A Study Of Other-initiated Self-repair In Chinese Public Counselling Call-in Program From The Epistemic Perspective

Previous studies have shown that conversational repair is a mechanism contributing to better-shared understanding in institutional talks,which is linked to the quality of the interlocutors' relationship such as doctor versus patient,prosecutors/lawyers versus defendants/witnesses and teacher versus student.A review of the existing literature has revealed that the phenomenon of other-initiated self-repair has received little attention in the media talk,a typical type of institutional interaction.With a conversation analytic approach,this thesis seeks to investigate the organization of other-initiated self-repair in Chinese public counselling call-in program.Three research questions are addressed as follows:(1)What other-initiation techniques are found in the other-initiated self-repairs in Chinese public counselling call-in program?(2)What self-repair strategies are employed by the interactants in the other-initiated self-repairs in Chinese public counselling call-in program?(3)What kind of role does the epistemics of interactants play in the organization of other-initiated self-repairs in Chinese public counselling call-in program?To answer these questions,this study was mainly conducted in four steps:firstly,the 53 multi-party interactions from a live Chinese public counselling program were collected as the research corpus;secondly,a total of 270 minutes' conversations were transcribed in detail;thirdly,the identification of basic repair patterns,repair initiation techniques and repair solution strategies were both data-driven and guided by the previous studies;fourthly,the initiation techniques and repair strategies employed by the interlocutors in totally 433 other-initiated self-repairs were explored,categorized and calculated both qualitatively and quantitatively.Then,the organization of these other-initiated self-repairs was interpreted from the epistemic perspective.It is found that the other-initiated self-repairs in the data can be initiated by seven initiation techniques,i.e.candidate alternative,repeat of the trouble-source turn,wh-question,imperative clause,open class word,no response,and negative word.Eight repair strategies employed by the interlocutors are identified,namely,confirmation,repetition,explanation,addition,completion,reformulation,replacement,and rejection.Moreover,the study provides evidence that for the other-initiated self-repairs found in Chinese public counselling call-in program,different social actions of repair initiations,the organization of multiple other-initiated self-repairs,the preference of candidate alternative as initiation technique,the priority of initiating by the hosts,as well as the priority of repairing by the guests and callers can be interpreted from the epistemic notions.In other words,the display of epistemic access,epistemic primacy and epistemic responsibility by different interlocutors motivate the organization of other-initiated self-repair in such an institutional setting.This study can deepen our understanding of the repair organization in the institutional talks with a microanalysis of the multi-party interactions in Chinese public counselling call-in program.In addition,probing into the other-initiated self-repairs from the epistemic perspective can also inspire more CA studies on repair from the perspective of epistemics in either mundane or institutional conversations.This study also has some practical implications for the interaction in Chinese public counselling call-in program.Employing efficient repair initiation techniques and repair strategies can help the speakers to effectively identify the problems in interaction and conduct repairs,thus,achieving a better mutual understanding among the interlocutors and creating a harmonious communicating atmosphere.