repair (n./v.)

A term used in CONVERSATION ANALYSIS and DISCOURSE analysis to refer to the attempt made by participants in a conversation to make good (repair) a real or imagined deficiency in the interaction (e.g. a mishearing or misunderstanding). Some repairs are self-initiated (made by a speaker without prompting from the listener), as in the spontaneous use of I mean; some are other-initiated (prompted by the listener), as in the use of ECHO QUESTIONS such as He said what? Repairs may also be classified as self-repairs (made by the speakers themselves) and other-repairs (made by the listeners).

In PHONOLOGY, repair is sometimes used to refer to the process of altering a REPRESENTATION so that it conforms to the structural principles of a model. For example, in METRICAL PHONOLOGY, various strategies are available to ensure that degenerate FEET are repaired (e.g. lengthening, reparsing).