Asian Englishes

ISSN: 1348-8678 (Print) 2331-2548 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/reng20

A Conversation Analysis of Self-repair in Asian

Englishes

Jamie Shinhee Lee

To cite this article: Jamie Shinhee Lee (2005) A Conversation Analysis of Self-repair in Asian
Englishes, Asian Englishes, 8:1, 4-25, DOI: 10.1080/13488678.2005.10801152

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13488678.2005.10801152

Published online: 11 Mar 2014.

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 A Conversation Analysis of Self-repair in Asian Englishes1

Jamie Shinhee LEE

ABSTRACT: The speakers of Asian Englishes in this study engage in self-repair when
no corrections need to be made. The most common repair the interactants utilize is
predominantly self-initiated self-completed repair. In addition, they employ their own
characteristic signature phrase and each interlocutor's respective signature phrase serves
multiple functions at different times in their discourse, for example, as a repair initiator, a
delaying device, or a pause filler. One salient and recurring feature in the utterances of
the speakers of Asian Englishes in this study is self-repair with a hint of their native
language background and mutual cultural knowledge. Obviously noticeable deviations in
the areas of lexis, phonology, and morpho-syntax do not lead to repair or
miscommunication. Despite the distinct "non-nativeness" of their utterances, the speakers
of Asian Englishes in this study perform successful interaction, and no impediment to
communication occurs.

1. INTRODUCTION

There is an abundant body of literature on repair in conversation analysis (CA)

(see, e.g., Drew 1997; Jefferson 1974, 1987; Fox & Jasperson 1995; Schegloff 1979,
1987; Schegloff, Jefferson & Sacks 1977; Schegloff, Ochs & Thompson 1996;
Levelt 1983; Postma, Kolk & Povel 1990). The majority of these studies, however,
focus predominantly on so-called "native speaker-native speaker" (NS-NS)
interaction of language X, mostly English with the exception of the cross linguistic
study of Fox, Hayashi and Jasperson (1996) which examines English and Japanese.
Research on self-repair in interaction between "native speaker-non-native speaker"
(NS-NNS) (see, e.g., Egbert 1997, 1998; Machoul 1990; Markee 2000; Wong 2000),
although this has not been researched as extensively as self-repair in NS-NS
interaction. Comparatively, there is a greater paucity of research on self-repair in so-
called "non-native speaker-non-native speaker" (NNS-NNS) interaction. The
number of English speakers, both in ESL and in EFL contexts, is ever-increasing,
and there is a greater need for them to interact with one another. Firth and Wagner
(1997:292) point out the paucity of what they term "everyday L2 use" studies,
noting that a vast number of NNSs interact with other NNSs in English and that "in
most cases, such interactions are not, at least ostensibly, undertaken for educational,
instructional, or learning purposes, but are a quotidian part of life."
In sociolinguistics, a similar concern was addressed earlier. Kachru (1992:357)

1 A preliminary version of the paper was presented at the Second Language Research Forum (Oct. 16-19,
2003). University of Arizona, Tucson. My sincere thanks to Andrea Golato, Makoto Hayashi, and David
Reid for their comments and suggestions on earlier versions of the paper.

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 A Conversation Analysis of Self-repair in Asian Englishes

argues that one of the fallacies with respect to the users and uses of English is the
assumption that ESL and EFL speakers acquire English to interact with "native
speakers" when, in fact, the reality is that "English has become a main vehicle for
interaction among its non-native users" (emphasis added). The assumption that
speakers in the Outer and Expanding Circles 2 learn English to engage in
conversation with speakers in the Inner Circle fails to acknowledge the
sociolinguistic reality of the current use of English around the globe, including Asia.
The status of English as a lingua franca in Asia calls upon scholarly attention to
interaction among speakers of Asian Englishes.
In second language acquisition (SLA) research, Hatch (1978), Long (1983), and
Gass (1997) address the importance of meaning negotiation in interaction. However,
most SLA studies on meaning negotiation in interaction are still predominantly on
NS-NNS — mostly with the NS being a teacher and NNSs being ESL or EFL
students. Meaning negotiation in NNS-NNS without the presence of an NS has not
yet received extensive scholarly attention. Moreover, the verbal behavior of NNSs in
"ordinary or everyday" conversation — not in an institutional setting such as in class
— has not been adequately dealt with in SLA. Analyzing NNS-NNS interaction
outside the classroom will give us insights into how ESL or EFL students actually
"put theory into practice" — i.e., utilize what they have learned in class in everyday
conversation without a teacher's specific instructions. As Atkinson and Heritage
(1984) point out, the central goal of conversation analysis research is the description
and explication of the competencies that ordinary speakers use and rely on in
participating in intelligible, socially organized interaction. This certainly offers a
rationale for the scope of the data in this study.
In contrast to SLA research, the need for recognizing Asian Englishes is
addressed in several studies within the world Englishes paradigm (see, e.g., Kachru
1997; Honna 1998; Kirkpatrick 2002; McArthur 2003). Bolton (2004) discusses the
following research approaches to Asian Englishes: (1) The linguistic features
approach; (2) the lexicographical approach; (3) the discourse approach; (4) the
macrosociolinguistic approach; (5) the microsociolinguistic approach; (6) the
language planning approach; (7) the applied linguistic approach; and (8) the critical
approach. However, CA is not explored as a major analytical tool even within the
discourse and microsociolinguistic approaches to Asian Englishes. Moreover, there
is a total absence of analyses when it comes to gestural features.
In this paper I will examine Asian Englishes speaker-Asian Englishes speaker
(AES-AES) interaction with a specific focus on self-repair. I will address self-repair

2 Their exposure to English education began no earlier than 7th grade in their own home country, mainly
through formal instructions in class. For further discussion of the Three Circles of World Englishes, see
Kachru, 1983 and 1986.

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 Asian Englishes, Vol. 8, No. 1, 2005

in conjunction with turn organization and gestural features. Schegloff, Jefferson, and
Sacks (1977) offer the main theoretical framework for the analysis of repair in this
study. In addition, Goodwin and Goodwin's work (1986) on gesture in a word search
and Egbert (1997) will serve as references in describing the gestural features of the
participants in this study.
One immediately obvious definition of repair is the instance of error corrections.
Schegloff et al. (1977), however, argue that repair is not restricted to error-
corrections; even when no apparent error is made, repair occurs. They note that
"correction is not contingent upon error nor limited to replacement" (1977:363). In
other words, corrections are sometimes made where there are no discernible errors
or mistakes. Therefore, Schegloff et al. suggest that repair would be a more proper
term than correction. They further assert that when there is trouble in speaking,
hearing, and understanding in conversation, interactants may resort to repair to
signal and resolve the trouble. These types of repair then involve instances where a
current utterance is put on hold in some way and is subsequently cancelled, recast,
continued, or redone. Repairs are often, not always, accompanied by um or uh and
cutoffs. In contrast to SLA, in which repair is mainly viewed as error corrections,
Wong (2000:247) notes that repair in CA refers to "efforts to deal with any problems
in speaking, hearing, or understanding of talk. Confirmation checks, clarification
requests, restatements, repetitions, understanding checks, and the like, all fall within
the domain of repair in CA, regardless of whether the utterances are linguistically
correct."
In this study, self-repair produced by the speaker of the repairable due to trouble
in speaking will be the main focus of the discussion. Some aspects of self-repair
discussed in the present study are the following: (1) how speakers of Asian
Englishes do self-repair and conduct a word search in interaction with other speakers
of Asian Englishes; (2) how potential trouble sources such as grammatical
deviations, mispronunciation, incorrect lexical choice and so forth are not treated by
speakers of Asian Englishes as problems; and (3) how interaction among speakers of
Asian Englishes unfolds smoothly despite the distinct presence of so-called "non-
nativeness" in their interaction.
The speakers of Asian Englishes in this study utilize self-initiated self-completed
repair most often. The interactants engage in repair when there are no obvious
deviations. On the other hand, the addressees neither ask for obvious deviations to
be identified nor to be repaired. Furthermore, deviations do not cause
miscommunication. Some of the deviations include misuse of lexical items in the
form of misidentification of the gender of the subject (e.g., "she" for "he"),
replacement of one word with another in the similar superordinate category (e.g.,

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"wardrobe" for "chest of drawers") 3 and the mispronunciation of a noun

accompanied by an incorrect suprasegmental feature, such as mislocation of the
primary stress ([gə́raZ] for [gəráZ]).

2. DATA DESCRIPTION

Data are from video-taped interaction between three speakers of Asian

Englishes. The interactants in this study are no longer enrolled in ESL and EFL
programs. They currently use English in pursuit of an advanced degree. All of them
are graduate students at a mid-western university in the United States. They each
scored over 550 on TOEFL. All of the participants are female speakers of Asian
Englishes: J is from Japan; K is from Korea; and T is from Thailand. Since an
individual participant's native language is one of the elements relevant to the
discussion of this study, letters are assigned accordingly to match each participants'
native language: J for Japanese, K for Korean, and T for Thai.
The interactors had been studying in the United States for three years at the time
of data collection. They often socialize with one another outside academic settings.
K and T are visiting J's place for afternoon tea. J moved into her new place not long
before the videotaping. T has been to J's place before, but K is at J's new place for
the first time.
The conversation was videotaped without the presence of the researcher to
minimize any observer influence. The first fifteen minutes of the data were excluded
from analysis to reduce data contamination due to the participants' initial self-
consciousness about videotaping.
The data excerpts are transcribed according to the transcription system provided
in ten Have (1999), in which he states that his transcript notations are mostly based
on and simplified from the descriptions provided in Jefferson (1989:193-6, cited in
ten Have 1999). To secure the anonymity of the participants in this study, any
mention of their real names in the transcription of the data is avoided. Whenever
their names are uttered in the original conversation, they are replaced in the
transcription with the participants' assigned codes: J, K and T. All other proper
nouns, including individuals' names and place names, are changed to pseudonyms
for anonymity.

3 They do not refer to the same type of furniture. Nevertheless, they belong to the same higher category
called 'furniture,' and they have enough resemblance in their function, such as storing clothes. It is
highly unlikely that the speaker would utter 'bed' for 'chest of drawers.'

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3. DISCUSSION

Self-initiated self-completed repair, which turns out to be the most common

repair in this data, will be presented first, followed by a few instances of other
initiated repair. Then, instances of obvious deviations, mainly due to the subjects'
status as "non-native" speakers of the Inner Circle varieties of English will be
examined in this study. It will be further argued that the fact that the participants,
both speakers of these deviations and addressees, neither repair nor request
clarification is an indication that these deviations were not dealt with as problems.
Each participant's repeated use of what I term a signature phrase, either when they
engage in repair or issue a pause filler, will be discussed. I will argue that the
speakers of Asian Englishes in this study have a less extensive repertoire of repair
and/or delaying devices and that they use an identical phrase to accomplish several
communication purposes. Finally, an instance of shared cultural knowledge, which
is realized as the proper use of an address term in the speaker's L44 (e.g., the Thai
speaker uses a Korean address term), will be discussed.

Self-initiated Self-repair
It will be useful to illustrate what the participants were discussing before J's
account of how she obtained a coffee table below. K had not been to J's new place
prior to this afternoon. K commented on several pieces of furniture in J's efficiency
apartment. J revealed the fact that her apartment is a furnished efficiency earlier in
the conversation. K points to different pieces of furniture in the room and asks which
ones are provided by the rental office and which ones are not. J informs K that
everything, with the exception of the coffee table, is provided by the housing office.
This excerpt starts from that point. There is clearly a preference for self-repair
among the speakers of Asian Englishes in this study. In the first data excerpt, J
attempts self-repair on several occasions. Most of her self-repairs are self-initiated
and self-completed. J uses a variety of non-lexical speech perturbation, such as
cutoffs, sound stretches, and uhs as predicted in Schegloff et al. (1977).

(1) Uhs, cutoffs, and pause

8 J: uh:: okay, I was on the way, the::: actually on the back
9 from(.) Farmer's Market? to (.) [home?
10 K: [um um,
(from Excerpt 1 coffee table)

4 L4 refers to the fourth language this person acquired. For this Thai speaker, Korean is her L4, Thai being
the L1, English L2 and French L3.

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J's self-repairs in line 8 are realized in the form of a sound stretch in "the:::" and
a partial repeat "on the" plus an additional piece of information "back" preceded by
"actually" to signal the speaker's fine-tuned elaboration.
In example (2), J uses the phrase "like a" profusely. She is consistent in her use
of the identical phrase throughout the entire conversation. It is as if this were her
"signature" delaying device and/or self-repair phrase. Her repeated use of the same
phrase "like a" for different purposes, including self-repair, is illustrated below.

(2) A signature phrase "like a" performing different tasks, including self-repair
15 J: and the place was like(.) a (0.8) three blocks away from my
16 old apartment, (0.4) [you know where
((J is looking up with a pensive face and with her arms crossed))
17 T: [wasn't it the church garage sale?=
18 J: =not the garage sale. like a one block (.) away from the
19 church actually.
20 T: uh. ((in a tone of realization))
21 J: and then uh:: like uh:: like a guy was selling that, and [then
22 K: [uh um
23 J: he said (.) oh yeah like a:: it's just two dollars. wow, it's
24 a good [deal.
25 K: [two dollars?
26 J: I got it. but the problem is like a he first said I:: like a I
27 will just drive (.) I'll drive like a I will drop it off at your
28 place and then s-he went back to house and he found like a
29 nobody's there uh:::okay, let's see:: I have to be there,
30 K: um um,
31 J: (you know what,) hh hh if you don't mind it I can carry it and
32 [I just carried it
((J is only looking at K))
33 T: [she carried it. the um the the garage sale to her place.
34 J: it's not heavy. (1.0)
35 K: wow hh [hh hh ((big laughter))
36 J: [it's not] it's not it's not heavy at all
37 T: [yeah
38 K: [wow
39 J: kind a embarrassing but you know(.)like a you are like a *carrying
40 this big one(.)and like a you know the people like a [( )
((J is making a gesture indicating the size of it))
41 K: [hh hh hh
(from Excerpt 1. coffee table)

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 Asian Englishes, Vol. 8, No. 1, 2005

In lines 15 through 41, J utters like a 13 times as highlighted in bold. Some

instances are used as self-repair, as indicated by the subsequent uh with sound
stretches or a pause demonstrated in lines 21 and 23. Examples include the second
like a, but not the first like a in line 26, and the like a in lines 27, 39 and 40. J self-
repairs in lines 26 and 27 by restarting three times as in "I :: like a I will just drive(.)
I'll drive like I will drop it off at your place..."
In lines 40 and 41, the excessive use of J's signature phrase like a is
accompanied by the phrase you know twice. She appears to use her signature phrase
like a interchangeably with you know as a pause filler in this context. In a sense, J
uses a double dosage of delaying devices in the same turn.
Ferrara and Bell (1995) argue that the use of like, once known as a "white
American teenager" phenomenon, has now expanded the range of its users to
include second-language learners of English. The word like is reported to have
different uses. In their discussion of the grammaticalization of like, Romaine and
Lange (1991) note like as a quotative complementizer that introduced a quoted
sentence or utterance. Meehan (1991, cited in Ferrara & Bell 1995) presents a
broader scope of the use of like, which can mean one of the following: "similar to,"
"approximately," "focus like," "as if," "for example," and "quotative like."
In Japanese, there is a pause filler ano, which could be an equivalent of uhm or
like as a delaying device in English. The word ano is frequently employed by
Japanese when there is a pause or when they engage in word search. Not every
Japanese speaker of English uses the same self-repair strategy as J does. Thus,
taking a single Japanese speaker's delaying device and/or repair and generalizing it
into Japanese speakers' delaying device and/or repair as a group is not valid.
Nonetheless, one plausible explanation is that J's extensive and consistent use of like
throughout the entire video-taping segment at least confirms that this is part of J's
characteristic verbal routine triggered arguably by her L1 influence.

Other- initiated Repair

There were only a few instances of other initiated repair in this study. Examples
(3) and (4) exhaust all other-initiated repairs in the entire interaction.

(3)
1 J: yeah. actually except this one
((tapping on the coffee table in front of her))
2 K: except this one? ((tapping on the coffee table))
3 T: you know how J got [this one?
4 J: [hh hh hh
((J first looks at K and then shifts her gaze to T and starts laughing)

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 A Conversation Analysis of Self-repair in Asian Englishes

5 T: it was so::: funny, she was >funny< she was a funny girl=
6 K: = wait what happened?
((K is looking at T))
7 T: ((T is pointing at J))
(from Excerpt 1. Coffee Table)
Although it is clear from J's gesture in line 1 that she is referring to the coffee
table, K initiates repair in line 2 by repeating the trouble source turn. K repeats not
only what the trouble source turn speaker J just uttered but also the gesture the
trouble source turn speaker made to indicate what she is referring to. Taleghani-
Nikazm and Vlatten (1997) note that gestures used for specific referents are
available for other speakers in later turns. In other words, gestures can travel from
one participant to another (1997:129).
Schegloff et al. (1977) argue that the repair sequence is an adjacency pair
consisting of two parts. The first pair part is the repair initiation turn, and the second
pair part is the response to the repair initiation. They further assert that in other
initiated repair, it is usually the speaker of the trouble source who responds to the
repair initiation turn. However, what is demonstrated in example (3) does not follow
the repair sequence proposed by Schegloff et al. The first pair part, repair initiation,
is present, but the second pair part, the response to the repair initiation, is not
present. A speaker other than the trouble-source turn speaker, T, responds before the
trouble source turn speaker, J, attempts to respond to K's other initiated repair.
Egbert's (1997) observation about other-initiated repair in multi-person conversation
provides insights into instances in which speakers other than the trouble source
respond to repair initiation. She states that "in multi-person interaction, a speaker
other than the trouble source turn speaker responds before the trouble source turn
speaker does" (1997:619).
In line 3 T responds to K's repair initiation by asking a question, not by
providing an answer. By asking K a question — whether or not K knows how J got
the coffee table — T indirectly confirms that they are talking about the coffee table,
not something else in the room or on the table. T's action is not penalized because
she knows not only that the coffee table is the only furniture that belongs to J but
also how J purchased it. If a person other than the trouble source turn speaker
responds to the repair initiation, that participant should have observable justification;
otherwise, he or she will be sanctioned (Egbert 1997). Thus, sharing the same
background knowledge with the trouble source turn speaker makes T's response to
K's repair initiation justifiable.
In line 4, J endorses the validity of T's response by laughter to inform K that T
knows exactly what happened. In line 5 T uses the word funny in three assessments.
She first assesses the situation and then twice the addressee J. These assessments

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 Asian Englishes, Vol. 8, No. 1, 2005

serve as a story preface — a story solicited by K in line 6. K implicitly selects T to

be the next turn speaker by looking at T. This supports Egbert's argument that "the
trouble source turn speaker is selected as the proper respondent to the repair
initiation" (1997:633). T, however, gladly relinquishes the floor to J. This indicates
that addressees acknowledge the legitimacy of the original trouble source speaker's
chance to repair before they interrupt. Despite K's open invitation for T's verbal
contribution as indicated by K's gaze at T, T does not offer an answer to K's inquiry.
Instead she "voluntarily" gives up the floor to J and selects the next turn speaker via
non-verbal action by pointing at J in line 7. The overt gesture of selecting the next
speaker signals that T acknowledges that J is ultimately the sole authority to tell the
story because she is the one who experienced the incident first-hand from the
beginning to the end and that T herself is only aware of the situation secondhand
because J told her some time ago, which was discussed prior to this conversation in
the data. This is an indication that the original or direct source of the information is
given a preference over the secondhand or indirect information source as the next
turn speaker.
The following example presents another instance of other-initiated repair, which
is this time completed by the trouble source turn speaker with the aid from the repair
initiator. K discusses one of the features she does not particularly like about the
apartment building she visited some time ago. She states the fact that the building
does not have a security intercom system. Both J and T are not quite sure what K
means by security intercom, and K tries to explain what it is.

(4)
1 K: but (3.0) they have no (2.0) yeah (.) that section has no
2 security inter-intercom, so=
3 J: [( )
4 T: [( )what do you mean[by security intercom.
5 K: [something like uh:: if some people who
6 [just
7 J: [(you mean)security door?=
8 K: = yeah security door
9 T: ah:: I see
10 K: and then (.) everybody just can get in by OPEN the outside (.)
11 door
12 T: ah
13 J: oh
14 K: that's kind a different from this outside door and then (2.0)
15 kind of little bit (2.0) yeah.
16 it looks new(.) but uh:: r the building (.) just looks (.) so: a

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17 little bit (0.4) older than the new section

18 J: uhm um,
(from Excerpt 6. Intercom)
In line 3 J's utterance is not audible due to the overlap with T's repair initiation in
line 4. J initiates repair the second time by asking a clarifying question such as What
do you mean by X?, and the same repair initiator provides one of her understanding
candidates in line 7. The trouble source turn speaker K attempts to complete other
initiated repair in line 6. However, her turn is interrupted by J whose first repair
initiation was overpowered by T's utterance demonstrated in line 6. In line 8 K
confirms that J's candidate understanding is correct by repeating J's utterance with
the affirmative yeah.

Unrepaired Deviations
Deviations could potentially lead to an impediment to successful
communication. However, obvious deviations are neither treated as trouble sources
nor perceived as "errors" by the interactants. In J's account of how she got the coffee
table, two major deviations are present, namely, mispronunciation of the lexical item
garage in line 11 and misidentification of the gender of the third person singular
pronoun in line 285.

(5) Phonological feature-related deviations

11 J: and then (.) I found a *[garage sale
*(([gálaZ] J's pronunciation deviates both from the American
English and Japanese pronunciation of this loanword))
12 K: [um um,
13 J: they sell it there,
((pointing to the coffee table))
14 K: the place was where?
15 J: and the place was like(.) a (0.8) three blocks away from my
16 old apartment, (0.4) [you know where
((J is looking up with a pensive face and with her arms crossed))
17 T: [wasn't it the church garage sale?
(from Excerpt 1. Coffee Table)

J's pronunciation of garage deviates from the American English one in terms of
the production of the consonant /r/ and a prosodic feature, the location of the
primary stress. J's pronunciation of garage in line 11, as documented in its phonetic
transcription [gálaZ], is "non-nativized" with a hint of over-regularization of a

5 It is presented in example (6A).

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phoneme difference between Japanese and American English. This is an instance of

hypercorrection6 due to the speaker's over-sensitivity to the following facts: (1) The
Japanese language does not make a distinction between /r/ and /l/ but English does;
(2) /r/ in Japanese is not pronounced with the tongue curled but /r/ in American
English is; and (3) Japanese is not a stress and intonation language, like English, but
rather a pitch accent language, in which a single fixed tonal melody is associated
with each word (Roca & Johnson 1999).
J is aware of the fact that she needs to place the primary stress on one of the
syllables in the word garage, which happens to be a well-established loanword in
Japanese. This means that Japanese speakers use the same word with their
phonological adaptations. They pronounce this word as [gaɾé:Z] with the stress
falling on the second syllable with the second vowel lengthened, and their /r/ is
realized as the flap [ɾ] rather than American English [r] with the tongue curled. J's
pronunciation of this particular lexical item deviates from that of the Japanese, too.
She attempts phonological adaptations to approximate the standard English
pronunciation but with little success.
This deviation however, does not invite any repair initiation either from the
trouble source turn speaker or the other participants. In fact, K and T do not have
any difficulty in understanding J as is indicated in lines 14 and 17 respectively. In
line 14, K says "the place was where?," which means that at least K understands that
J meant the place where J got her coffee table from. That there is no trouble in
understanding J's pronunciation of the word garage is also clear from T's question
"Wasn't it church garage sale" in line 17. T uses the expression garage sale, and she
even identifies a specific kind of garage sale, namely a church garage sale.
The fact that a potential trouble source does not lead to repair might be attributed
to the following factors. First, since they are close friends and interact on a regular
basis, K and T are familiar with J's accent. J's characteristic tendency in
pronunciation may have something to do with the fact that her native language is
Japanese. The Japanese language does not distinguish certain phonemes such as /l/
and /r/, which is sharply contrasted with English. Second, K and T can take an
intelligent guess from contextual clues. That is, K and T know that they are talking
about a piece of furniture and what types of products they can get at a local flea
market. Also, the word sale immediately following the trouble source garage could
have helped K and T to figure out what J was referring to. Third, the fact that all the
interactants are non-native speakers of the Inner Circle varieties of English and that
there is no native speaker whom the participants might view as having the authority
to correct the trouble source might have caused the participants to be more receptive

6 Over-generalization of a rule in English phonology. Or over-extension or over-regularization.

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and lenient toward one another's trouble source, a result of the participants' "non-
nativeness." They themselves have been in similar situations before and, thus, can be
more sympathetic toward a second language acquirer's persistent internalized
idiosyncrasies.

(6a) Misuse of a third person singular pronoun: she vs. he

26 J: I got it. but the problem is like a he first said I:: like a I
27 will just drive (.) I'll drive like a I will drop it off at your
28 place and then s-he went back to house and he found like a
29 nobody's there uh:::okay, let's see:: I have to be there,
(from Excerpt 1. Coffee Table)

The misuse of the third person singular pronoun he in line 28, namely using the
female third person pronoun she for he, could potentially invite the addressees to
issue a repair initiator. As indicated by a cutoff s-h, J utters /ʃ/ to say she and then
realizes that the person who sold the coffee table to J was male, not female.
Therefore, J restarts by producing the /h/ sound. This could arguably be one of the
common repair-related linguistic features in utterances of non-native speakers of the
Inner Circle varieties of English.
In Japanese there are two distinct pronouns for he ("kare") and she ("kanojo").
However, when it comes to describing a stranger, it is common to use ano hito or
sono hito, which means that person without the gender specification of a person.
This might be a possible reason why J starts out he and ends up correcting her wrong
use of the pronoun.
Example 6b below illustrates another instance of a clear error not being treated
as a trouble source, let alone becoming an obstacle in communication. K, J, and T
discuss the monthly water bill. J expresses how excessively high K's water bill is
compared to her own. J explains how much water she and her roommate use
monthly for taking baths.

(6b) Misuse of a plural pronoun: them vs. us

14 J: that's like uh (1.0) they take too much mo-money. I would say

15 I was living with Keiko, both of them like taking bath not shower
*[nɔt]
16 taking bath, okay?
((Nobody pays attention to the wrong pronoun usage i.e. J'
using 'them' instead of 'us'))
17 K: oh yeah. ((K appears as if she was thinking)

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 Asian Englishes, Vol. 8, No. 1, 2005

18 J: put the water in the hot tub(.) and then like=

19 K: =um um
20 J: we::put a lot(.) and we washed a lot like two girls(.)
21 and then for two months we:: paid just twenty dollars.
(from Excerpt 3. Utility Bills)

In line 15 J uses the pronoun them instead of us. J does not have any other
roommates except Keiko. Clearly J is referring to Keiko and herself, so both of us
would be the appropriate pronoun. However, this obvious error in J's speaking is
neither pointed out by the co-participants nor self-corrected by J herself. This error
neither leads to any type of repair nor results in miscommunication, as is evidenced
by K's responses in lines 17 and 19.
The next example shows an instance of incorrect lexical choice accompanied by
a mismatched gesture. A word search is completed after several self-repairs with a
mismatched hand gesture, namely pointing toward a different direction than the
target item. J and T recommend Jane's apartment to K. J and T give reasons why
Jane's place might be perfect for K to sublet. T asks for J's collaboration by gazing at
J, but this sought-after cooperation is not forthcoming from J, possibly because J is
not sure what exactly T has in mind or possibly because J does not know the word
herself.

(7) Incorrect lexical choice accompanied by a mismatched gesture

11 T: it was it was it was like
12 K: oh [yeah
13 J: [yeah
14 J: ( incredible)
15 K: you heard?
16 J: they have like very (.) spacious uh::: * bed-room like(0.2)
17 this **much?=
*((Almost like a glottal stop. Sounds like [b{ʕroom]))
**((J is extending two arms to show how big the bedroom was))
18 this much. isn't it?= ((J is looking at T))
19 T: =yeah
20 J: it's like a half [( )]
21 T: It's a big one [you know] with a (0.6) with a (0.6)[*tsu (0.4)
*((T gazes at J, clicks her tongue, and snaps her fingers. T is pointing to
the chest of drawers although she actually utters the word wardrobe,
which happens to be located behind her))
22 J: [what is it?
23 T: WARDROBE on one side=
(from Except 4. Jane's Apartment)

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 A Conversation Analysis of Self-repair in Asian Englishes

Neither K nor J volunteers to assist T with her word search although it is fairly
obvious from several pauses in T's utterance in lines 21-22 that T is engaged in word
search. T also employs a snapping gesture indicating that she is in the middle of
word search. Interestingly, the lexical item she comes up with does not correspond
to her indexing gesture. T points at the chest of drawers in front of her while she
produces the word wardrobe. The closet is actually located behind her. It is
indeterminable whether she intends to refer to the closet or the chest of drawers from
this particular excerpt. Nonetheless, no one asks for clarification. This could be
argued as a sign that speakers of Asian Englishes have a greater tolerance for
ambiguity triggered by other speakers of Asian Englishes or as an indication that
they all understood what T was referring to despite her inaccurate lexical choice.
Another instance of an obvious grammatical deviation not leading to repair is
presented in the example (8) below.

(8) Morpho-syntactic deviations

18 J: [(you mean)security door?=
19 K: = yeah security door
20 T: ah:: I see
21 K: and then (.) everybody just can get in by OPEN the outside (.)
22 door
23 T: ah
24 J: oh
25 K: that's kind a different from this outside door and then (2.0)
26 kind of little bit (2.0) yeah.
(from Excerpt 6. Intercom)

In line 21 "and then everybody just can get in by open the outside door" is
understood despite the fact that it has an obvious morpho-syntactic error, namely
omitting the gerund morpheme -ing. More interestingly, a critical feature of the
security intercom is missing from K's utterance in lines 20-21; that is, someone
inside the building has to buzz a visitor in, otherwise they cannot get in. With this
missing piece of information, line 25 appears to be rather incoherent and K seems to
be contradicting herself because K compares the security door of J's building with
the one of the apartment complex she just visited. For example, only the tenants with
the main entrance key in J's building can unlock the front door, but there is no
intercom to buzz people in. When a visitor rings the building entrance doorbell, J
has to meet the visitor at the entrance and let him or her in by opening the door from
inside. T and J's affirmative answers in lines 23 and 24 indicate that there is no
miscommunication despite K's seemingly incoherent and contradicting descriptions

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of two different types of security doors.

Self-repair in L1
The participants are still discussing the water bill. K looks away from J and T
and looks straight ahead to concentrate on her memory retrieval activity about the
water bill amount. When K successfully recalls the exact amount, she returns her
gaze back to J and T. K does not solicit the other participants' aid in her attempt to
remember the amount of the water bill. This is mainly because K is the only one
who has the information. K does not gaze at any of the co-participants during the
word search. Instead, she looks away from the co-participants and continues her
word search with a frowning, pensive face.

(9a)
1 K: and then(.)I just have to(.) separately pay my water(.) by (.)
2 Misook unni7 and me(.) and then (1.0) fifteen dollars(.)ani8
((looking straight ahead away, from J and T))
3 (.) fifteen dollars per person? so that's not so=
((K is frowning))
(from Excerpt 3. Utility Bills)

In line 2 K says "fifteen dollars" and realizes it is not entirely accurate

information because it is per person not per household. Thus, K attempts to correct
what she just uttered. She uses the Korean negative 'ani' to signal that the amount
she just provided is not exactly accurate.

(9b)
18 K: five ten or twenty or something like that and then the model
19 house they showed me was, uh:: five eighty one ani-no four
20 eighty one, and then five ten one, but for four eighty actual
21 for five ten one (.) there is only thirty dollars difference
22 but five ten one was (2.0) kind of twice bigger [hh hh hh] kind
23 of twice bigger than (0.6) the forty eight one
((It should have been four eighty. Nobody seems to notice
(from Excerpt 5. Apartment Complex Q)

A similar type of self-repair in L1 by K is demonstrated in the excerpt about

7 A Korean word for 'sister.'
8 A Korea negation word.

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 A Conversation Analysis of Self-repair in Asian Englishes

moving out. In line 19 K states that the rent for the apartment the housing office
showed her is five hundred eighty dollars a month and then realizes that it should be
four hundred eighty instead. While correcting the wrong information about the rent,
K utters the Korean negative ani first followed by the English equivalent no in line
19. This type of self-repair is an instance where not only the speaker's "non-
nativeness" but also the speaker's national origin and mother tongue are revealed
concurrently.

(9c)
4 T: yeah::I'm gonna=
5 K: =you move [out?
6 T: [yeah(.) not next year next August,
7 K: next August? yeah when *ani where? hh hh hh
(from Excerpt 3. Moving Out)

K's "unique" self-repair in the form of codes-witching9 in line 7 provides another

instance of the clear presence of participant's obvious "non-nativeness." K intends to
ask where T is planning to move. Instead she utters another wh-word when. K
realizes that when is not the appropriate wh-word for the situation since T already
specified the time in the previous turn. K produces the Korean negative word ani in
place of the English counterpart no to retract the wrong choice of wh-word. K
laughs nervously while she completes her turn in line 7. This is possibly because she
used the inappropriate wh-word or she used the Korean negative word ani in the
middle of the English utterance. Clearly, this was not intentional code-switching. In
this case, code-switching occurs inadvertently when K self-repairs in her L1 on the
content of question and then switches back to English, which is the matrix language
throughout the interaction. Although what triggered K's laugh in line 7 is open to
interpretation, self-repair in the form of code-switching to L1 certainly divulges K's
"non-nativeness" and her native language, Korean.

Shared Cultural Knowledge

(10)
1 T: by the way K, did you know that I decided to(.)I move from
2 *unni(.)for next year=?
*((The Korean address term for an older female acquaintance))
3 J: =really?

9 Code-switching occurs "when an individual (more or less deliberately) alternates between two or more
languages" (Baker 1993:76). For further discussion, see some seminal works on code-swiching (e.g.,
Blom & Gumperz 1972; Gal 1979; Myers-Scotton 1993).

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 Asian Englishes, Vol. 8, No. 1, 2005

4 T: yeah::I'm gonna=
5 K: =you move [out?
(from Excerpt 2. Moving Out)

T reveals her plan to move next year. T first selects the next speaker by
specifying whom she is addressing as demonstrated in line 1 — "by the way, K, did
you know..." — and then utters the Korean address term unni in line 2. The vocative
unni refers to an older sister in Korean. It is not exclusively reserved for a family
member. The word unni can be used to refer to a female friend or acquaintance as
long as she is older than the speaker. In addition, the speaker has to be female, not
male. In Korean, the gender of both the speaker and the hearer becomes critical
when it comes to address and kinship terms. T's use of the Korean address term unni
is a "marked" lexical choice since it does not correspond to T's native language. By
utilizing her cultural background knowledge of Korean address terms, T succeeds in
two tasks: (1) reinforcing rapport building by showing proper respect for an older
friend and (2) making the procedure of selecting the next speaker transparent to both
addressees. This is an instance of code-switching for the purpose of conveying
proper respect for an older person. This is a clear indication of sharing cultural
background knowledge between T and K. T demonstrates her mastery of Korean
address terms, which has been acquired by living with a Korean roommate.
Although both J and K are older than T, J would not assume that T directly
addressees J since the Korean address term unni does not evoke any semantic
significance for J, who is not a Korean speaker. Nonetheless, a third person, who is
not directly selected by the speaker in the previous turn, namely J, self-selects
herself by saying "really." T does not directly acknowledge J's turn, at least not non-
verbally. T does not shift her gaze to J from K. Although T says "yeah" in line 4, it is
not necessarily issued as her response to J's "really?" This analysis is based on the
following observations. First, T's gaze is fixed on K throughout her turn in line 4,
not even once looking at J, who has just asked for clarification in the previous turn.
Second, T tends to start her turn by saying "yes" throughout the data regardless of
whether she is asked a question or not. When the previously selected speaker K asks
a question in line 6, T appropriately acknowledges K's turn verbally, as
demonstrated in T's answer "yes" in line 7 as well as non-verbally through her gaze
at K.

4. CONCLUSION

The findings of the study suggest that speakers of Asian Englishes tend to

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 A Conversation Analysis of Self-repair in Asian Englishes

engage in repair when no corrections need to be made. The most common repair in
this study is predominantly self-initiated self-completed repair. In self-repair, the
interactants did one of the following: repeat part of the previous utterance or restart
with a new utterance. In these self-repairs, multiple repetitions were not uncommon.
The participants tend to repeat what they have just uttered consecutively two or
three times. Whether or not these are signs of disfluency is debatable. There was
only single instance of another repair initiator in the form of an overt clarification
request, such as "What do you mean by X?," throughout the entire interaction. This
supports the conclusion that, as in NS-NS interaction in Schegloff et al. (1977), there
is a preference for self-repair in AES-AES interaction Non-lexical speech
perturbations such as cutoffs, sound stretches, and uh are present in the AES-AES
interaction, which is consistent with what is discussed about NS-NS interaction in
Schegloff et al. (1977).
In addition to the aforementioned characteristics of self-repair, each participant
in this study employed her own characteristic signature repair initiator phrase,
delaying device and pause filler. For instance, J uses like a and K uses and then and
T uses yeah consistently throughout the entire video-taped conversation.
Interestingly, their signature phrases serve different functions at different times in
the discourse. For instance, J uses her signature phrase like a to self-repair, to fill the
gap, or to give an example.
One salient and recurring feature in the utterances of the speakers of Asian
Englishes in this study is self-repair with a hint of their native language background
and mutual cultural knowledge. On several occasions, K uses the Korean word ani,
which is the equivalent of "no," or its simplified variations when she corrects
herself. Both K and T use the Korean address term unni to refer to an older female
acquaintance to indicate that they share cultural knowledge regarding Korean
address terms and to signal that they know to whom they are referring. T shows her
acquired cultural competence with respect to what is proper and expected in Korean
culture via the proper use of Korean address terms.
In addition, obvious deviations in the areas of lexis, phonology, and morpho-
syntax lead neither to repair nor to miscommunication. In their lexical performance,
the participants showed the incorrect use of a pronoun (e.g., "she" for "he"), a wh-
word (e.g., "when" for "what"), numbers ("five hundred eighty" for "four hundred
eighty"), and a noun phrase ("wardrobe" for "chest of drawers"). In their
phonological performance, the interactants in this study produced deviant
pronunciation due to either the participant's failure to approximate a phoneme
distinction and stress pattern, which is present in English but absent in their L1, or to
the hypercorrection of a particular phoneme, which is missing in their L1 sound
inventory. For instance, K, whose native language Korean does not have /r/ in the

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consonant inventory, pronounces /r/ in a place where it is not needed. J pronounces

the word garage with the primary stress on the first syllable instead of the second
syllable and /l/ in place of /r/.
In their morpho-syntactic performance, the interlocutors in the study failed to
attach the morpheme -ing in the gerund (e.g., "by open" for "by opening") and
omitted definite and indefinite articles on multiple occasions. This does not
necessarily indicate the participant's failure in mastering English. On-line speech
production requires speakers to promptly monitor outgoing utterances, which can be
challenging despite their awareness of the rules. In contrast to other productive
language skills, such as writing, speaking is not as easily retractable or repairable
before production. If the participants had enough time to make error corrections as
they would in writing, these morph-syntactic deviations might have been rectified
without great difficulties. Despite the aforementioned deviations and non-nativeness,
the interaction in this study was successful. No impediment to communication
occurred.

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 A Conversation Analysis of Self-repair in Asian Englishes

Jamie Shinhee LEE

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Department of Linguistics
4080 Foreign Languages Building
707 South Mathews Avenue
Urbana, IL 61801

Fax: +1-217-244-8430
E-mail: jamielee@uiuc.edu

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