This book studies four self-initiated same-turn repair strategies in talk-in-interaction relative to each other, namely: recycling, replacement, insertion, and aborting. Based on a thorough analysis of a Hungarian corpus, as well as the previous results on another nine languages, this book proposes a preference hierarchy model of repair operations that interprets same-turn repair operations relative to each other.


This preference hierarchy model reinterprets the relationship between the principle of intersubjectivity and the principle of progressivity in talk-in-interaction. Saying that the principle of maintaining progressivity also has an impact on the principle of maintaining intersubjectivity (not only vice versa), it supposes a two-way relationship between intersubjectivity and progressivity. The speakers' possible choices of repair operations relating to self-repair depend on at least three factors: the function of repair operations, the number of respects in which they override the preference for progressivity, and the morphosyntactic structure of the language used. This also highlights the interaction between grammar and pragmatics.


Although the object theoretical background of the book is conversation analysis, the methodological apparatus of conversation analysis is supplied by other methods to enhance the reliability of the results. This book will provide interesting reading not only for conversation analysts, but for all who are interested in talk-in-interaction and linguistic theorising in general.