Repair Strategies In Spontaneous Conversations: An Adaptation Theory Approach

The present thesis is a pragmatic analysis of the English Repair Strategy, which aims to achieve people's communicative purposes more successfully. The primary focus is on the theoretical understanding and interpretation of the Adaptation Theory; the second interest is empirical analysis of authentic spontaneous conversations based upon the Theory, which provides the relatively convincing evidence in support of Adaptation Theory. The study integrates the qualitative method represented as case study with brief statistical research as supplement.The theoretical framework of the study is on the basis of Jef Verschueren's Theory of Linguistic Adaptation (1999). The original theoretical model has always been considered as a general framework of the communication study from a pragmatic perspective. Repair Strategy, within this theoretical framework, is identified as a kind of linguistic choice and a communicative means that can be utilized to fulfill specific communicative purposes. The Adaptation Principle has been proposed to interpret human beings' language use because communication is rather a dynamic process during which all the choices are made automatically or responsively according to highly flexible principles. According to the objects to which they would adapt, the Repair Strategies are classified into four parts: Repairs made as Adaptation to the linguistic factors, Repairs made as Adaptation to the contextual influences, Repairs made as Adaptation to the psychological motivation and Repairs made as Adaptation to the Cooperative Principle. The Repairs in this thesis is mostly involved in Self-Repair in which the Repair is initiated by the interlocutor himself/herself.In our everyday life, we always produce, hear, or read. We never hear a piece of language that isn't produced by a particular speaker for a particular audience on a particular occasion. Repair would naturally happen in daily communication and any other interactive context, e.g., interviews or negotiations, because it's unavoidable in frequent language contacts nowadays. In the meantime, Repair should be viewed as natural and normal linguistic phenomenon which can be made best use of if put in a correct way.