OPEN CLASS REPAIR INITIATORS IN RESPONSE TO SEQUENTIAL SOURCES OF TROUBLES IN CONVERSATION

When speakers initiate repair on the talk of co-participants in conver sation, they may use repair initiation forms which locate the specific source of trouble (the repairable) in the prior turn; alternatively, they may select forms which treat the whole of the prior turn as in so me way problematic. This paper explores the latter, i.e. 'open' forms of repair initiation, e.g. 'pardon?', 'sorry?', 'what?' etc. The analy sis here, of a corpus of instances of this kind of repair initiation i n naturally occurring telephone conversations, focuses not on the repa ir management sequence, but rather on the sequential environment in wh ich 'open' class NTRI's are employed. It explores two environments in particular, involving first an apparently abrupt shift in topic, and s econd an apparently inapposite, or even disaffiliative, response by th e other speaker. Analysis of these environments, and of the troubles i n 'understanding' which may be associated with them, suggests that tro ubles generating this form of other-initiated repair shade into matter s of alignment or affiliation between speakers (and hence conflict in talk). It also underlines how far 'understanding' is related to the se quential organization of talk.