Morphology Repair in English - Research Proposal Example

Paper Title: [Name of Student] [Name of lecturer] [course title] [Date] [Name of Affiliate Institution] INTERACTON ANALYSIS REPORT Repair in English means practices of dealing with efforts in listening, speaking and understanding in a conversation (Wong, 2000) in English and other languages. Any efforts geared towards dealing with problems or troubles in speaking are referred to as repair. Repair starts at a tender age in a child and mainly deals with pronunciation and grammar and goes on reducing as grammar becomes more complex (Salonen & Laakso, 2009). Repair covers many areas psychology and in linguistics like morphology, phonology, syntax, lexical and non-linguistics. Morphology repair involves repairing sounds e.g. /r/ and /l/. These two are normally confused in pronunciation and therefore any attempt to correct them in a conversation or in practice is in itself repair. Morphology repair involves repairing the internal structure of words e.g. ‘forget to’ with ‘had forgotten’. Repairing syntax normally involves repairing the arrangement of words that make phrases. When combined words are rearranged then that is syntax repair. Lastly lexical repair involves the correction of single words. These words may be replaced with other words or another word may be added for clarification (Salonen & Laakso, 2009). Ways or means of repair included those that are self driven i.e. the person self corrects, or those that are sourced from the listener to the source of error. The four include self-initiated, self-initiated other speaker, other initiated self repair and other-initiated other repair. Repairs to error occur in conversations and may take place at different levels of a conversation. Any attempts at confirmation checks, clarification requests, restatement repetitions and understanding checks (Wong, 2000) are all geared towards better conversations and better listening, speaking and understanding skills. In repair the sequence seeks to solve a problem or not to solve. Literature review Much study has not been done about repair among children and the little that has been done has focused on speech such as slips of tongue (Salonen & Laakso, 2009). Children develop language on conversation (Tomasello, 2003) and confirm and revise and repair these skills through responses from adults (Schegloff, Jefferson & Sacks, 1977). While much repair and revision among kids has been studied on speech, the children revise speech for social purposes. Children need guidance to repair from grown up especially parents and so is non-natives to natives in learning a different language. For many non native to native conversations however, most of language repairs occur at next turn repair initiator NTRI (Salonen & Laakso, 2008) and not immediately. Most of these repairs is meant for clarification and aids in helping to increase the rate at which the non native acquires language. It also helps in clarification of error and mostly end with ‘oh’ as observed by Heritage (1984). The word ‘oh’ is mostly used as a sequence exciting device. Correction either by self i.e. self correction or other correction is important in everyday conversation and enhances social interaction. This happens at home, in class lecture, in theatre, and in many other formal or non formal interactions. The participants are geared towards better conversations and reduce assumptions or miscommunication. A speaker will clarify what they are saying by giving examples in a sentence so that they can be understood better. If this happens is the same statement then this position of repair is known as same turn repair. If the repair happens while in a transition then it is referred to as transition space repair. There is also next turn repair where after the speaker talks and gets a response in the next line a listener asks for clarification. The other includes third turn and fourth turn position. Repair or correction occurs in a turn taking system (Sacks et al., 1974) within conservation in a social interaction. Self correction is normally a preference to other correction (Pomerantz, 1975) and both self correction and other correction are not independent but rather related organizationally (Schegloff et al., 1977). Repair does not also necessarily occur where there is replacement or correction, it may occur in a conversation where the self correction is sort of a clarification e.g. (1) Clacia: B't, a-another one theh wentuh school with me - wa:s a girl na:med uh, (0.7) ?W't th' hell wz er name. ?Karen. Right. Karen (2) Olive: -+ Yihknow Mary uh:::: (0.3) oh:: what was it. - Uh:: Tho:mpson. A repair can be resolved or fail to be resolved the correction may be done by either the self i.e. by speaker of trouble source or other i.e. other party than the speaker of the trouble source. Study furthers the discussion of repair by emphasizing that the native language does not necessarily affect the learning. By invitation to the other party’s repair and secondly when participants encountered a problem in mutual understanding is where language expertise was mastered (Hosoda, 2006). Repair areas in a transcribed conversation between mother (Rose) and daughter (Tiffany). The following discussion is an analysis of the areas of repair in a conversation between Tiffany and Rose in their kitchen that lasted about 5 minutes. This critical analysis of areas of correction in conversation focuses on the types of repair in conversation and the positions in which these repairs occur. In this conversation, there are several examples of self repair from self initiation. This is a case where the speaker both indicates the source of the problem and corrects the problem. In this case the self repair is done by the speaker of the trouble source. Examples include the following lines; (1) 28 T: ↓we:↑ll it only takes me [a:↑ll day to cook,] 29 R: [↑NO:::::: ] 30 (.) no: not] ↓at all: In the above example, the self initiated self corrected comes as an emphasis or a repetition of the word no. this kind of repair is acting as an emphasis to the listener. (2) 56 T: [so like- (.) >basically] the first thing th- 57 (.) first two things that anyone will say to him 58 when they find out he’s Hungarian is likeI don’t know which ↑mov↓ie you’re talking 132 about though< assassins 133 R: yep (0.6) In the above example Tiffany does not get which movie Rose is talking about and so goes ahead to clarify by mentioning it herself. The repair comes from the recipient or listener. The place of the speaker is to clarify afterwards with a yes. (2) 40 R: [>one ofI dunno< have I seen ↑it? (.) [↓I don’t remember it,= 135 R: [↓ah:::::::m] 136 T: =uh the name] >doesn’t ring a bell< (0.7) 137 R: think ↓so↑: (1.6) °(I ↑don’t ↓know,)° (1.5) Tiffany indicates not remembering watching the movie the assassins and queries Rose who is the speaker. However this conversation does not end in a closure showing a good example of failure which issues from other initiation. This conversation does not help tiffany to remember whether she ever know watching that movie. Failure refers to cases in which a repair procedure is initiated and does not yield a successful solution (Schegloff et al., 1977). (2) 49 R: milk,(0.8) a:nd a touch of nutmeg (0.7) 50 T: o↑:h:↓: °nutmeg° 51 R: yep (0.7) This example also shows the recipient, in this case tiffany, wanting clarification on the nutmeg and the speaker, in this case Rose, answers with a yes. In looking at positions that repairs are done we have an example of transition space repair in a discussion between Tiffany and Rose. They kept moving from one discussion to another and while changing course of discussion a correction question comes in; (1) 82 T: [ah: ] 83 =↑how ↓>did we get onto that< topic? 84 R: ↑I don’t kno:w↓ 85 T: Hhhhhh ↑what [( )] 86 R: [what were we talking] about The second example of positions in self repair includes the same turn, next turn, third and fourth turn position repair. Here is an example from the transcript; (1) 122 R: [the assasins?] (0.8) 123 T: the assassin, (1.0) 124 R: assassin? (1.0) 125 T: what’s that= Same turn position occurs in line 123, next turn position occurs in line 124 and third turn position occurs in line 125. (2) 83 =↑how ↓>did we get onto that< topic? 84 R: ↑I don’t kno:w↓ 85 T: Hhhhhh ↑what [( )] 86 R: [what were we talking] about 87 T: >we were tal[king about] nothing like that< and 88 R: [oh:::] The same turn position occurs on line 84, next turn position occurs on line 85, third turn position occurs on line 86 and fourth turn occurs on line 87. In conclusion, repairs are important for growing babies who learn to improve their language through repair and correction as the listen to their parents. Without repair recurrent listening, speaking and understanding are impaired, but repair aids in good communication. Repair does not just help speech in children alone but also aids in creating an environment to learn. Through social interaction and social organization different types of repair occur be itself or other initiated and at different positions. Repair occurs in a sequence and the most preferred is the self-initiated self repair or self correction. References Heritage, J. (1984). A change of state taken and aspects of its sequential placement In J. Atkinson & J. Heritage (eds). Structure in social action: studies in conversation analysis. Cambridge University Press, 299-345. Hosoda, Y. (2006). Repair and relevance and differential language experise in second language conversations. Applied linguistics, 27 (1), 25-50. Jefferson, G. (1972). Side sequences. Studies in social interaction. David, N (ed). New York: Free Press, 294-338. Lucks, M. L., Walton, J. H., Hamill, B. W. & Pelton, J. D. (2003). Use of speech production repair strategies to improve diver communication. Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine, 30, (4). Pomerantz, A. (1975). Second assessments: a study of some features of agreements/ disagreements. Irvine: University of California dissertation. Sacks, H., Schegloff , E., & Jefferson, G. (1974). A Simplest Systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation. Language, 50, 696-735. Salonen, T. & Laakson, M. (2009). Self repair of speech by four-year-old Finnish children. J. child lang, 36, 855-882. Schegloff, E. A., Jefferson, G. & Sacks, H. (1977). The preference for self-correction in the organization of repair in conversation. Language, 53 (2), 361–382. Tomasello, M. (2003). Constructing a language : a usage-based theory of language acquisition. Cambridge : Harvard University Press. Wong, J. (2000). Delayed next turn repair initiation in native/ non-native speaker English conversation. Applied linguistics, 21 (1), 244-267. Read More