ABSTRACT

Conversational repair is a kind of methodology which is employed to make the conversation smooth during the process of communication. Taking The Ellen DeGeneres Show as corpus, the author managed to interpret different types of repair, positions of repair initiation and initiating techniques by analyzing statistics. The data required in the research come from the analysis and edition of the conversations. Statistics show that self-initiated self-repair is the most frequent type of repair in the TV talk shows. As to positions of repair initiation, initiations for self-initiated self-repair usually appear in the trouble-source turn, while those for self-initiated other repair mostly take place between the trouble-source turn and the next turn. Besides, other initiations often appear in the next turn of the trouble-source turn. In terms of initiating techniques, non-lexical perturbations are most frequently employed in self-initiated repairs, while Initiating devices for other-initiated self-repair are basically lexical items. Initiating techniques for other-initiated other-repair are classified into the format with the initiator “no” and the format without “no”.

Key words: English Talk shows; conversational repair; The Ellen DeGeneres Show

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABSTRACT

摘要

Chapter One  INTRODUCTION  1

1.1Research Background   1

1.2Research Objective 1

1.3A Brief introduction to TV Talk Shows  2

Chapter Two  LITERATURE REVIEW 4

2.1 Definition of Repair 4

2.2 Types of Repair5

2.3 Positions of Repair Initiation  6

2.4 Initiating techniques for Conversational repair6

Chapter Three  Methodology8

3.1 Research Questions 8

3.2 Data Collection and Description   8

3.3 Data procedure9

Chapter Four  Analysis of Repair in The Ellen DeGeneres Show  10

4.1 Types of repair in The Ellen DeGeneres Show   10

4.2 Positions of Repair Initiation in The Ellen DeGeneres Show11

   4.2.1 Positions of Repair Initiation for Self-initiated Self-repair 11

   4.2.2 Positions of Repair Initiation for Other-initiated Self-repair14

   4.2.3 Positions of Repair Initiation for Self-initiated Other-repair15

4.2.4 Positions of Repair Initiation for Other-initiated Other-repair   16

4.3 Initiating Techniques in The Ellen DeGeneres Show  17

   4.3.1 Initiating Techniques for Self-initiated Self-repair17

   4.3.2 Initiating Techniques for Other-initiated Self-repair  18

   4.3.3 Initiating Techniques for Self-initiated Other-repair  18

   4.3.4 Initiating Techniques for Other-initiated Other-repair 19

Chapter Five  CONCLUSION   20

REFRENCES  21