A Pragmatic Exploration Of Conversation Repair From Rapport Management Perspective

Conversation repair is a very common phenomenon in conversations. It usually has four components:a trouble source (i.e. the mistakes, errors, inappropriate expressions or any linguistic elements which needs repair); a repair initiation, marking possible disjunction with the immediately preceding talk; a repair referring to practices for dealing with problems or troubles in speaking, listening and understanding the talk in conversation; a repair outcome, whether solution or abandonment of the problem. Traditionally, it is divided into four types:SISR (self-initiated self-repair); SIOR (self-initiated other-repair); OISR (other-initiated self-repair); OIOR (other-initiated other-repair).The theory of conversation repair has developed rapidly with the efforts of Shelf and other linguists. However, most of the studies in the past focused too much on conversation repair's formal organization and rarely touched its relationship with social factors. This study of conversation repair is from rapport management perspective which is intended to deal with the social factors.Specifically, through the application of Helen Spencer-oatey's Rapport Management theory to the explanation of some phenomena in conversation repair, this thesis aims to demonstrate how the social factors can drive the occurrence of conversation repair and what the interpersonal functions of conversation repair are.Generally, there are four kinds of social factors drive the occurrence of conversation repair. They are Quality face which is our fundamental desire for to be evaluated positively in terms of our personal qualities, e.g. our competence, ability, appearance ect; Identity face which is our fundamental desire to be acknowledged and upheld about our social identities or roles; Equity right which is our fundamental belief that we are entitled to personal consideration from others, so that we are treated fairly; Association right which is our fundamental belief that we are entitled to an association with others that is in keeping with the type of relationship that we have with them. These four factors are the pragmatic reason behind the happening of conversation repair except the formal organization of conversation repair itself. Through the analysis of examples, three interpersonal functions of conversation repair are found. They are rapport-enhancement (They enhance the harmony of the relationship through repairs such as to start an incipient romantic relationship ect); rapport-maintenance (Repairs sometimes can help people maintain the current quality of relationship and level of rapport.); rapport-challenge (People can challenge their rapport with others through repairs in order to assert personal independence, rebuff a romantic advance, or repay a previous offence ect). From these we can see that repair can help manage social relations.This study of conversation repair from a rapport management perspective may help to enrich the researches on conversation repair, and shed light on the pragmatic reasons on why conversation repair happens in certain ways and how it will influence social relations. Moreover, it may provide some implications and cases for the study of cross-culture communication and EFL teaching in classroom.This thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter One introduces some basic concepts about conversation repair like initiation, repair, trouble source, outcome ect, and points out the objective, methodology, data and organization of the study. Chapter Two is the literature review about studies relevant to this paper. It introduces the origin and development of repairs. Chapter Three are mainly about Rapport Management theory. At first, the background and the base of the theory are simply introduced. Then the framework of the theory and the reason applied in this thesis are given. Chapter Four is the main part of this thesis. Author analyzes how the four social factors drive the happening of repairs through analyzing the repairs in conversations and gives adequate examples at first. Then after analyzing the repairs in conversation, the interpersonal function of repairs are listed in the later part of this chapter. Chapter Five is the conclusion part in which the major findings and limitation of this study is presented. The implications for cross-culture and EFL teaching are also analyzed in this part.