System 49 (2015) 39e49

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System
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/system

A study of ‘self-repair’ operations in conversation by Chinese

English learners
Lihong Quan a, *, Martin Weisser b
a
School of English and Education, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou, PR China
b
Center for Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou, PR China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Based on data extracted from the Chinese component of the LINDSEI corpus and its native
Received 20 November 2013 speaker counterpart LOCNEC, this paper examines the similarities and differences between
Received in revised form 5 September 2014 Chinese English learners and English native speakers in the use of recycling and replace-
Accepted 15 October 2014
ment, two very common forms of ‘self-repair’. The data were analysed with a focus on two
Available online 3 December 2014
aspects: the syntactic class of words both learners and native speakers tend to initiate
recycling and replacement in, and which types of syntactic/lexical elements are most
Keywords:
frequently repeated. The results of the study indicate that Chinese English learners employ
Learners
Recycling
more recycling and replacement than native speakers. The most striking finding is that
Replacement Chinese English learners utilise more verbs to initiate recycling and as replaced items than
Self-repair native speakers, which has significant implications for both vocabulary and grammar
Syntactic category teaching. Another important finding is that both Chinese English learners and native
speakers use more word-level recycling than group-level recycling, which partly contra-
dicts those in earlier studies. The findings are discussed with reference to morpho-
syntactic patterns of English, combined with theories of attention and automaticity in L2.
© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

The domain of ‘repair’, defined as the treatment of recurrent problems in speaking, hearing, and understanding talk-in-
interaction, has attracted conversation analysts since the 1970s (Schegloff, Jefferson, & Sacks, 1977). Research has identified
a number of different so-called ‘repair’ types. The most frequent among them, self-initiated same-turn ‘self-repair’
(henceforth ‘self-repair’), is the process by which speakers revise or repeat their prior talk at their own initiation. In recent
years, ‘self-repair’ has received a considerable amount of attention in research on L1 (Fox, Hayashi, & Jasperson, 1996; Fox,
Maschler, & Uhmann, 2010; Nemeth, 2012; Rieger, 2003a; Wouk, 2005) and L2 (Bada, 2010; Chen & Pu, 2007; Kormos,
1999).
Before paving the way for further review of the literature, it is necessary to clarify and adjust the terminology. The original
term ‘repair’ seems to be coined in an attempt to differentiate it from the term ‘correction’ in order to incorporate items where
no actual change to the uttered verbal sequence is made. Usage of this term then appears to have become common amongst
researchers following Schegloff et al.’s (1977) model. Without further reflection upon its terminological adequacy, these

* Corresponding author. School of English and Education, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, 2 Baiyun Avenue (North), Baiyun District, Guangzhou
510420, PR China. Tel.: þ86 020 36640370.
E-mail addresses: sallyquanli@126.com (L. Quan), weissermar@gmail.com (M. Weisser).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2014.10.012
0346-251X/© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
40 L. Quan, M. Weisser / System 49 (2015) 39e49

researchers tend to perpetuate the use of an inappropriate label, at least in what concerns the repetition of items, such as
morphemes, words or larger syntactic units. In fact, no actual repair occurs here, but this feature of spoken language pre-
dominantly represents a planning strategy, allowing speakers to gain more time to find maximally context-appropriate
expressions. Rather than continuing to use the term ‘repair’ globally, we thus propose to distinguish clearly between recy-
cling, i.e. the act of repeating one or more segments (i.e. morphemes, words, or phrases) of speech, and replacement, where
genuinely one or more of these segments are repaired/corrected. It must be noted that it is often unavoidable to use the term
‘repair’ when referring to the relevant literature. Therefore, we'll continue to use it in scare quotes in these cases in order to
reiterate its inaccurate nature. In what follows, we will try to illustrate recycling and repair further, as well as summarise and
critically evaluate how they have been analysed in prior research.
Both rhetorical features have a beginning and an end, so that we can identify structures with recognisable boundaries.
According to Fox et al. (1996), recycling refers to the act of “repeating, either with no apparent changes or with some minor
additions or deletions, of the repaired segment” (p. 230). However, because even “minor additions or deletions” inside a
repetition would, technically speaking, turn this ‘recycling’ into an instance of replacement, we obviously cannot accept this
definition as such. We therefore need to refine this definition somewhat. For one thing, we need to allow filled or unfilled
pauses as ‘non-words’ to appear in between the end of the first part and the start (often somewhat misleadingly referred to as
“destination”; Fox et al., 2010, p. 2489) of the recycling (additions). In addition, we also have to permit parts of structure that is
to be recycled to be incomplete, albeit recognisable (‘deletions’).
Previous studies on recycling have mainly focused on its classification, forms, and functions, as well as recycling starts.
Thus, for instance, the boxed-in instance of my in This is. my first first time to: go go to some place is the recycling start.
Previously, recycling has generally been considered a major factor leading to disfluencies, but to what extent it should really
be considered a disfluency is a matter for debate, when in fact recycling is frequently used strategically (see below).
Furthermore, the term disfluency still seems to have the stigma of ‘rhetorical underachievement’ attached to it (Gilquin, 2008,
p. 142), mainly with regard to L2 learners (henceforth learners), something a comparison with native speakers (henceforth
NSs) is bound to relativise/neutralise at least to some extent, as we shall see in our findings.
In terms of its forms, some prior studies have divided recycling into two sub-categories to determine which types of
syntactic or lexical elements were most repeated (Bada, 2010; Clark & Wasow, 1998; Maclay & Osgood, 1959): word-level
recycling (e.g. …I I ), where only a single word is repeated, and group-level recycling (e.g. …we will ), where a
number of words, possibly corresponding to a phrase or even clause, are recycled. Yet other studies on recycling have divided
it into more detailed sub-types: syllabic recycling (e.g. rela… relative), one-word recycling, two-word recycling and multi-
word recycling (Chen & Pu, 2007, etc.).
Regarding its functions, Fox et al. (2010, p. 2494) state that recycling can be used to “gain additional cognitive planning
time for the ensuing word or construction, to secure recipient gaze (Goodwin, 1981), to postpone a possible transition-
relevance place (TRP,1 Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson, 1974), etc.” However, whether the latter is actually true is also debate-
able, although studies like Rieger (2003a) keep on reiterating this point, despite citing examples of the recycling of subject
pronouns in this context. As subject pronouns in English generally appear at the beginning of utterances, and thus after the
pitch reset that normally marks the beginning of a new utterance, their repetition is less likely to delay a TRP than that of
object pronouns or prepositional phrases, which occur later on in the utterance, and where the likelihood of the interlocutor
perceiving a possible TRP due to prosodic effects is much higher.
The other commonly used e and actually genuine e self-repair device is replacement, which is the substitution of a quasi-
lexical/lexical item or items for other items when both the repaired and the repairing segment belong to the same syntactic
class. In contrast to recycling, Fox et al. (2010) suggest that “replacement occurs when a speaker has produced part or all of a
word or phrase that s/he now finds in some way incorrect or inappropriate” (p. 2497).
Previous work focussing on the relationship between grammar and ‘self-repair’ maintains that some typological features,
such as basic word order, syntactic constituent type, cliticisation, and morphological structure, influence the ‘self-repair’
patterns across languages (Fox et al., 2010; Nemeth, 2012; Rieger, 2003a; Wouk, 2005). These studies found that, for lan-
guages with function words preceding content words, such as English and Hungarian, there seems to be a universal pattern in
which the speakers tend to use function words as recycling starts more frequently than content words, while, in contrast,
replacing content words at a disproportionately high rate.
Among these studies, Fox et al.'s research (2010) found that English NSs used more function words as recycling starts, with
subject pronouns constituting the highest proportion. Bada's L2 study (2010) confirmed this pattern, but his study also
indicated that English learners used more verbs as recycling starts, compared with NSs. Apart from this, he also indicated that
English learners repeated most at group level, rather than word level, but no explanatory factors were given for the above
patterns in his paper. Further studies are thus needed to prove whether the above patterns are indeed underlying patterns in
the L2 ‘self-repair’ mechanism.
However, Wouk (2005) already suggests that:

1
“Various kinds of evidence converge to indicate that the system allocates rights to produce one turn-constructional unit at a timedbe it lexical, phrasal,
clausal or sentential. At the completion of each unit, transition to a next speaker may, but need not occur. Thus, unless special provisions have been made, at
the possible completion of a current turn unit, transition to a next speaker is relevant. Sacks et al. (1974) called this a transition relevance place” (TRP)
(Sidnell, 2010, p. 42).
 L. Quan, M. Weisser / System 49 (2015) 39e49 41

Patterns of recycling can provide evidence for the salience of different syntactic constituent types in a language. It seems
that speakers orient towards certain constituents in recycling, treating them as units that should be repeated together,
while they do not orient as strongly towards other constituents, and are less likely to treat them as units. (p. 249)
Wouk (2005) points out that “English speakers orient more to the clause as a unit, and in particular to a sequence of subject
and verb” (p. 252). She further argues that those which were recycled as units are more salient; that is, speakers pay more
attention to them. This pattern was corroborated by other L1 studies (Fox et al., 2010; Huang & Tanangkingsing, 2005).
Based on the above findings, our study attempts to observe recycling on two levels, word-level recycling (henceforth WLR)
and group-level recycling (henceforth GLR), in order to find out what types of syntactic or lexical elements are repeated most
and what types of syntactic and lexical elements appear to be more salient in L2 ‘self-repair’ mechanisms.
Previous research on L2 ‘self-repairs’ also suggests that “mechanisms of L1 and L2 monitoring and self-repair behaviour
share a number of similarities, in that the distribution and the detection of self-repairs display an analogous pattern in the
processes of both L1 and L2 acquisition and production” (Kormos, 1999, pp. 333e334). Nevertheless, Kormos (1999) also
points out that, to give a full account of L2 ‘self-repairs’, theories of attention and automaticity need to be taken into
consideration. This is because “the L2 speakers' system of knowledge is typically incomplete, and their production mecha-
nisms are not fully automatic” (p. 334). As a result, their attention to error detection in L2 speech processing is limited
compared to L1 (2006). This kind of controlled processing requires a higher degree of attention, and thus, due to incomplete
linguistic knowledge, and time pressure, learners may resort to ‘self-repair’ operations in order to gain time for language
planning and to delay the next item due. Hence, we also attempt to discuss our findings with reference to theories of attention
and automaticity in L2.
The present study examines the similarities and differences between Chinese English learners and NSs in the practice of
simple recycling and replacement in English conversations. The rationale behind the selection of learner materials in this
study is that most prior studies have so far focussed on NSs, and comparative studies between learners and NSs to date are
rare. To achieve our objectives, the study aims to seek answers to the following questions:

1) What are the similarities and differences between learners and NSs in the use of recyclings and replacements?
2) What are the similarities and differences between learners and NSs in the use of recycling starts and replaced items?
3) What types of syntactic and lexical items are repeated most by learners and NSs, respectively?

2. Methodology

2.1. Data collection

In this inquiry, we used a sub-section of the Chinese component of the LINDSEI (Louvain International Database of Spoken
English Interlanguage corpus (Gilquin, De Cock, & Granger, 2010), and another from the LOCNEC (Louvain Corpus of Native
English Conversation) (Gilquin et al., 2010), the native speaker counterpart of LINDSEI.
The setup of LINDSEI-China is as follows: Most of the Chinese learners were interviewed by English native speakers (85%
NSs in total). They were encouraged to speak about a set topic, such as a trip, or film/play, followed by a free discussion. In
addition, the interviewees were presented with four pictures telling a story, and asked to recount this. The interviewees were
all undergraduate students from the same University in China, with a mean age of 22, having studied 6 years of English at
school on average. The interviews are transcribed orthographically, and include indications of pauses, fillers, truncated words,
syllable lengthening, overlapping speech, etc. LINDSEI-China contains the transcription of 53 interviews, for a total number of
82,536 words, the average length of one interviewee's contribution being 1,199 words. The interviewees in LOCNEC, however,
are all NSs of British English, most of them undergraduate students in linguistics or English language. LOCNEC consists of
transcriptions of 50 interviews, totalling 170,533 words, following the same basic setup in terms of texts.
To enable comparison, we extracted 27,237 words from LINDSEI-China, and 27,675 words from LOCNEC, based on the same
topics, travel and film/play. To further ensure comparability, we only included the learners' turns from LINDSEI, and the
respondents' turns from LOCNEC, excluding all interviewers’ turns.

2.2. Data coding

In order to facilitate the coding process, the original data from both corpora was first converted to XML (eXtensible Markup
Language), a common markup format for modern corpora. This step already made it possible to insert codes in the form of so-
called ‘empty’ elements freely into the text, and annotate a number of different features for all instances of recycling and
replacement. These take the form of attributeevalue pairs that can easily be counted. The relevant tags for both types look as
follows:

a) <recycling type¼“1WR” start¼“SP” count¼“1”/>

b) <replacement type¼“” target¼“DT”/>
42 L. Quan, M. Weisser / System 49 (2015) 39e49

In a) the type attribute is used to record the number of words recycled (1WR for single words, 2WR for two words, etc.),
while the start attribute value lists the syntactic category of the first element recycled. The count attribute allows us to keep
track of how many times the item or sequence has been repeated. The most frequent count here is 1, but in some cases a word/
sequence was actually repeated more than once, especially for single-word recyclings, so e.g. a sequence of I I I would have a
repetition count of 2. For future analyses, further attribute categories may be added later, for instance an attribute for
recording phrase categories involved in the recycling, as this could potentially provide further insights.
The type attribute in b) is currently only filled to exclude complex categories of replacement, such as framing,2 but can be
used in future research to provide finer distinctions. The target attribute records the syntactic category of the replaced item.
The distinction between the start attribute of the recycling and the target attribute is deliberate, as these features are
conceptually quite distinct. The following sub-sections illustrate the different annotation categories further.

2.2.1. Coding according to category type

This paper focuses on simple recycling and replacement. Below are some examples from our datasets:

(1) (erm) this is. my first (eh) first <recycling type¼“2WR” start ¼ “DT” count¼“1”/> time to: go <recycling
type ¼ “1WR” start¼“V” count ¼ “1”/> to some place a¼far away from my hometown (CH0032)3
(2) erm what the[i:] er [ plot. <replacement type¼“” target¼“N”/> (E02)

Example (1) illustrates simple recycling. In this example, the speaker produces part of a noun phrase and recycles back to
the possessive determiner my in the first instance of 2-word recycling (2WR), and simply repeats (1WR) the verb go once.
Example (2) illustrates simple replacement of a word, where the speaker replaces plot with story.
Our data also contain other types of ‘self-repairs’, such as pre-framing (3), post-framing (4), insertions and fresh starts.

(3) but after watching the film I thought. . oh that's not the truth (CH006)
(4) and because this. artist was very famous in the locality (CH005)

These instances were excluded from this study in order to be able to focus fully on the two simple repair types, as well as to
keep our results comparable to those of earlier studies.

2.2.2. Coding according to word-level recycling/group-level recycling

We sub-divided recycling into word-recycling (nWR) according to the exact length of the recycled unit in words, thus
yielding categories like 1WR, 2WR, etc., to enable us to make finer distinctions and to provide a better basis for comparison
between learners and NSs. For most analysis purposes in this article, however, we currently only distinguish between ‘word-
level recycling’ (WLR) and ‘group-level recycling’ (GLR), where the latter comprises all recyclings of more than one word.

2.3. Analysis

The relevant feature counts for the remaining instances of simple recycling and replacement were automatically extracted
from the annotated datasets using the Simple Corpus Tool (Weisser, 2014).
As the variation in the individual speaker contributions in our dataset was considerable, we normed the frequencies in the
following way. First, we counted the number of words per speaker, both in- and excluding any disfluency phenomena.
Working on the assumption that the word count without disfluencies could be seen as ‘maximally fluent’ in containing only
the relevant messages, we calculated a factor for each speaker by dividing this word count by the highest common de-
nominator (693 words), i.e. the smallest contribution by any speaker. In order to weight the frequency counts for all features,
the resulting factor was applied in dividing the observed frequency by each speaker's. The totals for the two populations were
then divided by the group factor and the number of speakers in each group. This way of norming the frequencies makes sense,
given the fact that the potential for producing disfluencies increases the longer each contribution gets, and thus the normed
frequencies allow us to work on the hypothesis that all speakers have had the same chance of producing an equal number of
disfluencies.
A chi-square analysis was conducted to see whether the dispersion of normed frequencies for the main categories was
statistically significant. We also used the ratio of normed learner and NS frequencies to illustrate the differences between the
groups. A ratio close to 1 indicates that, at least in terms of frequencies, the behaviour of the two populations is more or less
identical, while the further away we move from 1, the differences increase, and thus appear to be more significant4 and worth
further investigation.

2
According to Schegloff, “Framing is a technology for locating the repairable item via a repetition of some part of the prior talk. The frame can be a piece
of the talk which precedes or follows the trouble source” (as cited in Sidnell, 2010, p. 115). The former results in “pre-framing” as was identified in example
(3), the latter in “post-framing” as in example (4).
3
CH here stands for data from LINDESEI-China, and E for materials from LOCNEC.
4
In a non-statistical sense…
 L. Quan, M. Weisser / System 49 (2015) 39e49 43

3. Results and discussion

In this section, we present the results of our analysis, and discuss the findings with reference to morpho-syntactic patterns
of English and theories of attention and automaticity in L2.

3.1. Recycling distribution

3.1.1. Distribution by function vs. content words

We will first introduce the overall distributions of recycling and replacement operations by both learners and NSs, dis-
tinguishing primarily between the two major categories of function vs. content words, before later moving on to a discussion
of which morpho-syntactic categories precisely were involved in the two operations, and to what extent.
Table 1 shows the overall distribution of function vs. content word recyclings, based on the normed frequencies (the
distribution among learners and NSs is highly significant: p ¼ 0.0045**).
From Table 1, we can see that both groups of speakers predominantly use function words as recycling starts. As recycling is
typically used to delay the next item due, the repetition here is presumably used as a means to gain planning time for producing
the right content word. The very high ratio of 17.17 for content word recyclings suggests that the learners tend to have
considerably more difficulty in retrieving content words as the appropriate vocabulary items, while the lower ratio for function
word recyclings (5.32) indicates that there is some significant insecurity about function words, too. The above findings support
some prior L2 studies (van Hest, 1996b; Poulisse & Bongaerts, 1994), who explain that, due to attentional limitations, the
monitoring processes of learners focus more on content words than on function words, because they carry more information.
We argue that this may also indicate a strong uncertainty for learners as to whether a content word that is repeated is the
semantically or morphologically correct one in a given context, so that the purpose of the repetition may be verification, either
in the form of self-monitoring, or allowing the interviewer to correct/confirm the word. In the latter case, this would pre-
sumably be marked by a rise in intonation, which, unfortunately, is not captured by the original data annotation scheme.
These findings partially agree with the results of some other prior studies, such as Lickley (1994), Rieger (2003a), Fox et al.
(2010), and Nemeth (2012). Compared to the results of Fox et al., though, our data show very interesting divergences from their
distributions for NSs in terms of the percentages for function vs. content words. While their data analysis reveals 85% function
word recyclings, as opposed to 15% for content words, our data exhibits a much higher percentage of the former, 94%. What is
even more interesting, though, is that their percentage distributions correspond much more closely to the distribution we
identified for our learners, 84.06% and 15.94%, respectively. If there indeed seem to be such wild discrepancies in the distri-
butions of the normed frequencies, (even) for different NS groups, then maybe overall relative frequencies for the two major
categories of content vs. function words are not an ideal indicator of the differences between learners and NSs. It therefore
would be more revealing to investigate the differences for individual word classes in detail, or to analyse whether both cat-
egories are more involved in recycling operations of different word lengths, which we shall do in the following sections.

3.1.2. Recycling starts by syntactic categories

Table 2 lists all function word recyclings by both learners and NSs according to their syntactic categories for comparison,
also including their ratios.
As we can see, for learners, subject pronouns make up 35.15% of all recycling starts. No other category reaches such a high
level. Determiners account for 20.26% and connectives 10.33%. The NS dataset shares these tendencies, with subject pronouns
making up 53.89% of recycling starts, while determiners account for 18.52% and connectives for 6.39%.
We begin our discussion with subject pronouns. Table 2 shows that both learners and NSs have a very strong tendency for
recycling back to subject pronouns. The following two examples show the practice of subject pronouns as recycling starts in
our data:

(5) I don't know what to do so (eh) then (mm) we <recycling type¼“1WR” start¼SP count “1”/> went to the
hospital (CH003)
(6) I think it's. they al¼ always < recycling type¼“2WR” start¼ SP count “1”/> went<?> in the Royal Family (E06)

Prior studies already highlighted this strong tendency for NSs (Bada, 2010; Fox & Jasperson, 1995; Fox et al., 2010). Fox et al.
state that the major factors for this strong preference in English are that nearly every clause in conversation has an overt subject

Table 1
Distribution of recycling by syntactic class.

Recycling start Learner NS Ratio

n % n %
Function word 543 84.06 102 94 5.32
Content word 103 15.94 6 6 17.17
Total 646 100 108 100 5.98

Chi-square ¼ 8.08, d.f. ¼ 1, p ¼ 0.0045**.

44 L. Quan, M. Weisser / System 49 (2015) 39e49

Table 2
Recycling by syntactic category of function words.

Word class Learner NS % Total Ratio

n % % Total n %
Subject pronoun 227.1 41.65 35.15 58.2 57.62 53.89 3.90
Determiner 130.9 24.04 20.26 20 19.80 18.52 6.55
Wh-word 20.5 3.85 3.17 2.7 2.77 2.5 7.59
Preposition 50.7 9.36 7.85 6.1 6.04 5.65 8.31
Aux 10.9 2.02 1.69 0.3 0.27 0.28 36.33
Existential 1.9 0.37 0.29 2.2 2.16 2.02 0.86
Copula 22.5 4.22 3.48 1.6 1.58 1.48 14.06
Connective 66.7 12.29 10.33 6.9 6.47 6.39 9.67
To 11.5 2.2 1.78 3.5 3.47 3.24 3.29
Total 543 100 84 102 100 93.89 5.38

pronoun, and that the subject-verb complex is a deeply entrenched grammatical unit. However, perhaps a better explanation,
especially for the latter part is that the subject pronoun, as a simple theme/given, appears to require no planning itself, but may
be repeated by both learners and NSs in order to gain time to decide what the rheme/new of the syntactic unit will be.
The second most common category for recycling starts in both datasets is determiners. The following three examples
illustrate this type of practice:

(7) not the air. (erm) I mean the. <recycling type ¼ “1WR” start ¼ DT count “1”/> ground and the dormitory we live
is so dirty (CH003)
(8) er and that's generally accepted as a: .. a <recycling type ¼ “1WR” start ¼ DT count “1”/> qualification as (E06)
(9) we can see the beautiful sky. the blue blue sky <recycling type ¼ “2WR” start ¼ DT count “1”/> (CH014)

As we can see from these examples, the speakers simply repeat the determiners before producing the nouns, or they
produce the determiner and a noun and then recycle back to the determiner. Both of these options may be in contrast to
recycling back to the beginning of the clause or sentence.
Detailed observation shows that the constitutes 46.3% (with a frequency as high as 95) and a 10.7% (frequency 22) of
determiners as recycling starts in the learner dataset, while in the NS dataset, a/an makes up 29.3% (frequency 22) and the
25.3% (frequency 19) of all determiners.
We attempt to explain the general tendency of repeating determiners by referring to The Constituent Complexity Hypothesis
proposed by Clark & Wasow (1998), which predicts that “speakers were more likely to repeat an initial the or a of a NP when
the NP was complex” (p. 235). Regarding the overuse of the by learners, we propose that they tend to recycle initial the at the
left edge of NPs. They use it as a stalling device in order to delay the production of pre-modifying adjectives of the noun or the
noun itself because they may have more difficulties in planning and retrieving these constituents, compared with NSs.
Regarding the comparatively lower frequency of a/an in our learner dataset, there seems to be a rather simple explanation.
The overall frequency of the indefinite determiner is less than half (536) that of the definite one (1426), while the NSs use an
equal number (687 vs. 688), so that the propensity for occurring in repetitions is much lower for the indefinites. What this
imbalance may indicate is that learners not only overuse the in recycling, but also potentially do not distinguish properly
between definite and indefinite reference. However, as this is not a matter of recycling, we will not investigate it further here.
As is also apparent from Table 2, connectives are repeated with a comparatively higher frequency (10.33% by learners;
6.39% by NSs). The following example illustrates this pattern.

(10) the sea seemed (eh) very calm and <recycling type ¼ “1WR” start ¼ “CON” count¼“1”/> (mm) it's (CH005)

Closer observation of the data shows that the connective and is used with a distinctively high frequency of 49 (out of 104)
occurrences in the learner dataset. This is further supported by a comparatively higher learner/NS ratio (9.67). We can
speculate that this is partly due to typological differences between Chinese and English, as Chinese has no clausal co-
ordination and thus does not use co-ordinating conjunctions in the same way. Hence, the overuse of connectives like and
by learners seems to indicate that learners either use it as a discourse marker or a stalling device, rather than a coordinating
connective, or that they overuse it as a general coordinator for both co- and subordination, as they may lack alternative
vocabulary for expressing cohesion.
Table 2 also indicates some differences between learners and NSs in the recycling starts for auxiliaries and prepositions.
The following two examples illustrate these types of practices.

(11) the artist (er) didn't obey (er) obey <recycling type¼“3WR” start¼“AUX” count¼“1”/> the: (CH001)
(12) we just run away. round <recycling type¼“1WR” start¼“PP” count¼“1”/> the mountain and to find the front
door (CH007)
 L. Quan, M. Weisser / System 49 (2015) 39e49 45

The learner/NS ratio of 36.33 for auxiliaries suggest that learners tend to use this kind of recycling start as a stalling device
when they have difficulties in retrieving the verbs following auxiliaries, or when they are insecure about whether they have
used the correct tensed or agreement form (See example (11)).
In a similar vein, the comparatively higher learner/NS ratio (8.31) of prepositions as recycling starts may point towards a
general insecurity as to the use of the correct preposition, maybe partly again because of L1 influence (See example (12)). As
Chinese a) has a smaller number of prepositions, and b) prepositions may also have ‘verbal character’ (e.g. zai meaning ‘in’/
‘be’, or gei meaning ‘for’/‘give’), so that distinguishing between the larger number in English and identifying the correct one
presumably introduces planning issues.
Table 3 summarises the distribution of content words occurring in recyclings according to their syntactic categories.
As Table 3 demonstrates, nouns, adjectives and adverbs are quite infrequent, each constituting less than 5.17% in the
learner data, and less than 2.96% in the NS data. These patterns make sense given what this and earlier studies have identified
concerning the functions of recycling (Fox et al., 2010; Goodwin, 1981; Rieger, 2003a).
In the content-word summary, we can also observe a striking pattern, i.e. that learners use a much higher rate of verbs as
recycling starts, accounting for 6.66%, compared with only 0.74% by NSs. The extremely high learner/NS ratio (53.75) further
corroborates this unusual pattern. As one of the most common functions of recycling is to delay production of the next item
due, this pattern appears rather unusual. However, examination of our data reveals that learners tend to use verb recycling in
cases where they have difficulty in completing the syntactic unit, i.e. either in finding the correct object(s) or complement(s)
of the verb. Bada's study (2010) also supports our finding. In his L2 English data, verbs constitute 36.5% of WLR recycling starts
e where no other syntactic category approaches this level e, and 23.3% of GLR recycling starts.
We can further attempt to explain this unusual pattern from the aspect of L1 influence. Chui's (1996) study of Chinese L1
conversation found that the “verb phrase” as a recycling constituent is not problematic in Chinese. She stated that “Even when
the subject is overt in the utterance, a substantial proportion of repairs are still initiated at the pre-verbal site or at the verb
without recycling back to it” (with a mean of 55.9%) (p. 367e368). We thus speculate that learners' overuse of verbs as
recycling starts in this study is partially due to L1 influence. Nevertheless, more data are needed to obtain a complete un-
derstanding of this pervasive phenomenon in L2 speech.
In addition, a detailed observation of the learner dataset indicates that, potentially due to insufficient vocabulary, learners
tend to overuse empty, de-lexicalised verbs (e.g. make, do, etc.) because these words may have become highly entrenched in
the learner's mental lexicon, and their production is less susceptible to conscious control than that of more specific words. We
argue that, due to the limited attentional resources and the less automatic nature of L2, learners may resort to empty verbs
while facing time pressure.

3.1.3. Recyclings on the word-level and group-level

We turn now to the word vs. group level. Table 4 shows the distributions of WLR and GLR by learners and NSs.
Looking at Table 4, we can see that, in general, there is no significant difference between learners and NSs in the use of
WLR and GLR (p ¼ 0.3681). Further observation shows that both learners and NSs used much more WLR than GLR, and the
learner/NS ratios for both categories are relatively close to the total ratio, with only the WLR ratio being slightly higher. This
result partly contradicts the observations made by some earlier studies (Bada, 2010; Fox et al., 1996), but supports some other
prior studies (Chen & Pu, 2007; Gilquin, 2008).
Fox et al. (1996) argue that languages with different syntactic structures organise their communicative strategies in
different ways, and that speakers of English, which has a relatively fixed word order, use a fairly high degree of clausal
recycling. However, their study did not provide quantitative information, and only discussed relative frequencies of different
patterns with respect to a restricted range of constituents. Bada (2010) provides a higher percentage for GLR (62.3%) than WLR
(37.7%) for his L2 English learners, which may be due to the fact that the learners in his study were “assigned the tasks
beforehand, and knew that they could talk about any characteristic of the movies” (p. 1682), so the level of preparation on
their part may have allowed them to plan their utterances better and they were struggling less with the beginnings of their
utterances, where most WLRs tend to occur in general.
Chen & Pu's study (2007), in which the participants were Chinese English learners, however, supports our finding that
there are more WLRs than GLRs in the practice of recycling. Their study showed a percentage of WLRs as high as 57.8%, along
with syllabic recycling, two-word recycling and multi-word recycling. In Gilquin's (2008) study, in both LOCNEC and LINDSEI-
French, the speakers also produced many more one-word than two-word or three-word recyclings.

Table 3
Recycling by syntactic category of content words.

Word class Learner NS Ratio

n % % Total n % % Total
Adverb 33.4 32.43 5.17 3.2 57.14 2.96 10.44
Verb 43 41.75 6.66 0.8 14.29 0.74 53.75
Adjective 12.8 12.43 1.98 0.8 14.29 0.74 16.00
Noun 14.1 13.69 2.18 0.8 14.29 0.74 17.63
Total 103 100 15.99 6 100 5.18 17.17
46 L. Quan, M. Weisser / System 49 (2015) 39e49

Table 4
General distribution of WLR and GLR.

Level Learner NS Ratio

n. % n. %
WLR 441 68.27 69 63.89 6.39
GLR 205 31.73 39 36.11 5.26
Total 646 100 108 100 5.98

Chi-square ¼ 0.81, d.f. ¼ 1, p ¼ 0.3681.

A more refined analysis of WLR and GLR yields some other interesting results. As can be seen in Tables 5 and 6, high-
frequency monosyllabic function words are frequently used as recycling starts on the word level in both datasets. Obser-
vation of the frequencies of recycling starts in this category reveals the following: in the learner dataset, the most frequently
used monosyllabic word is I (frequency as high as 114), with the close behind (95), followed by and (49). In the NS dataset, the
most frequently used word is also I (52), followed by a (21) and the (19). Our study thus confirms the findings of prior studies
(Clark & Wasow, 1998; Fox et al., 1996; Kapatsinski, 2010) which demonstrated that, in languages where function words
precede content words, speakers have highly entrenched recurrent practices for delaying the next content word due, prac-
tices which involve the recycling of high-frequency monosyllabic function words.
Another reason for the high proportion of high-frequency monosyllabic function words used as recycling starts may be
that words like these are easily accessible to learners as they are probably amongst the ones they have learnt first. Thus, if
there is a need to gain time for planning and the words are appropriate in the context, they are more likely to be used as
stalling devices.

3.2. Replacement distribution

3.2.1. Distribution by function vs. content words

This section discusses the replacement distribution regarding the two major syntactic categories. Table 7 lists the figures
for replacement in the two datasets (the distribution among learners and NSs is not significant).
Table 7 shows that, in comparison with recycling, content words account for a higher proportion of replaced items (27%) in
the NS dataset, and an even higher proportion of replaced items in the learner dataset (42%).
Fox et al. (2010) argue that:
Such differences arise from the different functions of replacement and recycling: replacement occurs when a speaker
has produced part or all of a word or phrase that s/he now finds in some way incorrect or inappropriate; recycling is
typically used to delay the next item due. (p. 2497)
Although there is a general tendency for both learners and NSs to replace more content words than function words, we can
still find some divergences between the populations in terms of ratio distributions. Just as for recycling, Table 7 shows that the
overall ratio of 8.36 is even slightly higher than that for recycling. This would again broadly point to an insecurity in the use of
appropriate vocabulary by learners, who need to correct themselves more frequently. While the ratio of learner/NS function
words that are replaced is somewhat lower than the overall ratio, the ratio of replaced content words of 13.00 is again more
remarkable, though not as striking as that of content words in recycling.

3.2.2. Replaced items by syntactic categories

The following tables illustrate the distribution of replaced items according to the two major syntactic categories.
As can be seen from Tables 8 and 9, for learners, verbs constitute the largest category of replaced items (23.91%), followed by
determiners (18.48%), and subject pronouns (16.30%). In the NS dataset, determiners account for the highest proportion of
replaced items (27.27%), followed by subject pronouns (18.18%). Verbs, adverbs, nouns and some other sub-categories of

Table 5
WLR & GLR by syntactic category of function words.

Word class WLR-L2 WLR-NS Ratio GLR-L2 GLR-NS Ratio

n % n % n % n %
Subject pronoun 143.7 39.5 28.6 44 5.0 83.4 46.7 29.7 80.3 2.81
Determiner 98.8 27.1 16.0 24.6 6.2 32.1 18.0 4.0 10.8 8.0
Wh-word 10.3 2.8 2.7 4.2 3.8 10.3 5.8 0 0
Preposition 28.2 7.7 5.1 7.8 5.53 22.5 12.6 1.1 3.0 20.5
Aux 3.8 1.0 0.3 0.5 12.7 7.1 4.0 0 0
Existential 0 0 1.1 1.7 0 1.9 1.1 1.1 3.0 1.7
Copula 16.7 4.6 1.3 2.0 12.8 5.8 3.2 0.3 0.8 19.3
Connective 52.6 14.5 6.1 9.4 8.6 14.1 7.9 0.8 2.2 17.63
TO 10.3 2.8 3.5 5.4 2.9 1.3 0.7 0 0
Total 364 100 65 100 5.60 178.5 100 37 100 4.8
 L. Quan, M. Weisser / System 49 (2015) 39e49 47

Table 6
WLR & GLR by morpho-syntactic category of content words.

Word class WLR-L2 WLR-NS Ratio GLR-L2 GLR-NS Ratio

n % n % n % n %
Adverb 24.4 31.69 2.7 67.5 9.04 9.0 34.09 0.5 25 18
Verb 29.5 38.31 0.3 7.5 98.33 13.5 51.14 0.5 25 27
Adjective 10.3 13.38 0.8 20 12.88 2.6 9.85 0 0
Noun 12.8 16.62 0.5 12.5 25.6 1.3 4.92 0.3 15 4.33
Total 77 100 4 107.5 17.91 26.4 100 2 65 13.2

Table 7
Replacement by syntactic category.

Replaced item Learner NS Ratio

n % n %
Function word 53 58 8 73 6.63
Content word 39 42 3 27 13.00
Total 92 100 11 100 8.36

Chi-square ¼ 0.3575, d.f. ¼ 1, p ¼ 0.5 ~ 0.75.

Table 8
Replacement by syntactic category of function words.

Word class Learner NS Ratio

n % % Total n % % Total
Subject pronoun 15 28.30 16.30 2 25.00 18.18 7.50
Determiner 17 32.08 18.48 3 37.50 27.27 5.67
Wh-word 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Preposition 5 9.43 5.43 1 12.50 9.09 5.00
Aux 5 9.43 5.43 1 12.50 9.09 5.00
Existential 1 1.89 1.09 0.3 0 0 3.33
Copula 6 11.32 6.52 0 0 0
Connective 4 7.55 4.35 1 12.50 9.09 4.00
To 0 0 0 0 0 0
Total 53 100 57.6 8 100 72.72 6.63

Table 9
Replacement by syntactic category of content words.

Word class Learner NS Ratio

n % % Total n % % Total
Adverb 1 2.56 1.09 1 30.3 9.09 1.00
Verb 22 56.41 23.91 1 30.3 9.09 22.00
Adjective 4 10.26 4.35 0.3 9.09 2.73 13.33
Noun 12 30.77 13.04 1 30.3 9.09 12.00
Total 39 100 42.39 3.30 100 30 11.82

function words here contribute at an equally lower proportion (9.09%). Yet further observation shows that nouns, verbs and
adverbs increase in percentage in replacement versus recycling. These patterns make sense given what we have said about the
different functions of recycling and replacement. Regarding the comparatively higher rate of subject pronouns and determiners
in both of the datasets, we assume that function words do sometimes pose troubles for speakers, possibly due to an interac-
tional pressure to switch from I to we to include the recipient or avoid using inappropriate determiners (Lerner & Kitzinger,
2007). Thus, for instance in the NS dataset, we can frequently observe a switch from singular to plural first person pronoun,
but also occasionally to third person. In the learner data, we also observe the typical insecurity of Chinese speakers to
distinguish between he and she (often assumed to be due to the fact that the Chinese equivalents in spoken language are
homophones), as well as occasional issues in distinguishing between possessive and non-possessive third person pronouns.
The following two examples illustrate the over-representation of verb replacement by learners.

(13) he he draw paint draw <replacement type ¼“” target ¼“V” /> Linda's (eh) exactly how Linda look on the on the paint
(CH021)
(14) she is an old person she (er) like likes <replacement type ¼“” target ¼“V” /> his hometown too (CH038)
48 L. Quan, M. Weisser / System 49 (2015) 39e49

In example (13), the speaker first finds the verb unsatisfactory, and then shifts between draw and paint, and finally replaces
paint with the seemingly more felicitous verb draw. In example (14), the speaker simply has a problem in producing the right
form of third-person singular, so they repair it by replacing like with likes. The examples above illustrate the possible chal-
lenges faced by learners in selecting the appropriate verb forms. Hence, replacements are used to treat those already-existing
surface problems.
In what follows, we exclusively attempt to explain the over-representation of verbs in learners’ replacements from a
typological perspective, with reference to the theory of attention and automaticity (Kormos, 1999; 2006).
English is characterized by a relatively greater degree of fusion in inflectional morphology (Comrie, 1981). Hence, for
instance, “verbal -{s} carries the meaning of present, third person, and singular. Bound verbal morphemes are thus
semantically complex in English” (Sidnell, 2009, p. 13), but not in Chinese, where the only type of verbal inflection consists in
aspect markers, which are not complex. So when Chinese English speakers try to retrieve English verb forms, they may face
special difficulties in working out the right forms of verbs.
Second, according to Kormos (2006), due to the less automatic nature of L2 speech production and comparatively
incomplete systems of L2 knowledge, certain repair mechanisms occur in L2 speech that are not or only very rarely observable
in L1. This difference is illustrated in our NS dataset, in which verb replacement is rather infrequent, compared with the
learner dataset. Prior studies investigated whether syntactic features of the erroneous words may influence error detection
and self-repair practices, and found that content words were more often corrected than function words (Poulisse & Bongaerts,
1994; van Hest, 1996b). This seems to corroborate that, due to attentional limitations, the monitoring processes of L2 speakers
focus more on content words because they carry more information.

4. Conclusion

The present study has investigated the use of recyclings and replacements by learners and NSs, focussing on two main
aspects: the syntactic class of words both learners and NSs tend to initiate recycling and replacement in, and which types of
syntactic/lexical elements are most frequently repeated. In doing so, we started out by drawing a clearer distinction between
the two communicative strategies, which have commonly e but somewhat erroneously e, been referred to as ‘self-repairs’ in
the past. As indicated in our literature review, this unfortunately used to lead other researchers to ignore their generally
distinct functions to some extent.
Our study confirms some typical findings of earlier research which suggested that, for languages with function words
preceding content words, the speakers use function words as recycling starts more than content words, while replacing
content words at a disproportionately high rate. The similarities between learners and NSs confirm the view that “self-repair
in English conversation is strongly organized according to syntactic constituents” (Fox et al., 1996, p. 186). This is e.g. illus-
trated by the over-representation of subject pronouns as recycling starts in both of the datasets, where both groups of
speakers tend to return to the beginning of the clause, and not some arbitrary place within the syntactic unit.
The results also demonstrate that there are some striking differences between learners and NSs in the practice of the two
strategies. Apart from the fact that the learners overall exhibit a much higher rate of recyclings and replacements, one of the
most remarkable differences is that there is a high proportion of verbs used by learners, both as recycling starts and replaced
items. We argue that L1 transfer, possibly due to typological differences between English and Chinese, and the difference
between L1 and L2 in terms of attentional resources and automaticity in the process of speech production may both
contribute to the above differences.
Our findings have a number of significant implications for L2/foreign language pedagogy, especially in the Chinese EFL
context. As far as the replacement of content words, and in particular verbs, by Chinese learners is concerned, we assume that
more form- and/or function-based classroom activities are needed to enhance both the learners' morphological and semantic
knowledge. As, for instance, a number of the examples of replacements we investigated involved the (over-)use of empty, de-
lexicalised verbs such as make, do, have, etc., corpus-based and collocations-oriented exercises could be employed to
strengthen the learners' precision of expression. In implementing these exercises, teachers could first identify instances of de-
lexicalised verbs and nouns associated with them in the learners’ writing or oral production. In the next step, collocational
analysis carried out on NS data would then make it possible to select suitable examples of lexical verbs that do collocate with
them for vocabulary practice. These same exercises could also be adjusted to allow students to practise inflectional
morphology, which turned out to be another frequent source for replacements in our data.
As Kormos (1999; 2006) points out, dealing with self-repairs can also promote the development of L2 skills in serving as a
trigger for creative solutions, thereby expanding the learners' existing resources. L2 or foreign language learners, in a search
for acceptable formulations in the L2 or foreign language, are more likely to experience many planning problems, and
therefore need techniques that enable them to gain time while they are trying to solve these problems. In our data, the over-
use of and in a ‘discourse-marking’ function partly appears to be one attempt at dealing with such issues. It may also indicate a
limited stock of cohesive markers available to the learners. More elaborate means of such ‘discourse-marking’ or attempts at
achieving cohesion were not (easily) discernible to us, though. This, however, might partly be due to a lack of suitable seg-
mentation and annotation of the data at the syntactic level. As no functional communicative units, i.e. what is commonly
referred to as ‘sentences’, are indicated in the corpus, it may require further suitable annotation of the data and more in-depth
study. The apparent absence of such strategies in the NNS data is not surprising, though, since “‘hesitation strategies’ like the
use of discourse markers are rarely taught in the foreign language classroom” (Rieger, 2003b, p. 41). It may thus be beneficial
 L. Quan, M. Weisser / System 49 (2015) 39e49 49

to incorporate such strategies into the foreign language curriculum, so that teachers can provide learners with gradual access
to understanding the link between effectively using both hesitation and cohesive strategies through classroom practice. Such
practice can then help them increase fluency and reduce the overuse of recyclings as the more-or-less only alternative device
for handling time pressure and establishing cohesion. This would also necessitate improving textbooks by using more
authentic materials to present a comprehensive picture of how hesitation strategies are used in real-life contexts, supported
by suitable awareness-enhancing exercises for the use of cohesion markers, such as conjunctions.
Further studies comparing typological differences between Chinese and English in the practice of ‘self-repairs’ may help
explain how linguistic factors such as word order and morpho-syntactic structures of a language affect the organization of
conversational strategies such as recycling and replacement, and also help shed light on the issue of L1 transfer in greater
depth. Additional studies may also be needed to observe differences in syntactic complexity between learners and NSs. In
particular, by comparing data from this database with larger learner corpora, suitable enriched with syntactic annotation, it
may become possible to explore the relationship between syntactic complexity and oral proficiency.
Another striking pattern we noted is that there are more WLR than GLR in both datasets, which partly contradicts the
findings of earlier studies. We propose that genre, tasks, learning context, language proficiency, age and mother tongue may
all contribute to this kind of discrepancy, and that this merits further investigation. Finally, it would be interesting to
investigate to what extent recyclings and replacements may be viewed as developmental features, i.e. whether they may
diminish over time in L2.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their particularly insightful comments and suggestions. This study is
funded by a grant (No. 14BYY149) from The National Social Science Fund of China.

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