (other-initiated self-repair)
  • Clarification requests — “Sorry, what did you mean?” (other-initiation; leaves repair type open)

Research in the FOCUS-ON-FORM tradition studies which repair sequences most effectively draw learner attention to form while maintaining communicative flow.

Repair in Japanese Interaction

Japanese conversation involves its own repair practices:

  • Self-repair markers: Ano (あの…), Eto (えと…) — hesitation fillers that signal an upcoming repair or self-correction
  • Request-for-repair markers: Hai? (はい?), Nan desu ka? (何ですか?) — equivalent to English “Sorry?” or “Huh?”
  • Indirect repair: Rather than explicit correction, Japanese speakers often repeat the correct form without flagging the error (embedded correction)
  • Aizuchi as repair check: When aizuchi (あいづち, back-channel responses) suddenly stop or become sparse, this can signal a hearing or understanding problem that initiates repair

F learners listening to authentic Japanese content, recognizing repair sequences helps decode unclear passages — if a speaker suddenly says ano and repeats something, they’re repairing a previous utterance.

History and Key Figures

Harvey Sacks (1935–1975), Emanuel Schegloff (b. 1937), and Gail Jefferson (1938–2008) developed Conversation Analysis at UCLA/UC Irvine. Their 1977 paper “The Preference for Self-Correction in the Organization of Repair in Conversation” (Language, 53(2)) is the foundational reference on repair. The framework has been applied extensively in Interactional Linguistics, SLA research (particularly Conversation-Analytic SLA), and clinical linguistics.

Practical Application

For L2 learners:

  1. Learning to initiate repair in the L2 is essential for managing communication breakdowns: “Sorry, could you repeat that?” / “I didn’t catch that” / “What does X mean?” — these repair-initiation formulas should be learned explicitly
  2. Responding to other-repair — when a native speaker corrects you (even subtly), noticing the correction and incorporating the right form is a key moment of feedback uptake
  3. Producing self-repair naturally — hesitation fillers, false starts, and self-corrections mark real-time language processing and are part of authentic fluency

Japanese repair vocabulary:

  • Sumimasen, mōichido onegaishimasu (すみません、もう一度お願いします) — “Sorry, could you say that again?”
  • Dōiu imi desu ka? (どういう意味ですか?) — “What does that mean?”
  • Chotto… (ちょっと…) with pause — can signal that the speaker is searching for words or repairing

Common Misconceptions

“Repair in conversation means correcting errors.”

In conversation analysis, “repair” refers to any practice for dealing with problems in speaking, hearing, or understanding — not just error correction. Self-initiated repair (the speaker notices and fixes), other-initiated repair (the listener signals a problem), and repair of hearing (“What did you say?”) are all subtypes. Much repair addresses comprehension, not grammatical accuracy.

“Repair interruptions are signs of failure.”

Repair is a normal, pervasive feature of all conversation — native speakers initiate repair constantly. In L2 interaction, repair sequences often serve as opportunities for negotiation of meaning and incidental learning. Research shows that meaning-focused repair is beneficial for acquisition.

Criticisms

Repair research in SLA has been critiqued for ambiguity in what counts as “repair” vs. related phenomena like negotiation of meaning, recasts, and corrective feedback — these overlapping constructs are studied by different research traditions using different methods. The relationship between repair and acquisition has also been questioned: while repair creates learning opportunities, evidence that repair sequences lead to measurable gains is limited.

Social Media Sentiment

Repair is not widely discussed under this technical term in language learning communities, but the underlying concepts surface frequently — learners discuss self-correction strategies, how to ask for clarification naturally, and how to handle communication breakdowns. The advice to “not be afraid of making mistakes” implicitly addresses repair: the goal is to develop repair skills that keep communication going despite errors.

Last updated: 2026-04

Related Terms

See Also

Research

1. Schegloff, E.A., Jefferson, G., & Sacks, H. (1977). The preference for self-correction in the organization of repair in conversation. Language, 53(2), 361–382.

The foundational paper on conversational repair — establishes the systematic organization of repair in conversation, demonstrating the preference for self-initiated self-repair.

2. Mackey, A. (2006). Feedback, noticing and instructed second language learning. Applied Linguistics, 27(3), 405–430.

Examines the relationship between interactive feedback (a form of other-initiated repair) and L2 development — demonstrates that repair-like feedback sequences lead to noticing of problematic forms and subsequent development.

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