Repairing self and recipient reference

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Repairing Self and Recipient Reference

Alexa Hepburn

Department of Social Sciences, Loughborough University

Sue Wilkinson

Department of Social Sciences, Loughborough University

Rebecca Shaw

School of Medicine, University of Glasgow

Running head: Repairing self and recipient reference

Correspondence should be sent to: Alexa Hepburn, Department of Social

Sciences, Loughborough University, Loughborough, Leicestershire LE11 3TU,

United Kingdom. Email: A.Hepburn@lboro.ac.uk

Repairing self and recipient reference

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Repairing Self and Recipient Reference

Abstract:

There are dedicated reference terms - in English - for self and recipient

reference („I‟ and its grammatical variants for self; „you‟ and its

grammatical variants for recipient). These terms are invariant across

occasions of reference and, as such, are repaired much less commonly than

are references to third persons. In this paper, we focus on four types of

„trouble‟ addressed by repair to self and recipient reference: (i) indexing

the wrong referent; (ii) possible referential ambiguity in direct reported

speech; (iii) masked scope and/or constituent membership of referent; and

(iv) masked relevance of referent. We also show that repairs to self or

recipient reference are routinely not limited to fixing problems of

understanding, but are also used in the service of the interactional task-

at-hand.

Keywords:

indexical, person reference, recipient reference, referential ambiguity,

repair, self reference

Repairing self and recipient reference

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Repairing Self and Recipient Reference

In English, people generally refer to self with the dedicated

indexical reference term „I‟ (and its grammatical variants, me, my, mine,

etc.), and to recipient with the dedicated indexical reference term „you‟

(and its grammatical variants, your, yours, etc.)i. In other words - as

Schegloff (1996: 449) puts it in his classic person reference paper - these

are the default “unmarked forms which do simple reference” to speaker and

to addressed recipient. Further, unlike third person reference (see

Schegloff, 1996), reference to self or recipient makes no distinction

between „locally-initial‟ and „locally-subsequent‟ terms: as Schegloff

(2007: 125) has said of „I‟ (and it also applies to „you‟), self and

recipient reference is "insensitive to the history of prior reference -

whether for the first or the nth occasion in some conversation or across

multiple conversations, self is referred to as „I‟”.

Self and recipient reference generally involves fewer selection

issues for a speaker, who does not need either to figure out which of

multiple possible terms to use, or to track the position of the term in the

sequence in making the selection. This contrasts with third person

reference: as, for example, in Extract 3 (below), where the locally-initial

reference term “my husband” is selected (at line 3) from other

possibilities that might have included his name, a descriptor such as “my

other half”, or a non-relational term; and then the fitted locally-

subsequent indexical form “he” is selected (at lines 3,4,6 and 7).

Selection issues are not absent from self and recipient reference, of

course: see, for example, Schegloff (1987) on problematic reference as a

source of possible misunderstanding; and Lerner (1996) on the interactional

relationship of second person reference to addressing in multi-party

conversation. On some occasions of self reference, there can be two

Repairing self and recipient reference

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equally viable forms available to speakers: individual self reference (e.g.

„I‟) and collective self-reference (e.g. „we‟), such that selection is

guided by issues of recipient design and action formation: e.g. aggregation

and extraction associated with epistemic authority and responsibility for

ascribed action (Lerner and Kitzinger, 2007). Although speakers can – and

sometimes do – use other than the dedicated terms for self reference, such

usages invite special attention for what has prompted them: the use of

third person terms, in particular, can be fitted to – and thereby

contribute to – the action(s) a speaker is implementing through their turn

at talk (Land and Kitzinger, 2007).

Grammar and lexicon are crucial to self and recipient reference – and

different languages (and dialects) furnish different resources and

affordances here. For example, while contemporary English has only a

single dedicated term for (singular and plural) recipient reference,

(„you‟), there are some regional vestiges of the (now largely-archaic)

second person singular „thou‟ - and variants thee, thy, thine (Evans, 1969,

1970); and in the USA the Southern dialect variant „ya‟ll‟/„y‟all‟ (a

contraction of „you all‟), originally plural in use, is now also used in

referring to a singular recipient (Richardson, 1984; Montgomery, 1989).

Speakers of French must select between two forms of recipient reference

(„tu‟ and „vous‟), marked for familiarity and politeness; while speakers of

(European) Portuguese have six alternatives, marked for singular/plural and

masculine/feminine referents, as well as for familiarity/politeness

(Buchler and Freeze, 1966); and - reflecting the cultural importance of

kinship, status and age - Japanese (Fischer, 1964) and Northern Thai

(Filbeck, 1973) have still more, and more nuanced, alternative forms.

Some languages – e.g. Hebrew - do not use free-standing pronouns to refer

to speaker or recipient, but inflect features such as person, number and

gender on the verb (Hacohen and Schegloff, 2006); and in others – e.g.

Korean - speaker and recipient reference forms can readily be omitted (so-

Repairing self and recipient reference

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called „zero anaphora‟) because they are easily retrievable from the

physical interactional context (Oh, 2007; see also Bolden and Guimaraes,

this issue, for Russian and Brazilian Portuguese).

This paper examines repairs to self and recipient reference, in

English conversational dataii. The availability of dedicated and

positionally invariant indexical reference terms for self and recipient

(„I‟, „we‟, „you‟, etc. in English) means that these indexicals are

repaired much less commonly than are references to third personsiii.

Nonetheless, they can – and do – become trouble sources. In this paper, we

focus on occasions when these dedicated (default, unmarked) indexical

reference terms for self or recipient are treated as trouble sources and

repaired; and we also examine occasions when other-than-dedicated self and

recipient reference terms are repaired to the default terms. In what

follows, we outline four kinds of „trouble‟ arising in self and recipient

reference, and addressed via repair: (i) indexing the wrong referent; (ii)

introducing a possible ambiguity of reference (in the context of direct

reported speech); (iii) masking the scope and/or constituent membership of

the referent; and (iv) masking the relevance of the referent. We also

identify some of the actions these reference repairs can be used to

accomplish – actions that go beyond simply fixing ostensible problems of

speaking, hearing or understanding, in the service of the interactional

task-at-hand.

Trouble (i): The dedicated term indexes the wrong referent

The first, and most obvious, trouble is that the dedicated self or

recipient reference term indexes a clearly (or inferably) wrong referent,

and the reference term selected in error is corrected in order to index the

apposite referent (as in Extracts 1 and 2). In Extract 1, Lisa has come to

the phone to talk to Valerie (in response to a request by Mum - the „she‟

Repairing self and recipient reference

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of line 2). [The repair segment is shown in bold typeface throughout.]

Extract 1

[Holt: SO88: 1-11]

[Transcript revised; and pseudonyms altered]

01 Lis: H'llo Valeri[e.

02 Val: [Hello:, Sh[e getting confu:sed,.h[hhhh

03 Lis: [( ) [Pardon?

04 Val: Is she getting confu:se[d?h

05 Lis: [No:: she's not[getting=

06 Val: [.hhhh

07 Lis: =confu[sed.

08 Val: [ih-She called you L- me Lisa heh heh

09 Val: he[h .eh .h h h h h h h

10 Lis: [No:: she said would you like tuh talk tuh Lisa.=

11 Val: =.hh N- Oh well I think she meant the other way round.

After Valerie‟s proposal (line 2) that Mum is „getting confused‟

(responsive to an earlier, off-line exchange [not shown]) is rejected by

Lisa (lines 5 and 7), Valerie offers as supporting evidence (line 8) that

Mum used the wrong name (i.e. that she called Valerie, Lisa). In so doing,

Valerie produces the wrong reference term for self reference - erroneously

selecting the recipient reference term „you‟ (indexing Lisa) - and she

replaces it with the correct reference term: the dedicated self reference

term „me‟ (indexing herself).

Extract 2 is taken from a radio interview with the writer, Sarah

Waters, who has just published a novel called The Little Stranger, her

first ghost story. Lines 1-5 are the end of Waters‟ – lengthy and rather

evasive – answer to the interviewer‟s prior question (not shown) as to

Repairing self and recipient reference

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whether she believes in ghosts herself. The repair of the indexical

recipient reference term „you‟ (lines 8-9) comes in the course of the

interviewer‟s formulation of her next question/topic proffer.

Extract 2

[BBC Radio 4, Woman‟s Hour, 29 July 2009]

01 Sar: S:o (.) I‟m happy: (.) to hear other people‟s

02 #stories of the paranormal,=very happy,=I‟m

03 always (.) £vastly intrigued£ by what‟s really

04 going on.=.hhh but I like th- I like that

05 liddle bit of distan[ce.=‟n]

06 Int: [.HHnh ] An- And clearly,

07 (.) to m:a:ke them u:p. Becau:se you know,=

08 right the way throu:gh, you’re: (.) y- as the

09 reader you‟re thinking „.HHohh! my goodness_=

10 what moved the mirror‟ .hhh (0.2) „why did the

11 dog b(hh)ite (.) the gi:rl.‟=.hhh This is a

12 <particularly> .hhh (.) <malevolent ghost.>=

13 =[that you]‟ve imagin[ed.

In her turn at line 6, the interviewer is moving the interview on from

the issue of whether or not Sarah Waters believes in ghosts to a discussion

of the kind of ghost story she has written (one with a „particularly

malevolent ghost‟, lines 11 -13) . The connective „and‟ which prefaces

this turn invokes and maintains an orientation to the overall course of

action (the interview) implemented through these question/answer pairs, and

claims some connection between what she is about to say and the prior talk

(Heritage and Sorjonen, 1994).

That connection is also conveyed through the design of the first TCU

Repairing self and recipient reference

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of the interviewer‟s turn (lines 6-7) which has no explicit grammatical

subject: i.e. the referent (here „you‟, the addresseeiv) is tacit and must

be understood on the basis of the particulars of context (Bolden and

Guimaraes, this issue). The particulars of context here make apparent that

the tacit referent (the person who is „happy’ ... „to make them up’, lines

1 & 6-7) is the addressee, Sarah Waters. One resource whereby the referent

can be heard as such involves tracking the locally-subsequent indexical

„them’ back to its locally-initial full-form reference („stories of the

paranormal’, line 2) in a TCU of which Sarah Waters is the subject („I’m

happy to hear other people’s stories of the paranormal’), such that this

TCU (lines 6-7) - with its connective „and’ - can be heard as invoking the

same person. Tacit referring is used here to display that the speaker is

re-saying, in a modified form, something previously said, and/or adding

something that progresses the sequence only minimally (see Oh, 2005 for an

excellent interactional analysis of „zero anaphora‟ in English). Along

with and-prefacing and use of the locally subsequent indexical „them’ in

referring to the „stories’, the tacit reference to the referent who might

otherwise be referred to as „you’ contributes to the action of the turn in

displaying its connection with the prior. Tacit referring is a solution to

the speaker‟s problem of how to display that her turn is in subsequent

position in the absence of any locally-subsequent form of recipient

reference.

The later explicit uses of „you’ (lines 7 and 8) - produced as part of

a TCU linked to the prior by another connective, „because’ - are hearable,

then, as referring to the same referent - the addressee. This is

unproblematic at its first use, in the knowledge-invocation „you know’

(line 7), but causes trouble on second use where - as it turns out - the

intended referent is not the addressee but rather a species of generic

„you’. As the author of the ghost story, the addressee already knows „what

moved the mirror’ (line 10) and „why did the dog bite the girl’ (line 11)

Repairing self and recipient reference

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- or, at least, has fictional answers to these fictional events and is not

experiencing the suspense and surprise („ohh! my goodness’, line 9 [see

Wilkinson & Kitzinger, 2006]) conjured up by the interviewer as emblematic

of her own experience of reading the novel. Alert to the possible hearing

of „you’ (line 8) as indexing again the referent tacitly invoked earlier

(lines 6-7) - a hearing not counter-indicated by the „you’ at line 7 - the

speaker repairs her reference term by inserting „as the reader’ (lines 8-

9). The repair replaces (via insertion, Schegloff, 2008a,b) a „you’ that

is possibly hearable as a reference to the recipient with a „you’ that is

now hearable as a species of the generic you: “a way of talking about

„everybody‟ - and indeed, incidentally, of „me‟” (Sacks, 1992a: 349).

In cases like these two, then, where the trouble source (the dedicated

„I‟ or „you‟) indexes a clearly (or inferably) wrong referent, the repair

solution indexes the intended referent.

Trouble (ii): The (other-than-dedicated) term used for self reference in

direct reported speech introduces a possible ambiguity of referent

In direct reported speech, a speaker “claims to reproduce a locution

made on a previous occasion” (Holt, 2000: 432). One of the ways in which

direct reported speech is produced as such is by selecting other-than-

dedicated self reference terms such that “personal, spatial, and temporal

deixis are all from the point of view of the reported speaker...” (Holt,

1996: 222). Speaker self reference is done instead with a name, a

category/descriptor (e.g. „this woman‟, see Extract 3, line 17), or an

indexical other than the dedicated I, me, my, etc. (e.g. „her‟, Extract 3,

line 8; „you‟, Extract 4, line 12). Use of these alternative forms of

speaker self reference introduces a possible ambiguity of referent and can

become the target either of other-initiated or of self-initiated repair.

Repairing self and recipient reference

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In Extract 3, the direct reported speech at lines 7-8 (introduced

with the quotative „he said‟) uses the third person reference term „her‟

for self reference - and this becomes a target of other-initiated repair.

Extract 3

[BCC 291]

01 Zoe: On the Monda:y I tried to get a G-P‟sv

02 appointment a:hm b‟t couldn‟t get

03 o:ne (.) an‟ my husband j‟st he‟s

04 very matter „v fact an‟ „e said-

05 we went in to visit my daughte:r

06 and „e said to thee sister on

07 special care >„e said< “Can you

08 please get some ca:re for he:r”

09 Clt: Mm [hm.]

10 Zoe: [U h]m: [And she ]

11 Clt: [For you:¿]

12 (.)

13 Clt: M[m?]

14 Zoe: [F ]or me. [That’s r]ight. And=

15 Clt: [ M m :. ]

16 Zoe: =she was ve:ry good phoned up an‟

17 said “I want this woman looked at”=

18 =so off I go upstairs ((continues))

The repair initiation (line 11) - a upwardly inflected repeat

(adjusted for speakership) of the trouble-source term (pre-framed with

„for‟) - targets the indexical reference term „her‟ (line 8). The

recipient‟s candidate understanding is that the speaker‟s „her‟ is self-

referential rather than referring to some third person, but she is inviting

confirmation of this understanding (confirmation which - after a pursuit,

Repairing self and recipient reference

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line 13 - she eventually receives (line 14)). The trouble here is that use

of the third person reference term „her‟ introduces a possible ambiguity of

referent since, in addition to its inferable use for self reference, there

is an locally-active full-form reference to a different referent (the

speaker‟s daughter,line 5) for whom ‟her‟ is also fitted. (An unambiguous

self-referential term suited to use in direct reported speech would here

have been „my wife‟ - since it is the husband whose talk is being quoted.)

The other alternative (non-dedicated) form of self reference in this

extract - the descriptor „this woman‟ (line 17 - also in direct reported

speech) goes unrepaired. This instance of other-initiated repair shows the

kind of referential ambiguity created by reported speech. In the remainder

of this section we focus on instances of self-initiated repair in which

speakers anticipate this kind of possible trouble.

Extract 4 shows a self-initiated repair on an indexical reference in

direct reported speech. Here, in reporting the words of an acquaintance

(introduced with the quotative „he says‟, line 6), the speaker initially

uses the indexical „you‟ for self reference (line 8). The two girls are

discussing an unpopular teacher (the „Kuhleznik‟ of line 1).

Extract 4

[TG]

01 Bee: Oh,=<Did they geh ridda Kuhleznik yet

02 hhh

03 Ava: No in fact I know somebuddy who ha:s huh

04 [now.

05 Bee: [Oh my got hh[hhh

06 Ava: [Yeh en s' he siz yihknow

07 he remi:nds me of d-hih-ih- tshe

08 reminds me .hhh of you.=meaning me:.

09 (0.4)

Repairing self and recipient reference

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10 Bee: Uh-ho that's [a- that's a s[wee:t co:mplimint, ]

11 Ava: [Kuhleznik.= [=I said gee:, tha:n]ks a

12 lo:[t honeh,

The trouble at line 8vi is that the speaker‟s use of the indexical

reference term „you‟ – although fitted for self-reference in reported

speech - introduces a possible ambiguity of referent: i.e. „you‟ (as a

dedicated term for recipient reference) could be heard as referring to her

recipient (Bee) instead. The speaker immediately initiates repair (using a

lexical repair initiation, „meaning‟) in transition space. The repair

targets the indexical, replacing it with one dedicated to self reference

(„me‟, line 8).

The trouble with „you‟ in this extract bears some similarity to the

trouble with „you‟ in Extract 2 (lines 8-9): in both cases the initially-

selected reference term „you’ correctly indexes the referent the speaker is

refering to. The repair solution does not so much replace „you’ with some

other reference form, as retain the reference while clarifying its

referent. So you in Extract 2 (lines 8-9) is „correct‟ – and, indeed is

re-issued after its referent is clarified as the reader; and you in Extract

4 (line 8) is „correct‟ (in the way that „she reminds me of me‟ would not

be): and here you is not so much replaced with me – rather, the speaker

expressly clarifies the meaning of you (its meaning is me).

Since both terms are „correct‟, the repairs on them display the

speaker‟s orientation to a possible problematic hearing. In Extract 4, Ava

is reporting an unflattering comparison with an unpopular teacher: her

repair, clarifying the referent as herself, rather than her recipient,

averts any offence Bee might take. Further - given that the co-

conversationalists are aligned in their negative assessment of the teacher

– the speaker may also be using the repair to convey that the comparison is

Repairing self and recipient reference

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so implausible as to need clarification.

Extract 5, from a call to a helpline for women in crisis after

childbirth (the Birth Crisis helpline), also shows self-initiated repair of

an indexical reference in direct reported speech. The speaker, Maureen,

who is complaining about a midwife, refers to herself (at lines 2 and 3)

using the dedicated indexical term „I‟, but when she quotes the midwife

(„she said‟, line 5), she uses the third person indexical term „her‟ for

self reference (line 6).

Extract 5

[BCC 474]

01 Mau: An‟ .hh then they changed midwi:ves

02 and (noth) .hh at one point I said to

03 this: (.) I „eard the midwife (0.2)

04 say to a friend outside the door

05 >she said< “I‟m sick of listening to

06 ‘er goin‟ on.” Meanin’ me:. .hhh

07 And then they chang[ed]

Again, although the speaker‟s use of the indexical „her‟ (line 6) is

fitted for self-reference, its context of direct reported speech is treated

as introducing a possible ambiguity of referent for her recipient: „her‟ it

is a locally-subsequent third person reference form in locally-initial

position, and the referent must be inferred as being the speaker. As in

Extract 4, the speaker fixes this trouble by initiating repair – again with

the lexical repair preface „meaning‟ – in the transition space, explicating

that the appropriate referent is „me‟ (line 8).

But this is not where the referential troubles end in this segment of

the call. Extract 6 is an expansion of Extract 5, and we can see that the

Repairing self and recipient reference

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recipient (the call-taker) interrupts the speaker‟s next TCU to initiate

repair on the prior.

Extract 6 (expansion of Extract 5)

[BCC 474]

01 Mau: An‟ .hh then they changed midwi:ves

02 and (noth) .hh at one point I said to

03 this: (.) I „eard the midwife (0.2)

04 say to a friend outside the door

05 >she said< “I‟m sick of listening to

06 ‘er goin‟ on.” Meanin’ me:. .hhh

07 And then they chang[ed]

08 Clt: [I ] didn‟t hear

09 that. What did you say¿

10 Mau: The- the the midwife said to a friend

11 outside (.) like my room >she said<

12 “I‟m sick of listening to her

13 goin‟ on.” Meanin’ [m e : . ]

14 Clt: [tcht .hh]hh

15 O::::h!

16 Mau: And they just left me there an‟

17 they didn‟t bother with me ((continues))

The call-taker‟s repair initiation (lines 8-9) claims a problem of

hearing, rather than understanding, and, in response, the speaker re-does

her original turn (at lines 10-13) – crucially, retaining both the reported

speech and the self-initiated repair on the self-referential indexical

„her‟ (lines 12-13). Having already displayed an orientation to a possible

problem of ambiguity of referent (by repairing „her‟ to „me‟), we might

have supposed that on a repeated saying she would further specify the

referent of the indexical. According to Schegloff (1989: 146-7), “Sacks

Repairing self and recipient reference

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noted that in the environment of repair, proterms regularly get replaced by

the full-forms to which they referred, even when those pro-terms were not,

or were not clearly, the source of the trouble”: a practice that has become

known as „the Sacks substitution‟. The speaker could have subsituted her

name (which her recipient knows) for the indexical term „her‟ (or she could

have disambiguated the term by using indirect reported speech,

incorporating a dedicated self reference term: i.e. “She said she was sick

of listening to me going on”). Instead, she does a near repeat of her

original turn.

In this extract, then, we see that the use of direct reported speech

is sufficiently key to what the caller is relating that she preserves it -

despite its referential ambiguity - in her re-done turn. Holt (1996)

suggests that one key use of direct reported speech is to substantiate and

justify assessments and complaints. She further proposes that “[T]he

recurrence of direct reported speech in complaints might be due in part to

the fact that it can appear to give access to, and evidence of, a

reprehensible utterance made by a third party” (Holt, 2000: 438). With

direct reported speech, the speaker is able to claim objectivity by simply

reporting „what was said‟ (or at least, what was purportedly said). Our

findings extend Holt‟s observation by showing that speakers can persist in

using direct reported speech (and the self-referential indexicals which

constitute direct reported speech as such) even after both speaker and

recipient have displayed trouble (via self- and then other-initiated

repair). Building the complaint via direct reported speech relies upon the

availability of repair – i.e. repair offers an interactional resource for

constituting the complaint. Further, it is possible here that the

repitition of repair also relates to the evidential claim reported speech

makes (i.e. that the reported speech is what was actually said). As such,

to change „her‟ to anything else would undermine that claim.

Repairing self and recipient reference

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In this section, then, we have looked at how the (fitted) use of other-

than-dedicated terms for self reference in the specific environment of

direct reported speech may introduce a possible ambiguity of reference. In

these cases, repair is initiated in order to clarify the referent for the

recipient.

Trouble (iii): The dedicated term masks the scope and/or constituent

membership of the referent

A different kind of trouble may arise when the default, unmarked

terms are used to index self or recipient not as individuals but as part of

a collective. In such instances, the task for speaker and recipient is to

accurately identify the scope and constituent membership of the referent,

which is effectively masked by the dedicated reference terms „we‟ (for the

speaker as a member of a collective) and „you‟ (which includes, though

clearly is not limited to, the recipient as a member of a collective).

Determining the scope of „you‟ may be particularly problematic because, in

English, this term is invariant whether referring to an individual, a

collective, or to people in general (i.e. the generic „you‟); and because

„you‟ may be either inclusive or exclusive of the recipient. We examine

below some instances in which the dedicated terms „we‟ and „you‟ are

repaired in order to address possible ambiguity in the scope of the

referent, and to clarify the membership of the collective to which the

speaker means to refer.

Extract 7 (line 2) shows a „cascading‟ repair sequence (Lerner et al,

2009) in which „I‟ is repaired to „we‟, which is in turn repaired to

„Tamsin and I‟. This is another call to the Birth Crisis helpline - from a

woman psudonymised as Ann - and the „we‟ relates to Ann and her friend,

pseudonymised as Tamsin.

Repairing self and recipient reference

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Extract 7

[BCC 100 (from Lerner and Kitzinger, 2007: 536)]

01 Clt: ...You know this do you.

02 Ann: Yea- I have- We- We‟ve- Tamsin and I have

03 been looking up some research [on thee]=

04 Clt: [Yes hhh]

05 Ann: =internet and uhm (.) .hhhh yeah. ...

Lerner and Kitzinger (2007), from whose paper this data extract is

taken, describe these two successive (and related) repairs as “first

aggregating an individual to a collective reference („we‟) and then

repairing the „we‟ to an enumerated reference” (p.536). The two repairs

are quite different, in that the first („I‟ to „we‟) changes the referent

(from individual to collective), whereas the second („we‟ to „Tamsin and

I‟) preserves the (collective) referent but specifies the membership of the

collective, treating the scope of the referent as possibly ambiguous or

opaque. Our interest here is in instances like the second where the repair

does not change the referent, but clarifies its scope. In essence, then,

the repair solution answers the question „Who is “we”?‟.

In the second repair in Extract 7, the speaker, Ann, specifies the

referents to whom 'we' is intended to refer: herself and her friend, Tamsin

(introduced as co-present earlier in the call). She thereby shows herself

to be alert to possible ambiguity about who is included in the collective

referred to as 'we'. As Kitzinger (2005) has documented, the use of a

locally-initial we to index persons engaged in (as they are here)

activities culturally-understood as 'the sorts of things couples do

together‟ "makes available - indeed may in some circumstances mandate - the

hearing of 'we' as 'the couple of which I am a part'."vii In other words,

the default presumption – here, incorrect - is that „we‟ indexes self and

partner. On this occasion, then, the repair is effected to address that

Repairing self and recipient reference

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presumption, explicitly displaying the intended (non-default) membership of

the collective „we‟ (self and friend).

The repair in Extract 8 – taken from a radio interview - is effected

to address a different default presumption: that tracking back the

indexical „we‟ to the most proximate prior referent(s) will reveal the

membership of the collective to which it is intended to refer. Here, that

is not the case. The interviwee, Mavis Batey, (one of a select group of

military codebreakers at the British government‟s Bletchley Park facility

during the Second World War) has been talking about her relationship with

her boss, Dilly Knox, whose biography she has written [data not shown].

Her „we‟ at line 8 is therefore vulnerable to being heard as indexing

herself and Knox, which, it turns out is not the collective she is

specifying – and she repairs the reference at lines 8-11.

As the extract opens, the interviewer is prompting Batey (lines 1-2,

4 and 7) to discuss her own (distinctive) role in cracking the so-called

„Enigma code‟, used in German military communications during the war.

Extract 8

[BBC Radio 4, „Midweek‟, 25 November 2009]

01 Int: You became a great expert in ru:de German

02 wo:rds=because [the- thes German: er transi]missions

03 Bat: [Hhh .HH Well you see um .hh]

04 Int: had a lot of [swearing in them and and you were]

05 Bat: [ h h u h h u h .H H h ]h=

06 Bat: =[Well er (.) th- the [reason]=

07 Int: =[you were the one who knew the wu- [words. ]=

08 Bat: =[(0.3) [that we] broke (.) >an wh‟n I‟m talk< about

09 Int: =[.hh [ hhh ]

10 Bat: we I‟m talking about (.) the whole o’th’ people in

Repairing self and recipient reference

19

11 B- Bletchley Park (whether) they were .hhh er

12 tha:t uhm y- >i- i- i-< there were so many uh u-

13 a hundred and fifty m-m- million million wa:ys

14 of setting up this blessed .hh Enigma machi:ne,

At line 8, the speaker (Batey) initiates repair on „we‟ – mid-TCU,

with an elaborate naming of the repairable (“>an wh’n I’m talk< about we

I’m talking about …”, lines 8 and 10). With her repair solution (lines 10-

11), she claims that, contrary to the default presumption, her intended

referent was not just herself and her boss, but „the whole of the people in

Bletchley Park‟ – expanding the scope of the referent, and thereby modestly

extending the credit for breaking the Enigma code beyond herself and Knox

alone. Further, given that the interviewer‟s topic prompt (lines 1-2, 4

and 7) singles out Batey as a „great expert in rude German words‟, the

repair contributes to building a turn that combines a gracious compliment

receipt with appropriate distancing from being heard as a „great expert’ in

something so indecorous.

Turning to collective recipient reference via the indexical „you‟,

again we can see that the dedicated reference term can be repaired in order

to specify or clarify the scope of the intended referent – as in the repair

from „you‟ to „you and Lesley‟(line 7) in Extract 9. Deena and her

recipient, Mark, have just agreed that she should not invite Mark‟s elderly

mother (the „her‟ of line 2) to Deena‟s daughter‟s wedding. That this

decision is accountable can be seen in Deena‟s injunction to Mark (at lines

1-2) to be „very diplomatic how you tell her‟. At our target lines (7-9),

Deena provides an account with a claim of concern and a display of

understanding as to the negative consequences of including elderly

relatives on family outings. The locally-initial indexical 'them'

apparently refers to an implied category of „elderly relatives‟ (see

Toerien, Shaw and Kitzinger, this issue).

Repairing self and recipient reference

20

Extract 9

[Holt May 88 2.4 (4:30)]

01 Dee: Okay dear, well then you'll 'af t'be very diplomatic

02 how you tell 'er,

03 Mar: Ye:h okay

04 (0.3)

05 Dee: Alri:ght

06 Mar: eYe:s=

07 Dee: =uh: becuz it's you I'm- it's you 'n Lesley I'm thinkin'

08 of: u-uhm cz I know what it's li:ke you know having to

09 drag th'm out d'you haf t'take her out much n[o:,

10 Mar: [.t.hhhhh

11 Mar: mVery rarely actu[ally

12 Dee: [Very rarely[yea:[h

In the course of claiming concern, Deena cuts off her talk to repair

'you' to 'you and Lesley‟ (Mark‟s wife), thereby clarifying the scope of

the referent as intendedly collective rather than individual. This repair

contributes to the speaker‟s project of building an account for not

inviting her recipient‟s mother to the wedding, by claiming that her

concern was always intended to refer not to only her recipient, but also to

his wife, as the invitation would inconvenience both members of the couple.

(See also Extract 12, where, as in Extract 9, the speaker means to be heard

as referring to a collective including her recipient, rather than to her

recipient alone, but here repairs „you‟ to a categorical reference term -

„the professionals‟ (line 6) – which explicitly displays the scope of the

referent [as well as its relevance].)

The referent of „you‟ is broadest in scope – and least specific -

when the term is used generically. As Sacks (1992a) noted, in a discussion

Repairing self and recipient reference

21

of „tying rules‟, whereas „he‟, „she‟ and „they‟ tend to refer to the same

person across turns, the person referred to as „you‟ in one turn is usually

then referred to by the recipient as „I‟ in the next. The generic „you‟

provides one exception to this rule:

[F]or example, a woman is asked „Why do you want to kill yourself?‟

and she says „Well, you just want to see if anybody cares‟. Now that

use of „you‟ in this case surely refers to her, but refers to her as a

member of but „anybody‟, and thereby provides that it is only

incidentally her reason, but it‟s anybody‟s reason, and thereby is not

attackable as peculiar. It is offered as proverbially correct.

(Sacks, 1992a: 166).

On occasion, the generic „you‟ may be oriented to by the speaker as

potentially „too generic‟, and repaired to restrict its scope - as in

Extract 10, where „your‟ (line 1) is repaired to „mine‟ (line 2).

Extract 10

[SN4 (from Lerner and Kitzinger 2007: 531)]

01 Mar: Don‟t eat their pineapples. They make yer stomach

02 imme:diately after dinner really feel lousy.<t‟least mi:ne.=

In this transition space repair, the speaker adds an additional element to

his turn („at least mine‟, line 2) which extracts himself (as an

individual) from the generic statement he has already produced about people

in general („yer‟, line 1) (Lerner and Kitzinger, 2007: 531). Apart from

the epistemic downgrade, limiting such a claim to oneself may also serve to

avoid implicating a specific recipient in the generic „you‟. Conversely, a

speaker may orient to the possibility of an intendedly-generic „you‟ being

heard too narrowly – i.e. as indexing (only) the recipient – and repair it

explicitly to expand its scope and/or to specify its constituent membership

(see Extract 2, lines 8-9).

Repairing self and recipient reference

22

In sum, then, the dedicated, default reference terms „we‟ and „you‟

may mask the scope of the referent and repair may be initiated to specify

the constituent membership of a collective, or – in the case of „you‟ - to

clarify whether individual or collective reference is intended (or to

clarify/limit the scope of the generic „you‟).

Trouble (iv): The dedicated term masks the relevance of the referent for

the action

The default, unmarked self and recipient reference terms („I‟, „you‟.

etc.) do not display any descriptive or categorical features of the

referent. As Schegloff (2007: 123) put it, they are “opaque with respect

to all the usual key categorical dimensions – age, gender, status and the

like”. (Compare, for example, English third person singular reference –

he/she - which is not opaque with respect to gender.) This means that

although (unlike the instances we have already looked at) these unmarked

self and recipient terms might index the correct referent, that is all they

do: they are „just referring‟ and nothing more. In particular, they may

not be fitted to the type of action the speaker means to be doing and may

“mask the relevance of the referent and the reference at that point in the

talk” (Schegloff, 1996: 447). Alternative forms of reference can “embody

practices for implementing a range of different other activities” (p. 449,

italics in original) – that is, actions additional to referring.

Building on Schegloff‟s observations, Stivers (2007) has developed an

analysis of the way in which the use of personal names (a form of locally-

initial third person recognitional reference) is sometimes treated as

insufficient for the action-in-progress, such that people select what she

calls „alternative recognitionals‟: person reference descriptors which

contribute to and advance the ongoing action of the talk. For example, a

Repairing self and recipient reference

23

woman asks her mother to “go pick the birthday boy up”, where the

descriptor “the birthday boy” is used instead of her son‟s (the recipient‟s

grandson‟s) name. The speaker‟s selection of this particular person

reference descriptor embeds “an account for her request and for why it

should be granted: it is the boy‟s birthday” (Stivers, 2007: 90).

Returning to self and recipient reference, Schegloff (1996) notes that

this can sometimes be done with other than „I‟ and „you‟ (and their

grammatical variants) and that these „alternatives‟ may “display (or

constitute) the current relevance with which the referent figures in the

talk” (p. 447): e.g. self reference with the speaker‟s full name, title, or

a role descriptor. Similarly, Land and Kitzinger‟s (2007) empirical

analyses of third person reference forms in speaker self reference (e.g.

when a woman says of her husband that “he‟s married to an Englishwoman”)

show, recurrently, that “the particular third-person term selected can be

fitted to and thereby contribute to the action(s) a speaker is implementing

through their turn at talk” (p.493). In the “Englishwoman” example, the

action the speaker is engaged in is sidestepping an argument about whether

„foreigners‟ – specifically, in context, her Austrian husband - are

entitled to free medical treatment in England. In selecting the third

person categorical reference term “an Englishwoman”, she mobilizes the

inference that entitlement to free medical care in England is category-

bound to (English) nationality and that this entitlement extends to spouses

(p.518). In other words, she foregrounds that aspect of herself which she

treats as relevant for the ongoing action – and she does so without

disrupting the smooth progressivity of her talk: i.e. without repair. (See

also Lerner, Bolden, Hepburn and Mandelbaum, this issue).

In the data analyzed here, speakers do not manage this so smoothly.

Producing first the default, umarked reference to self or recipient („I‟,

„you‟, etc.), they halt the progressivity of their talk to fix the problem

Repairing self and recipient reference

24

of displaying the relevance for the action of the referent, which has been

masked by the dedicated reference form. So, in Extract 11, the speaker

repairs the dedicated self reference term „I‟ (line 9) to „a girl from a

convent‟ (lines 10 and 12) – a different reference form for the same

referent – in order to foreground the relevant aspect of the sort of person

she is for the action she is pursuing. The extract is a continuation of

Extract 8 (and the lines are numbered sequentially with that extract).

Extract 11 (continuation of Extract 8)

[BBC Radio 4, „Midweek‟, 25 November 2009]

12 Bat: ... there were so many uh u- a

13 hundred and fifty m-m- million million wa:ys

14 of setting up this blessed .hh Enigma machi:ne,

15 .hh and it was o:nly: i-#ermb w- if: they were

16 going to make a mista:ke it was through .hh

17 procedural error:s that-that that you got them

18 (because) as there were four: letters in in m-

19 particuly th‟Enigma one I did, .hhh was uhm:

20 four letter dirty German wo:rds and I became an

21 expe[rt in .hh fo]ur letter dirty<a £girl

22 Int: [HHuh humh humh!]

23 Bat: from a cohnvent£, .HH [er be]came: uhm: tk an

24 Int: [ HHh ]

25 Bat: expert, an the wo:rst message we ever broke was

26 one .hhh from headqua:rters in Berlin,

The speaker‟s self-reference using „I‟ (line 20) correctly indexes her

intended referent (i.e. herself), but this form of reference does not

display the relevance of the referent for the action she means to be doing

here: which is humorously conveying the incongruity of her – of all people

– being an expert in „four letter dirty words‟. In replacing the dedicated

Repairing self and recipient reference

25

self reference term „I‟ with the third person categorical person reference

„a girl from a convent‟ (lines 21 and 23) as an alternative self reference,

she mobilizes the inference that unfamiliarity with „four letter dirty

words‟ is category-bound to covent girls, so intensifying the incongruity

of her particular form of expertise. She underpins the humour of this by

delivering the repair solution in a smile voice (Glenn, 2003) and the

interviewer responds to this incongruity with laugh tokens. The trouble

the speaker is fixing here, then, is that the self reference term „I‟ masks

the relevance of the referent for the action.

Returning again to Extract 2 (ghost story), we can see that the repair

solution at lines 8-9 – replacing „you’, the addressee with a categorical

„you’ and invoking a categorical decriptor („the reader’ in the insertion)

- not only deals with a possible problem in understanding the referent (as

previously discussed) but also displays the relevance of the referent for

the action. The relevance of the referent „you’ is that it is intended to

refer to a generic, not a particular, reader – although it is through one

particular reader (the speaker) that the book is characterised. Finding

that „you’ is vulnerable in this context – as we have seen – to being heard

as referring to her addressee, the speaker repairs it. However, to repair

it with the self-reference term „I’ would be to treat her own responses as

particularistic or idiosyncratic, something she was analyzably trying to

avoid in selecting „you’ in the first place. By using the category „the

reader’ (of which she produces herself as a member) to modify the

recipients‟ understanding of „you’, she fixes the possible understanding

problem while retaining the formulation of her response to the novel as a

generic one. In sum, the repair, by using a category to modify the

understanding of „you’, displays the relevance of the referent (the speaker

as a member of the category „the reader‟) for the action she is doing

(describing the book for an overhearing audience).

Repairing self and recipient reference

26

In Extract 12, from another call to the Birth Crisis helpline, the

dedicated recipient reference term „you‟ (line 5) is replaced with a third

person categorical reference term: „the professionals‟ (line 6). The

speaker, Ruth, is reporting how she handled making a complaint to a midwife

about how her childbirth experience was managed.

Extract 12

[BCC460]

01 Rut: The midwife I spoke to afterwards Sally Jones

02 she was very: uhm [( )] so I li- I >enjoyed=

03 Clt: [.hh Oh yes:.]

04 Rut: =talking to her< „n .hhh and I did sa:y „It does

05 seem that- that a lot of the choi:ces you’re maki:ng

06 >the: professionals are making< a:re are

07 litigation led.‟

08 Clt: [Yeah.]

09 Rut: [.hhh ] And she said „I‟m afraid they a:re.‟

The speaker uses the recipient reference term „you‟ (line 5) as part

of direct reported speech (introduced with the quotative „I did say‟, line

4) to correctly index her addressee (the midwife who made decisions about

her birth, see line 1). The repair on „you’, initiated with an elongation

on „maki:ng’ (line 5), replaces the dedicated recipient reference form

(hearable as referring just to this particular midwife) with the

categorical person reference term „the professionals‟, (line 6), a category

of which her addressee (the helpline call-taker) is a member. Whereas

„you’ would mount a complaint against an individual, „the professionals’

targets the complaint at the behaviour of healthcare providers more

generally. This same group is also targetted by the use of the present

continuous tense of the verb („are making’), as opposed to, say, „have

made’. The addressee of the direct reported speech is quoted as responding

Repairing self and recipient reference

27

with a regretful acknowledgement of the validity of the complaint („I’m

afaid they are’, line 9). In repairing her direct reported speech to show

herself as complaining about a group whose complainable actions are

ongoing, rather than about an individual addressee (whose complainable

actions related to her own birth experience) the speaker displays to her

current recipient (the helpline call-taker) the tact and skill with which

she managed the complaint, such as perhaps to account for her success in

(reportedly) getting the midwife „on side‟.

In this section, then, we have shown that the trouble source term (the

dedicated „I‟ or „you‟) may mask the relevance of the referent for the

action. In each case, the repair solution – a categorical descriptor –

more explicitly displays the relevance of the referent for the action the

speaker means to be doing.

Conclusion

As Schegloff (1996) has argued, social organization requires the

existence of practices of repair, and our analysis reveals a number of

important features of repair to self and recipient reference. Although the

availability of dedicated (and positionally invariant) terms („I‟,

„we‟,„you‟, etc.) for referring to oneself or one‟s recipient generates

fewer potential sources of trouble than is the case for third person

reference (which lacks such default terms), we have nonetheless identified

four recurrent kinds of trouble addressed by repairs to self and recipient

reference.

The first of these is when the dedicated reference term indexes the

„wrong‟ referent – so it is corrected to index the „right‟ (appropriate)

one. The second trouble involves a possible ambiguity of referent due to

the use of an other-than-dedicated self reference term in the particular

Repairing self and recipient reference

28

context of direct reported speech – so the repair resolves this possible

ambiguity. The third is that, in the case of collective reference, the

dedicated term masks the scope and constituent membership of the referent –

so the repair specifies the constituents of a collective „we‟, or clarifies

whether „you‟ is should be heard as individual, collective or generic,

and/or who is included in its membership. By contrast with the first

three, the final trouble we have identified has an interactional

orienation, in addition to its repair orientation. This trouble is that

the dedicated indexical reference term masks the relevance of the referent

for the action – so the repair makes this relevance apparent, typically by

replacing the dedicated term with a categorical descriptor (although the

particular descriptor selected is, of course, case-specific).

We have shown that addressing these referential troubles via repair

accomplishes some important – and sometimes quite delicate – interactional

work. At the very least, establishing the intended referent is a pre-

requisite for intersubjectivity. Beyond this, we can see that speakers

are, for example, attentive to the fact that inclusion in the referent

might be insulting to recipient (e.g. the comparison with an unpopular

teacher, Extract 4; or the accusation that decisions are litigation-led,

Extract 12); or that the scope of the referent may be open to challenge

(e.g. that eating particular pineapples invariably produces a stomach

upset, Extract 10).

Further, we have shown that repairs to self and recipient reference

may be used in the service of a range of actions that goes well beyond

addressing some - actual or anticipated - interactional trouble. For

example, broadening the scope of a collective referent may contribute to

modesty in responding to a compliment (Extract 8); to accounting for a

decision not to issue an invitation (Extract 9); or to displaying skill and

tact in handling a complaint (Extract 12). Repairing reference to oneself

Repairing self and recipient reference

29

or one‟s recipient (or to a collective including self and/or recipient) is

a basic element of social organization, but it also provides a flexible

resource for the accomplishment of a broad range of social actions.

Repairing self and recipient reference

30

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i Schegloff (1996) also documents some uses of other than „I‟/„you‟ to

refer to self or recipient, including in talk to children (e.g. the father

who says to his son „Leave Daddy alone‟); and in dispreferred sequences

(e.g. the request to a colleague phrased as „will somebody pass the

paperbacks‟).

ii The data are a subset of a collection of over 200 instances of repairs

to indexicals, assembled as part of a group project following the CA

Practicum led by Gene Lerner and Celia Kitzinger at York University in

summer 2008.

iii In our collection of over 200 repairs to indexicals, most of the repairs

on person reference (which constitute more than two-thirds of the

collection) are repairs to third person reference terms: in English, he,

she, they and suchlike.

iv In this data extract the speaker‟s recipients are both the interviewee

(Sarah Waters) and the overheading radio audience. For this reason, we use

„addressee‟ – rather than recipient – when referring to the interviewee

alone. In the following section, which discusses repairs in direct

reported speech, we term the recipient of the direct reported speech the

„addressee‟, and the current interlocutor the „recipient‟.

v A GP (an initialization of General Practitioner) is the UK term for a

primary healthcare provider.

vi Given that this is the second repair to this fragment of reported speech

(the first being the correction of the teacher‟s gender, from „he‟ to

„she‟), the speaker may also anticipate that her recipient will have some

difficulty parsing the utterance.

vii Such usage, originally identified by Kitzinger (2005) in relation to

heterosexual coupledom, appears to extend to same-sex couples (Land and

Kitzinger, 2005).