Context-sensitivity in conversation: Eye gaze and the German repair initiatorbitte?

Abstract

ABSTRACTJust as turn-taking has been found to be both context-free and context-sensitive (Sacks, Schegloff & Jefferson 1974), the organization of repair is also shown here to be both context-free and context-sensitive. In a comparison of American and German conversation, repair can be shown to be context-free in that, basically, the same mechanism can be found across these two languages. However, repair is also sensitive to the linguistic inventory of a given language; in German, morphological marking, syntactic constraints, and grammatical congruity across turns are used as interactional resources. In addition, repair is sensitive to certain characteristics of social situations. The selection of a particular repair initiator, Germanbitte?‘pardon?’, indexes that there is no mutual gaze between interlocutors; i.e., there is no common course of action. The selection ofbitte?not only initiates repair; it also spurs establishment of mutual gaze, and thus displays that there is attention to a common focus. (Conversation analysis, context, cross-linguistic analysis, repair, gaze, telephone conversation, co-present interaction, grammar and interaction)