Mother-initiated repair sequences in interactions of 3-year-old children

Abstract

Repair initiated by parents provides their children with corrective feedback of the children’s developing talk.To investigate how the interactive repair process is constructed, this study looked at five mother—child pairs during play interaction, focusing on mother-initiated repair sequences ( N = 163). The mothers used many types of repair initiators from the general ‘What?’ to the more specific interrogatives. They also offered candidate understandings, and made other-corrections. Repair sequences usually comprised of three parts: the child’s turn, the mother’s repair initiation in the next turn, and the child’s response in the third turn. In more than 90% of the cases the children responded to their mothers’ repair initiations. Thus, after mother-initiation the 3-year-old children could already locate the trouble and repair it.