研 究 生 毕 业 论 文

（申请硕士学位）

论 文 题 目 The Effect of Speaker Variables on L2

Learners’ Conversational Repair

Behavior: A Pragmatic Approach

作 者 姓 名 秦 亚 勋

学科、专业名称 外国语言学及应用语言学 研 究 方 向 语用学

指 导 教 师 陈新仁 教授

2005 年 3 月 19 日

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I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and that, to the best of my

knowledge and belief, it contains no material previously published or written by another person or material which has to a substantial extent been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma at any university or other institute of higher learning, except where due acknowledgement has been made in the text.

Signature:

Name: Qin Yaxun

Date: Mar. 10, 2005

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The Effect of Speaker Variables on L2 Learners’

Conversational Repair behavior: A Pragmatic Approach

by

Qin Yaxun

Under the Supervision of

Professor Chen Xinren

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

for the Degree of Master of Arts

English Department

School of Foreign Studies

Nanjing University

March 2005

iii

Acknowledgements

I would like to avail myself of this opportunity to extend my heartfelt gratitude to

all those who have assisted me in writing up this thesis.

My greatest thanks should first go to my supervisor, Professor Chen Xinren, who

has provided me with insightful instructions and suggestions during the design,

development and revision of the thesis and Professor Wen Qiufang, who offered

invaluable advice upon my thesis writing and whose instruction has benefited me a

great deal in her course of Thesis Writing and seminars. Without their sincere

encouragement, suggestions and persistent guidance, this thesis cannot be

successfully completed.

My sincere gratitude should also be extended to Professor Ding Yanren and

Professor Wang Wenyu, who have taught me fundamentals of theories in linguistics

and basic research methods in applied linguistics. The acquired knowledge has

equipped me with necessary capacity to get a good understanding of linguistics and to

carry out linguistic research.

I owe Mr. Heng Renquan, Miss Qi Yan, Miss Chen Hua and Miss Ma Dongmei a

lot. These Ph.D. Students in the English Department at Nanjing University helped me

in choosing the research topic and designing research methods.

Finally, I want to thank Miss Weng Yanling, who has offered her MA thesis for

my reference and my classmates who also supplied useful suggestions to me when I

prepared my MA thesis.

iv

Table of Contents Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………...iv

English Abstract...........................................................................................................vii

Chinese Abstract ...........................................................................................................ix

Lists of Tables ................................................................................................................x

Chapter One Introduction...........................................................................................1

1.1 Object of the Study ..........................................................................................................1

1.2 Need for the Study ...........................................................................................................1

1.3 An Overview of the Thesis..............................................................................................2

Chapter Two Literature Review.................................................................................4

2.1 The Concept of Repair ....................................................................................................4

2.1.1 Definition of Repair...............................................................................................4

2.1.2 Repair VS. Correction ..........................................................................................5

2.2 Conversational Repair Strategies..................................................................................6

2.2.1 Classifications of Conversational Repair ..........................................................7

2.2.2 Self-repair Strategies .........................................................................................10

2.3 Aspects of Speaker Variables ......................................................................................12

2.3.1 The Role of Language Proficiency...................................................................12

2.3.2 Gender .................................................................................................................13

2.3.3 Face Want and Face Work ...............................................................................14

2.3.4 Relative Status ....................................................................................................15

Chapter Three Methodology....................................................................................17

3.1 Research Questions ......................................................................................................17

3.2 Materials..........................................................................................................................18

3.3 Data Collection ...............................................................................................................19

3.4 Data Analysis..................................................................................................................21

Chapter Four Results and Discussion ...................................................................25

4.1 Conversational Repairs Identified ...............................................................................25

4.2 Distribution of CRs in Four Specific Groups ..............................................................28

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4.2.1 Distribution of CRs in Low Proficiency Group (LPG) ....................................28

4.2.2 Distribution of CR in High Proficiency Group (HPG) .....................................30

4.2.3 Distribution of CR in Male Learner Group (MLG) ..........................................32

4.2.4 Distribution of CR in Female Learner Group (FLG) ......................................33

4.2.5 A Comparison of the Four Specific Groups.....................................................34

4.3 The Effect of Speaker Variables on Chinese L2 Learners’ CRs .............................35

4.3.1 The Effect of Language Proficiency on Chinese L2 Learners’ CRs............36

4.3.2 The Effect of Gender Difference on Chinese L2 Learners’ CRs .................37

4.3.3 The Effect of Relative Status on Chinese L2 Learners’ CRs .......................39

4.4 Summary .........................................................................................................................40

Chapter Five Conclusion..........................................................................................42

5.1 Major Findings................................................................................................................42

5.2 Implications of the Study...............................................................................................43

5.3 Limitations of the Study and Suggestions for Future Research..............................44

References .................................................................................................................46

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ABSTRACT

The Effect of Speaker Variables on L2 Learners’ Conversational Repair behavior: A Pragmatic Approach

By

Qin Yaxun

This thesis reports a study on how speaker variables affect L2 learners’

conversational repair behavior (CR). The study focuses on conversational repair

behavior in 80 pieces of scripts of dialogue in Band 4 Test for English Majors chosen

from the Spoken English Corpus of Chinese Learners. The study examined the

distribution features of CR and tentatively uncovered the pragmatic motivation. It

brings about the following findings:

1. Chinese L2 learners make CR in the form of Self-initiation and Self-repair in

preference to Self-initiation and Other-repair, Other-initiation and Other-repair

and Other-initiation and Self-repair, restricted by their language proficiency and

they utilize SS as a vehicle to avoid threatening others’ positive and negative face.

2. Speakers pay scanty attention to their own production in terms of accuracy and

adequacy. Low proficiency gives rise to structural elaborateness of utterance. High

proficiency enables speakers to produce utterances that are more articulate, less

ambiguous and more concise in expression，and they are more ready to pick out

and signal mistakes when listening in the unnatural and unauthentic interaction

environment, that is the L2 learning environment, which encourages learners not

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to care much about losing face.

3. Male student speakers employ CR more than do females. Female student speakers

give “top priority” to SS when making CR. Male student speakers favor the use of

declarative sentences to directly voice their approval or disapproval. Females

prefer interrogative sentences and hedges to mitigate their offensiveness. Females

care more about face saving acts than do males.

4. “Conversational dominance” has been corroborated. Male student learners often

pose as leading roles in interactions. Male student learners are more likely to

initiate repairs than do female student learners.

The results reveal that Chinese learners would avoid damaging others’ positive or

negative face even at the expense of their own. They most value the establishment

of amicable interactive atmosphere to exchange opinions and reach consensus.

This fact calls for a new debate over the felicity condition of Politeness Principle.

Chinese L2 learners should learn to redress the balance between politeness and

success of communicating opinions while performing CR. They need to search for

efficient approaches to utilizing CR to achieve specific pragmatic purposes.

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中文摘要

本论文报告了说话者的一些变量如何影响英语学习者话语修正行为的研究。

该研究从中国英语学习者口语语料库选取了 80 篇英语专业四级口语考试中对话

部分的文本为材料，归纳了英语学习者话语修正的分布特征，并初步揭示出该语

言现象的语用动机。笔者对语料进行了定性为主定量为辅的分析，得出如下结论：

1. 中国英语学习者由于受语言熟练水平的制约，因而在话语修正的形式上倾向

于自我修正，其动机在于把自我修正作为避免伤害他人积极面子和消极面子的言

谈策略。

2. 说话者对自身话语输出的准确度和适当性关注不够。低语言水平导致“繁复

结构”的出现。高水平语言学习者表达则更为准确，更为简洁且较少歧义。在非

自然非真实的外语学习场景下，他们对面子的顾虑比低水平语言学习者少，能更

为主动地去辨别指认他人话语中的错误。

3. 就数量而言，男生说话者采用的话语修正比女生多。女生尤其倾向采用自我

修正。男生习惯用肯定句式表达看法，而女生则借助疑问句式和模糊限制语缓和

其话语的语气。总体而言，女生更注意挽救他人的面子。

4. 男生在交谈中普遍占据优势地位，他们主动发起的话语修正次数比女生多。

“对话优势”概念得到进一步验证。

本文结论指出，中国学习者常常不惜牺牲自身面子以避免造成对他人积极和

消极面子的伤害。他们最关注的是能否建立和谐的氛围来交流观点达成一致，这

一客观情况亟待进一步展开有关礼貌原则适切条件的讨论。另外，中国学习者也

应该注意调节表达礼貌和保障交际成功二者之间的动态平衡，不可顾此失彼。因

此，有必要寻找新的有效途径来指导如何利用话语修正策略实现语用目的。

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Lists of Tables

Table 2.1 The Classification of Conversational Repair .................................................8

Table 4.1 Distribution of CR in Chinese L2 learners’ conversations ..........................26

Table 4.2 Frequency of the four types of CRs in low proficiency group.....................29

Table 4.3 Percentage of CR in LPG compared with the totality of CR.......................30

Table 4.4 Frequency of the four types of CR in high proficiency group.....................31

Table 4.5 Percentage of CR in HPG compared with the totality of CR.......................32

Table 4.6 Frequency of the four types of CR in male learner group ...........................32

Table 4.7 Percentage of CR in MLG compared with the totality of CR......................33

Table 4.8 Frequency of the four types of CR in female learner group ........................33

Table 4.9 Percentage of CR in FLG compared with the totality of CR……………...34

Table 4.10 Frequency of CR in the four groups...........................................................35

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Chapter One

Introduction

1.1 Object of the Study

Conversational repair, as a common phenomenon in human communicative

activities, is one of the hallmarks of human speech production. Psychologically and

cognitively, conversational repair serves as a channel through which the mental state

of speakers can be investigated.

From a pragmatic perspective, conversational repair, consciously or

sub-consciously, reflects many facets of the speakers, such as his or her language

proficiency, gender, relative status, so on and so forth. Put in another way, the various

speaker roles and the settings of speaker variables, in all probability, weigh heavily

upon the on-going specific conversational repair behavior. Each concrete repair

behavior can function to mirror even the slightest changes in speakers.

At the present stage, what particularly captures my interest is (1) how do the

speaker variables of Chinese L2 learners influence their conversational repair

behavior? (2) Are there any distinctive features that pertain to Chinese L2 learners?

By addressing the afore-mentioned issues, this study attempts to investigate the

effect of various speaker roles or variables on Chinese L2 learners’ conversational

repair behavior.

1.2 Need for the Study

The study of repair in conversations has long been a concern in burgeoning

applied linguistics. Schegloff, Jefferson and Sacks (1977) advanced the widely

accepted model for the analysis of conversational repair. In the wake of them, a host

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of researchers have made explorations into conversational repair from different

perspectives with distinctive methods.

Salla Kurhila (2000) has conducted an empirical study to compare the corrective

exchanges between native speakers and non-native speakers. By exploring the

asymmetrical relations between the two sorts of speakers, the researcher finds that the

default role of the L2 learners, the settings that repair operates within and the specific

characteristics of the task conspire to determine what should be repaired, that is, the

selectivity of correction. The analysis generated from this study is definitely

conducive to an in-depth understanding of the communicative features unique to L2

learners.

Some scholars have narrowed the research scope and limited their attention to

one specific aspect of conversational repair: self-repair (self-correction) (Kormos,

1998). All these studies have done a wonderful job inasmuch as they have directed the

right way towards smooth and fluent utterance production, and cast light upon several

new communicative problems, which enables subsequent researchers to find out the

methods to tackle them.

However, the root of the problems should by no means be confined to the

discourse level, which is only helpful to smooth away the linguistic barriers. What lies

behind unseen is the mentality of speakers and the even broader cultural backdrop. In

this connection, the topic is far from being exhausted since few studies have been

carried out at a pragmatic level to account for the general factors that play roles in

conversational repair behavior.

In view of this, we intend to make a comprehensive analysis concerning those

general questions by specifically focusing on Chinese L2 learners’ conversational

repair behavior.

1.3 An Overview of the Thesis

This thesis comprises five chapters in all. Its structure is presented as follows:

Chapter One is an introduction to the present study, in which the object of the

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study and the need for the study are briefly related. Meanwhile, the deficiency of

some previous studies is tentatively pointed out to shed some light on the direction of

future research.

Chapter Two reviews the basic items involved, and some major studies home and

abroad. It also recounts and analyzes the strong points and weaknesses in the existing

studies.

Chapter Three is the Methodology section. The research questions, the design of

the study, the procedure of data collection and analysis are listed out.

Chapter Four presents the results and discussion, in which major findings are

reported in detail and discussed at great length.

Chapter Five summarizes the findings and draws some conclusions. Both

theoretical implications and practical implications derived from this study are

presented. Limitations of the present study are pointed out and tentative suggestions

for further research are provided.

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Chapter Two

Literature Review

This chapter moves on to elaborate the theoretical foundations for the study

through reviewing related literature. It falls into four sections. Section One introduces

the concept of repair. Section Two reviews the studies of conversational repair.

Section Three dwells on different aspects of speaker variables that affect

conversational repair behavior. Section Four is a summary emphasizing what is new

in the study.

2.1 The Concept of Repair

2.1.1 Definition of Repair

The first task that a study of repair in interaction must face is a clear delimitation

of the domain in which repair operates (Li Yue’e, 1996). In a literal sense, to repair is

to mend a machine or such things that have been damaged. In conversational analysis,

it is first used by Schegloff, Jefferson and Sacks (1979) to refer to the act of correcting

previous utterances. From their standpoint, the term “repair” is to be addressing

problems, or dealing with a collection of occurrences in ordinary conversation, very

heterogeneous in their appearance, which have initially in common that by them

problems of speaking, hearing and understanding the talk are addressed. Hence, what

the repair in interaction covers is not a particular subject that participants have

problems with, but the talk itself (Li Yue’e, 1996). It takes the ultimate completion of

communicative function as its goal, whereas, repair makes little sense on its own,

which means nothing but assisting in producing more fluent, more coherent

utterances.

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According to Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching & Applied Linguistics,

the term repair is defined as follows: It is a term for ways in which errors, unintended

forms, or misunderstandings are corrected by speakers or others during conversations.

Evidently, this definition is the most objective and generalized one for its unbiased

interpretation, tinged with little individual researcher’s inclination except for its

original starting point. Likewise, it still dwells upon the discoursal level. The

subjectivity of the interlocutor is utterly excluded from its consideration, which means,

say, the intended errors, forms used by the interlocutor to achieve certain

perlocutionary effect are not identified as “real” problems, and thus are not

necessarily to be repaired.

Schwartz (1980) mainly talked about repair from the perspective of L2 learning.

For his specific purpose in research, “repair seems to be a process of negotiation,

involving speakers conferring with each other to achieve understanding.” This

definition describes the process when the repair is undertaken. Amid this process, both

the speaker and the hearer are involved in the utterance production and reaction,

sometime with the concomitant negotiation or clarification.

As presented in the above statement, different definitions of repair have been

proffered. With the varying research focus, what should be repaired and how to

perform the repair differ from one circumstance to another.

In a similar vein, in the present study mainly seen as a kind of behavior, repair

has to take account of at once inter-discoursal factors and extra-discoursal factors. The

interlocutor’s personal factors should also be included. Positioned pragmatically,

repair is an activity, in which both the speaker and hearer either maintain the on-going

interaction, or communicate, consciously or subconsciously, some intentions.

This activity reflects a variety of influence, cultural, attitudinal and the like. It is

as well a channel to keep the coherence of discourse as a means to communicate

subjective intent to arrive at certain perloutionary effects.

2.1.2 Repair VS. Correction

Among the researches past and present, there has long been a controversial issue

5

with regard to how to appropriately term conversational redressive behavior. Though

not closely pertinent to the current study, it is necessary to delimit the scope of

research and naturally indicates the focal point of this study.

Schegloff. et al.(1977) are the first to distinguish between repair and correction.

According to them, correction is deemed as one of several possible types of repair. It

serves to replace an error by the correct linguistic form. Repair, on the other hand, is

not limited to the replacement of an error, but deals with some kind of trouble in

spontaneous speech. Rieger (2003) followed Schegloff et al. (1977) to define repair as

error correction, the search for a word, the use of hesitation pauses, lexical,

quasi-lexical, or not-lexical pause fillers, immediate lexical changes, false starts, and

instantaneous repetitions.

It is not difficult to find what presuppose the above-stated divergent distinctions

between repair and correction is clearly the respective research focal points. However,

some scholars might get themselves confused and bewildered so long as they have

committed the mistake of treating one as the other. Take Rieger (2003) for example.

His study was, in a large sense, investigating repair as a kind of communicative

strategy. Anchored within the domain of actual interaction, repair is, to a considerable

extent, employed to expose certain communicative goals or intentions. So the speaker

is possible to perform repair when there does not occur real problems in terms of form

and content. Obviously, all these problems are not errors and need no correction at all.

To examine L2 learners’ conversational repair behavior, I think it might be

suitable to define repair in a much broader sense. Repair can potentially cover a wide

range of actions (Van Lier, 1982). Undesired mistakes apart, speakers intend these

mistakes to be repaired later to come to pragmatic effect (in particular, the advanced

learners are more likely to do so). Hence, it necessitates the inclusion of non-error

corrections under investigation to learn more about the pragmatic values.

2.2 Conversational Repair Strategies

Generally, conversational repair is a common phenomenon that takes place in

turn-taking communication between two parties or multi-parties. As an effective tool

6

to communicate, or to facilitate communication, it performs many a function beyond

the discourse level and grammatical level. Not only can it reveal the interlocutor’s

attitude, manifest the parties’ social distance while not failing to observe cooperative

Principle, but it also brings many intended linguistic devices, or rather, strategies into

full play, since factors of human, society and culture all weigh upon the

communication. Thus, it is necessary to have a bird’s-eye view of the conversational

repair strategies. In the following, different classifications of repair strategies will be

listed and discussed.

2.2.1 Classifications of Conversational Repair

I. Basic Classification of Conversational Repair

Schegloff, Jefferson and Sacks (1977) came up with the basic model of

conversational repair. They divided up conversational repair roughly into two types:

self-repair and other-repair. During the interaction, the speaker frequently initiates

repair to his or her own utterance, that is, performs self-repair; On the other hand, if

the repair is not completed by the speaker him or herself, then other-repair takes

place.

To quote examples as follows may help to illustrate the classification. These

examples are selected from the corpus utilized by the present study. (1) A: Can you give me some advice?

B: Err…yes, of course. Err…now, have you err…got (2) A: ……you should know what to do and what not what no to do, what not to do, so you should be more activity about that. B: Oh, thank you very much. University life. (3) A: It is better for you to take notes. B: Take notes? A: Yeah.

In the first example, after the addresser had raised a question for advice for his

adaptation to later university life, the hearer responded with an interrogative question.

Perhaps due to the misarticulation of the long and complicated syllables, the word

“universality” was repeated when the hearer spotted an error that arose from the

similarity of pronunciation between “universal” and “university”. The hearer

7

himself performed the repair here, so it is commonly regarded as the typical type of

self-repair.

What is a bit more complicated in terms of the entire process of repair in the

second example is, that the prior speaker displayed a relatively low proficiency of oral

English, so the hearer summarized the few points that have been stated, which appear

loose in organization and connection to one another by a short phrase: university life,

Here, the hearer initiated the repair and performed it simultaneously. This is the case

for other-repair.

Judged and categorized in terms of repair initiator and operator, it is worth noting

that the first example is self-initiation and self-repair; the second example is

other-initiation and other-repair; the third example is other-initiation and self-repair.

Logically speaking, there must exist a fourth type of repair: self-initiation and

other-repair. The following table serves to make the classification clear.

Table 2.1 The Classification of Conversational Repair

Self-initiation and Self-repair Self-initiated Repair

Self-initiation and Other-repair

Other-initiation and Self-repair Other-initiated Repair

Other-initiation and Other-repair

It is widely held currently that self-repair is preferred, while all the others are

dispreferred (Later on, there will be elaboration on this issue). However, it also needs

to be pointed out that repair organization is mostly outlined on the basis of everyday

conversation between native speakers (Kurhila, 2001). Consequently, the preference

organization in status-asymmetric speech situations may manifest itself in a total

different manner. McHowl (1990) studied classroom interaction, and found that

although self-repair is still preferred in pedagogic talk between teachers and pupils,

there do occur instances of self-initiated and other-repair type when, for example, the

teacher spots an error in his or her own utterance due to a slip of tongue, he or she is

likely to draw the pupils’ attention to the problematic part and calls for their

8

correction.

Li Yue’e (1996) has made a detailed comparison among three interactional

settings: Classroom, Group Work and Conversation. Her study produced some

interesting results. She discovered that in these three types of interaction there did

exist self-initiation/ other-completion. But the frequency in Group Work is twice as

much as in Conversation and three times as much as in Classroom. But she went no

further to find out the cause of such a phenomenon.

II. Task-based Classification of Conversational Repair Strategies

Many researchers have explored deeply into the issues concerning conversational

repair. For the sake of being compatible with their respective research interest,

different classifications have been proposed to cover related repair behavior.

Kempen and colleagues (1987) distinguished two basic repair strategies:

reformulation and lemma substitution. They suggest that these strategies are triggered

by different kinds of errors. Reformulation is called for in order to create a new

content; the syntactic structure of the utterance has to be revised (Postma, 2000).

Considered from the angle of mental perception and monitoring, reformulation is

mainly constrained by productive problem. Lemma substitution refers to lexical

replacement or other similar things. Both of the two, if taking the initiatorship into

account, are mental activities and actual interacting activities of the interlocutor him

or herself, without any intervention by the other. So they are roughly sharing features

with self-initiated and self-repair type, but within a rather narrow scope.

Mason (2004) examined how speakers’ conversational information concealment,

which guide the speaker’s use of reference in conversation affected the way speakers

negotiate and repair the identity of a human referent in conversation. In view of the

nature of the materials, covertly taped conversations among criminal activities, some

repair strategies that characterized these conversations were identified and filtered out

into three main types: repairs that flout the maxims, repairs that rely on private keys,

and repairs that rely on non-private keys.

The first type of repair attributes itself to the counter-production of the

9

Cooperative Principle (Grice, 1975), which states “make your conversational

contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted

purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged”. The Cooperative

Principle is divided into conversational maxims of quantity, quality, and relevance and

manner.

Grice formulated these maxims to describe the efficient and effective use of

language in conversation to further a cooperative end. On some occasions, speakers

may overtly and blatantly not follow some maxim in order to exploit it for

communicative purposes. In the covertly-taped conversations, the speakers exploit the

maxim of quantity to indicate to their addressees that the identity of the referent must

be inferred from the information provided in discourse and from the speakers’ shared

goals of concealment (Mason, 2004).

The second type of repair of this particularized conversation is mostly prompted

by aliases, since these uniquely tap into the knowledge shared by the speakers and

their addressees and do not reveal information accessible to overhearers.

The third type of repair, unlike the previous ones, provides generally accessible

information about the referent. All the repairs are performed in the form of proper

names.

2.2.2 Self-repair Strategies

A majority of previous studies all claimed a preference in conversational repairs,

which is a characteristic of human speech event. Self-repair accounts for a majority of

the occurrences of repair activities in interaction. In this sense, it is worthwhile to give

a special treatment to self-repair.

Self-repair refers to the correction of errors without external prompting,

frequently within a short span of time form the moment of error occurrence (Postma,

2000). To correct oneself, one can gain time for thinking, or prevent somebody else

from jumping into the conversation at an upcoming transition-relevance-place. This

implies that pragmatically self-repair performs quite a few functions to facilitate the

interaction.

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Schegloff et al. (1977) describe the basic format of self-repair as initiation with a

non-lexical initiator that is followed by the repairing segment. These non-lexical

initiators comprise cut-off, lengthening of sounds, and quasi-lexical fillers such as

“uh” and “um”. The functions of self-repair are:

1. word search;

2. word replacement;

3. repair of person references; and

4. repair of next-speaker selection.

L2 learners might display a high frequency of self-repair used for word search

and word replacement, if just limited to this framework of self-repair’s functions.

Meanwhile, the last function is absolutely not liable to work, as the corpus in use is

composed of thirty two-party-conversations. The conversations all progress with the

alternating of the two parties involved. There is no need to self-select the next

speaker.

Fox and Jasperson (1995) classified self-repair into seven different types: the

repetition of a lexical item, the replacement of a cut-off word, the repetition of several

lexical items, a repetition plus the replacement of one lexical item, the repetition of a

clause or phrase and the addition of new elements before the repetition, a repetition

plus the addition of new elements, and abandoning the portion of talk cut off with a

restart.

Since this classification is based on a special speech community: English-German

bilinguals, it is far from exhaustive of all forms of self-repair. More and more people

pay heed to conversational self-repair and allocate much attention to its pragmatic

function of manipulating the communication process. To mitigate the straight

forwardness, the speaker can intentionally resort to self-repair to communicate his or

her hidden intent. The self-repair here used deviates to a great extent from

maintaining the coherence of speech. In doing so, self-repair may contribute to

indirectness and superficial irrelevance with the on-going interaction for some

particular effect. Then, there arises another possibility: self-repair does not necessarily

occur in the forms stated above; for it could be performed without any apparent

11

linguistically repaired portion of utterance. If this is the right case, the scope of

self-repair is extended infinitely broader. To obviate this potential risk, the present

study still proceeds in a narrow sense, and won’t be divorced from the linguistic level

when locating self-repair.

2.3 Aspects of Speaker Variables

2.3.1 The Role of Language Proficiency

A systematic series of tests has been developed so far to measure language

proficiency. Such tests are given either in terms of ability to use language for a given

purpose (e.g. entry into university) or in more general terms (as in the case of tests

such as the Cambridge First Certificate and Proficiency). All these tests have

undergone a scientific design process and stood up to various modifications and

improvements. In this sense, we can give full credence to the corpus in use in the

present study concerning the reliability.

Previous studies have made much exploration into proficiency. But they mostly

dwell upon the relation between proficiency and language acquisition (Wen Qiufang,

1995). Few researchers touch upon the relation between proficiency and

communicative competence, specifically here, conversational repair behavior.

Egbert (2004) argued that, more often than not, nonnative language deficiency led

to structural elaborateness of repair. She proposed that in interaction where one or

more participants displayed a low proficiency in the language being used, this would

frequently materialize in structural elaborateness of the basic two-part repair sequence.

These sequential expansions were collaboratively achieved and appeared to be

characteristic manifestations of the ‘non-nativeness’ of a participant.

We must point out with regret that counterexamples might also appear in

nonnative speakers’ utterance. The less proficient speakers, for example, will in all

likelihood make repair as brief as possible for fear of making further errors in

production, in particular those reticent ones. Anyway, this point should be left to be

proved in future research.

For the stated reason, the present study will not bother to draw any clear-cut

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boundary lines between native-like and nonnative-like repair behavior. What is a

necessity herein is that there should be a systematic and subjective description and

analysis about the impact that language proficiency delivers upon L2 learners’

conversational repair behavior.

2.3.2 Gender

Gender contributes to the option for different conversational strategies. Kotthoff

(2000) studied the phenomenon that women depreciate themselves in their humour.

He found that women laughed much more often than the men and they practice

narrative self-mockery more often. Men tell more standardized jokes, which are more

formal in style and less self-centered.

Mccloskey (1996) investigated gender differences in the speech styles of children

in mixed-age dyads. The chief gender differences between third graders indicated that

girls were more tutorial in their speech with younger conversation partners, and boys

were more likely than girls to brag or insult their opponent in either a mixed- or

same-age setting. Asymmetry in interaction was more pronounced among mixed-age

girls than boys, with third-grade girls appearing more dominating in both prosocial

and egoistic ways. Although there were few overall differences in how first-grade

boys and girls addressed older children, first-grade boys produced a disproportionate

amount of compliments or self-denigrating speech. These results indicated that there

were emergent gender differences in how children assumed leadership roles. It was

recommended that teachers and adults encourage mixed-gender and mixed-age

interaction to expand the scope of children’s early social experiences and better

prepare them for the blends of gender and status they would encounter in

gender-integrated workplaces.

Weinberg et al. (1998) evaluated gender differences in rate of repair in

mother-infant interactions. The results revealed that mother-son dyads had more

difficulty repairing interactive errors. These findings suggested that mothers and

infants maintained a higher level of mutual attention and had a more difficult time

repairing interactive errors.

13

It is worth noting that these previous studies examined the gender difference from

social and mental angles. The topic of the present study “How do specific speaker

variables affect and shape the conversational repair behavior of L2 learners” has not

been touched, since all of these were conducted within the setting of natives’

interactions.

2.3.3 Face Want and Face Work

The concept of ‘face’ is commonly thought to have its origin in China. But it was

Goffman, a westerner that did the pioneering work. He has published an essay on

face-work revealing the distinctly individualistic traits of face (Mao, 1994). He

introduced the concept of face to illuminate patterns of behavior, defining face as ‘the

positive social value a person effectively claims for himself by the line others assume

he has taken during a particular contact.’

Seen in this light, face is not an internalized or individualistic property lodged in an

individual’s body, but an image that needs to be recognized and endorsed by others

involved in interaction. To secure this image ‘on loan to individuals from society’,

people have to engage in public property that is only assigned to individuals

contingent upon their interactional behavior (Mao, 1994). In contrast, Brown and

Levinson put forward their version of face theory, which pursues the opposite

direction to Goffman. Although Brown and Levinson drew upon Goffman, the two

parties diverge from each other in many respects. What conspicuously marks Brown

and Levinson off is that they see face as an image intrinsically belonging to

individuals. Their characterization of face is self-oriented. Since this characterization

squarely underlies Western interactional negotiation, it proves problematic in

non-Western contexts. Thus, their previous claim to universality is apparently

untenable (According to Brown and Levinson, speakers come into conversations with

two seemingly conflicting face wants: a positive face want, which is the desire to be

liked and approved of by others; and a negative face want, which is the desire to be

unimpeded by others and to have freedom of action. Basically, their claim to

universality amounts to the following three points:

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(1) The universality of face, which is describable as two kinds of basic wants;

(2) The potential universality of a set of strategic resources from which individual

cultures choose, and of certain principle and their rational deployment;

(3) The universality of the interlocutors’ mutual knowledge of (1) and (2).

(Yu, 2003)

For the present study, all the data used come from the Chinese context and are

completed by Chinese native L2 speakers. So the analysis intends to make a detailed

interpretation incorporating the elements of Chinese face into face theory. But this

does not indicate that the entire research results will seek interpretation from the

newly proposed relative face orientation construct. The major reason for this

consideration is based upon the less popularity of this construct than the traditional

one. And there may also be a potential that L2 learners are purposefully inclined to

native-like interaction behavior.

2.3.4 Relative Status

Conversational repair is not a simple matter that the latter speaker initiates a

repair request and the other makes corresponding correction, or vice versa. Another

important element in it is the relative status of the involved speakers.

As discussed in the previous sections, there is a prevalent acknowledgement of

preference for self-repair in conversations. But in a strict sense, this claim can only be

tenable in a vacuum of speech community, in which all the speakers are

indiscriminately the same if ethically, educationally, politically judged. Naturally, the

specificity of tasks is obscured.

Thus, in order to obviate the risk of excluding pragmatic elements from actual

speech interaction analysis, we need to pay sufficient attention to the background

information. For instance, the investigation of settings favoring corrections by a

second speaker reveals a shared perception that he or she is better able to complete the

exchange, either because of greater familiarity with the topic, the language in use, or

simply the intended contribution (Norrick, 1991). In the related study conducted by

Norrick, interactions between parents and children, teachers and students, and native

15

and nonnative speakers provided appropriate examples that manifested the mighty

power of status in performing conversational repair behavior.

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Chapter Three

Methodology

This study adopts a qualitative-dominating design, complemented with necessary

quantitative computation and analysis, to examine how Chinese L2 learners perform

conversational repair behavior and what specific effect speaker variables can produce

upon them, and how. This chapter contains four sections. Section One brings forward

research questions. Section Two gives a detailed specification of materials involved in

the present study. Section Three limits focus on the procedures of data collection.

Section Four introduces how the data is analyzed. 3.1 Research Questions

Given the exploratory nature of this study and the qualitative-based approach of the

analysis, no concrete hypotheses have been put forth beforehand, but it is a couple of

coherent research problems that guide the study. The general research question we

would like to address is: How do specific speaker variables affect and shape the

conversational repair behavior of Chinese L2 learners? This general question

roughly dictates the direction the present study proceeds in. To answer this question,

we will have to probe into the following specific questions, which uncover different

aspects of the general question:

1. How are conversational repairs distributed in Chinese L2 learners’ conversations?

(1) How are self-initiation/self-repairs distributed in Chinese L2 learners’

conversations?

(2) How are self-initiation/other-repairs distributed in Chinese L2 learners’

conversations?

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(3) How are other-initiation/self-repairs distributed in Chinese L2 learners’

conversations?

(4) How are other-initiation/other-repairs distributed in Chinese L2 learners’

conversations?

2. From a pragmatic perspective, how do speaker variables affect and regulate

Chinese L2 learners’ conversational repairs in terms of each of the four

above-mentioned types of conversational repair?

(1) How does varying language proficiency affect and regulate Chinese L2

learners’ conversational repairs?

(2) How does gender affect and regulate Chinese L2 learners’ conversational

repairs?

(3) How does relative status affect and regulate Chinese L2 learners’

conversational repairs? 3.2 Materials

Materials for the present study are chosen from the Spoken English Corpus of

Chinese Learners (SECLL), a comprehensive corpus whose construction was

completed under the leadership of Professor Wen Qiufang, the School of Foreign

Studies, Nanjing University.

The specifications of the materials used in the present study are as follows:

(1) The materials are the Spoken English Test’s scripts of Band 4 of Test of

English Majors. There are altogether three types of task involved in the spoken

test: monologue, story-retelling and dialogue. The materials used for study are

the third task type: dialogue.

(2) In all, 80 pieces of the scripts are selected for the present study. To cater to the

needs of the study, all the scripts are identified and classified in light of two

different analysis targets. (The detailed method of classification will be

elaborated in Data Collection.)The first classification goes as follows: Twenty

of the scripts are representatives of the high language proficiency level;

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Twenty are representatives of the low language proficiency level (see the

specifications in the next item). The second classification goes as follows:

Twenty pieces of the scripts are performed by male testees, and twenty are

performed by female testees.

(3) The language proficiency concerned in the study is measured with a scale of

four ranks: Excellence, good, pass and non-pass. The testees with grades of the

former two ranks are deemed high proficiency learners, and the testees with

grades of the latter two ranks are considered low proficiency learners.

(4) The subjects concerned are year 2000 sophomore students of English Major

from different universities and colleges of China. Their performances were

totally mixed up and scored by anonymous examiners. Hence, the reliability

of the proficiency classification is relatively high.

(5) Although all these dialogues were performed by a pair of speakers, Role As

were the very subjects concerned in the study. For Role Bs were Role As’

partners and the task of Role Bs was to cooperate with Role As to carry out

two-party dialogues dictated in the test.

(6) Now that the central issue of the present study is to uncover the hidden

influence of pragmatic elements on Chinese L2 learners’ conversational repair

behavior, rather than to trace the phonological variations, we will not bother to

make any alteration to the transcription of the adopted scripts. The original

transcription conventions are still observed and all the scripts will be loyal to

the dictation of the SECCL. 3.3 Data Collection

Since there is no rigid and fixed procedure to finish this job automatically, we

make a point of abiding by some criteria indispensable for data collection. The criteria

for the data collection section go as the following several items:

What can be repaired and what gets repaired is the foremost question to be answered.

Here, we introduce the concept trouble source into the present study. Faerch and

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Kasper (1982) define the trouble source as follows:

The trouble source is an utterance or a part thereof which is experienced as

problematic by at least one of the participants; the speaker might feel there to be a

mismatch between what he said and what he intended to say, and the hearer might not

be able to assign meaning to (a part of) the speaker’s utterance, or he might be in

doubt about the meaning he assigned to it. The metalingual and metacommunicative

activity addressed to removing the trouble source is referred to as repair work.

Van Lier has proposed a framework for the analysis of different types trouble

sources in terms of language functions. In this framework, three dimensions are

categorized:

a. medium-oriented: a focus on the forms and/or functions of the target

language;

b. message-oriented: a focus on the transmission of thoughts, information,

feelings, etc;

c. activity-oriented: a focus on the organization and structure of the classroom

environment, rules for the conduct of activities, etc.

Note that the activity-oriented dimension cited above covers only two-party

dialogue used in the present study. All the identification work of trouble sources in the

present study is conducted in accordance with the three-fold requirement.

In theory, nothing is excludable from the class repairable (Schegloff, Jefferson and

Sacks, 1977: 363). Therefore, for methodological purpose, what is repairable can be

identified only in terms of the reaction of participants. Repair operates on a trouble

source (Li Yue’e, 1996). In the present study, we are determined to assume a broader

attitude to see the repairable. Replacement of the item that contains the trouble source,

word searching and syntactic searching are all regarded as repairable.

The four types of conversational repair: self-initiation/self-repair,

self-initiation/other-repair, other-initiation/self-repair, and other-initiation/other-repair

are identified manually and marked with four distinctive tags.

Wordsmith is used to calculate the number of the identified repairs and locate all the

repairs for the convenience of later analysis.

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The frequencies of self-initiation/self-repair, self-initiation/other-repair,

other-initiation/self-repair, and other-initiation/other-repair are computed.

3.4 Data Analysis

As we have discussed earlier, to examine what role speaker variables play in

Chinese L2 learners’ conversational repair behavior involves at once quantitative

computation and classification, and qualitative analysis and discussion. In the present

study, qualitative approach is predominant due to the consideration that the majority

of independent variables and dependent variables in this study have a great bearing

upon actual human mental activities, and frequently find reference to cultural

elements. In this sense, there is no judging what work the variables are doing without

basing it on the researcher’s own inference, summing up and analysis. In the

meantime, there is no denying or overlooking the significance of quantitative

approach since it is the prerequisite for qualitative work.

First of all, the distributions of self-initiation/self-repair, self-initiation/other-repair,

other-initiation/self-repair, and other-initiation/other-repair are reported. Comparisons

between one another in terms of frequency are conducted, in an attempt to generalize

the overall similarities and differences at the linguistic level. Subsequently, the roles

of language proficiency, gender and status are exposed and discussed as to why there

are these similarities and differences in the occurrence of the four types of

conversational repair.

Amid all the above work, another sub-task is carried out to bring out some more

detailed information. Within each of the four general types of conversational repair,

the features of repair on such a variety of problems as understanding problems and

production problems (the task of classifying the two problems are further completed

by means of manual computation. The criteria for this classification are no rigid as

well because of the qualitative element involved, but it is a relatively light job since

the repairs can be recognized as either understanding problems or production

problems by mere reference to their contexts) are summarized, which serve as the

foundation for probing into the causes that take control over and govern the

21

occurrence of repair.

One point we would like to clarify here is that, although Role Bs didn’t get rated

and scored as testees, their participation is an integral component of the conversations.

The testees’ scores at large are dependent upon their companions’ work as well. Or it

can be argued that the rating was done viewing the entire cooperation of both partners

as a whole. Hence, it is reasonable that we take Role Bs into consideration, through

which we may equally obtain the desired information.

To exemplify the coding procedures in this study, an example on how to delimit

various types of conversational repair is presented below (the italicized are the

repaired parts and so is the case with examples cited later).

(1) B: So ... em ... the school provides us a lot of spare time. But <Butter> ... do you

know ... how to use them? How to use it? A: Em, I don't know ... it very much.

(2) A: Oh, I think maybe you can join in some group such as radio or such as university radio station or all kinds of newspaper. B: Oh, yes, I just in I just joined in a a association, the flute association <associae> association.

(1) is an exchange of opinions about the ways to kill time. What is problematic lies

in the raising of question: The speaker blurts out an interrogation sentence with a

misuse of pronoun “them”, soon he himself notices the error and produces another

interrogation sentence with nothing different but the pronoun “it”. The reason is that

“spare time” referred to in the previous sentence is an uncountable noun. In (2),

speaker B makes a more specific reply “the flute association” than the prior one to

make up for the ambiguity possibly incurred by it. To see the examples presented here,

the trouble sources are both within the same turn of speech, the redressive actions are

also both initiated and completed by the speakers themselves. So the repair with these

features is identified as self-initiation/self-repair.

(3) A: I know, you are a very excellent student and you have very high marks in every cause. So my question is how do you drill your English listening? You know, I didn’t do any exercises about that. When I was in high school…so…When I first

22

came to college, I couldn’t understand anything said in English. B: Oh A: Is that a problem? B: Er…I think if you want to make a great progress in your listening, you should begin with simple thing. Have you ever heard it?

In this short dyadic dialogue, speaker A produces an interrogative sentence in the

next turn of his own speech, which is intended to invite a corresponding confirmation

of his speculation. And speaker B does give a relevant detailed introduction that fits

the raised question. The repair with these features is identified as

self-initiation/other-repair.

(4) B: Yes, yes, but you should remember such things…must not influence your study.

Because the most, the most important thing in university life is study. A: Em. You mean<means>…Er…study is first, other things are second? B: Yes. But…Er…take part in the…sports…Er…and other activity is also very important, you know….Em…e.g., you can have a part time job…Er…through these you can practice your ability ,you can accumulate your experience in……

Dialogue (4) consists of three turns of speech. In the first turn, speaker B provides A

with advice, upon which speaker A casts doubt in the next turn, even with a note of

disapproval. To preclude the potential misunderstanding by speaker A, an elaboration

of the significance of “other activity” from speaker B complements his previous

advice. Herein, this “other-raising-problem and self-redressing-action” features

other-initiation/self-repair type of conversational repair behavior.

(5) B: Have you done some social work?

A: Social work? B: Such as … A: Part-time job, you mean?

A total of four turns compose the mini-dialogue (5). Speaker A cannot fathom his

partner’s meaning largely owing to the ambiguous, or non-native phrase “social

work”. Then he directly repeats this part to signal it as problematic, which speaker B

attempts to specify in its wake, but is unfinished. It is speaker A that comes up with

23

the desirable expression. In this dialogue, the next speaker raises the problem, and the

solution is still provided by the same speaker. All the repairs that share these features

are identified as other-initiation/other-repairs.

Nevertheless, things may turn out to be a little bit complex than the above. To

make clear this point, another example is provided below:

(6) A: Oh, Thank you. Thank you. You know, I’m not a very …er…

B: Confident? A: Strong boy. Can, can I take part in some sports? A: Sure, of course. You know the sports are …er… mostly not based on the strong

body…

On the surface, it seems that speaker A self-initiates the problem and leaves it to his

partner. Yet, if carefully analyzed in combination with speaker A’s next reply, it is not

difficult to conclude that this very problem is caused by the searching for mere

desirable expression. The speaker himself does not intend his partner to round off his

unfinished utterance. Put in another way, speaker B’s insertion should be recognized

as an unsolicited help which speaker A takes no notice at all. Hence, this sort of

phenomenon is not legitimate to be identified as other-initiation/self-repair.

Additionally, one thing deserves a clarification: all the repetitions of part of

utterances in the used data are recognized as self-repairs. This move has its empirical

and theoretical groundings. Rieger (2003) conducted a sociolinguistic study, in which

repetition is considered a self-repair strategy; and from the perspective of pragmatic

thinking, repetition mirrors the state of mind of speakers, reflects speakers’ oral

proficiency, so on and so forth.

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Chapter Four

Results and Discussion

This chapter reports the results of the study to address how specific speaker

variables affect and shape the conversational repair behavior of Chinese L2 learners.

The interpretation and discussion about the results are presented to approach three

specific research questions, namely, 1. How are conversational repairs distributed in

Chinese L2 learners’ conversations? 2. How do speaker variables affect and regulate

Chinese L2 learners’ conversational repairs in terms of each of the four

above-mentioned types of conversational repair? 3. How do speaker variables affect

and regulate Chinese L2 learners’ conversational repairs to performance errors and

non-performance errors respectively?

This chapter contains three sections. Section One describes conversational repairs

identified in Chinese L2 learners’ conversations. Section Two provides quantitative

results of the distribution of conversational repair in four specific groups, namely low

proficiency group, high proficiency group, male learner group and female learner

group. In addition, a general comparison is to be made of the four groups in terms of

the frequency of conversational repair. Section Three examines the effect of speaker

variables on Chinese L2 learners’ use of conversational repair with exemplifications

in terms of proficiency, gender and status.

4.1 Conversational Repairs Identified

In the corpus used in this study, there exist altogether four types of conversational

repair (hereafter, CR for short) identified in the light of given criteria, namely,

Self-Initiation/Self-Repair (SS for short), Other-Initiation/Self-Repair (OS for short),

25

Other-Initiation/Other-Repair (OO for short), and Self-Initiation/Other-Repair (SO for

short). Table 4.1 provides an overview of the general distribution of CRs.

Table 4.1 Distribution of CR in Chinese L2 learners’ conversations

CR Tokens Rates (%)

SS 703 80.1

OS 135 15.5

OO 21 2.5

SO 16 1.9

Total 875 100

Notes: SS=Self-Initiation/Self-Repair OS=Other-Initiation/Self-Repair

OO=Other-Initiation/Other-Repair SO=Self-Initiation/Other-Repair

Table 4.1 shows that Chinese L2 learners perform CR variedly in terms of quantity

in the 80 articles of their dyadic conversations. A maximum of 703 CRs take the form

of SS, which account for 80.1% of all occurrences; a minimum of 16 CRs take the

form of SO, which only constitute a small percentage of 1.9 of all occurrences. The

two figures are in sharp contrast. Between the two extremes, another two types of CRs:

OS and OO are both remote from the maximum figure of SS and hold the percentages

of 15.5 and 2.5 respectively.

The predominance of SS in the corpus does not fall outside our prediction. Many a

study has evidenced this trend with convincing statistics. The reason that Chinese L2

learners exhibit a strong preference for SS may be twofold. On the one hand, all

speakers will have to produce utterances while pondering about what is appropriate to

follow, which can be properly attributed to the unique process of human brain. The

action of producing utterances is too instantaneous to have the complete thoughts

well-arranged and matched with appropriate verbal expressions in mind. This attribute

per se necessitates subsequent self-repairs to improve previous production. On the

other hand, like non-native English speakers, Chinese L2 learners are not capable of

speaking as naturally and fluently as natives do. Moreover, many other personal

factors like shyness or anxiety will have a bearing upon individuals’ speech habit. In

26

this regard, the human mechanism for the processing of inner thoughts also frequently

cumbers speedy speech production.

OS in this study is second to SS in frequency, yet its figure exceeds nearly all the

statistics in previous relevant studies. This fact can possibly be interpreted as a

characteristic unique to the corpus in use. The activity allows for unequal statuses

involved in its own right: the pre-assigned roles are inherently unequal. One turns to

the other for advice to help him out of the difficulty in adjusting to university life. The

former is naturally in a position for superior instructions, and at the same time inclines

the latter to adopt an instructor’s attitude, which is a paramount property to induce OS.

Li Yue’e (1996) has also drawn similar results from the observation of classroom

activities, in which teachers interact with students with a preference for OS.

The results about OO in the present study are roughly consistent with the prediction.

Pragmatically interpreted, OO performs the function similar to OS except for the

complexity of structure. In actual interactions, the listener alerts the speaker to

specific problems wishing the latter to correct them. Usually, the speaker himself

solves the problems in the third turn of speech. If the speaker fails to notice the

problems or brings unsatisfactory correction, the listener is likely to do correction

himself. This phenomenon is termed OO, which involves one more turn of speech in

the ideal conditions.

According to Li Yue’e (1996), rare cases of SO make appearance in classroom

activities, which, in reality, amounts to an omission of computation. In the present

study, 16 SOs are located. The interpretation of why the present study and Li Yue’e’s

diverge from each other is tentatively provided here. For Li’s study, three types of

activities were examined. In conversations, the speakers exchange ideas or compare

notes on an equal footing. Neither is superior to the other in status. SO more often

than not is utilized to orient listeners’ attention to the desired point, in which sense SO

is instruction-driven, but much rarer than OS; in group work, the ultimate goal is to

reach a consensus of opinions. For the multitude of participators, all are pressured for

time and impatient to take the “slow-paced” SO to solicit opinions. For the corpus of

the present study, the roles of both partners are a little bit paradoxical: though one

27

asks for advice from the other, they are still peers. When necessary, the speaker may

make known his opinion or diction directly, be it appropriate or not, and then directs

his listener’s attention to what he considers problematic and seek confirmation.

Last but not least, on the whole, fear of face-threatening accounts for the

predominance of SS. To initiate repairs to others’ utterances is more face threatening

than any other of SO, OS and OO. The latter three forms equal doubting others’

knowledge, oral competence. Thus, this will definitely threaten hearers’ negative face.

That Chinese attach importance to face is a tradition that extends over centuries. This

fact drives Chinese learners to shun casting doubt on others. The eagerness to earn

recognition by others urges speakers to speak as fluently as possible, as fast as

possible. On the contrary, they are often too anxious to do like this, which, in turn,

induces more errors and subsequent SSs. Actually, this is how positive face works. 4.2 Distribution of CR in Four Specific Groups

This section examines the detailed features of CRs in four specific groups. Their

frequencies and percentages are computed. At the same time, necessary qualitative

interpretations and discussions are also provided to make clear the features of

distribution of CR.

4.2.1 Distribution of CR in Low Proficiency Group (LPG)

In this part of the thesis, the frequencies of the four types of CR in the low

language proficiency group are presented in Table 4.2. Further, the number of CR in

this group is compared with the total number of CR in the corpus and the percentage

is computed accordingly. The result is presented in Table 4.3.

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Table 4.2 Frequency of the four types of CRs in low proficiency group

CR Tokens Rates (%)

SS 203 82.9

OS 32 13.1

OO 5 2.0

SO 5 2.0

Total 245 100

Table 4.2 shows that SS still takes a biggest share of CR, with a percentage of

82.9%. This proportion is a little bit larger than that of the overall distribution of SS,

which is 80.1%. What is the underlying reason for this difference? This is a rather

delicate question. It is perhaps related to a couple of factors. First, restricted by the

low language proficiency, the learners in this group exhibit a comparatively poor

performance of oral competence. They commit more mistakes than the average

speaker in the corpus. Second, as a consequence of poor mastery of oral English, they

tend to be more anxious about their performance, which correspondingly leads to

more mistakes than an average speaker.

As opposed to SS, OSs in this group are fewer compared with its overall

distribution. The percentage of 13.1% loses 2.4% compared with the overall

percentage 15.5%. This phenomenon might be explained along the following line.

Low language proficiency learners are somewhat less confident or even

self-contemptuous with regard to their expressive competence, which results in an

increasing tendency for the learners to attribute interactive problems to themselves

rather than to their partners. This sense of over-self-consciousness drives them to pay

more attention to their own performance, and perform more self-repairs. By contrast,

they do not have the nerve to find fault with their partners’ utterances and initiate

repairs. Anyway, providing without any comparison with previous study results, this

figure can tell us that Chinese learners are still courageous enough to make attempts

to express divergence of opinions and understandings.

OOs in this group are also fewer in number. This phenomenon consists with the

29

trend of OS in this group. Viewed from the structure, OO is an extension of OS. In

like manner, low language proficiency Chinese learners are too timid to initiate

repairs to others’ utterances. As a consequence, they make fewer repairs in the next

turn to rectify the attributed mistakes.

SO in this group roughly maintains the status quo of its general distribution with

a slight change. Its frequency becomes a bit higher. This trend accords with that of SS

in this group, both of which are inherently active repair behavior.

Table 4.3 Percentage of CR in LPG compared with the totality of CR

CR Tokens Rates (%)

LPG 245 28

Total 875 100

As is described in Methodology part, altogether 4 groups are under examination.

Providing divided evenly, each of the 4 groups gets a share of 25% in terms of the

amount of CR. Then we take a look at CR in this group and find that it apparently

exceeds the average number. This shows that low language proficiency learners use

more CR in conversations.

4.2.2 Distribution of CR in High Proficiency Group (HPG)

This part of the thesis provides a picture of the frequencies of the four types of

CR in the high language proficiency group. The distribution is presented in Table 4.4.

Next, the number of CR in this group is compared with the total number of CR in the

corpus and the percentage is computed accordingly. The obtained result is presented

in Table 4.5.

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Table 4.4 Frequency of the four types of CR in high proficiency group

CR Tokens Rates (%)

SS 150 76.9

OS 37 19.0

OO 5 2.6

SO 3 1.5

Total 195 100

Table 4.4 gives us a clear description of CR in high proficiency group. The

dominance of CR still resides in SS. What is particularly worth attention is the

diminishing number of SS. 76.9% of CRs take the form of SS. This percentage has

lost 3.2% compared with that of SS in total number of CR. In the mean time, OS

presents an ascending tendency in percentage, with a rising percentage of 19.0% as

opposed to its 15.5% in total distribution. OO roughly maintains the status quo

compared with its total distribution, increasing from 2.5% to 2.6%. SO is trending

downward from 1.9% to 1.5%.

With regard to SS in this group, the reason for the drop its percentage may consist

in two factors. Firstly, learners have acquired a better command of oral competence

than the average learners of the four groups. This indicates that when producing

utterances, they make fewer mistakes. Therefore, their attention to SS is shifted to

other aspects like accuracy and fluency. In all likelihood, it is this very self-assurance

that induces the increase of OS. They themselves give scant attention to their own

production. By contraries, their partners, as better learners, are courageous to find

fault with others’ speech. They are ready to pick out mistakes and signal them when

listening. The variations about OO and SO can both be accounted for along the

similar line of the interpretation to the above two.

In sum, the overall characteristic of CR’s distribution goes like this: SS and SO

are trending downward, whereas OO and OS go opposite.

31

Table 4.5 Percentage of CR in HPG compared with the totality of CR

CR Tokens Rates (%)

HPG 195 22.3

Total 875 100

CR in HPG holds a percentage of 22.3%, a little bit below the average one. Thus,

as far as sheer number is concerned, learners in this group make relatively fewer CRs,

which, for the most part, is due to their high language proficiency. In particular, their

smooth production contributes to the fewer occurrences of CR.

4.2.3 Distribution of CR in Male Learner Group (MLG)

The following table presents the frequency of the four types of CR in male

learner group.

Table 4.6 Frequency of the four types of CR in male learner group

CR Tokens Rates (%)

SS 198 77.0

OS 46 17.9

OO 8 3.1

SO 5 2.0

Total 257 100

Despite the unvarying general distribution trend of the four types of CR on the

whole, Table 4.6 reveals some subtle changes. 77.0% of CRs are SSs. Compared with

its overall percentage 80.1%, there is a notable decrease. OS and OO go in the

opposite direction and trend upward, both of which rise to 17.9% and 3.1%

respectively. SO remains the status quo.

The most prominent distinction between this group and the overall picture is

surely the ebb-and-flow relationship between SS and OS, OO. The decrease of SS is

absolutely beyond our expectation since the bulk of previous research indicates that

32

males favor repair behavior. But a close examination of the present result does bear

out this claim. Sound interpretation may be found in the increase of OS and OO.

Males are born with an innate inclination to be aggressive or offensive. This

supposition is well justified in their interactive behavior in combination with results of

this study. They prefer initiating repairs and recommending solutions when compared

with an average person. In this connection, MLG and HPG are alike in the motivation

to be active rather than passive when engaging themselves in interactions.

Table 4.7 Percentage of CR in MLG compared with the totality of CR

CR Tokens Rates (%)

MLG 257 29.4

Total 875 100

CR in this group holds a percentage of 29.4%, which exceeds the allotted share

25% by more than 4 points. This result further corroborates the supposition that males

perform a majority of repairs.

4.2.4 Distribution of CR in Female Learner Group (FLG)

This section presents the frequency of the four types of CR in female learner

group. Corresponding analysis is made to uncover its pragmatic motivation.

Table 4.8 Frequency of the four types of CR in female learner group

CR Tokens Rates (%)

SS 152 85.4

OS 20 11.2

OO 3 1.7

SO 3 1.7

Total 178 100

33

The most salient thing about this table is surely the absolute predominance of SS.

85.4% of CRs are employed in the form of SS. This proportion soars to the very top

of the adoption of SS, which is the highest compared with either that of its overall

proportion or the other three specific groups. In sharp contrast, all the other three

become dramatically fewer than previous results. OS loses 4.3% compared with the

overall proportion. OO and SO both hold 1.7% respectively.

Table 4.8 undoubtedly tells us that female learners give “top priority” to SS when

performing CR. The plausible interpretation may boil down to the supposition that

females are most self-conscious in interaction. They are more prone to

“self-criticizing” or “self-retrospecting” rather than finding fault with others’

utterances. Also, female learners value politeness. They allocate more effort to

diminish the face-damaging effect on others. Counter examples from OS, OO and SO

can also be located to testify to this supposition.

Table 4.9 Percentage of CR in FLG compared with the totality of CR

CR Tokens Rates (%)

FLG 178 20.3

Total 875 100

FLG holds a percentage of 20.3% in the overall CR distribution. This proportion

is the lowest one among the four specific groups. It is interesting if examined in

combination with SS holding the highest proportion of all groups. It is well reasonable

to speculate that females are possessed of an inborn capability of oral expression,

which inclines them to produce rather fluent and smooth utterances. To sum up, either

they obviate the use of CR, or they take redressive actions themselves.

4.2.5 A Comparison of the Four Specific Groups

In the prior sections, four specific groups are examined in terms of SS, SO, OS

and OO. This section is intended to draw a comparison among the four groups

34

concerning the features of CR’s distribution. Table 4.10 is provided to give a bird’s

eye view of the general information.

Table 4.10 Frequency of CR in the four groups

Group Tokens Rates (%)

LPG 245 28

HPG 195 22.3

MLG 257 29.4

FLG 178 20.3

Total 178 100

Table 4.10 shows that MLG takes the largest share of CR among all the four

groups. Though it is reasonable to conduct comparisons respectively between LPG

and HPG, MLG and FLG, we can observe the results in another perspective. The

overriding concern here is to see which combination of speaker variables weighs most

heavily upon the use of CR.

In the four groups, MLG and LPG take the lead, whereas HPG and FLG drop

behind. In particular, MLG and FLG stand out. Thus, we can tentatively conclude that

the variable of gender exerts more influence on Chinese L2 learners’ use of CR than

language proficiency does.

4.3 The Effect of Speaker Variables on Chinese L2 Learners’ CRs

The results reported in the prior sections have demonstrated the tremendous

influence of language proficiency and gender difference, in particular, in terms of

quantity, upon Chinese L2 learners’ CRs. This section carries out the qualitative work

to explore how they work to affect and regulate CRs at the micro-level. 4.3.1 The Effect of Language Proficiency on Chinese L2 Learners’ CRs

As is presented in the prior sections, language proficiency plays an important part

35

in Chinese L2 learners’ CRs. I shall exemplify the roles of low language proficiency

and high language proficiency respectively in the following in terms of SS, SO, OO

and OS.

I. The Effect of Low Language Proficiency on Chinese L2 Learners’ CRs

Low proficiency results in more mistakes in oral production, as well as detracts

from learners’ confidence and makes them too anxious to speak smoothly. A

nonnative speaker’s low level articulation and comprehension skills give rise to the

repair initiation, necessitating a difficult and complex process to achieve mutual

understanding (Egbert, 2004).

Consider the following examples:

(1) A: So first er I just want to say take it easy! You may meet many er ... much

problems than before you au you will never er you must overcome it so at first I just want to ... er ... I just want to tell you in the university there are more spare time ... for you ... so you must sure how to put aside and make good use of it. For example, you can ... learn something ... er ... you can ... er ... you can learn something from the library, or you ... er ... can learn something from others that you couldn't learn from class!

(2) A: What about the teachers? B: Teachers? Teachers are <is>, teachers are<is>, teacher is very kind ,you know in university teachers are not so close to students, so if you have questions…er… try , try any chance ,take any chance to ask them before they leave school, You know everyday they go home.

In the first example, the speaker makes a pause after “many” to consider whether

“problem” is a countable noun or not. Then, he replaces “many” with “much” to

precede the plural form of “problem” which is countable. This sort of apparent

grammatical mistake is resulted from learners’ low proficiency.

Speaker B in the second example makes three restarts to perform a self-repair.

However, the final production is still problematic in grammar (the necessary article is

dropped before a countable single noun). It is the lack of relevant knowledge that

causes this problem.

Apart from lack of knowledge, stuttering also characterizes these two examples.

The speakers make redundant repetitions all through their speech. This phenomenon

36

is partly, if not most, due to anxiety or insufficient confidence of speakers. The

structural elaborateness of the repair sequence is due to the low proficiency of the

nonnative speaker, and thus, there is implicit orientation to his language performance

as ‘‘nonnative’’(Egbert, 2004).

II. The Effect of High Language Proficiency on Chinese L2 Learners’ CRs

As opposed to low language proficiency, high language proficiency motivates

positive factors in speakers to produce better utterances that are more articulate, less

ambiguity causing and more precise in expression.

(3) A: I know, you are a very excellent student and you have very high marks in every cause. So my question is how do you drill your English listening? You know, I didn’t do any exercises about that. When I was in high school…so…When I first came to college, I couldn’t understand anything said in English.

(4) A: Yeah , I was told that if I can did th… , I can do this , B: yes, I will learn not only them respective words.

The repair initiation in the first example is triggered by a shift of topic, rather than a

grammatical error or the like. The entire repair sequence is not prolonged and there

occur fewer pauses or stutters. All these are the result of high confidence of learners.

The speaker in the second example quickly detects the grammatical error in his

utterance and takes redressive action: self-initiating repair to the problematic part of

his utterance. And this repair turns out to be concise and correct, unlike that in low

proficiency group, which is lengthy and often equally problematic.

4.3.2 The Effect of Gender Difference on Chinese L2 Learners’ CRs

As is argued in the previous sections, gender contributes to the divergence of CR

between male learners and female learners. Roughly, males perform more CRs than

females; females perform more SSs than males. However, much more difference

abounds in concrete interactions.

I. The Features Unique to Male in Chinese L2 Learners’ CRs

37

Male learners are prone to directly question others and adopt a forthright manner

to express their own opinions. Let’s consider the following example: (5) A: Maybe it is different from the ... err ... high school.

B: High school, yeah ... and primary school, because you have your parents to take care of yourself.

Speaker B responds to A’s utterance with a quick confirmation, after which a

piece of additional information is provided to function as an other-repair, and what’s

more, the reason for this insertion follows closely the other-repair. According to

Winter (as cited in Marcia Macaulay, 2001: 295), in interactions, the male interviewer

is more direct, and takes more and longer turns than does the female interviewer, and

that the male interviewer also interrupts more frequently. This finding consists with

the example listed above from the present research, in respect of directness and

frequent interruptions by males. In effect, the CR, which is an adjacency pair of

utterance here, termed “two-part-repair sequence”, more often than not, extends into a

triple and even four, five turn-construction units in female interactions. Another

example in the following section exemplifies this point.

II. The Features Unique to Female on Chinese L2 Learners’ CRs

Female learners, as opposed to males, tend to interact in a more “gentle” way.

Sometimes, roundabouts come to soften aggressiveness. (6) A: I’ll afraid that I cannot have good term with them.

B: You mean you have some er… small trifles with them? A: Yr. I, I’m afraid that I cannot get along with them well. B: So, I think you should think of others all the time and then you can get there er… good relationship.

Structural elaborateness in this example features Chinese learners’ interactions, in

particular, females’ interactions. These sequential expansions are collaboratively

achieved and appear to be characteristic manifestations of the “nonnativeness” of a

participant (Egbert, 2004). Females are less provocative as well. The question form of

other-repair initiation and use of hedges like “I’m afraid” and “I think you should”

also mitigate their directness and offensiveness. All these can be viewed as emanating

38

from the consideration of face want, since indirectness is more or less related to

politeness and sounds less face-threatening.

4.3.3 The Effect of Relative Status on Chinese L2 Learners’ CRs

The power of status has not been incorporated into quantified analysis in previous

sections, for there has been no adequate method to quantify it so far. At the same time,

it is also needless to do so, since power of status permeates the whole of interaction. It

is argued that the use of Japanese is highly constrained by the relationship between

interactants and that the language of women is more polite and a sign of

“femininity”(John Benjamins, 2001). In similar vein, Chinese learners exhibit such

traits in interactions. (7) B: …Just when you have English question, you try to ask your tutor. When you mention the spoken English, you can read more stories. A: Yes. You mean I can borrow books from the library and read it almost every day? Do you think…. B: just to read and listen and speak. And after well…we’ll have, have a great progress. You listening comprehension will get apparent progress.

In this example, speaker A is female, and B is a male. It is apparent to see that A

initiates a repair in a much soft way utilizing hedges. Utterances of B’s all take the

declarative form and run the risk of interrupting, which might even catch others

flat-footed. A concept of “conversational dominance” has once been introduced to

examine this sort of phenomenon. Observing the data in the present study, males often

pose as dominant roles leading the interactions. The above example can well illustrate

this point. As a consequence, male learners are more likely to initiate repairs than do

female learners.

4.4 Summary

To sum up, Chinese L2 learners perform CRs in the form of SS in preference to

SO, OO and OS. This may result from threefold considerations. Firstly, instantaneity

39

of human thoughts does not grant ample time for arrangement; secondly, many

individual factors like anxiety, insufficient confidence and low language proficiency

contribute a lot; thirdly, utilizing SS as a vehicle to obviate threatening others’

positive and negative face figures as an invisible force impelling speakers to perform

much more SSs than SOs, OOs and OSs.

The results show that in low language proficiency group, learners tend to perform

more CRs. Restricted by the low language proficiency, learners in this group exhibit

poor performance of oral competence. They commit more grammatical mistakes than

the average speaker. As a consequence, they tend to be more anxious about their

performance, which correspondingly leads to more mistakes. Hence the use of CR to

do redressive work. In addition, learners are less confident or even self-contemptuous

with regard to their expressive competence, which prompts learners to attribute

interactive problems to themselves rather than to their partners. This sense of

over-self-consciousness directs much of their attention to their own performance, and

induces them to perform more self-repairs in its wake. By contrast, they do not have

the nerve to find fault with their partners’ utterances and initiate repairs. In this sense,

the scanty use of SO, OO and OS can all be partly attributed to fear of losing face and

damaging others’ face.

In high language proficiency group, learners possess better oral competence. This

assists them in producing utterances with fewer mistakes. Accordingly, SSs and SOs

are fewer. The things that speakers stress are accuracy and fluency. And, their

self-confidence makes them bold enough to doubt the accuracy, appropriateness or

adequacy of others’ utterances. This accounts for the increase of OS and OO.

Speakers themselves pay decreasing heed to their own production in terms of

accuracy and adequacy. Then it is possible for their partners to find fault, because they

are ready to pick out and signal mistakes when listening. These phenomena may result

from the unnatural and unauthentic interaction environment: L2 learning environment,

which encourages learners not to care much about losing face. Good learners do a

better job than average ones in this respect. This is perhaps the very reason that

learners in this group are daring to oppugn others.

40

Gender begets considerable difference as well. Males are born to be aggressive or

offensive. They prefer initiating repairs and recommending solutions. So male

learners perform CRs much more than females do. Female learners give “top priority”

to SS when performing CR. For this fact, a politeness consideration seems in place.

Females care more about face saving acts. So they will not “assail” others unless

necessary.

At the micro-level, low proficiency engenders more mistakes in oral production.

A nonnative speaker’s low level articulation and comprehension skills give rise to the

repair initiation, necessitating a difficult and complex process to arrive at mutual

understanding. This is what is termed “structural elaborateness”. High proficiency

enables speakers to produce utterances that are more articulate, less ambiguous and

more precise in expression. Male learners favor declarative sentences to directly voice

their approval or disapproval. Conversely, females prefer a roundabout manner to

signal disapproval. They employ interrogative sentences and hedges to mitigate their

directness and offensiveness.

To conclude, on the one hand, the specific use of CR mirrors learners’ individual

preference and speaking habit. On the other, the general distribution of CR is subject

to the influence of proficiency, gender and status. A variety of pragmatic factors have

much bearing on Chinese L2 learners’ use of CR.

41

Chapter Five

Conclusion

This chapter summarizes the major findings of the present study in the first

section. Section Two presents theoretical as well as practical implications. Section

Three recognizes the limitations of the study and proposes suggestions for future

research.

5.1 Major Findings

This study is undertaken to find out how speaker variables affect Chinese L2

learners’ conversational repair behavior. From a pragmatic perspective, the study

views conversational repair as an output yielded by various factors: language

proficiency, gender difference, relative status, etc. It describes the distribution features

of Chinese L2 learners’ conversational repair, explores the underlying pragmatic

motivations, and investigates how speaker variables work at a micro-level. The study

brings about findings as follows:

1. Conversational repair (CR), as a universal phenomenon, abounds in Chinese L2

learners’ conversations. Altogether, four types of conversational repair are located,

classified and examined in terms of their frequency, function and pragmatic

motivation, namely, Self-Initiation/Self-Repair (SS), Other-Initiation/Self-Repair

(OS), Other-Initiation/Other-Repair (OO), and Self-Initiation/Other-Repair (SO).

Conversational repair is employed consciously or sub-consciously to produce

certain pragmatic effect like stressing and shifting of topic.

2. The use of CR may result from the instantaneity of thoughts, which allows scanty

42

time to develop them into well-organized sentential structure. Individual factors,

such as status and gender, operate on speakers’ use of CR as well. Meanwhile,

proficiency level interferes. Low language proficiency incurs large amounts of

unavoidable repairs to previous production to improve accuracy and preciseness.

Learners equipped with high language proficiency perform fewer CRs.

3. SS poses as the dominant type of CR in all kinds of learner groups. Learners opt

for SS in preference to other types of repair on a great many occasions. The

possible motivation consists in the consideration of politeness. Chinese learners

emphasize face. They habitually pay respect to others by debasing themselves. In

consequence, they endeavor to avoid finding fault with others’ utterances and

attribute problems to themselves. Besides, low proficiency learners perform more

SSs than do high proficiency learners; female learners more than male learners.

Restriction of low proficiency induces more errors, while females pay more

attention in order not to damage others’ face in interaction.

4. Chinese learners display varying features when performing CR. Low proficiency

learners mainly perform CR to correct grammatical errors and search for suitable

words for expression. High proficiency learners employ CR to arrive at

non-linguistic effect, e.g. shift of topic, or explanation of previous utterances. Low

proficiency learners are more timid to initiate repair than do high proficiency

learners. Male learners are liable to interrupt and initiate repair. They prefer

declarative sentences to perform repair. Female learners express doubt in an

indirect way, which results in what is termed as “structural elaborateness”. 5.2 Implications of the Study

This study offers some insights into Chinese L2 learners’ conversational repair

from a pragmatic perspective by examining how speaker variables affect and regulate

their conversational repair behavior. Incorporating the traditionally investigated issues

of conversational repair at linguistic level, or discoursal level, the present study

attempts to probe into the pragmatic motivation of conversational repair. In doing so,

43

the study highlights an individual-based direction to investigate Chinese L2 learners’

conversational repair.

The study suggests that “face” is an overriding concern when performing CR, in

particular, SS. Chinese learners would avoid damaging others’ positive or negative

face even at the expense of their own. What they value most is the establishment of

amicable interactive atmosphere, upon which opinions are exchanged and

compromised to reach consensus. This will probably sparkle a new debate over the

felicity condition of Politeness Principle (Yule, 2000).

Practically, the yielded results of the present study furnish Chinese L2 learners

with a clear picture of various factors at work when they interact and perform CR.

Chinese L2 learners should learn to redress the balance between politeness and

success of communicating opinions while performing CR. The latter should not

always be sacrificed to maintain politeness. Furthermore, this study helps Chinese

L2 learners to realize the importance of utilizing CR to achieve specific pragmatic

purpose and urges them to find out efficient approaches to produce more accurate,

fluent and precise utterances.

5.3 Limitations of the Study and Suggestions for Future Research

The present study is constrained by several limitations.

First of all, the corpus is limited to Year 2000 students’ conversations. This prevents

us from getting a longitudinal view of Chinese L2 learners’ use of CR and

ascertaining the trend of development.

Secondly, the corpus size is small relative to the four specific groups under

examination. For each group, only twenty pieces of articles are involved. This will

inevitably inflict haphazardness on generated results.

Thirdly, the researcher does all the coding and classifications during data collection

and analysis. So all these processes bear much subjectiveness. Although the

researcher solicits his supervisor and classmates for instruction and advice, and

consults relevant books and papers to delimit specific types of CR as precisely as

44

possible, many problems cannot be excluded at all. Therefore, it is probable that

certain judgments in the present study are not accurate and logically consistent.

Last but not least, the study adopts a deductive approach, rather than an inductive

one to classify CR. That is, all occurrences of CR fit in with the four types of CR, but

not vice versa. This practice has its inherent defects since lively interactions are too

complicated to make any perfect generalization.

Despite its various pitfalls, the present study can throw some light on the directions

in which future relevant research may be conducted. Firstly, future research could be

carried out on a larger scale to generate a more objective and longitudinal description

of Chinese L2 learners’ use of CR. Secondly, materials from natural settings other

than those from the oral test should be included into investigation and analysis. Lastly,

a more dynamic and comprehensive classification of CR is in dire need of an

inductive approach to conduct the future research.

45

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