Reference repair in Korean conversation
Post-mortems and management of problematic reference
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/eap.27801Keywords:
conversation analysis, Korean, reference repair, other-initiated repair, correction, post-mortems, account, face, membership categorisationAbstract
This study examines, from a conversation-analytic perspective, the role of post-mortems following reference repair, whose organisational features exhibit the participants’ remedially motivated orientations towards managing their face and membership categories in accounting for a problematic reference. Post-mortems are predominantly organised as self-deprecating or other-supportive accounts, through which the troublesome character of a trouble source is downgraded, e.g., attributed to a momentary lapse. Their face-sensitive character is sometimes oriented via the repair-initiator’s abdication of correction, geared to pre-empting their generation, particularly when the repairable is an English word or its nativised version. In entertainment-oriented talk-shows, post-mortems, organised as mock-activities, are designedly promoted through exposed correction/reformulation. A case of problematic reference understanding is examined and accounted for as deriving from a tying-based mishearing, with the repair initiator being incorrectly primed to the trouble-source expression as continuative of the categorial flow of the preceding sequence, without recognising its sequence-organisational import in launching post-mortems.
References
Bolden, G. B., Hepburn, A., Potter, J., Zhan, K., Wei, W., Park, S. H., Shirokov, A., Chun, H. C., Kurlenkova, A., Licciardello, D., Caldwell, M., Mandelbaum, J., & Mikesell, L. (2022). Over-exposed self-correction: Practices for managing competence and Morality. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 55(3), 203–221. https://doi.org/10.1080/08351813.2022.2067426
Drew, P. (1987). Po-faced receipts of teases. Linguistics, 25, 219–253. https://doi.org/10.1515/ling.1987.25.1.219
Drew, P. (1997). “Open” class repair initiators in response to sequential sources of troubles in conversation. Journal of Pragmatics, 28(1), 69–101. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1016/S0378-2166(97)89759-7
Egbert, M. (2004). Other-initiated repair and membership categorization: Some conversational events that trigger linguistic regional membership categorization. Journal of Pragmatics, 36, 1467–1498. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2003.11.007
Egbert, M., Golato, A., & Robinson, J. D. (2009). Repairing reference. In J. Sidnell (Ed.), Conversation analysis: Comparative perspectives (pp. 104–132). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511635670.005
Fitzgerald, R., & Housley, W. (Eds.) (2015). Advances in membership categorization analysis. Los Angeles, CA: Sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781473917873
Garfinkel, H. (1967). Studies in ethnomethodology. Prentice-Hall.
Glenn, P. (2003). Laughter in interaction. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511519888
Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. Doubleday.
Goffman, E. (1971). Relations in public: Microstudies of the public order. Harper & Row.
Hester, S., & Eglin, P. (1997). Culture in action: Studies in membership categorization analysis. University Press of America.
Jefferson, G. (1974). Error correction as an interactional resource. Language in Society, 3(2), 181–199. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4166762
Jefferson, G. (1984). On stepwise transition from talk about a trouble to inappropriately next-positioned matters. In J. M. Atkinson & J. Heritage (Eds.), Structures of social action: Studies in conversation analysis (pp. 191–222). Cambridge University Press.
Jefferson, G. (1987). Exposed and embedded corrections. In G. Button & J. R. E. Lee (Eds.), Talk and social organisation (pp. 86–100). Multilingual Matters.
Jefferson, G. (2007). Preliminary notes on abdicated other-correction. Journal of Pragmatics, 39, 445–461. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2006.07.006
Kim, K. (2004). A conversation analysis of Korean sentence-ending modal suffixes -ney, -kwun(a), and -ta: Noticing as a social action. Sociolinguistic Journal of Korea, 12(1), 1–35.
Kim, K. (2022a). Syllabically matched resonance in sound and category: An excursion into the poetics of ordinary talk in Korean. East Asian Pragmatics, 7(3), 459–493. https://doi.org/10.1558/eap.23404
Kim, K. (2022b). Formulating “tag questions” in Korean conversation: Pseudo-tags ci and cianha as interactional resources. The Sociolinguistic Journal of Korea, 30(4), 59–98. http://doi.org/10.14353/sjk.2022.30.4.03
Kim, K., & Suh, K. (2002). Demonstratives as prospective indexicals: Ku and ce in Korean conversation. Japanese/Korean Linguistics, 10, 192–205.
Kim, K., & Suh, K. (2010). The sentence-ending suffix-ketun in Korean conversation with reference to -nuntey: Sequence organization and management of epistemic rights. Discourse and Cognition, 17(3), 1–38. https://doi.org/10.15718/discog.2010.17.3.1
Kim, K., & Suh, K. (2021). Formulation questions and responses in Korean TV talk show interactions. In C. Ilie (Ed.), Questioning and answering practices across contexts and cultures (pp. 193–226). John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.323.07kim
Kim, M. (2014). Why self-deprecating? Achieving “oneness” in conversation. Journal of Pragmatics, 69, 82–98. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2014.03.004
Lee, H. S. (1991). Tense, aspect, and modality: A discourse-pragmatic analysis of verbal affixes in Korean [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. University of California, Los Angeles.
Lee, H. S. (1993). Cognitive constraints on expressing newly perceived information, with reference to epistemic modal suffixes in Korean. Cognitive Linguistics, 4(2), 135–167. https://doi.org/10.1515/cogl.1993.4.2.135
Lee, J. S. (2006). Linguistic constructions of modernity: English mixing in Korean television commercials. Language in Society, 35, 59–91. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404506060039
Lerner, G. H. (2013). On the place of hesitating in delicate formulations: A turn-constructional infrastructure for collaborative indiscretion. In M. Hayashi, G. Raymond and J. Sidnell (Eds.), Conversational repair and human understanding (pp. 95–134). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511757464.004
Park, J. S.-Y., & Wee, L. (2012). Markets of English: Linguistic capital and language policy in a globalizing world. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.1111/weng.12066
Park, Y.-Y. (1998). A discourse analysis of the Korean connective ketun in conversation. Crossroads of Language, Interaction, and Culture, 1, 71–89.
Raymond, C. W. (2019). Category accounts: Identity and normativity in sequence of action. Language in Society, 48, 585–606. https://doi:10.1017/S0047404519000368
Raymond, C. W., & Stivers, T. (2016). The omnirelevance of accountability: Off-record account solicitation. In J. D. Robinson (Ed.), Accountability in social interaction (pp. 321–353). Oxford University Press.
Robinson, J. D. (2014). What “What?” tells us about how conversationalists manage intersubjectivity. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 47(2), 109–129. https://doi.org/10.1080/08351813.2014.900214
Robinson, J. D. (Ed.) (2016). Accountability in social interaction. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190210557.001.0001
Sacks, H. (1992a). Lectures on conversation (Vol. 1). Blackwell.
Sacks, H. (1992b). Lectures on conversation (Vol. 2). Blackwell.
Sacks, H., Schegloff, E. A., & Jefferson, G. (1974). A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation. Language, 50(4), 696–735. https://doi.org/10.2307/412243
Schegloff, E. A. (1987). Some sources of misunderstanding in talk-in-interaction. Linguistics, 25, 201–218. https://doi.org/10.1515/ling.1987.25.1.201
Schegloff, E. A. (1992). Repair after next turn: The last structurally provided defense of intersubjectivity in conversation. American Journal of Sociology, 97, 1295–1345. http://doi.org/10.1086/229903
Schegloff, E. A. (2007). Sequence organization in interaction: A primer in conversation analysis. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511791208
Sidnell, J. (Ed.) (2009). Conversation analysis: Comparative perspectives. Cambridge University Press.
Sidnell, J. (2010). Conversation analysis: An introduction. Wiley-Blackwell.
Tolson, A. (2001). “Being yourself ”: The pursuit of authentic celebrity. Discourse studies, 3(4), 443–457. https://doi.org/10.1177/146144560100300400
Whitehead, K. A. (2009). “Categorizing the categorizer”: The management of racial common sense in interaction. Social Psychology Quarterly, 72(4), 325–342. https://doi.org/10.1177/019027250907200406
