Repair: Comparing Facebook ‘chat’ with spoken interaction

Abstract

Previous research on the conversation analytic phenomenon of ‘repair’ has focused on its design and function in spoken interaction. Conversely, research on written text or writing rarely focuses on interaction. In this article, we examine repair in written discourse; specifically in online settings. The data corpus comprises one-to-one quasi-synchronous Facebook ‘chat’. First, we show that, as in spoken interaction, repair happens. This basic observation supports conversation analytic arguments that features of talk, like repair and laughter, do not ‘leak randomly’ into interaction but are precision-timed and designed to accomplish action. Second, we report on two types of repair: visible repair which can be seen and oriented to by both participants in the interaction, and message construction repair, which is available only to the message’s writer. While the practice of message construction repair is made possible through the affordances of the online medium, it nevertheless shows how participants in written interaction are oriented to the same basic contingencies as they are in spoken talk: building sequentially organized courses of action and maintaining intersubjectivity. We suggest that assumptions about differences between spoken and online interaction are premature. Rather, we argue that online interaction should be treated as an adaptation of an oral speech-exchange system.

Repair: The Interface Between Interaction and Cognition

“…Taking into account gesture, gaze, and bodily orientation (Floyd, Manrique, Rossi, & Torreira, 2014;Goodwin & Goodwin, 1986) and tactile or rhythmical interactional resources (Albert, 2015;Keevallik, 2010;Weeks, 1985) requires new approaches to transcription and coding because these behaviors are often simultaneous rather than turn-constrained, and may use specialized forms of organization (Raymond & Lerner, 2014). 17 Researchers are currently finding new ways to transcribe and analyze the distinctive methods and resources people use for repair-including both embodied and computermediated interactions (Healey et al, 2003;Meredith & Stokoe, 2014;Sch€ onfeldt & Golato, 2003) 18 . CA researchers are also finding new approaches to moving from single-case analyses and the turn-organized structures of talk-in-interaction toward wider generalizations, new contexts and new tools for studying repair in human interaction (Kendrick, 2017;Stivers, 2015).…”

Embeddedness and sequentiality in social media

“…We believe that revisiting this existing appreciation in CSCW for the role of sequentiality in ordering online communication could shed new light on social media use. Further, we point to recent conversation analytic studies of social media chat-notably published outside CSCW research-that have uncovered how "participants in both online and spoken interaction are oriented to the same basic contingencies of maintaining intersubjectivity and building sequentially organized courses of action" [35] (also see [10]). …”

“…After all, social media is a varied and distinct medium. Yet research into online chat [10,35,39], search engine use [37], and text messaging [23] is suggestive of similarities in sequential organisation despite their very different material forms. Although social media use is clearly different to talk, during its developing use, users of social media draw upon their existing methods of interaction.…”

“…But how might methods of repair feature in social media use? There has been some work examining this; for instance, Meredith and Stokoe analyse repair in Facebook text chat communication, focusing on self-initiated repair [35]. Repairs can come in the next turn after a completed entry after, such as in Example 5.…”

Synchronous Text Messaging

“…They also find differing practices with WhatsApp, that messages are exchanged more often, are more conversational in nature, are used to communicate within closer social circles and are used more often for group-based communication. Studies of WhatsApp and other mobile instant messengers [7,24,25,29,32,34,37,50,54] point to an always connected, always on style of communication where asynchronous interactions pervade day-to-day lives to produce "a particular way of being together ... that is casual and never-ending" [36].…”