REPAIR2 (also SELF-REPAIR)
An adjustment or correction added to an utterance by a speaker as a result of self-monitoring. Repairs commonly correct speech errors; but they might also rephrase part of an utterance to make it more precise, more appropriate or easier to understand.
Not all speech errors are repaired; but speakers seem to be especially sensitive to those that might cause problems for a listener. A stress placement error which also involves a change of vowel quality (laGOON ! LAgoon) is treated as more disruptive (and is repaired much more often) than one that does not (TURbine ! turBINE). It is not clear whether speakers judge that the second type of error does not pose a sufficient threat to comprehensibility, or whether they fail to notice it at all.
The distance between a problematic item and its repair varies considerably. In a covert repair, indicated by a pause or an editing expression (er, I mean), potential trouble may even be detected before the item is uttered. In overt repairs, the interruption might take place while the problematic item is being uttered (i.e. within the word), immediately after it or after a delay of one or more words. The most common situation is the second, followed by the third. Where there is a delayed repair, it often occurs at a phrase boundary. This may reflect the fact that self-monitoring is more active later in a phrase or may reflect a wish by the speaker to complete a planned phrase before interrupting the flow. Certainly, repairs appear to be structured syntactically so as to make it as easy as possible for the listener to continue to follow the utterance.
A distinction is made between repairs that are marked prosodically by a change in pitch, loudness and/or duration and those that are not. Here, type of repair is a factor. Just over half of error repairs are marked, but relatively few rephrasing ones.
See also: Self-monitoring
Further reading: Levelt (1989: Chap. 12)
