Same-Turn Self-Repair in Decision-Making Tasks: A Conversation Analysis of Thai EFL Group Discussions
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Abstract
Self-repair is regarded as evidence of the development of spoken language, and this forms an important component of an individual’s interactional competence (Gass & Selinker, 2008; Wong & Waring, 2020). However, most previous research in the Thai context has focused on students’ use of form-focused correction and corrective feedback from teachers, leading to insufficient insights into student self-repair in meaningful interactions. The present study thus investigates same-turn self-initiated self-repair (SISR) in a group decision-making task undertaken in an English language lesson involving 15 Thai undergraduate students. This employs Schegloff’s (2013) ten repair operations framework within a sequential microanalysis of conversation analysis (CA) methodology suggested by Wong and Waring (2020). The dataset comprises three hours of video of a classroom discussion task carried out by five groups of students. Overall, 129 instances of same-turn SISR were seen. These were used as an interactional resource to maintain progressivity, reasoning and task alignment. Additionally, the study shows how replacing is used to improve lexical accuracy and conceptual clarity, searching is used as a marker of lexical awareness and turn-holding, and recycling is a strategy for emphasis and fluency. Sparingly but strategically adopted, inserting is used to add precision and expand arguments, while aborting is deployed as a strategy for reformulation and group alignment. The findings offer insights into the relationship between linguistic and social dynamics within a specific decision-making discussion task, and this has implications for English as a foreign language (EFL) instruction in Thailand. Pedagogically, this study underscores the importance of teaching same-turn self-repair strategies to students for use in self-monitoring in high-stakes conversations. The research also compliments prior CA literature on same-turn SISR in a specific task, as well as literature applying Schegloff’s framework to Thai students’ use of repair strategies.
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References
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