A comparative study of repair in the Ahvazi dialect of Arabic and Persian conversations

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 English department, Faculty of Humanities, Yasouj University, Yasouj

2 English department, Faculty of humanities, Yasouj University, Yasouj, Iran

Abstract

The interactional role of repair in conversations have long been of interest to conversation analysts. The objective of this study is to examine the types of repair and their strategies in the Ahvazi Arabic and Persian conversations. The population of the study consisted of 100 participants, including 50 Ahvazi Arabic speakers and 50 Persian speakers, selected through convenience sampling from individuals aged 20 to 50 residing in Ahvaz. After recording the participants' everyday conversations, the data were transcribed, and the instances of repair were identified based on the model. The findings from 283 minutes of Persian conversations and 240 minutes of Arabic conversations indicate a high frequency of self-initiated self-repair in both groups. It was observed that the participants in both languages predominantly used non-lexical initiators in the form of speech cut-off. Additionally, the data revealed that Arabic speakers used seven repair strategies, i.e. replacing, searching, recycling, deleteing, inserting, paranthesizing, sequence jumping. However, Persian speakers employed nine repair strategies of replacing, searching, recycling, deleteing, inserting, paranthesizing, reformatting, reordering, and sequence jumping. Furthermore, the strategies of replacing, recycling, and searching were used with high frequency in both languages, while the strategy of sequence jumping had the least usage. The findings of the present study corroborate the notion that the general principles of repair are universal, but the observation of differences across different languages is not unexpected.

Keywords

References

Al-Harahsheh, A. M. A. )2015(. “A Conversation analysis of self-initiated repair structure in Jordanian spoken Arabic”. Discourse Studies. 17 (4). 397-414
Alharbi, J. M. (2023). “Linguistic features self-repair strategies of Arab speakers of English language”. Technium Social Sciences Journal, 46, 342-354.
Amini, H., Nemati, M., Sharifi, Sh. (2014). Different kind of self-repairs and their status in alternations of Persian daily conversations. Research in Persian Language and Literature, 12 (32), 167-183. [In Persian]
Atkinson, M., & Heritage, J. (1984). Structures of Social Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Belgrimet, S. (2020).  “A conversation analysis of repair strategies in communication breakdowns: a case study of Algerian bilingual students’.  International Journal of English Literature and Social Sciences, 5(2), 459-468.
Berg, T. (1986). ‘The aftermath of error occurrence: psycholinguistic evidence of cut-offs”. Language & Communication, 6 (3), 195-213.
Betti, M. J., & Mahdi, M. A. (2020).  “Conversation analysis of repair trouble sources, inadequacy and positions in the Iraqi University viva discussions in English”. International Linguistics Research, 3(4), 69-93.
Blackmer, E. R. & Mitton, J. L. (1991). “Theories of monitoring and the timing of repairs in spontaneous speech”. Cognition, 39 (3), 173-194.
Bredart, S. (1991). “Word interruption in self-repairing’. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research. 20, 123-138.
Chafe, W. L. (1980). ‘Some reasons for hesitating”. In: H. W. Dechert & M. Raupach (Ed.), Temporal Variables in Speech: Studies in Honor of Frieda Goldman-Eisler (pp. 169-180). New York: De Gruyter Mouton. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110816570.169.
Colman, M., & Healey, P. (2011). “The distribution of repair in dialogue”. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 33. 1563-1568.
Drew, P. (1981). “Adults’ corrections of children’s mistakes”. In J.M. Atkinson & J. Heritage (eds.), Adult-child Conversation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 152-164.
Drew, P. (1997). “Open class repair initiators in response to sequential source of troubles in conversation”.  Journal of pragmatics, 28: 133-148.
Eysenck, M. W., & Keane, M. T. (2005). Cognitive Psychology: A Student’s Handbook. New York: Psychology Press.
Fox, B. A. & Jasperson, R. (1995). “A syntactic exploration of repair in English conversation”. In: Davis, P. (Ed.), Descriptive and Theoretical Modes in the Alternative Linguistics. (pp. 77-134). John Benjamin’s, Amsterdam,
Fox, B., Wouk, F., Hayashi, M., Fincke, S., Tao, L., Sorjonen, M. L., Laakso, M., & Hernandez, W.  F. (2009). “A cross linguistic investigation of the site of initiation in same-turn self-repair. In: Sidnell, J. (Ed.), Conversation Analysis: Comparative Perspectives. ( pp. 60-103). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fox, B. A., Maschler, Y., & Uhmann, S. (2010). “A cross-linguistic study of self-repair: Evidence from English, German, and Hebrew”.  Journal of Pragmatics. 42(9), 2487-2505.
Fox, B. A., Wouk, F., Fincke, S., Flores, W. Hernandez, W.  F., Hayashi, M., Laakso, M., Maschler, Y., Mehrabi, A., Sorjonen, M. L., Uhmann, S., & Yang, H. J. (2017). “Morphological self-repair: self-repair within the word’. Studies of Language, 41 (3), 638-659.
Grice, H. P. (1975). “Logic and Conversation”. In: P. Cole, & J. L. Morgan. (Ed.) Syntax and Semantics, Vol. 3, Speech Acts. (pp. 41-58). New York: Academic Press.
Goodwin, C. (1987).  “Forgetfulness as an interactive resource”.  Social Psychology Quarterly,50: 2, 115-130.
Haddadian, G., & Mahmoodi-Bakhtiari, B. (2018). “Conversational repairs in Persian dramatic discourse: Akbar Radi's Pellekân (The Steps)”.  Persian Literary Studies Journal. 7(11), 65-82.
Hayashi, M. (1994). “A comparative study of self-repair in English and Japanese conversation’. In: Akatsuka, N. (Ed.), Japanese/Korean Linguistics IV. (pp. 77-93). CSLI: Stanford,
Hayashi, M., Raymond, G., & Sidnell, J. (2013). “Conversational repair and human understanding: an introduction”. In: Hayashi, M., Raymond, G., Sidnell, J. (Eds.), Conversational Repair and Human Understanding (No. 30). (pp. 41-70). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
Hieke, A. E. (1981) “A content-processing view of hesitation phenomena”. Language and Speech, 24, 147-160.
Hutchby, I., & R. Wooffitt (1998) Conversation nalysis: Principles, Practices and Applications. Cambridge: Policy Press.
Jefferson, G. (2004). “Glossary of transcript symbols with an introduction”. In: G. H. Lerner (Ed.) Conversation Analysis: Studies from the First Generation (pp. 13-23). Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Kazemi, A. (2020). “Same-turn self-repairs in Farsi conversation: On their initiation and framing”. Journal of Pragmatics, 170, 4-19.
Kitzinger, C. (2012). “Sequence Organization”. In: J. Sidnell and T. Stivers (Eds.) The Handbook of Conversation Analysis (pp. 191-209). United Kingdom: Wiley-Blackwell.
Kormos, J. (1999). “Monitoring and self-repair in L2”. Language Learning. 49 (2), 302-342.
Laakso, M., Sorjonen, M. L. (2010). “Cut-off or particle-devices for initiating self-repair in conversation”. Pragmatics, 42 (4), 1151-1172.
Levelt, W. J. M. (1983). “Monitoring and self-repair in speech”. Cognition. 14, 41-104.
Liddicoat, A. J. (2007a). An Introduction to Conversation Analysis. London: Continuum.
MacHoul, A. W. (1990). ‘The organization of repair in classroom talk”. Language in Society, 19: 3, 349-377.
Maclay, H., & Osgood, C. E. (1959). ‘Hesitation phenomena in spontaneous English speech”. Word, 15, 19–44.
Moghadamkia, R., Heidarpour, P. (2011). A study of repair organization in Persian television interviews. Journal of Researches in Linguistics. 3(1), 101-114. [In Persian]
Karkkainen, E., Sorjonen, M. L., & Helasvuo, M. L. (2007). “Discourse structure”. In: Shopen, T. (Ed.), Language Typology and Syntactic Description, second ed. (pp. 301-3710. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Maynard, D. W. (2013). “Everyone and no one to turn to: Intellectual roots and contexts for conversation analysis.” In: J. Sidnell and T. Stivers (eds.) The handbook of conversation analysis, (pp.11-31). United Kingdom: Wiley-Blackwell.
Németh, Z. (2012). “Recycling and replacement self-repairs in spontaneous Hungarian conversations”. In Proceedings of the First Central European Conference in Linguistics for postgraduate Students, pp. 211-224.
Postma, A. (2000). “Detection of errors during speech production: A review of speechmonitoring models”. Cognition. 77, 97-131.
Quan, L., & Weisser, M. (2015). “A study of self-repair operation in conversation by Chinese English learners”. System.  49, 39-49.
Radi, A. (1989). Pellekan (The Steps). Tehran: Niyayesh. [In Persian]
Rieger, C. L. (2003). “Repetitions as self-repair strategies in English and German conversations”.  Journal of Pragmatics. 35(1), 47-69.
Saputri, D. Y. (2015). A Conversational Analysis of Repair in Ellen Degeneres Show Season 11. Thesis: Yogyakarta State university.
Schegloff, E. A. (1979). “The elevance of repair to syntax-for conversation”. In T. Givon (Ed.) Syntax and Semantics, Vol. 12, Discourse and Syntax (pp. 261-286). New York: Academic Press.
Schegloff, E. A. (1984). “On some gestures relation to talk”. In: Atkinson, J., Heritage, J. (Eds.), Structures of Social Action. (pp. 266-297). Cambridge: Cambridge.University Press.
Schegloff, E. A. (2000) “Overlapping talk and the organization of turn-taking for conversation”. Language in society.  29(1), 1-63.
Schegloff, E. A. (2007). Sequence organization in interaction: A primer in conversation analysis (Vol. 1). Cambridge: Cambridge university press.
Schegloff, E. A. (2013). “Ten operations in self-initiatedŲŒ same-turn repair”. In, M. Hayashi, G. Raymond, & J. Sidnell (Eds). Conversational repair and human understanding (pp. 41-70). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schegloff, E. A., Jefferson, G., & Sacks, H. (1977) ‘The preference for selfcorrection in the organization of repair in conversation’. Language. 53 (2). 361-382.
Sidnell, J. (2007). “Comparative studies in conversation analysis’. Annual Review of Anthropology, 36, 229-244.
Sidnell, J. (2009). “Comparative perspectives in conversation analysis’. In: Sidnell, J. (Ed.), Conversation Analysis: Comparative Perspectives. (pp. 3-27). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Tahernasab;, S. G. ;. , Hooshmand, M. and Zarifi, A. (2024). Study of repair in the telephone and face to face conversations in Lori language (Kohgiluyeh dialect) and Persian language. Comparative Linguistic Research, 13(26), 133-154.
Tang, C. (2011). “Self-repair devices in classroom monologue discourse”. Concentric: Study of Linguistics, 37 (1), 93-120.
Wouk, F. (2005). “The syntax of repair in indonesian”. Discourse Studies, 7 (2), 237-258.
Zhang, W. (1998). Repair in Chinese Conversation. Doctoral dissertation: University of Hong Kong.
 
Journal of Iranian Dialects & Linguistics
Volume 9, Issue 2
March 2025
Pages 241-262

Files

History

  • Receive Date: 30 October 2024
  • Revise Date: 23 February 2025
  • Accept Date: 05 March 2025

Share

How to cite

Statistics