A Study Of Conversational Repair In A Date With Luyu

Conversational repair,started from Schegloff et al.,is a significant component of Conversation Analysis,which has drawn great attention recently.Repairs occur when there is something in the way of communition.Though heatedly discussed,conversational repair still needs further exploration and investigation,especially in Chinese TV talk shows.This paper mainly explores four research questions:(1)What types of repair are used in A Date with Luyu and how frequently does each type occur?(2)In what aspects are repairs manifested in A Date with Luyu and what is the frequency of each aspect accordingly?(3)What repair strategies are adopted in A Date with Luyu and what is the percentage of each strategy respectively?(4)What initiation techniques are utilized in A Date with Luyu and how frequently is each technique adopted?The data source for this study was extracted from one of the most influential Chinese TV talk shows,namely A Date with Luyu.This talk show has received high ratings since broadcast in 1998.To answer these four questions,20 episodes were selected randomly with time range of the latest three years.Then the data were transcribed for intensive analysis through both qualitative and quantitative methods.According to the data,it is found that there are altogether 273 repairs,including 191 self-repairs and 82 other-repairs in the selected 20 episodes of A Date with Luyu.Four types of repairs are self-initiated self-repairs,self-initiated other-repairs,other-initiated self-repairs and other-initiated other-repairs.Self-initiated self-repairs rank the first by possessing the largest percentage.As for repair aspects,self-repairs in most cases happen when there appears any misunderstanding,while most other-repairs tend to occur in the aspect of content error.In terms of repair strategies,the strategy of correction enjoys the highest frequency in self-repairs,while both completion and correction occupy the same largest proportion in other-repairs.Initiation techniques are also not the same for the two.Self-initiations tend to prefer non-lexical perturbations while other-initiations favor raising questions.This thesis includes five chapters.Chapter one is a brief introduction of the whole thesis.In this part,the background and significance of the study,as well as the organization of the whole thesis are presented.Chapter two summarizes the related literature reviews and theoretical framework of the present study,including conversation analysis,conversational repair and TV talk show.Chapter three presents research methodology,namely research questions,data collection and transcription and research methods.Chapter four is the main body of the thesis,in which repair types,repair aspects,repair strategies as well as initiation techniques are identified and analyzed respectively.Chapter five is the summary of the whole thesis.In this chapter,major findings and implications are exhibited,and then limitations and suggestions of the present study are pointed out.